Hey 350.org: Um, We lost. You lost.

Amazing news — check out the email we just sent out below, and signup for the 350 email list here.

Dear Friends,

Um, we won. You won.

Not completely. The President didn’t outright reject the Keystone XL pipeline permit. My particular fantasy — that he would invite the 1253 people arrested on his doorstep in August inside the gates for a victory picnic by the vegetable garden — didn’t materialize.

But a few minutes ago the President sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. There’s no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the world’s second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster.

And he has made clear that the environmental assessment won’t be carried out by cronies of the pipeline company — that it will be an expert and independent assessment. We will watch that process like hawks, making sure that it doesn’t succumb to more cronyism. Perhaps this effort will go some tiny way towards cleaning up the Washington culture of corporate dominance that came so dramatically to light here in emails and lobbyist disclosure forms.

It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is. Six months ago, almost no one outside the pipeline route even knew about Keystone XL. One month ago, a secret poll of “energy insiders” by the National Journal found that “virtually all” expected easy approval of the pipeline by year’s end. As late as last week the CBC reported that Transcanada was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain, certain that its permit would be granted. A done deal has come spectacularly undone.

Our movement spoke loudly about climate change and the President responded. There have been few even partial victories about global warming in recent years so that makes this an important day. We need to let the president and oil companies know that we’re ready to take action should they try to push this pipeline through in a couple of years. There’s a pledge to take bold action against the pipeline up on our site, and I’ll be keeping your names an emails safely stored away so that you’ll be the first to know about anything we need to do down the road.

Please sign the pledge here.

The President deserves thanks for making this call — it’s not easy in the face of the fossil fuel industry and its endless reserves of cash. The deepest thanks, however, go to you: to indigenous peoples who began the fight, to the folks in Nebraska who rallied so fiercely, to the scientists who explained the stakes, to the environmental groups who joined with passionate common purpose, to the campuses that lit up with activity, to the faith leaders that raised a moral cry, to the labor leaders who recognized where our economic future lies, to the Occupy movement that helped galvanize revulsion at insider dealing, and most of all to the people in every state and province who built the movement that made this decision inevitable.

Our fight, of course, is barely begun. Some in our movement will say that this decision is just politics as usual: that the President wants us off the streets — and off his front lawn — until after the election, at which point the administration can approve the pipeline, alienating its supporters without electoral consequence. The president should know that If this pipeline proposal somehow reemerges from the review process we will use every tool at our disposal to keep it from ever being built; if there’s a lesson of the last few months, both in our work and in the Occupy encampments around the world, it’s that sometimes we have to put our bodies on the line.

In the meantime, since federal action will be in abeyance for a long stretch, we need to figure out how best to support our Canadian brothers and sisters, who are effectively battling against proposed pipelines west from the tar sands to the Pacific. And we need to broaden our work to take on all the forms of ‘extreme energy’ now coming to the fore: mountaintop removal coal mining, deepsea oil drilling, fracking for gas and oil. We’ll keep sending you updates; you keep letting us know what we need to do next.

Last week, scientists announced that the planet had poured a record amount of CO2 into the atmosphere last year; that’s a sign of how desperate our battle is. But we take courage from today’s White House announcement; it gives us some clues about how to fight going forward.

And I simply can’t say thank you enough. I know, because of my own weariness, how hard so many of you have worked. It was good work, done in the right spirit, and it has secured an unlikely victory. You are the cause of that victory; you upended enormous odds.

I’m going to bed tired tonight. But I’ll get up in the morning ready for the next battle, more confident because I know you’re part of this fight too.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben for the 350.org Team

P.S. Victories need to be shared. Let’s make this one fly all over the web: share it on Twitter here and share it on Facebook here.

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MORE INFORMATION AND LINKS

U.S. to Delay Decision on Pipeline Until After Election – The New York Times

The Hives – “Hate to Say I Told You So” …

http://youtu.be/MCQ7VLoY7bQ

Three Responses to Bill McKibben’s Article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math”

Global Justice Ecology Project

July 24, 2012

The following three pieces, by Anne Petermann, Dr. Rachel Smolker, and Keith Brunner were written in response to Bill McKibben’s new article in Rolling Stone magazine, titled, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – make clear who the real enemy is.”

The System Will Not be Reformed

Response by Anne Petermann

Bill McKibben, in his new Rolling Stone article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” does an effective job at summarizing the hard and theoretical numbers that warn us of the devastating impacts of continuing to burn the Earth’s remaining fossil fuel reserves–yet it somehow falls short of its stated goal to help mobilize a new movement for climate action.

While the article is full of facts and figures and the future they portend, it falls into several traps common to US-based environmentalists, which undermine its movement-building objective.

The first and most obvious trap is relying on math to mobilize a movement. Environmentalists, often worried about attacks on their credibility, or afraid they will be labeled “emotional” by industry, tend to focus on statistics, mathematical analyses and hard science to make their case.  Unfortunately statistics like “565 Gigatons or 2,795 Gigatons” do not inspire passion.

While McKibben is focusing on Gigatons and percentages and degrees Celsuis, however, corporations like Shell are running multi-million dollar ad campaigns with TV commercials that feature families having fun, hospitals saving lives, children getting good educations, because of fossil fuels.  Coal = energy security; natural gas = maintaining the American way of life.  And as Dr. Rachel Smolker of BiofuelWatch points out below, some of these very same companies are moving into the bioenergy realm–wreaking yet more havoc on communities and ecosystems in the name of supposedly “clean, renewable energy.”  They are playing both sides of the field in the effort to ensure Americans do not feel their way of life is in any way threatened–ensuring them that they can have their cake and eat it too.  For while China may have surpassed the US in total annual carbon emissions, the US still leads, by far, the per capita release of CO2 emissions.

The second trap is filling the article with prophesies of doom and gloom, which do not mobilize effective action, but are very effective at disempowering and disengaging.  Just take a look at the recent report on the attitudes of Generation X on climate change–66% claim they aren’t sure it’s happening. While McKibben explains the need to keep the temperatures under 2° centigrade, which would already cause unforeseeable and dire consequences, he also quotes an official with the International Energy Agency on the current trend toward carbon emissions, “when I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees.”  McKibben  goes on to explain what this means: “that’s almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.”

But while expending the first half of the article on these numbers-based horror scenarios, McKibben then disempowers his audience yet further by reminding us that with the Supreme Court’s decision in 2010 that allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections, the fossil fuel industry is well-positioned to outspend anyone whose motives run counter to their own–enabling them to elect the best politicians money can buy–a strategy which, so far, has ensured a US government that will not challenge corporate dominance. →

Editorial | Reforming an Abomination

Editorial

Intercontinental Cry

By Jay Taber

Jun 23, 2012

Inscrutable Icons of Liberaldom by Cindy Sheehan

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”- Glinda the Good to Dorothy Gale, Wizard of Oz

June 16, 2012

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

“In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” – Bertrand Russell

Recently, I featured a young author/activist named, Edmund Berger, who has written two thought-provoking pieces that featured something that I am very interested in: the co-option, or “astro-turfing” of movements and I received some very hostile comments from readers/listeners who were offended that Berger could criticize some icons of “Liberaldom” (my word, not theirs).

First of all, the thought that anyone is above analysis and criticism is wrong, especially people who make a living from notoriety. For example, it’s one thing to attack a person for perceived character or physical flaws, but when one points out iffy connections to foundations with known and deep ties to the establishment, that is, in my opinion, fair game.

Everyone makes mistakes…everyone, with no exception. However, a line is crossed when that person, or organization, leads others astray by not being totally honest about from where the money comes or where partisan political loyalties lie. I will quote examples for some of the seemingly inscrutable ones that I got in trouble for allowing to be criticized. (Apparently, and thankfully, I am highly “scrutable.)

Again, why is the messenger being crucified instead of the information being read and analyzed with some balance instead of some people “pedestalizing” others with knee-jerk adoration?

If we want to have any success as movements and people, we need to realize that there are forces loyal to the Democratic Party that glom on to people and movements to steer what could be actually affective towards electoral politics, usually in favor of the Democrats on the Liberal side of the political spectrum.

There were especially two Inscrutable Icons of Liberaldom that my listeners were offended about being analyzed by my guest, Edmund Berger: Naomi Klein and 350.org. We’ll start with 350.org because Ms. Klein is now on the national board of that NGO.

350.org

The below is from my friend and radical environmentalist (integrity of vision and not co-opted by foundation money), Gregory Vickrey, of Wrong Kind of Green, about the establishment environmental groups:

President Obama has a bevy of support from environmental groups, many of whom (like the Sierra Club) have already endorsed him for a second round of degradation and destruction. This fawning for a Democratic President is certainly not without precedent, but it is particularly egregious when one looks at Obama’s environmental record.

Unlike his over-arching abilities to pre-emptively criminalize the common protester, this President has neither the wherewithal nor the spine to hold BP to account in the ongoing Gulf of Mexico tragedy. Rather, he continues to exacerbate the destruction, fast-tracking oil and gas leases in Alaska and additional deep water drilling in the Gulf.

Notwithstanding the rhetoric over a temporary suspension of the final phase of the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama gave an enthusiastic pass to a significant portion of the tar sands pipeline (already operational) in 2009, shortly after being inaugurated.

And he (Obama) is more effective than a denier when it comes to climate change, avoiding or stalling mandatory mitigation and adaptation practices that should have been deployed years ago.

His inaction-with-a-purpose preserves the status quo for his corporate, corrupt base of financial support, thus making him the greatest enabler of environmental destruction on the planet, and no resonant speech from on high changes that reality.

And here I must correct myself – stating above that the President has an “environmental record” is almost as recidivist as the man himself.Not to be outdone by the Sierra Club and other corporate-environmental organizations who have endorsed President Obama and his despicable policies, faux “grass-roots” organizations such as the Rockefeller (think oil) funded 350.org likewise lift President Obama up whenever he tosses a rhetorical bone their way. 350 and its corporate marketing arm were quick to praise the President with the Keystone XL delay (“We won! What a brave man you are, Mr. President!” author’s note: there’s a far more complex story behind this), but never utter a word about the realities on the ground of, say, fracking in New York; Or mountaintop removal in West Virginia; Or $2 Billion in coal subsidies to the President’s home state of Illinois; Or those fast-tracked wells in the Gulf; Or those leases in Alaska. Like their partners at Sierra Club and elsewhere, at the end of the day, 350 are nothing more than a faux-roots front for the President and his party, insane environmental policies be damned.

And as Edmund Berger points out in his article published in Swan’s Commentary called: Harnessing People Power Continued: the 99% Spring and the Professional Left:

350.org is what it is, but, please, let’s stop pretending that it is on the side of revolutionary change.

 Naomi Klein

I know Naomi personally and I think she is a sweet person and she has contributed a lot to the world’s understanding of neo-liberalism. There’s no doubt about it, she’s brilliant, but when it comes to being on the board of 350.org and Obama, in my opinion, she is off the track.

In a speech Naomi gave at Loyola University in February of 2009, she was advocating for “collectivism” and “nationalization,” but, as pointed out above her alliance with 350.org is at odds with those goals.

Here is Berger’s analysis of Klein’s connection to 350.org:

In an article called, Criticism of Shock Doctrine from the Left, the author points out:

My question is “small and containable” to whom? In the beginning of the US plague on Iraq called, Shock(ing) and Awe(ful), tens of thousands of Iraqi were killed—war is never “containable.”

On November 11, 2011, despite Obama’s delaying tactic (until 2013, after the 2012 elections, conveniently) Naomi Klein touted a “victory” on the show of another Inscrutable Icon of Liberaldom, Amy Goodman:

But guess what? This from a news article on March 12, 2012:

Barack Obama will speed up approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline during his “all of the above” energy road trip, White House officials said.

The president will use a stop in Cushing, Oklahoma on Thursday morning to announce an executive order directing government agencies to speed up permits for the southern US-only segment of the pipeline, running from the town to Port Arthur, Texas…

The article also claims the environmental groups were “angry,” but in searching the internet, I see that there was no angry response from Klein, McKibben, or 350.org to the speech Obama gave in Cushing, Oklahoma. Parts of the pipeline were in construction long before the “protests” in front of the White House last year, anyway. Apparently Obama is more afraid of his puppet-pay masters and the Republican Party than a group of activists who make light demands on him with no consequences attached to Obama’s non-compliance.

There are many other “Inscrutable Icons” of Liberaldom who range from being nearly perfect, in my view (ie, Noam Chomsky), to almost always being an astro-turfer for the establishment (ie, Van Jones)…and I would like my readers to put on their Critical Thinking Caps and research anything that anyone says. That’s not being “divisive,” it’s being responsible.

Inconvenient Truths About Tar Sands Action

Manufacturing Dissent

April 24, 2012

The Insider | Counterpunch

U.S. Covertly Funds North Korea Destabilization While Training With South Korea to “Re-stabilize” It Using an Army of 100,000 [Canvas/Otpor, NYC OWS, 350.org]

April 12, 2012

S.Korea, U.S. Practice Stabilizing N.Korea in Civil War

99 Percent Spring: the Latest MoveOn Front for the Democratic Party

MoveOn.org Poster

WKOG editor: Note that MoveOn.org (with Res Publica) is the founder of Avaaz.

It is worth noting that this site has been critical of many components of the Occupy movement – not for what it purports to represent, but for its hypocritical acquiescence to the elite through overt cooperation with police and the FBI. The anonymous author of this piece points to one severe hypocrisy – that of the direct connection to the Democratic Party. However, this author fails to mention – thus far – the inherent weaknesses in Occupy campaigns organized by Zeese and others throughout the country – Occupations that don’t really occupy much of anything; enact Occupy codes of conduct demanding participants attempt no mechanisms of self-defense; and employ self-policing strategies where Occupiers are expected to cooperate with authorities and, in fact, turn one another in to said authorities. We hope “The Insider” will shed more light on these components of the movement that will also lead to its co-optation and eventual failure, should more effective strategies and tactics not be employed.

The Guns That Smoked

Counterpunch | Weekend Edition March 16-18, 2012

SumOfUs are Corporate Whores | Some Of Us Are Not

By Cory Morningstar

 Feb 1, 2012: SumOfUs posts a popular image used by media outlets today to reflect the worker conditions at Chinese “sweatshops.” “Ethical capitalism” is a fantasy embraced and fetishized by the liberal/professional left.

New Delusion for 2012: SumOfUs

 …Like all good Imperialists, the Philanthropoids set themselves the task of creating and training an international cadre that believed that Capitalism, and by extension the hegemony of the United States, was in their own self-interest…. In the United States, as we have seen, corporate-endowed foundations spawned the culture of NGOs…. — Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story

New to the growing spiderweb of the interconnected non-profit industrial complex is SumOfUs. Behind this web you will find the most notorious players within the so-called movement – an array of bright green “climate wealth” opportunists, believers of the illusory “green” economy.

“SumOfUs is a global movement of consumers, investors, and workers all around the world, standing together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable and just path for our global economy. It’s not going to be fast or easy. But if enough of us come together, we can make a real difference.”

On the twitter account (first “tweet” November 14, 2011), SumOfUs goes one step further, stating:

“We are a movement of consumers, workers and shareholders speaking with one voice to counterbalance the growing power of large corporations.”

SumOfUs states:

“We’ve witnessed again and again what happens when powerful corporations get their way: Environmental and health catastrophes like Fukushima and the BP oil disaster; A global financial crisis that destroys entire economies; Rising food prices and starving children; Families from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu losing their houses and land; Poisons pouring into our air and water. You name it, corporations are behind it. But rather than being held accountable – their CEOs are often walking away with bonuses. And these injustices are largely left to continue unabated. But the world doesn’t have to be this way. And here’s the secret: We own the corporations that are causing all these problems. They rely on us to buy their products. They count on us to buy their stock. They need us to work for them. They need us to continue to elect governments that let them get away with murder. We are SumOfUs, and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

So rather than campaign on citizens divesting, that the rights for corporations be abolished, that private companies become nationalized, that citizens work together to form their own co-operatives, and that society must unite in one goal of starving the corporate machine, SumOfUs believes we further our power as “consumers” by feeding the very system that is destroying us.

All while exclaiming “We’re not going to take it anymore!” SumOfUs would have us believe that “we” – collectively, as “consumers” continuing to purchase the corporations’ products, continuing to purchase their stock, continuing, indefinitely, to work for the corporations destroying us, continuing to re-elect politicians (all controlled by a ruling hierarchy) – that we can, in fact, make the corporations “do the right thing.” This is not only a false premise, it is an assertion of complete grandiose delusion. Further, we have been hearing “we’re not going to take it anymore” from the environmental “movement” for over three decades. In this time, emissions have increased over 40% while we stand on the precipice of irreversible, cataclysmic, accelerating environmental collapse of epic proportions. 

SumOfUs states it is “a new world-wide movement for a better global economy” that stands for: Fair treatment of workers and the right of every human being to make a living, safely and ethically, for themselves and their family; The right of ordinary consumers to products that are produced and marketed ethically, sustainably and transparently; and “Business models that put people and the planet first instead of being driven by shortsighted greed.” They then tell the “consumer”: “Yeah, take that deep breath, close your eyes and imagine what kind of a world that could be – and then crash back to this one.”

What SumOfUs doesn’t tell you and never will tell you, is that 1) this vision is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to achieve under the global industrialized capitalist economic system, and 2) our current economic system is absolutely dependent upon the exploitation of both people and planet to simply continue its existence. SumOfUs wishes to convince you that this suicidal economic system can be reformed. That, like Obama, corporations can be made “to do the right thing” if only we ask nicely. Yet, let’s be clear and cast all denial aside – one cannot reform an abomination.

SumOfUs, along with all the rest in the non-profit industrial complex, is banking on your hopeful ignorance, hoping you will continue to swallow their lies and join them in the game of delusion where fantasy reigns.

“Capitalism is going through a crisis whose gravity has not revealed itself completely yet. Marx said, ‘What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.’ Capitalism is in crisis. Trickledown failed…. Capitalism’s real ‘grave-diggers’ may end up being its own delusional Cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. Despite their strategic brilliance, they seem to have trouble grasping a simple fact: Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises—War and Shopping—simply will not work.” — Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story

The first campaign for SumOfUs sounds suspiciously familiar.November 29, 2011, “SumOfUs: Petition urges Google to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce” Excerpt: “[SumOfUs] correctly point out that in 2009 Apple quit the Chamber over environmental concerns, while Nike quit the board of the Chamber shortly after, and Yahoo recently quit over internet censorship legislation.”

The “U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak For Me” (http://chamber.350.org/) was spawned from 350.org’s attempt to capitalize on and recruit business. The poster available for 350.org business partners states:

“Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis – to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. Our focus is on the number 350 – as in parts per million CO2. If we can’t get below that, scientists say, the damage we’re already seeing from global warming will continue and accelerate. But 350 is more than a number – it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.”

“… Make a product with a 350 logo and educate people on the science of 350 – how Camelback did it.”

Yet, the “science” of 350 ppm put forward by 350.org is made irrelevant. That 350.org/1sky/Chamber350 refuses to acknowledge that infinite growth, the integral pivotal component of the global industrialized capitalist economic system is not compatible in any way with reversing atmospheric concentration of CO2 is somewhat beyond belief. And yet, we are expected to embrace such illusion. Common sense dictates that industrialized production, most instrumental to the global capitalist economic system, can only further destroy our shared environment. The above Camelback “success,” which 350.org/1sky/Chamber350 highlights as one such “solution” to climate change, clearly demonstrates the outright denial of the very root causes of our multiple escalating crisis by such liberal left “leaders.”

What 350.org/1Sky or the new SumOfUs has never, nor will ever, state is the truth – that 350 ppm (and definitely the pre-industrialized levels of 280 ppm called for by the People’s Agreement and the State of Bolivia) can never and will never be achieved under the global industrialized capitalist system. Further, ethics and the global industrialised capitalist system – whereby violence is inherently built into the system – by way of decimation to the planet and exploitation of those most vulnerable, can never, and will never, co-exist. To believe so is to believe in fairy tales.

The fact is, aside from good publicity for these corporate monoliths, quitting the Chamber of Commerce “over environmental concerns,” in real life, means absolutely nothing. After Apple quit the Chamber of Commerce (considered by 350.org a great victory), the company has continued to break their own records in profits. (January 24, 2012: “Apple profit doubles, thanks largely to 37 million iPhone sales in three months. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company flew past all profit expectations as it reported net income of $13.1-billion (U.S) on revenue of $46.3-billion in its first quarter ended Dec. 31.”) Africa continues to be raped and pillaged for Coltan and other vital components of such technology, which has left approximately up to or more than right million Africans dead. (Top censored story of 2003: American Companies Exploit the Congo; top censored story of 2007: High-Tech Genocide in Congo.)

And while millions continue to anguish over tragic atrocities such as the Holocaust, the Congolese genocide continues unabated. Organizations such as SumOfUs don’t touch upon such uncomfortable truths, especially when the victims are non-white. In the world of RINGOs [1], the continuous and relentless plunder of liberating nations by Imperialist states is simply par for the course. Certainly not a reason to stop consuming items we have lived without for approximately 100,000 years.

The questions SumOfUs will never put forward is this: Would you rather consume beyond your most basic needs, or would you rather live? Would you rather consume beyond your most basic needs, or would you rather your children have a future? Which do you value more – your iPhone or the life of an African? Which do you value more – your iPad or the life of an exploited Chinese worker, whose distress is so great they prefer death over life?

SumOfUs asks “followers” (“consumers”) to demand Joe Trader pays 1 cent per pound more to the farmers who toil in the fields to produce our food, while SumOfUs “followers” purchase $700.00 iPhones. SumOfUs represents a clear division – those who benefit (be it short-term or long-term) by the capitalist system and those who are on the receiving end of the capitalist system: the exploited who reap the fall-out. It is understood, and even embraced as natural, that those who may be so lucky to receive a 1 cent pay increase, thanks to the goodwill on behalf of the white-saviour complex, will never have the means to shop at Joe Traders, let alone purchase an iPhone. Perhaps SumOfUs will have the exploited send SumOfUs members thank you cards at Christmas time, just like World Vision. After all, those who spend their lifetime simply trying to provide the next meal to their family are in no position to decline a 1 cent per hour/per pound pay increase.

The SumOfUs organization/campaign is more than insulting. If it is not bad enough for citizens to be referred to as a “movement of consumers and workers” (why not just refer to the majority of society as proles?), in an authoritative manner the message conveyed is that “consumers” have an important role within the capitalist system – equivalent to that of an investor or shareholder. The message conveyed is that the industrialized global capitalist economic system is one in which we are, and must remain, a partner.

In short, SumOfUs promotes an ideology that stands in stark contrast to our current reality – the absolute imperative of starving/abandoning the industrialized capitalist system, before it systematically kills us.

Excerpt from the SumOfUs “LOCOG: Partner with a Sponsor the Whole World Can Celebrate” campaign:

 “LOCOG has promised to stage the greenest games in Olympic history. They are the first games organizing committee to be certified to a sustainability standard called British Standard 8901. Yet, while LOCOG tells us that the London 2012 Olympics will be the greenest games ever, they have accepted the sponsorship of a company that refuses to clean up the pesticide factory in Bhopal where 400 tons of toxic chemical waste remain near a children’s play area. Dow Chemical expects that its $25 million per year Olympic sponsorship will give it a $1 billion dollar sales boost by 2020. Don’t let Dow profit off the “greenest Olympics ever” while they refuse to take responsibility for the worst industrial disaster in human history. Send a message to the London Organizing Committee that if it is committed to sustainability, they have to drop Dow as a sponsor of the games.” (Emphasis in original)

Newsflash: There is no such thing as a “green” Olympics. There is no such thing as a “sustainable” Olympics. There never will be. The “greenest Olympics ever” is perhaps the greatest attempt to greenwash the public under the guise of sustainability. SumOfUs has no intention of educating citizens on the vast social impacts and environmental consequences of an event like the Olympics; rather SumOfUs asks us to join the “Whole World” in the Olympic celebration.

This campaign must be considered an endorsement of the Olympics themselves as “the greenest ever.” One could even consider SumOfUs as advertisers of a new breed. Consider the language behind the “Apple: Is the new iPad made illegally?” campaign. SumOfUs states:

“If it is anything like Apple’s past products, the new iPad will be a sleek, gorgeous gadget … Apple says it cares about workers and requires its factories to follow the law. Well, we want to give Apple a chance to prove it. As Apple customers and potential customers, we deserve to know whether the new iPad was manufactured illegally and unethically like past Apple products. (Emphasis in original)

SumOfUs states they “want to give Apple a chance to prove” it cares about workers and requires its factories to follow the law, all while acknowledging in the same paragraph that its products have consistently been made illegally and unethically. Of course, the “consumer” isn’t urged to make the simple decision to not purchase a new iPad, instead, he/she is asked to convey a message to Apple: “We deserve to know whether workers making the new iPad were forced to work illegal and dangerous amounts of overtime.” Of course, Apple workers were forced to work illegal and dangerous amounts of overtime. Anyone with a brain understands that this has been and continues to be the case along with a multitude of other human rights abuses. Further, Apple will never share their monetary wealth with those they exploit. For this is the way of the capitalist system. The SumOfUs petition serves as an instrument to eradicate guilt by simply “clicking” and being made to feel one has performed their ethical duty. Further, under the petition, there is a survey collecting data regarding your patronage of Apple products. It would be interesting to know where this data ends up.

SumOfUs allows society to feel good about their role in the capitalist system. SumOfUs allows one to feel vindicated for one’s purchases and participation in corporate patronage. Like a confession or a prayer prior to or after a bad deed, SumOfUs eradicates guilt, makes one feel heroic, and – most importantly – protects the current economic system and thus the current power structures that exist today.

“You know, I’m an iPhone user myself, I’m an Apple consumer. I love their products. I want to be able to buy their products with pride and not feel like I’m complicit in these abuses that are taking place.” — Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, the executive director and president of the consumer advocacy group SumOfUs, speaking to Keith Olbermann, February 14, 2012

Ignoring Reality | Feeding the Denial Machine

In the March 26, 2012 article, Climate scientists: It’s basically too late to stop warming, the author writes: “Here’s what happens next: Natural climate feedbacks will take over and, on top of our prodigious human-caused carbon emissions, send us over an irreversible tipping point. By 2100, the planet will be hotter than it’s been since the time of the dinosaurs, and everyone who lives in red states will pretty much get the apocalypse they’ve been hoping for. The subtropics will expand northward, the bottom half of the U.S. will turn into an inhospitable desert, and everyone who lives there will be drinking recycled pee and struggling to salvage….”

In the March 26, 2012 article, West Antarctic Ice Shelves Tearing Apart at the Seams, the author writes: “A new study examining nearly 40 years of satellite imagery has revealed that the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially amplifying an already accelerating loss of ice to the sea.”

Flashback to 2003. From the paper The Discovery of Rapid Climate Change: “How fast can our planet’s climate change? Too slowly for humans to notice, according to the firm belief of most scientists through much of the 20th century.” “Today, there is evidence that severe change can take less than a decade. A committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has called this reorientation in the thinking of scientists a veritable ‘paradigm shift.’ The new paradigm of abrupt global climate change, the committee reported in 2002, ‘has been well established by research over the last decade, but this new thinking is little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of natural and social scientists and policymakers.’ ”

The question must be asked, where the hell do ethical iAnythings fit in a world of total chaos, collapse, death and starvation? We understand the Earth’s resources are finite. So why do we refuse to comprehend, thus ignore, the root cause of our multiple crises, that being the global industrialized capitalist economic system? The non-profit industrial complex protects the interests of their funders – this is a given to be expected. Yet the tragedy is this: today, intelligent citizens are choosing to embrace delusional ideologies that reinforce what they have been conditioned to “want” by the very corporate interests many claim to oppose, instead of choosing to protect their very future and the future of their children by facing our realities dead-on.

SumOfUs fails (purposely) to educate on the fact that corporations are bound by law to increase profits for their shareholders first and foremost. SumOfUs allows “consumers” to continue consuming while eradicating any guilt they may be feeling as the world crumbles beneath our feet. Hey, I signed the petition; I did my part, what more can I do? Truthfully, no sane person can possibly believe that any petition in 2012 can truly change the cataclysmic path we have placed ourselves on. Ten thousand signatures or 10 million, these petitions are meaningless. They are not intended to provoke any meaningful change. Rather their purpose is to influence, sway, and shape and mold public perception. This is understood between the corporate funders (via funding funneled through tax exempt foundations) and the “leaders” at the helm of the global NGO matrix: Avaaz and the Avaaz-affiliated organizations, 350.org/1Sky, and other corporate greens such as Rockefeller-founded WWF.

The Sycophants at the Helm

“… Corporate-endowed foundations administer, trade and channelise their power and place their chessmen on the chessboard, through a system of elite clubs and think-tanks, whose members overlap and move in and out through the revolving doors. Contrary to the various conspiracy theories in circulation, particularly among left-wing groups, there is nothing secret, satanic, or Freemason-like about this arrangement. It is not very different from the way corporations use shell companies and offshore accounts to transfer and administer their money—except that the currency is power, not money.” — Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story

And of no surprise, this group of elite “leaders” are predominantly white and wealthy. SumOfUs reads like a big tub of dirty laundry, the same names that are continually recycled from one group to another, churned over and over again under a multitude of NGO names that just keep expanding and growing like a cancer. The bulk of foundation money funneled into these entities originates primarily from George Soros foundations, whereas the bulk of foundation money funneled into 350.org/1Sky originates primarily from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and the William J. Clinton Foundation.

“Two of the minds behind the global advocacy platform Avaaz.org and Australia’s social action network GetUp! are taking what they learned in the non-profit online organizing space and applying it to the world of consumerism.” — TECH PRESIDENT website, May 24, 2010

SumOfUs’s Executive Director and Founder, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, is a dual Australian-American citizen with online organizing on four continents and at the global level, including at Avaaz.org, GetUp.org.au, MoveOn, AccessNow, 350.org, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and others. She was born in Australia, and currently lives in Washington, DC.

MoveOn.org is the founder of Avaaz (along with Res Publica). MoveOn is the US version of the Australian GetUp! AccessNow is affiliated with Avaaz co-founders. AccessNow.org is endorsed and supported by Avaaz, MoveOn.org, Witness.org, Blue State Digital and GetUp!

The AccessNow International Advisory Board includes Andrew MacLaughlin, vice president of Tumblr; Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and director of online organizing for Obama’s Presidential Campaign; Joe Rospars, new media director for Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign and founding partner of Blue State Digital; Scott Heiferman, CEO and co-founder of Meetup; and many other prominent technologically savoir-faire “leaders” in the world of social marketing.

SumOfUs is a 501c(4) non-profit incorporated in Washington, DC, with a 501c(3) fiscal sponsorship arrangement through the New Organizing Institute Education Fund (a George Soros entity).

SumOfUs’s Treasurer, Tate Hausman, is the director of management at MoveOn.org. Previously, he has directed a number of other national political operations such as Vote Today Ohio, a voter mobilization effort that helped swing Ohio to Barack Obama. In tandem with working on congressional campaigns, Hausman has consulted for high-impact organizations like CREDO Mobile/Working Assets and many non-profit organizations.

SumOfUs’s Secretary, Keith Goodman, founded the Repower at Home program at Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, and developed and managed the acclaimed online Neighbor-to-Neighbor program for the 2008 Obama campaign.

The U.S. Advisory Board includes bright greens such as Bill McKibben, co-founder of Rockefeller’s 350.org and Eli Pariser, co-founder and president of the board at MoveOn.org.

The U.S. Advisory Board also includes Betsy Taylor, president of Breakthrough Strategies and Solutions. Taylor is an adviser to several donors and foundations and is on the advisory board of 350.org. Taylor was co-founder and board president of 1Sky, an incubator project of the Rockefellers, partnered and funded by in part by the Clinton Foundation. Taylor also founded and served as president of the center for yet another Soros organization, New American Dream (NAD), which “helps Americans live and consume wisely for a better world.” During her tenure, NAD was featured in the media over 1,000 times, built a network of over 100,000 citizens, and launched the “Responsible Purchasing Network,” an association representing over $50 billion in buying power. She has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (where Avaaz co-founders Ricken Patel, David Madden and Jeremy Heimans also attended). At the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative, President Clinton announced and personally congratulated the 1Sky team. Rockefeller Brothers Fund president Stephen Heintz, Betsy Taylor, 1Sky chair, and Jesse Fink, Mission Point Capital Partners, joined President Clinton on stage in recognition of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund commitment to 1Sky.

In 2011 1Sky officially merged with 350.org – which was most instrumental in the 1Sky creation. This union, now official, was deemed the “NEW 350” (350/1Sky) in which Rockefeller interests sit on the 350.org board of directors with the likes of McKibben, Naomi Klein, Jay Halfon and Jessy Tolkan. [350.org staff, 350.org international advisory council, 350.org U.S. advisory council].

The SumOfUs EU Advisory Board includes:

• Paula Hannemann, social media manager, WWF Germany
• Paul Hilder, former campaign director of Avaaz and Oxfam Great Britain, vice president of global campaigns for Change.org
• Alice Jay, campaign director, Avaaz.org (Spain)

The SumOfUs Australian Advisory Board includes:

•  Jeremy Heimans, CEO & co-founder of Purpose, co-founder of GetUp.org.au, Avaaz.org and AllOut.org
• Brett Soloman, formerly with Avaaz, executive director of AccessNow.org, former executive director of GetUp,org.au.

 “I’d like to use the funds to promote the idea of movement entrepreneurship and to incubate a couple more movements. We’ve been talking in a broader way about the future of consumer activism, of organizing people not as citizens but as consumers.” — Avaaz co-founder, Jeremy Heimans

And of course no organization with the sole duty of promoting green capitalism would be complete without the corporate kiss-ass, Kumi Naidoo, head of the notorious corporate creation, TckTckTck, and Greenpeace International. Naidoo also sits on the International Advisory Council of 350.org, along with Avaaz co-founder and Imperialist puppet, Ricken Patel.

SumOfUs is currently offering an “Operations Fellowship.” Applicants should, among other things have “experience in social change, whether it’s organizing a Save Darfur rally on campus or volunteering for the Obama campaign” while “Big Pluses” are listed as “Grant-writing experience; Experience managing funder relationships; Experience as an office manager or executive assistant; Basic familiarity with 501(c)3/(c)4 election law; Familiarity with the MoveOn/Avaaz model of organizing.”

And like all big greens that make up the non-profit industrial complex, SumOfUs assures us that it is an equal opportunity employer …  Minorities and women are strongly encouraged to apply for this fellowship.” This all sounds good in theory, yet for all the rhetoric thrown around by the big greens supporting “indigenous” rights, values and leadership, try to find one big green NGO with an Indigenous person at the helm. For that matter, try to find one big green that officially supports and refuses to undermine the People’s Agreement (Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 2010) or any other Indigenous declaration.

SumOfUs – A new organization to greenwash the corporations destroying our shared planet. SumOfUs wants you to not only accept the liberal left assertion that corporate power will always dominate, they want you to show respect to the corporate powers destroying us.

Remix: March 28^th, 2012

Sum of Selling Out

From the April 18, 2011 article Rockefellers’ 1Sky Unveils the New 350.org | More $ – More Delusion:

 “At the same time of the 10:10:10 launch, 350.org revealed its first order of business – that of business. In 2011, the Green Market website published an article titled “350.org and Business.” The website promotes the 350 campaign to ask businesses to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in response to climate change; however, it neglected to critically analyze why such a campaign can only fail. The reality is that incrementalism in the face of a planetary emergency dooms humanity to failure. No amount of justification excuses any organization, large or small, to play politics in the face of our daunting climate reality. Yet 350.org is doing exactly that. Many may consider this a strong step and the greenwashing cabal will applaud; after all, if you have the token voice of the climate movement praising sweat-shop driven, mining-dependent Apple, you’ve won the day. However, the reality is this: No matter how many businesses leave the Chamber, they will still be doing what they do. Apple continues to abuse those most vulnerable while simultaneously destroying the environment for the sake of profit. Nike still manufactures shoes in China. A campaign such as this will never extricate these corporations from the business model they worship that enables several barrels of oil to be burned for the sake of the Swoosh through symbolic campaigning and the mighty victory this campaign seeks. No amount of symbolic campaigning will accomplish anything remotely close to a solution to the current planetary emergency. Such a campaign makes for good press for the times; however, in terms of outcomes, it will provide nothing of consequence to the solution set. It’s nothing less than delusion, if not a crime against humanity, that those who understand the science actually believe such campaigns are helpful beyond our psyches. Tragically, this undoubtedly will become more obvious rather soon.”

So, no thanks, SumOfUs. Some of us consider ourselves citizens – not consumers. Some of us are not interested in participating in your delusional dreams of “ethical” and “green” capitalism. Some of us, in the real world, prefer to deal with the realities that you, hand in hand with your funders, continue to deny.

Round and round the delusion goes. Where it stops nobody knows.

The new SumOfUs campaigns urge us to send a message to LOCOG, Apple, Starbucks, Novartis, corporate media conglomerates, Walmart, Carlsberg, Verizon, Microsoft, Google, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Yoplait, Lowes, Trader Joes and Johnson & Johnson. Below are my sentiments in regards to these corporate psychopaths.

Fuck Apple.

Fuck Bank of America.

Fuck Carlsberg.

Fuck Coca-Cola.

Fuck corporate media.

Fuck Google.

Fuck Johnson & Johnson.

Fuck Lowes.

Fuck Microsoft.

Fuck Novartis.

Fuck Starbucks.

Fuck the Olympics.

Fuck Trader Joes.

Fuck Verizon.

Fuck Walmart.

Fuck Yoplait.

And most of all, SumOfUs – fuck you.

 

 

References:

[1] Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, spoke March 19, 2010 at Innovative Philanthropy for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Impact Investing: In this second phase of philanthropic innovation, our Rockefeller Foundation predecessors helped establish the non-governmental organization sector as the missing middle between giving and direct impact. This included support for entities we call them RINGOS, Rockefeller Foundation Initiated NGOs.

 

The Purpose of U.S. Soft Power Themed Revolutions: Disunity and Power Projection

14.02.2012
Wayne MADSEN
Strategic-Culture.org

A U.S. “alphabet soup” agency-sponsored themed revolution in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean comprising twenty-six atolls, stands to plunge the nation, heretofore considered a tropical paradise for tourists, into the same kind of chaos and civil unrest now seen on the streets of Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Maldives is smaller in comparison to the nations of the Middle East where the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), and George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI) have sponsored themed revolutions that have all resulted in civil unrest and a entrance of extremist Wahhabi Salafists into political power. However, the small size of Maldives provides a much clearer picture of how the aforementioned Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored “soft power” aggressors managed to turn paradise into another center of unrest in the Muslim world.

In the case of the Maldives, the road to civil strife began in 2005 when USAID- and OSI-sponsored democracy” manipulation groups took root in the country upon the legalization of opposition political parties by the government of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Serving as president for thirty years, Gayoom was seen by the international human rights network of non-governmental organizations as a dictator ripe for removal. The Western-sponsored NGOs settled on Mohamed Nasheed, a Maldivian opposition leader who had lived in exile in Britain – with the support of the British government — and Sri Lanka and who returned to Maldives in 2005, as their favorite candidate for president.

In preparation for the first direct presidential election for president in 2008, outside “democracy manipulators” descended on Maldives, a country that had become popular with the Soros network because of global climate change. Maldives, which is threatened by rising sea levels, became a cause célèbre for the carbon tax and carbon cap-and-trade advocates.

Nasheed was the 2008 presidential candidate of the Maldivian Democratic Party against President Gayoom’s Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party. In the first round of voting, Gayoom received a little over 40 percent of the vote in the first round to the 24 percent of Nasheed’s and his vice presidential running mate, Mohammed Waheed Hassan. To defeat Gayoom in the second round, Nasheed, obviously with the encouragement of his foreign “democracy” advisers, sought and received the endorsement of four other opposition parties, including the Saudi- and United Arab Emirates-financed Salafist Adhaalath (Justice) Party. Adhaalath is an ideological partner of the Muslim Brotherhoods of Egypt and Syria. In the second round of the election, Nasheed, with the support of the other four opposition presidential candidates, defeated Gayoom 54 percent to 46 percent.

Nasheed was immediately embraced by the world’s glitterati community of NGOs and celebrities, including carbon tax-and-trade advocate Bill McKibben of 350.org and the crowd who gathered at the Sundance Film Festival to view a sycophantic film about Nasheed called The Island President. Nasheed was called the “Mandela of the Maldives” by those celebrities whose knowledge of Maldives did not extend beyond the nation’s Wikipedia entry. In October 2009, Nasheed and his Cabinet pulled off a pre-Copenhagen climate change conference publicity stunt by holding the world’s first underwater Cabinet meeting. Nasheed and eleven of his ministers, wearing scuba gear, convened the meeting twenty feet under the surface of the Indian Ocean. Nasheed was a huge hit among the celebrity contingent at the December 2009 Copenhagen summit.

Nasheed was selected by Time magazine at the top of their “Leaders & Visionaries” list of “Heroes of the Environment.” The United Nations awarded Nasheed its “Champions of the Earth” award. Foreign Policy magazine, co-founded by the late Samuel Huntington, a chief ideologist for the neo-conservative pabulum of a “Clash of Civilizations” between the West and Islam, named Nasheed as one of its top global thinkers.

Nasheed took on as his close adviser and communications assistant Paul Roberts, a British national. In what alienated his Salafist supporters, Nasheed also opened diplomatic relations with Israel, invited Israeli surgeons to Maldives amid fears they would begin harvesting human organs for Israeli clients, met with Israeli government officials, agreed to allow direct air links between Israel and Maldives, invited Israeli trainers into Maldives to advise Maldivian security forces, and failed to ensure that Maldives voted for Palestine’s full admission to the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) during the organization’s general assembly meeting in Paris on October 31, 2011. Maldives was absent from the vote.

Maldivian opposition parties, particularly the Salafist Adhaalath Party which left Nasheed’s coalition, did not buy Nasheed’s government’s weak explanation about the Palestine vote. By the end of 2010, the four other political parties in Nasheed’s Cabinet had left and Nasheed’s government was accused by the opposition of lacking transparency. The trademark yellow neckties and shirts worn by Nasheed and his supporters and the yellow Maldivian Democratic Party flags waved by Nasheed’s supporters were yet another indication that Nasheed’s “revolution” was another “themed revolution” concocted by the Soros/NED network of NGOs and think tanks in Washington, London, and New York.

Just as other Soros / NED-installed regimes began to violate the constitutions of their respective nations, including Georgia and Ukraine, Nasheed was no different. On December 10, 2010, the Maldivian Supreme Court ruled that Nasheed’s cabinet ministers could not serve without the approval of parliament. Nasheed responded by declaring the Maldivian courts were controlled by supporters of ex-president Gayoom and on January 16, 2012, Nasheed ordered the military to arrest Abdulla Mohammed, the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court.

Counter-protests were organized by Maldives opposition parties and were backed by the police. After the military clashed with the opposition protesters and police, several military members defected and joined the protesters.

Faced with the opposition and police/military uprising, Nasheed resigned the presidency on February 7. Later, Nasheed and his British adviser Roberts claimed that Nasheed was ousted in a coup d’etat. The U.S. State Department demanded that Vice President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, who assumed the presidency and opposed the arrest order of the Chief Justice, form a government of national unity with Nasheed’s supporters. Hassan refused and India, which, in the past, has intervened militarily in Maldives to put down attempted coups, remained silent. The Soros/NED global glitterati, including the Soros-funded “Democracy Now” program hosted by Amy Goodman and partly-funded by Soros, featured Roberts on an interview in which Gayoom was described as a thug and who was trying to re-assume power. Of course, the Soros propaganda program made no mention of Nasheed’s repeated violations of the Maldivian constitution.

As with the destabilization of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, the first target for alleged Islamist radicals after the ouster of Nasheed was the destruction of priceless museum artifacts. Unknown men broke into the Chinese-built Maldives National Museum in Male, the capital, and smashed the delicate coral and limestone pre–Islamic Maldivian Buddhist statues on display.

The yellow flag of Nasheed’s political party.

The rise of Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood adherents in the new Maldivian government parallels what occurred in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia after their themed revolutions.

The Maldives were destabilized by the West at the same time that the Egyptian government charged 43 CIA-linked NGO personnel, including Americans, Britons, Serbs, and others working for IRI, NDI, and NED, with possessing a secret plan, including maps, to divide Egypt into an Israeli-dominated Sinai state, a Coptic state extending from Alexandria in the north to Asyut in the South, a Berber-dominated Islamic state based in Cairo, and a black African Nubian state in the south.

There now may be an attempt by the West to split up Maldives. In 1957, the British established the Gan airbase on the southernmost atoll of Addu and insisted on 100-year base rights on Seenu Atoll. After Maldives Prime Minister and President Ibrahim Nasir adopted a nationalist foreign policy, the British backed a secessionist movement in the southern atolls where the British bases were located that declared the short-lived United Suvadive Republic in 1959. After the collapse of the secessionist republic in 1965, the British bought the southernmost atoll in the Chagos-Laccadive chain of atolls from Mauritius and established the British Indian Ocean Territory. The inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago island of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to Mauritius and other Chagos islands and the United States established its strategic military base on the island of Diego Garcia. Maldives never recognized Mauritian claims over the Chagos atolls or the British Indian Ocean Territory. With neo-con interference in Maldives now coming to fruition, secessionist movements in the southern atolls may, once again, gain ground to ensure unfettered U.S. and British control over Diego Garcia and expansion of U.S. and British military facilities to the Addu atoll and, perhaps, further north in the Maldives chain.

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal www.strategic-culture.org.

Bolivia: The US Is Spying on Latin America Under the Cover of USAID and other NGOs

 “I am convinced that some NGOs, especially those funded by the USAID, are the fifth column of espionage in Bolivia, not only in Bolivia, but also in all of Latin America,” Morales said during a press conference in Oruro, a southwestern Bolivian city.

Feb 10, 2012

China Daily

LA PAZ – Bolivian President Evo Morales on Thursday accused the United States of spying on his and other Latin American countries.

The Bolivian president said the spying is done under the cover of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

“I am convinced that some NGOs, especially those funded by the USAID, are the fifth column of espionage in Bolivia, not only in Bolivia, but also in all of Latin America,” Morales said during a press conference in Oruro, a southwestern Bolivian city.

Morales said the United States, through the cover of development aid operations of those organizations, knows “all the details of the activities of the social sectors and union leaders” in those Latin American countries.

The president regretted that some union leaders were allegedly used by these NGOs to stir disputes such as the one over a highway project in an indigenous territory in his country. →