Poor Peru

Since about April of this year Indigenous people in the Amazonian regions of Peru have been taking part in a non-violent resistance to plans by the Government of Alan Garcia to sell off the rights to exploit subsoil resources. You see, the capitalists found out that even if you have a native group that has legal right to the land, you can still exploit it as long as it is in the subterranean fashion. Of course mining and drilling pretty much ruin the surface too, but in the world of business the profits always justify the means. So since April the native tribes have been blocking pipelines and roads in an attempt to force the government into accountability for what is essentially no different than what Pizarro did almost 500 years ago. The recent round of abuses was spurred by a free trade agreement with the United States that gives multinational corporations free reign on the resources and people of Peru. On Friday, the military assaulted an unarmed group of several thousand Natives who were blocking one of the main roads. Although reports vary, the fact that the troops opened fire upon the crowd and killed many is beyond debate. The official count, by the government, is 30, but Native sources say the troops were dumping bodies in rivers and using helicopters to hide them in remote areas. We also know that 22 members of the paramilitary force that engaged the barricade were killed, some after being taken hostage and being executed. Considering that the people they were engaging were unarmed, this would seem to indicate what the troops goal was. It is a time honored tradition of the ruling classes of Latin America for government to piss on their people and tell them its raining. The spin has been intense in the media: 'In a speech in Lima, Garcia accused Indians opposed to oil, gas and other development on their native lands of impeding progress, either through "elemental ignorance" or manipulation by outside interests he didn't name.' With a long standing reputation for corruption and much blood on his hands from the war against Sendero Luminoso, Garcia is part of a long line of people that have made it their business to see that the people of Peru are as exploited as possible. During his first presidency, some 15 years ago, his government saw hyperinflation and over half of Peru's population being below the poverty line (an increase of some 13% in just a few years). How long can the West sow the wind and not expect to reap the harvest it deserves. The pendellum of history is in full swing, with both Venezuela and Bolivia electing Indigenous leaders that refuse to answer to Washington and Wall Street. A full blown oil war is already raging in the Niger Delta over the exact same issues as in Peru. One could also make the argument that our entire involvement in South West and Central Asia is the same fundamental quest for hydrocarbons and the geopolitical power that it fuels. Since it wouldn't be a blog without a quote, here is one from the Sage of the South that says it all: "The big bankers of the world, who practise the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no-one: they limit themselves to applauding the show." Although the fat, sedated and ignorant Americans don't like to admit it, but our Culture of excess consumption is the reason why so many people in the global south are thin, determined and pissed. In this day and age of the modern market, by the very nature of system, the wealth and ease of American life is facilitated by the blood, sweat and tears of many millions. How long will it all go on? Until Imperialism either becomes unprofitable or we start valuing human life, anyones guess which one of those will come first.

Rich Poor Divide

Californian Dreaming, on such a winters day

As the year of 2009 progresses we seem to picking up momentum. All around the world massive shifts and radical realignments are taking place. To my souls eye we humans seem so fragile, frantic and somehow fantastic. Curious little critters with such completely complicated minds that each person you meet is an entire universe unto themselves. Collectively our symbiotic little epic of existence is a brilliantly orchestrated tribute to our own weirdness. As I was rooting through a lot today for firewood I commented to my accomplice that humans make an inordinate amount of shit to keep us company. Than I realized that the entire town in which I live is nothing but an elaborate collection of human detritus upon which we live, and then die to be moved into the part of the town filled with corpses. I realized then that I can't imagine a world in which only nature was there to live with, no crazy mindscapes and cities, just the endless beauty of life. Oh, to only know for a minute what it would be like to live a life without all the 10,000 complexities and stupidities of our modern mindset. I think of how happy I am, and how fearless and ruthless I have to be in order to accomplish that. The natives said that if a man grows apart from nature his heart grows cold. I can see no better explanation for such a savage and cruel culture as the one we have manifested in this wild world I love so dear.

The Guerilla Front

"Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery."
"War is always a struggle in which each contender tries to annihilate the other. Besides using force, they will have recourse to all possible tricks and stratagems to achieve the goal."
-Guerilla Warfare Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

NSA whistleblower

"Because we are so unfamiliar with the motivation of the people we are dealing with, we are more afraid of them than we need to be." -John le Carre
Although it has failed to penetrate the mainstream media, several days after Obama took office a man wandered out of the hall of the National Security Agency to tell us all that the wiretapping was far more extensive than anyone thought. Turns out every credit card transaction, e-mail, cell phone call and mail has been monitored and recorded for every person in America. This man, Russel Tice, proceeded to explain that whole profiles have been constructed on people based on this information and that these people are now on a watch list. These are largely people with no ties to any foreigners, let alone terrorists. Perhaps the implications aren't readily apparent, but they soon will be. In a society as authoritarian and morally self-righteous, the ending of privacy is going to change a lot about our country. War and crises overseas is almost always used as a tool to control people at home, and we are now seeing that this is certainly the case with our time. Pointless wars against imaginary foes and endless funding must have some purpose to it... as usual, ask the immortal question- qui bono
"Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live." -Russel Feingold (Senator)

Storm Clouds on the Horizon

“Racial injustice, war, urban blight, and environmental rape have a common denominator in our exploitative economic system.”
-Channing E. Phillips
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
-Edward Abbey
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."
-Mahatma Gandhi



According to some minds, the West is going through what the Soviets did some 20 years ago- economic crisis leading to massive social upheaval and reassessing the path we are on. That's what you get when your whole system is based on perpetual growth and wealth to maintain peoples support. It wont be long until the gloves come off and blood flows in the streets of the West as it has been in the colonies for some time. The people who own all the wealth are extremely intelligent, and have always managed to pass the blame on to miscellaneous patsies in such times. Seeing as how enlistment rates are skyrocketing as more and more families turn to military service for a salary, it looks like America will do what most Empires have done when things look bleak at home... go take shit from less violent peoples. Nothing like rivers of blood and gore to help placate an unruly populace. And if all that fails, their is always the jackboot waiting for a face to stomp on. Considering how completely pussified and cowardly most Americans are, it shouldn't take much to put them in line. At least we will get a taste of what we have been dishing out to the rest of the world... unlike them however, we deserve it. History has shown that the dominant culture will only see the folly of its ways when the very survival of it comes into question. That day is rapidly approaching for us Americans. May mankind have mercy on our souls.

Most Americans seem intensely baffled by what is happening the realm of economics. This no doubt stems from our comical education system and our collective proclivity towards willful ignorance. Luckily I recently found a great little story that does a marvelous job of explaining what the government is doing with the bailout, so enjoy-

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and
announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys
for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announce d that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.' The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.

They never saw the man or his assistant again, only
lots and lots of monkeys!

Now you have a better understanding of how the
WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WILL WORK !!!!

Ain't that a kick in the head

Athens- Protesters, described as mostly students, were seen smashing the glass doors of a Citibank, throwing a metal barricade at police lined up along a street and scuffling with police wearing white helmets.

Suicide bombing in Kirkuk kills scores and indicates an increase to the sectarian strife over control of the pivotal northern city.

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet expressed doubt Friday about the wisdom of launching attacks against Somali pirates on land — a proposal the U.S. is circulating to the U.N. Security Council.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. -Ike (1961)

Unfortunately, you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place. -Noam Chompsky (1970)

In this brave new world the companies that arm our armies actually create the conflicts in much the way Nike supports sports. A system of lucrative crises profiteering has made all form of human suffering extremely appealing to the hardcore capitalist. Lockheed Martin now has become so vertically integrated that it literally makes the bombs that blow up buildings, owns a contracting firm to rebuild them, and runs a business to staff those buildings. The contracts that are signed with the American Military-Disaster complex are frequently no bid contracts that are guarenteed a profit (a process called cost plus which means that you just show how much you spend and they give you a certain percentage more). Such companies are being openly funded through massive billion dollar contracts in which the US Treasury cuts them a blank check, without any regard to efficiency, cost or even economic logic. Everything from a hurricane, to a war, to an earthquake is an economic boom if your business needs large government handouts to keep those stock prices high. The money pledged for Tsunami relief in 2004 went almost entirely to largescale Multinational Corporations focusing on developing new Tourism resorts in the recentely cleared beaches of Thailand and Sri Lanka, and various mineral and gas reserves in Indonesia; as well as many other projects that benefited business. In certain places people openly stated that the aid wasn't helping, but in fact, hurting them. This sort of ruthless exploitation and abuse frequentely leads to armed resistance, which is rapidly becoming more and more appealing than living a life of desperation and poverty under the twin rule of corrupt or coerced governments and the omnipresent Multinationals. All over the world groups too numerous to list have sprung up in response to the economic hopelessness of their situation and injustice of the system into which they are being led.

The closing of almost half of Iraqi factories by the US in a country where the majority of men have military training seems almost too demented to fathom. Unless of course you own stock in Blackwater or KBR, both of which provide $900 dollar a day mercenaries to protect the various companies contracted to rebuild Iraq. Even though rebuilding all that we destroyed in Iraq has been made almost entirely impossible because of the violence, business in the Green Zone never missed a beat. Its a savage and violent way of life that American and her Allies project upon the masses of the world. Death and destruction are not strangers to mankind, indeed they are our perential companions. The ruthless efficacy of the modern machine that makes and profits off it is just becoming more aggressive and confident. After what they have gotten away with so far, it would be foolish from a purely profit based perspective to change course.