It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, December 03, 2022
INFLATION
U$ Federal Pandemic Program Forgave $809 Million in PPP Loans to White-Shoe Law Firms: Watchdog
Federal officials forgave $809 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans handed out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to more than 100 of the nation’s top law firms and another $635 million given to hundreds of elite accounting offices, according to a new analysis of government spending to be made public on Dec. 2.
As described by the Department of Treasury, the PPP was established in 2020 to provide “small businesses with the resources they need to maintain their payroll, hire back employees who may have been laid off, and cover applicable overhead.”
The program was administered by the federal Small Business Administration, which made $787 billion in federal loans to companies and firms spanning all industries. The vast majority of the “loans” were subsequently turned into grants, which didn’t require repayment.
An investigation by Open the Books found that hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars went to top law and accounting firms even though most of them didn’t qualify as small businesses and didn’t have to lay off employees.
Open the Books is a nonprofit watchdog that uses public information laws such as the federal Freedom of Information Act to make government spending public, including “every dime online, in real time.”
The Epoch Times obtained an advance copy of the investigative report.
Auditors “found an astonishing $1.4 billion in forgiven PPP loans that flowed to the largest and most successful law and accounting firms across America,” the report stated.
“Today, it is an open question whether many of the firms needed a taxpayer subsidy to ‘save’ any jobs during the Covid-pandemic. Many racked up record revenues while their equity partners made millions of dollars.
“For example, in the years 2020 and 2021, we found equity partners individually received $7 million in profits while their law firms received $10 million in forgiven PPP ‘loans.’ The Guam office of Ernst & Young, a Big Three accounting firm with 365,000 employees, took a $750,000 forgiven loan.
“In 2020, millions of mom and pop businesses on Main Street had to shut down during the forced economic lockdown [occasioned by the pandemic]. So, Congress created the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) to compensate those businesses for their economic losses.
“Firms with 500 employees or fewer met eligibility requirements. However, Congress didn’t anticipate that Biglaw and the largest accounting firms would cash in so profitably.”
Among the biggest winners was Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, the New York City-based law firm of Democratic superlawyer David Boies, which received a forgiven $10.14 million PPP loan.
Boies first came into national prominence in 2000, when he headed Vice President Al Gore’s legal team during the Florida presidential election recount. The election wasn’t decided until the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision, which put Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the Oval Office.
Boies also gained national notoriety by representing the Department of Justice in its successful prosecution of Microsoft, and he headed a legal team that challenged California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages. The proposition was approved in 2008 by voters, but the Supreme Court effectively nullified it in a 2013 decision.
His firm’s PPP debt was forgiven in October 2021 under the Biden administration, even though during the period covered by the loan “the firm’s equity partners earned $4.5 million each in profit compensation—receiving $2.219 million (2021) and $2.283 million (2020). The firm billed clients $480 million during this two-year period,” Open the Books found.
The second-biggest law firm beneficiary of PPP loans was the Birmingham, Alabama-based Maynard Cooper & Gale, which received $10.13 million under the pandemic relief program. Even so, the firm’s workforce increased from 247 in 2019 before the pandemic, to 260 in 2020 during the pandemic, and 283 in 2021.
No. 3 among the white-shoe law firms getting tax dollars via the PPP program was the New York-based Kasowitz Benson Torres. The firm’s “revenues grew from $216.8 million (2019), to $219.4 million (2020) and then $238.4 million (2021). In April 2020, the firm received a $10.13 million PPP loan that was forgiven in July 2021—while profit per equity partner averaged $2.418 million (2021),” according to Open the Books.
Among the big accounting firms getting tax dollars, Prager Metis CPAs in New York City received $10.2 million, which was forgiven in June. Revenues for 2021 reached $139 million, an increase from 2020’s total of $123.9 million.
Withum’s of Princeton, New Jersey, was next, getting a PPP loan worth $10.1 million that was forgiven in June 2021. Withum’s revenues were $425.3 million in 2021, up significantly from its 2020 total of $257 million, according to Open the Books.
Third among the accounting firms was Friedman LLP (Now Marcum LLP), to which the government gave $9.4 million in a PPP loan. That loan was forgiven in August 2021. The firm’s 2020 revenues topped $145 million before its sale to Marcum.
“When you think about it, law and accounting firms are uniquely well-positioned to take advantage of legal loopholes and maximize benefits available to their clients under current statute,” Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of Open the Books, told The Epoch Times. “It should be no surprise, then, that huge national outfits managed to secure taxpayer dollars not just to pay staff, but also to pay rent, interest on mortgages, and more.
“As they were leveraging every tax dollar available to them, many of their revenue numbers continued to grow. It’s a stark contrast to what was happening to small businesses across the country, particularly in retail and hospitality, as they struggled to stay afloat. Did taxpayers, many of us economically strapped, really need to reach into our pockets for these firms doing colossal business?”
Ecuador seeks to protect unique Galapagos birds from avian flu
Galapagos is a bird-watchers paradise for scores of unique and colourful birds and authorities say they have put in place plan to protect the birds on the archipelago from H5N1 virus rampaging through Europe and North America.
Ecuador has declared a 90-day animal health emergency after detecting bird flu on some farms, and ordered the slaughter of about 180,000 poultry at affected sites. (AFP Archive)
Ecuador has put in place a plan to try and protect its unique wild bird species on the Galapagos islands from the H5N1 virus also rampaging through Europe and North America.
The Director of the Galapagos National Park, Danny Rueda, said in a statement on Friday that "permanent monitoring has been arranged in areas with the most seabirds," including all tourism hotspots.
The Galapagos is a bird-watchers paradise for the scores of unique and colorful birds found on the archipelago, such as the blue-footed booby with its quirky mating rituals, and endemic penguin, cormorant and albatross species.
English naturalist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution after studying finches and mockingbirds on the Galapagos islands in 1835.
The bird flu virus reached South America via migratory wild birds in recent weeks, impacting mainly Peru, where thousands of pelicans and other seabirds have died, and Ecuador, which has ordered the culling of 180,000 farm birds.
On Wednesday, Ecuador declared a 90-day animal health emergency after detecting the highly contagious bird flu on some farms, and ordered the slaughter of about 180,000 poultry at affected sites.
In Peru, authorities have culled at least 37,000 chickens to try and control an outbreak, which has killed more than 14,000 seabirds, mostly pelicans.
Venezuela declared on Friday a 90-day health alert in five coastal states after bird flu was detected.
The movement of live birds in the quarantine zones was prohibited.
The current bird flu outbreak began in Canada and spread to the United States, which has seen a record 50 million avian deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Europe is also experiencing its worst-ever outbreak of the virus, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
There is no treatment for bird flu, which spreads naturally between wild birds and can also infect domestic poultry.
Avian influenza viruses do not typically infect humans, although there have been rare cases.
Venezuela and Chevron sign oil contract in Caracas
By Kareem El Damanhoury, CNN Fri December 2, 2022 Venezuelan Petroleum Minister Tareck El Aissami speaks during a signing ceremony with California-based Chevron, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Dec. 2, 2022.
Matias Delacroix/AP
CNN —
The Venezuelan government and American oil company Chevron have signed a contract in Caracas on Friday to resume operations in Venezuela, according to the country’s state broadcaster VTV.
“This contract aims to continue with the productive and development activities in this energy sector, framed within our Constitution and the Venezuelan laws that govern oil activity in the country,” said Venezuelan oil minister Tareck El Aissami, who was slapped with United States sanctions in 2017.
He attended the signing ceremony along with representatives from Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA and Chevron.
April 2023 will mark Chevron’s 100th anniversary in Venezuela, El Aissami said at the event.
The move comes after the United States granted Chevron limited authorization to resume pumping oil from Venezuela last week, following an announcement that the Venezuelan government and the opposition group had reached an agreement on humanitarian relief and will continue to negotiate for a solution to the country’s chronic economic and political crisis.
The US has been looking for ways to allow Venezuela to begin producing more oil and selling it on the international market, thereby reducing the world’s energy dependence on Russia, US officials told CNN in May.
A 6-month license was granted to Venezuela by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) last week, and the US can revoke it at any time. Additionally, any profits earned will go to repaying debt to Chevron and not to the Maduro regime, according to a senior official.
In 2017, OFAC said El Aissami had played a “significant role in international narcotics trafficking,” according to a news release.
The Treasury Department said he “facilitated shipments of narcotics from Venezuela to include control over planes that leave from a Venezuelan air base, (and) narcotics shipments of over 1,000 kilograms from Venezuela on multiple occasions, including those with the final destinations of Mexico and the United States.”
In addition, the department said El Aissami is linked to coordinating drug shipments to Los Zetas, a violent Mexican drug cartel, and provided protection to a Colombian drug lord.
CNN’s Sam Fossum, Scott Zamost, Drew Griffin, Kay Guerrero and Rafael Romo contributed to this report.
‘Mix of Avatar and Jurassic Park’: Unrest at auction of 100 untouched islands
It has been teased as the chance of a lifetime. An auction in New York this week at which the development rights to an uninhabited, pristine archipelago in far eastern Indonesia are up for grabs.
“Every billionaire can own a private island but only one can own this exclusive opportunity spread across 100-plus islands,” says the blurb of auction house Sotheby’s, which is running the sale. The waters around the atolls are teeming leatherback turtles, blue whales and giant squid.
CREDIT:SOTHEBY’S.
A marine wonderland and “an animal kingdom of epic proportions” with 150 kilometres of white sand beachfront, the Widi Islands lie in Indonesia’s North Maluku province and are untouched and not easily accessed.
For generations, they have only been visited by villagers from the mainland of the province.
The news of the auction in the United States, though, has created a stir well beyond this remote corner of Indonesia, prompting environmental worries and fears that local fishermen will lose their livelihoods.
The islands themselves cannot be sold under Indonesian law. But the vendor, Bali-based British woman Natalia Perry, owns the rights to manage and develop them until 2050 and is going to auction to find an investor with deep pockets.
Her company, Leadership Islands Indonesia (LII), acquired licences and permits for the 315,000-hectare Widi Reserve in a deal with the provincial government in 2015 and has a vision to build eco-lodges and private island estates there. An airstrip would also be laid to make possible flights from Singapore, Bali, Jakarta, Hong Kong and Cairns “one of the world’s most sustainable luxury travel destinations”.
A marine protected area, the waters surrounding the dozens of coral atolls are teeming with the likes of leatherback turtles, blue whales and giant squid. The islands’ rainforests, brimming with bird species, lizards and rare flora, also have protection status.
“It feels like a mix of Avatar and Jurassic Park when you get there,” Perry told a magazine produced by Singapore real estate firm Knight Frank this year. She declined an interview with this masthead, referring The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to Sotheby’s. Advertisement
Her company says the development would be conservation focused, limited to 500 “keys”, which can range from a single room to an eight-bedroom villa. According to Sotheby’s, the “covered roof area” will be capped at 16.5 hectares across 17 islands, with a potential for 20 further hectares if approval can be gained for another eight of the islands.
Environmentalists, however, have raised objections to the project.
The auction for the development rights will take place in New York this week. CREDIT:SOTHEBY’S
“Ecotourism only works on paper. In reality, tourism is just like mining. It will create jobs, and it will bring income to the people, but the destruction of the environment is not worth any income made from it,” said Parid Ridwanuddin, the coastal and marine campaign manager for WALHI, an Indonesian NGO.
“We are also concerned with this sale of shares. What kind of shares are we talking about? Is it a controlling interest? The original owner was the one who signed the MOU with the local government. If a new share owner with controlling interest suddenly came into the picture, how would it affect the plan over the islands?“
Ridwanuddin also believes local communities will lose their access to the islands and “end up as outsiders in their own home” with private resorts constructed there.
Fishermen from Gane Luar, a village on the main island in the province, have been among those who have for generations made a living near the Widi Islands, which they can reach by speed boat in an hour.
“The question, if they open it, can fishermen still go there?” said Sagir Kadir, a fisherman from the village. “Can she prevent us from fishing in the area?“
“All we know is fishing, since our ancestors. If beachline [is closed to us] there goes all our fishing area. Where else would we look [for fish] for a living? We might as well go home. We are the ones directly affected.“ In a statement, the company did not answer whether fishing communities would have their activities curbed, but said it had set aside $US1.5 million ($2.2 million) in the next year to combat problems such as poaching of endangered species and deforestation and would establish a conservation centre as well as eco-resorts.
It said its master plan would touch less than 1 per cent of the islands’ rainforest, “largely overlapping spots already deforested”.
The Widi Islands lie an hour’s journey by speed boat from the mainland of North Maluku province.CREDIT:SOTHEBY’S
“The islands chosen for development were picked not just for their exquisite views and unique features but precisely because they could be developed without disturbing critical habitats,” it said.
“The reserve has large areas zoned as no-go areas for tourists (where only scientists on a specific mission can go) and other areas zoned as ‘light-footprint’ with limited numbers of guests allowed to roam these incredible wild landscapes.
“Compared to the Maldives, which allows for 30 per cent covered roof area, this development represents unparalleled low density and sensitivity, giving priority to Mother Nature at every turn.”
The company has included in comments compiled for media a testimonial from Sari Tolvanen, a marine conservation expert specialising in ecotourism and financing, in which he said it had “gone to extraordinary lengths” to listen to his advice.
Perry, who previously founded a foundation to help protect children from abuse, has said she would also like to create an ocean-related special economic zone around the reserve.
But she could lose the rights to the islands if she cannot secure new permits needed under revised laws, according to a provincial government official.
“LII believes the MOU they signed in 2015 gave them the rights to manage the islands. But there are additional permits required as per the new 2020 law,” said Syahrudin Turuy, the head of North Maluku province’s water conservation bureau.
“We have asked them to complete [the application] within six months and we will review their status. If they can’t complete it we might revoke their rights.“
He said the rights to manage the islands did not mean the company could block access to locals.
“Fishermen can still fish there,” he said.
Greenpeace Indonesia ocean campaigner Alfadillah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, hopes the islands remain undisturbed.
“To conserve an area, leave it be. No human involvement is necessary,” he said.
“The building of anything will disrupt the ecosystem.“
- with Karuni Rompies
Whales and People: A Tragedy!
A close look at the ecology and health of Pacific Coast Feeding Group gray whales in Oregon waters
by Paul Haeder / December 2nd, 2022
It was a good live crowd — over a hundred folk, November 30, at Hatfield’s new classroom building, Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building Auditorium. And another 100 in “attendance” on the Zoom Doom.
I’m a member of the Cetacean Society International, and the American Cetacean Society, and unfortunately for the Oregon group, their meetings and live speakers have retreated to the digital dungeons, never having face-to-face meetings anymore in Newport. That is the sham and the shame of this new abnormal. Even this OSU event had the live component, with a bistro in this overpriced new building, and beer and wine, also available. Fancy auditorium, no?
I did a story on this building in its construction stage, here:
I covered a conference, too, again, three years ago, when the local rag let me write a long form column on a regular, paid basis: “Should We Trust Science? (Conference celebrates how the ocean connects to all of us — coastlines, people, cultures”)
I have written about my love of ecosystems, marine systems, and my dive bum days, and, of course, I have also written stories on ecosystems and marine biology, etc. There are many stories still to be told, but last night’s talk by Leigh Torres, Associate Professor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and Oregon Sea Grant, was a recap of all the work she and her graduate (PhD and MS) students have been doing on gray whales, including the distinct Pacific Coast Feeding Group, numbering around 250.
There were other scientists there, and there were many young students from the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center. Older retired folk were there, and I had a sense that most people there were somehow associated with the university, with marine sciences, directly or through a relative engaged in that avocation.
As I’ve said before, there are many women going into the sciences, and you can see Leigh below with her skiff and her female graduate students working on drone surveillance and other forms of research to get more data on the gray whales on our coast.
A talk like this is all about loving those cetaceans, and our PCFG draws people from around the country to our coast for whale watching. May through October, they are here feeding. Depoe Bay is a great spot to watch.
Below images and videos, and at the end, is the actual Power Point Presentation from the November 30 presentation.
These scientists want to know why the Pacific Group is sticking around our coast and not heading to the Arctic with the majority of gray whales. The whales all calf in the waters of Baja. Then, the trip north. They number for all groups around 20,000.
Basic ecology and animal-mammal biology mean looking at how they “are” in their environment, what their hormones show, and what is happening to their prey. The fact this Pacific Feeding Group is in highly human-influenced/disturbed waters is also a point of research. Then, of course, we have their prey as well as in noise and as in boats coming up to them, and as in the crab pots that cause entanglements.
And, those strikes, those hulls and propellers hitting whales:
Diet for these whales?
As part of the research they look at the energy of whichever species the gray whale eats, as seen above. And, since 70 percent of the prey is mysid shrimp, the scientists want to know what those animals have in their bodies.
We are THE plastic species, as is the entire ocean. The gray whales have small fiber plastic — microplastics — and then beads in their feces. They are eating prey that has plastic in their bodies, and they also scoop up water and dirt that also have plastic in it.
In pregnant and lactating females, the amount of this zooplankton they have to consume is 1.5 to 2 tons of prey a day. The bio-accumulative effect of the plastics is huge under those tonnage numbers.
The underwater Go Pro Cameras give some cool images of gray whales in action. The poop or fecal samples give the scientists the cortisol levels — stress hormone — in the animals. There are unusual mortality events, one big one happening in 2014 in Mexico. Many of those animals were emaciated. Many animals die, and sink to the bottom of the ocean.
The estimated 14.3 million to 23 million microparticles of plastic per ton of shrimp they eat HAS to have an effect on total physiology of the animals.
Then we have the entire web of life — sea stars, kelp, urchins, the zooplankton, all of that.
We have urchins going up in population, as the health of kelp, zooplankton, and gray whales feeding zones is declining. Sea stars eat urchins, as do sea otters. We have no marine otters here on the coast of Oregon, and the sea star wasting disease has decimated that species, allowing for more urchins, which eat young kelp. Kelp beds are rookeries, and the zooplankton/meroplankton need that web of life.
The grays need that zooplankton to survive.
The end goal is to get this PCFG categorized as a distinct subspecies, to have them protected.
Again, science in a time of climate disruption, pollution, over-harvesting, and disturbances in food webs is both interesting and reliant upon year after year of more and more data, more and more bearing witness to declines in species. As the scientists get smarter with smarter tools, the general population and politicians at large get dumb and dumber.
Here’s a fact: One of the most dynamic and depressing jobs in the world is being a sea turtle expert. I remember him at the Bioneers events I was a part of, Wallace J. Nichols. Here, quotes:
Ocean plankton provides more than half of our planet’s oxygen.
Education should be based on simple awareness: Awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water.
Cool, and depressing, because species are going, going and gone.
We see here on the pages of Dissident Voice pieces on climate change, climate change fatigue, climate change cover-ups, climate change as a hoax, and climate is or is not related to CO2 released into the atmosphere.
Because education and discourse and the media all entwine to create silos and camps and sort of groups of people unwilling to talk, or learn, we are in big trouble.
Species like whales have always been the mega species that get to your hearts — you know, mammals, out there in the big blue, animals that were once land animals.
The science is cool, and expensive, and, yes, all those folk at the auditorium, I am not sure if they’d show up for homeless veterans and families stuck in the woods with leaky tents and zero chance at housing because of felonies, evictions, etc. talk.
We are an interesting species, are we not?
And, the reality is we do not need to have year after year of studies from hundreds of scientists around the world to wonder what the microplastics are doing to us, mammals, as they spread and embed in our bodies, inside cells, you know, it is sort of NOT the thing we should be accepting in mother earth — forever chemicals, PFAS’s, neurotoxins in babies, well, you get the picture.
More science to study cigarettes to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that smoking hurts lungs? That smoking most definitely causes cancer?
Since the sun is hot, it gives off energy in the form of shortwave radiation at mainly ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. Earth is much cooler, so it emits heat as infrared radiation, which has longer wavelengths.
[The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all types of EM radiation – energy that travels and spreads out as it goes. The sun is much hotter than the Earth, so it emits radiation at a higher energy level, which has a shorter wavelength.NASA]
Carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases have molecular structures that enable them to absorb infrared radiation. The bonds between atoms in a molecule can vibrate in particular ways, like the pitch of a piano string. When the energy of a photon corresponds to the frequency of the molecule, it is absorbed and its energy transfers to the molecule.
But back to whales! We have a planet that is under huge stress. The lifestyles of the rich and famous and disgustingly insane billionaires and millionaires, and, of course, the upper part of the collective west, they are the killers. WE throw away giga tons of food, products, things each year. WE do not build for durable and long-lasting effect anymore. Throw it all away, and out with the semi-used, in with the new style. Planned and perceived obsolescence. What is the embedded and life cycle of everything? We are wasteful and dirty.
It’s cheaper to toss the helicopter overboard than to bring it home. Agriculture is at war with nature, with ecosystems, with all the real natural services mother earth gives.
But the yammering and yammering about how greenhouse gasses do nothing to warm the planet, to acidify the oceans, or that pollution doesn’t cause acid rain, all of that, plus how many species of meat for humans are destroyed because of Avian flu or salmonella or lysteria or, well, you get the picture, none of it is put together to look at what capitalism is, really. Barbarism, savagery.
Oh, the isle of rabid men: The Whole Foods decision comes after the Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch recently pulled their lobster endorsements over concerns about risks to rare North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear. Entanglement in gear is one of the biggest threats to the whales, they said.
Yep, those democratic governors, and jobs, and, a way of life:
“Maine Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, Representatives Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden, and Governor Janet Mills today released the following statement after the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced plans to temporarily suspend their certification of Maine’s lobster fishery. In their decision, MSC acknowledges that while the Maine fishery meets standards for sustainability and environmental impact and is unlikely to cause harm to right whales, it is unable to certify any fishery that is not in compliance with federal regulations – a standard MSC believes the fishery does not meet due to the ongoing litigation in CBD v. Ross.”
Today’s decision by the Marine Stewardship Council to temporarily suspend certification of Maine’s lobster fishery is the result of a years-long campaign from misguided environmentalist groups who seem to be hellbent on putting a proud, sustainable industry out of business without regard to the consequences of their actions. While the Maine industry met the highest standards for environmental sustainability and impact, the current pending CBD v. Ross court case led by the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Humane Society of the United States made certification impossible. This litigation is based more on activism than evidence and is putting livelihoods in jeopardy.
So, designating the PCFG as a distinct and need-to-be-watched/protected species will then, hit not just the crabbers, but our Makah:
Makah Whaling – A Gift from the Sea
Whaling and whales are central to Makah culture. The event of a whale hunt requires rituals and ceremonies which are deeply spiritual. Makah whaling the subject and inspiration of Tribal songs, dances, designs, and basketry. For the Makah Tribe, whale hunting provides a purpose and a discipline which benefits their entire community. It is so important to the Makah, that in 1855 when the Makah ceded thousands of acres of land to the government of the United States, they explicitly reserved their right to whale within the Treaty of Neah Bay.
Makah whaling tradition provides oil, meat, bone, sinew and gut for storage containers: useful products, though gained at a high cost in time and goods.
The Makah Whale Hunt
To get ready for the hunt, whalers went off by themselves to pray, fast and bathe ceremonially. Each man had his own place, followed his own ritual, and sought his own power. Weeks or months went into this special preparation beginning in winter and whalers devoted their whole lives to spiritual readiness.
Men waited for favorable weather and ocean conditions and then paddled out, eight in a canoe. They timed their departure so that they would arrive on the whaling grounds at daybreak.
Paddling silently, whalers studied the breathing pattern of their quarry. They knew from experience what to expect. As the whale finished spouting and returned underwater, the leader of the hunt directed the crew to where it would next surface. There the men waited.
We are in weird and broken times. War, war makers, war manufacturers, billionaires in Monaco with Lamborghini’s with Ukraine licensce plates. Sunny place the size of Central Park but with shady deals. Billions disappeared for ZioAzovNaziLensky. Billions, man, and the money is being made vis-a-vis crypto currency; the scams, all of the money laundering, and we sit and watch the world burn.
Jobs of whalers, jobs of tobacco farmers, jobs of gun-bullet-missile makers, jobs of all those alphabet agencies, jobs of the hedge funders, jobs jobs jobs on the chopping block . . . and what about that way of life jeopardized — the survival of the dirties, meanest, most monster-like species. One giant Faustian Bargain on a planet that, well, you climate change deniers, you techno fascists, you gurus of WEF and great reset, disbelieve then that the planet is in bad shape.
And, the auditorium was filled with middle and upper middle class folk, probably more PhD’s in one room ever along the Oregon coast, and they had the fancy salads, triple Americanos, hoppy drafts and local wines.
For a talk, man, and Leigh is good, but to be truthful, the talk was high school level, really. And, she’s given the same talk three years ago, live, in the Newport library, for the local American Cetacean Society, before those people went underground, in the Zoom Doom Rooms, never to be seen again at a live event.
These are strange times. Whale watching for a feel-good touristy cause, but whale watching boats are part of the problem. There are calls to curb the watcher boats in Puget Sound. Here, a great interactive series:
Man-Woman, versus beasts. All that hi-tech equipment, all the plastics in the scientists’ tool kit, all the gasoline and diesel and electricity expended to research. Yes, these people have their hearts in the right place, but scientists are still data freaks, and they do not have hard spines when the world needs steeled spines in the mix. All that state-funded, taxpayer-paid-for bricks and mortar and all the money spent to create these institutions of higher learning, yet, these smart people are not on the front lines, and god forbid we talk about CAPITALISM, because, colleges, all the grants, all the bells and whistles, it’s still about CAPITALISM.
But the Makah?
The 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay could not be clearer: The U.S. government agreed the Makah Tribe, natives of the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, had “the right of taking fish and of whaling.”
Yet across nearly a century, the tribe has organized just one whale hunt, a much-protested outing in May 1999. Starting in the 1920s, the Makah stood down from whaling because of global over-harvest of whale populations. With the once-endangered Eastern North Pacific gray whale population now flourishing, the tribe should be allowed to resume the traditional, treaty-guaranteed hunts around which generations of Makah built a culture.
Species survival is no longer a reason to stop the Makah from hunting whales. Researchers estimate there are almost 27,000 Eastern North Pacific gray whales today, though the Western North Pacific population remains endangered. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has tracked the status of these pods of whales for years and considers the current Eastern numbers approximately the maximum the habitat can sustain. (source)
Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.
Noam Chomsky Interview
An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy
by John Rachel / December 2nd, 2022
Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Noam Chomsky for his current thoughts.
Noam Chomsky needs no introduction. He has devoted his whole life to calling out the abuses of power and the excesses of U.S. empire. At 94, he still is actively engaged in the national conversation. We are, of course, honored that he took the time to talk to us and share his views.
We focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We are looking for paradigm-shift ideas for improving the prospects for peace. His responses below of are exactly as he provided.
Here is what Noam Chomsky had to say.
John Rachel: We hear a lot of terms and acronyms bandied about. ‘Deep State’ … ‘MIC’ … ‘FIRE sector’ … ‘ruling elite’ … ‘oligarchy’ … ‘neocons’. Who actually defines and sets America’s geopolitical priorities and determines our foreign policy? Not “officially”. Not constitutionally. But de facto.
Noam Chomsky: 250 years ago, in the early days of modern state capitalism, an astute British analyst gave a simple answer to this question. He said that the merchants and manufacturers of England are the “masters of mankind.” They are the “principal architects” of government policy, and make sure that their own interests “are most peculiarly attended to” no matter how “grievous” the impact on others, including the people of England, but more severely the victims of “the savage injustice of the Europeans” abroad. His particular concern was the victims of England’s savage crimes in India, then in their early stages.
Adam Smith’s description has considerable merit. We see examples constantly. One morbid example is the just-completed COP 27, which just “voted for global Hell,” as one Australian science writer summarized its proceedings. The leading contingent at the meeting was from the UAE, a natural leader in the campaign to end the use of fossil fuels, as we must if we are to survive. The second was lobbyists of the fossil fuel industries, ensuring that their interests are “most peculiarly attended to” no matter how “grievous” the effects on the world.
Nothing is that simple, of course, but Smith’s picture, modified for the modern age, is a good first approximation.
JR: We’ve had decades of international tensions. Recent developments have seen a sharp escalation in the potential for a major war. The U.S. apparently cannot be at peace. “Threats” against the homeland are allegedly increasing in number and severity. The trajectory of our relations with the rest of the world appears to be more confrontations, more enemies, more crises, more wars.
NC: As a number of people have pointed out, including former President Carter, the US is a rare if not unique country that has been at war almost without a break since its founding, always facing colossal threats, ever since “the merciless Indian savages” of the Declaration of Independence attacking innocent English colonists.
The antiwar intellectual Randolph Bourne, vilified and marginalized during World War I hysteria, described war as “the health of the state.” More accurately perhaps, preparation for war, which provides an enormous stimulus for the advanced economy as was dramatically shown during World War II, when manufacturing almost quadrupled in the state-directed economy. The business press in the following years recognized that social spending could replace the stimulus of war preparation, but with disadvantages. It benefits the wrong people, the general population rather than the corporate sector. It encourages democracy and public participation in decision-making; people have opinions about hospitals and schools, but not about the next generation of jet bombers. It was therefore recognized, quite frankly, that a huge military budget would be the best way to sustain a profit-oriented economy in a society with only limited formal democracy, the ideal. There have been many other such occasions.
JR: Is the world really that full of aggressors, bad actors, ruthless opponents? Or is there something in our own policies and attitudes toward other countries which put us at odds with them, thus making war inevitable and peace impossible?
NC: There are plenty of aggressors and bad actors. Gallup international a decade ago included in polls the question “which country is the greatest threat to world peace.” The result was apparently not reported in the US; I found it on BBC. And Gallup doesn’t seem to have made that mistake again. Far behind in second place was Pakistan, a result probably inflated by the Indian vote.
JR: Our leaders relentlessly talk about our “national interests” and our “national security”, warning that both are under constant assault. Yet, we spend more than the next nine countries combined on our military. Why does such colossal spending never seem to be enough?
NC: For the reasons mentioned. The terms “national interest” and “security” have technical meanings. Not the interest and security of the population, but that of the current “masters of mankind”, the principal architects of policy. And the security of prevailing doctrines from questioning and challenge.
Again, nothing is that simple, but it is a surprisingly close first approximation.
JR: It’s evident that you, and the many individuals who follow you and support your work, believe that America’s direction in both the diplomatic sphere and in the current conflict zones represents exercise of government power gone awry. Can you paint for us in broad strokes the specific changes in our national priorities and policies you view as necessary for the U.S. to peacefully coexist with other nations, at the same time keeping us safe from malicious attacks on our security and rightful place in the world community?
NC: We might begin by adhering the US Constitution, worshipped but rarely read. It determines that treaties entered into by the US are “the supreme law of the land,” to be observed by elected officials. In the post-war years, the major treaty, the foundation of modern international law, is the UN Charter, which bans “the threat or use of force” except under conditions irrelevant to the US. That simple beginning would sharply increase our security – and that of others around the world. The vast sums spent on preparation for war could then be devoted to constructing a livable society at home and to real security, like security from the catastrophe of global heating to which we are rapidly advancing in our folly.
JR: The general public, especially when it’s aware of the self-sabotaging results of our current foreign policies and military posturing, clearly wants less war and militarism, preferring more peaceful alternatives on the world stage and greater concentration on solving the problems at home. As peace activists, we are thus more in line with the majority of citizens on issues of war and peace, than those currently in power.
What happens if we determine that those shaping current U.S. policy don’t care what the citizenry thinks, are simply not listening to us? What if we conclude that our Congress, for example, is completely deaf to the voice of the people? What do we do? What are our options then? What are the next concrete steps for political activists working toward a peaceful future?
NC: We live in relatively free societies. In expressing views like these, we are not sent to the Gulag or torture chambers. We are free to act to ensure that those shaping policy will listen to the voices of their constituents, not to those of the masters of mankind, as they do. It has been well-established by academic political science that the large majority of voters are unrepresented, in that their own representatives pay no heed to their concerns but respond to the demands of the masters. Beyond that, we can act to create an arena of open, informed and reasoned discussion in which people will be free from the controls of the doctrinal institutions, which reflect the structure of private power – matters discussed by Orwell among others and documented to the sky.
We can, in short, work to create authentic democratic societies, democratic in social and political life and in the economy, eliminating masters in favour of participants.
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John Rachel: We are grateful to Professor Chomsky for sharing his valuable and thought-provoking views. The interview was arranged by John Rachel, Director of the Peace Dividend Project. The Peace Dividend strategy is not a meme or a bumper sticker. It is an end-to-end methodology for challenging the political establishment and removing from power those compromised individuals who work against the interests of the great majority of U.S. citizens. The only hope for our hyper-militarized nation is each and every one of us having a decisive voice in determining the future we want for ourselves and our children. FacebookTwitter
John Rachel has a B. A. in Philosophy, has traveled extensively, is a songwriter, music producer, neo-Marxist, and a bipolar humanist. He has written eight novels and three political non-fiction books. His most recent polemic is The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World. His political articles have appeared at many alternative media outlets. He is now somewhat rooted in a small traditional farming village in Japan near Osaka, where he proudly tends his small but promising vegetable garden. Scribo ergo sum. Read other articles by John, or visit John's website.
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