Hunting Fox (And Other Varmints)

This post will examine some of the ins and outs of a typical major English-speaking media outlet. I'll focus on Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (known more widely as News Corp), and its “news” arm, Fox News. (Why is News Corp typical? First, because they're huge, and second, because the other huge players are starting to imitate them – even as far as the bias in their “reporting” of the news.)

Anatomy of a Fox

According to Wikipedia, News Corp is the world's 2^nd largest media conglomerate (behind Disney), and is the third largest in entertainment (2009). News Corp's own website states that it is “...a diversified global media company” with total assets as December 2009 of approximately $56 billion, and whose activities “...are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.” News Corp is publicly traded on NASDAQ and secondarily on the Australian Securities Exchange. Revenue as of 30 June 2009 was $30.42 billion, while operating income was $5.6 billion. Almost 70% of its sales come from US businesses. News Corp has 152 subsidiaries in low-tax or no-tax countries, one of four companies to have more than 100.

The Murdoch family holds a controlling interest in News Corp, owning about 30 percent of the shares. All shares held by the Murdoch family are voting shares. (Some of the shares sold by a corporation entitle their owners to a paid dividend, but do not allow the shareholder a vote in corporate governance.) Three members of the Murdoch family are on the board of directors, with Rupert as chairman of the board and CEO. News Corp's holdings include two book publishers; 54 newspapers in seven countries; 30 magazines in the U.S. and Australia; one music outlet; three radio networks; three sports teams; fifteen motion picture studios; tons (I got tired of counting) of television networks spanning cable, broadcast and satellite TV; and at least 30 Internet media outlets, including Beliefnet, a site dedicated to discussing religion, which was acquired by News Corp in 2007.

Wikipedia has an extensive history of News Corp, and of Rupert Murdoch's activities in building and guiding his empire. Some highlights include union-busting activities in England in 1986-1987 involving printers' unions versus Murdoch's papers; the buying of US papers and media in 1973; and the purchase of 20^th Century Fox in 1981-1984 and of the Metromedia group of stations in 1985 in order to form a fourth independent American network. The same year Murdoch became a naturalized US citizen in order to satisfy American broadcast law (which forbade foreign owners of US television stations).

(One sidelight: in 1989, Murdoch bought the publisher Collins, which he combined with Harper and Row which News Corp had bought two years earlier. HarperCollins, as the new company was named, in turn bought out Zondervan, a publisher of Christian books and media. Thus did Murdoch begin his forays into the world of Christian media and publishing. Those who visit “Christian” bookstores nowadays and wonder what on earth happened to “the Faith once for all delivered to the saints” can start looking right here. I discussed these very matters in a blog post many months ago, titled Money and Christian Books.)

In 1996, the Fox News Channel was launched as a competitor to CNN. Just prior to this, a legal complaint was brought before the Federal Communications Commission to the effect that News Corp's Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. The FCC ruled in favor of Murdoch, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the public's best interests. (And this happened during the Clinton presidency!) In 2007, News Corp bought Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, and started the Fox Business Network.

In short, News Corp has become a huge and powerful megaphone, broadcasting the heart and soul of Rupert Murdoch.

That Lyin' Fox Tongue

News Corp speaks with a loud voice. But what is that voice saying? And what are the motives of the owner of that voice? Those motives become quite clear when one examines much of the video media produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company, especially that media that is produced by Fox News. This examination reveals News Corp to be a radical promoter of big business, and of the unrestrained prerogatives of the rich captains of big business. Murdoch's message is that anything that restricts or restrains the rights of the wealthy or their pursuit of ever more wealth is to be opposed and demonized.

The world according to Murdoch should be a place where nonwhite nations are subservient to Europe, Australia and the United States, and their lands are open to being plundered by the U.S., Australia and Europe; where nonwhite residents of Europe, Australia and the U.S are subservient to a white majority; and where all who are poor, no matter their color, are subservient to the rich. Those who suggest that the rich should share with the poor are branded as “Socialists!” Those who suggest that the greed of the rich is destroying other peoples are branded as “evil people who hate our freedoms!” Those who suggest that our unrestrained pursuit of wealth is destroying the earth are accused of “fudging the data!”

From a moral standpoint, this mindset makes no sense, and those who believe such things are forced to lie in order to justify such a mindset. Thus it is no surprise that many of the things broadcast by News Corp are propaganda and blatant lies. Here are some examples:

News Corp and Racism: In 2009, the New York Post (a News Corp paper) published a cartoon depicting Barack Obama as a chimpanzee shot dead by the New York Police. They were forced later to apologise. This was hardly the first incident of racism for News Corp. During the 2008 US Presidential campaign, Fox News called Michelle Obama a “baby-mama,” referred to Barack Obama as “Osama,” and attempted to portray him as a secret Muslim. (See “Fox smears Sen. Obama, says he 'covered up' Muslim”, “The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama” and “Fox News Admits Obama/Muslim Story Was Toxic”.) Fox News also used false reporting to blame minorities for the subprime mortgage meltdown in 2008, (See “Fox News Special Report on The Banking Crisis”, “Minority Meltdown” and “FOX News: Loaning to minorities is a disaster'”. And for a look at the true role of banks in pushing subprime loans on minorities, see this: “Wells Fargo, Ghetto Loans, and 'Mud People'”.) There's much more to this side of News Corp, but we shall move on... (But not before I sneak one more video in: “Fox News' Racism”.)

News Corp and the Defense of Big Business: In 1994, Monsanto developed a synthetic version of bovine somatotrophin, a naturally occurring growth hormone found in cattle. This hormone was produced artificially via recombinant DNA technology and marketed under the brand name POSILAC, although its trade name was rBST or RBGH. Monsanto sold it to dairy farmers in the U.S. as a means of stimulating milk production beyond natural levels. Monsanto was able to influence the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the use of rBST in dairy cows in the U.S., but such approval was harder to win outside the country. Eventually Canada and the European Union refused to approve rBST for use in their dairy farms. This was due to health problems arising in cows who were treated with the hormone, as well as demonstrated abnormal growth in organs of lab rats who were fed milk from rBST-treated cows. rBST has been linked to increased incidence of certain cancers, and has been implicated in the dramatic rise of early puberty in boys and girls since 1990.

In 1996, two journalists employed by Fox News uncovered some of the damaging information about rBST, including documents from Monsanto which described some incriminating test results. These journalists wrote a story for their local TV station, which began promoting an upcoming series on the risks of rBST. However, Monsanto pressured Fox into covering up the story and firing the journalists, who sued for wrongful termination. They ultimately lost their case when an appeals court ruled that FCC policies regarding reporting the truth by news agencies are not legally binding, and that Fox has no legal requirement to tell the truth in a news story. (See “Bovine somatotropin” and “Interview with Jane Akre and Steve Wilson” for more details on this.) Since then, it's been open lying season at Fox (as documented here.)

News Corp and War: News Corp was a vocal and vehement promoter of the American takeover of Iraq. Rupert Murdoch has also been very candid about the oil, I mean, real reason for the Iraq war, as noted in a Guardian piece titled “Their master's voice.” News Corp has constantly put a positive spin on the war and its aftermath, even when actual evidence was contrary, as shown in this article: “Fox News and the Iraq War: Fact vs. Fox-tion,” and this: “Fox News Spins 9/11 Commission Report.” Fox has never openly criticized the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction or the absence of any link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

Now, Fox News and News Corp are trying to make the case that Iran is foaming at the mouth to build nuclear weapons so that they can blow up the rest of the world. The thing that makes Fox so hard to believe (and much of the rest of the MSM, along with Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney) is that a) we've been down this road before, only to find out that the allegations were false that were made against a country with stuff we wanted; b) Iran is like Iraq in that the stuff we want over there is oil (and natural gas); and c) our misadventure in Iraq killed over a million civilians, while maiming countless others, not to mention needlessly killing several thousand of our own troops.

News Corp and the Environment: It's no surprise that News Corp has been very aggressive in attacking the notion that climate change is real, that it's a bad thing, and that it's caused by industrial activity. News Corp has also been very aggressive in attacking the reputations of many climate scientists and research organizations. Their attacks have not been against the science so much as attempts to smear the personal reputations of climate scientists. (See “FOXNews.com - Why You Should Be Hot and Bothered About 'Climate-gate'” for instance.)

The trouble is that News Corp has been very quiet regarding all the evidence that proves the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change, including this report authored by scientists commissioned by the Global Climate Coalition, which stated that “...the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.” (See “Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate - NYTimes,” and “Global Climate Coalition Ignored Own Scientists' Advice.”) Think about that, you Portlanders, as we enjoy an unseasonably warm late winter, decked out in our shorts and T-shirts. Summer is coming...

There's more to mention, including News Corp's role in manufacturing the “Tea Party” and the “Angry Renters”. But time is short; I must wrap this up. Maybe one day I'll dedicate an entire post to the lies of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.

The Faltering Fox

News Corp is a big bad corporation run by a rich sociopath. Many people are understandably frightened by this monster, and are wondering what to do in the face of what seems to be an unstoppable juggernaut. But there have been stories over the last year that suggest that this juggernaut may not be quite as invincible as many of us think. A look at News Corp's financial health and financial missteps over the last several years reveals what may be a soft underbelly.

News Corp's relentless drive for growth has required the buying of rival corporations in order to expand market reach. Some of those acquisitions haven't turned out very well. As far back as 1992, News Corp amassed huge debts due to its ownership of the British Sky Television satellite network, which was operated below cost until it could force a rival network out of business. Years later, in 2010, News Corp was forced to sell some of its ownership in BSkyB in order to comply with British antitrust laws. And in 2009, News Corp took a write-down of $8.4 Billion, due in part to the devaluing of the company's newspaper unit, which includes the recently acquired Dow Jones publisher. This was on top of a second-quarter loss of $6.4 billion, due to the loss of profit in its television and movie units. (See “News Corp records £2bn loss,” “News Corp Cuts Cloth as Friedman Moves On” and “Rupert's News Corp Swings to $203 Million Loss”for later snapshots of News Corp performance.)

News Corp has lost money on MySpace, the social media/blogging site that Murdoch bought in 2005. This has led to the resignation of its CEO, along with talks of possible divestiture. According to the UK Telegraph, MySpace will likely lose over $100 million this year.

News Corp is projecting a return to profitability this year, but a closer look reveals that much of that return will be achieved through staff cuts. It's like selling blood to pay the bills. (Source: “News Corp revenue slumps 4.1%.”) At least one analyst sees in the MySpace saga a typical portrait of Rupert Murdoch's failure to manage his media holdings and acquisitions. The MySpace story also highlights a fundamental failure of Murdoch to “get” the Internet and the rise of social media, and his missteps in dealing with this new reality. (See “Turmoil at MySpace blamed on News Corporation” and “Why MySpace and the Internet Could Kill Rupert Murdoch.”) This is seen in his desperate move to try to kill free content on the Web, starting with his oft-repeated threat to start forcing people to pay for access to News Corp sites, including Fox News. (Go ahead, Rupert. Make my day.)

These realities suggest a possible triple threat to Murdoch and his empire. The first threat is that which Murdoch poses to himself, due to his mismanagement. He started losing on MySpace the moment he began trying to control the content of the site. There are many articles on the Web that address his censorship of MySpace bloggers and the deleting of accounts that published things he didn't like. That turns people off, and makes them look for alternatives. The second threat comes from the open nature of the Web, and the incredible power now available to the masses to cheaply create and publish their own content. Not only is it no longer possible for one man or one corporation to control all publicly available media, but it is no longer possible for one man or one corporation to reap all the profits from publicly available media. Anyone can become a creator and publisher of digital content, up to and including high-quality video, for less than $500. Murdoch might survive if he were willing to accept a much smaller, more sustainable piece of the media pie.

The third threat consists of the facts concerning the actual financial health and missteps of News Corp, and the wide publishing of those facts. For while News Corp may exist as a propaganda machine, its main purpose is to make money. If its profits are not growing, this will cause investors to pull out, further collapsing revenue and assets. Companies which suffer this process for any length of time usually find themselves on the road to demise. Our present economy is contracting, along with all the large players in it. Those who don't deal realistically with this contraction will fail. The financial health of News Corp may well be a vulnerable systempunkt that can be exploited through aggressive research and factual reporting of its financial health and management missteps.

The Liars' Channel

Ahab came into his house sullen and angry because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” He laid himself down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, “Why is your spirit so sad, that you eat no bread?”

He said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, 'Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it pleases you, I will give you another vineyard for it.' He answered, 'I will not give you my vineyard.'”

Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be merry. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles who were in his city, who lived with Naboth. She wrote in the letters, saying, “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. Set two men, base fellows, before him, and let them testify against him, saying, 'You cursed God and the king!' Then carry him out, and stone him to death.”

The men of his city, even the elders and nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent to them, according as it was written in the letters which she had sent to them...Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned, and is dead.” It happened, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, “Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreeelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.” – 1 Kings 21:4-15, World English Bible (a public domain translation).

“In 1921, the famous American journalist Walter Lippmann said that the art of democracy requires what he called the 'manufacture of consent.' This phrase is an Orwellian euphemism for thought control. The idea is that in a state such as the U.S. where the government can't control the people by force, it had better control what they think. The Soviet Union is at the opposite end of the spectrum from us in its domestic freedoms. It's essentially a country run by the bludgeon. It's very easy to determine what propaganda is in the USSR: what the state produces is propaganda...Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism...For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling or unwitting instruments.” – Noam Chomsky, Propaganda, American-style, Interview with David Barsamian of KGNU Radio in Boulder, Colorado.

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives...I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” – U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler (30 July 1881 – 21 June 1940).

“There is general agreement that an independent, pluralistic press is a requirement for an effective democracy. There is also general agreement that a crisis exists in the press's ability to protect and advance democracy...Thus, although there exists an unwritten professional creed that the role of journalists is to inform the citizenry in order to advance democracy, the creed is sorely out of touch with reality...In addition, the suggestion by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky that the media, in a democratic capitalist society, function as a propaganda arm for the government certainly undermines the historical image of journalists as protectors of democracy.” – “The role of the press in a democracy: heterodox economics and the propaganda model,” Journal of Economic Issues, 1 June 2004.

“Many of the most famous members of the D.C. Press corps – the true power elite of American journalism – accept high-paying corporate speaking engagements and have direct personal ties to the political candidates...But the real compromises lie deeper – in corporate sponsorship that defines the very parameters of what is considered acceptable discourse. Take the pundit talk shows, where a parade of center-to-right-wing talking heads appear each week to engage in what passes as political debate. From 'This Week With David Brinkley' to “The McLaughlin Group,' two corporate sponsors predominate: General Electric and Archer Daniels Midland, two of the biggest corporate recipients of subsidies, tax breaks and government contracts in the country.” – “Strange bedfellows: Journalists as corporate shills,” Salon Magazine, 1999.

“Unfortunately, CNN and Cooper's combination of great TV and bad journalism are not idiosyncratic; television news routinely falls into the trap of emphasizing visually compelling and dramatic stories at the expense of important information that is crucial but more complex. The absence of crucial historical and political context describes the print coverage as well; the facts, analysis and opinion that U.S. citizens need to understand these events are rarely provided. For example, in the past week we've heard journalists repeat endlessly the observation that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Did it ever occur to editors to assign reporters to ask why?” – “Great Television/Bad Journalism: Media Failures In Haiti Coverage,” Op-Ed News, 25 January 2010

The quotes cited above form a pattern, and are part of a larger truth: that ruling elites resort to manipulation of public opinion and of public perceptions in order to advance their own agenda. In Biblical times, this was done by a word-of-mouth campaign instigated by members of the ruling elite in order to rob a man of his inheritance. In modern industrial society, particularly in the United States, this is done via a highly developed, technologically advanced media, the ownership of which is concentrated in the hands of a very few.

Of course, this is well known to many people, and readers of this blog may know that I covered this very topic many months ago in my posts, A Safety Net Of Alternative Systems - Citizen Media and Telling Your Story As Self-Defense - Necessary Tools. Lately, though, this theme has come back to my mind in the wake of several newsworthy events, and the resulting coverage by the mainstream media.

I think now of the continual drumbeat of American media hostility against Iran on account of its supposed “nuclear weapons program.” (How quickly the press seems to have forgotten the 2007 stories about the U.S. Government's National Intelligence Estimate stating that Iran had not been pursuing nuclear weapons since at least 2004. I still have a copy of the newspaper in which I found that story, just in case anyone needs a cure for selective amnesia.)

Then there's the Newsweek cover I saw a few weeks ago when I stopped in at a store on the way to work, the cover that showed a picture of a Nigerian teenager with a caption about the “New Al-Qaeda Threat.” A discerning reader of its lead article would conclude that it was just so much more unquestioning rah-rah cheerleading for the “war on terror.” There's also the media coverage of Scott Brown's election “victory” in Massachusetts, with all the news agencies talking of signs of a huge Republican 'resurgence.' What is not mentioned is that Brown's opponent conceded the race at least an hour before the polls closed, and long before any news organization was ready to call the race. And there's the coverage of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, in which various news outlets immediately began describing the country as “dangerous,” with the potential for massive “looting and rioting” – coincidentally, just before a massive injection of U.S. troops into that country.

Connect the dots between media portrayal of various countries and peoples, the resources of the countries portrayed, and subsequent U.S. military or political action against these people, and it starts to get a bit...maddening (as blogger SoapBoxTech recently put it)...for people who like honesty and fair play.

Our media are next to useless at best, and downright dangerous at their worst. When I say “useless,” I mean that they don't actually report news so much as offer visceral, frequently voyeuristic, often sensationalist, attention-grabbing sound bites and photo op's. This is when their focus is turned outward toward the larger world. Too often they fail even to turn outward, and they report as news what are actually their own internal workings. So we find out that Avatar is a box-office hit, we hear about the winners of American Idol, we learn about the “beautiful people” from Star and Us and People magazines, and KFWB in Los Angeles, which used to be an “All News, All the Time” station is now reduced to reporting mainly on happenings in Hollywood (along with airing conservative talk shows!).

Ah, but what about “dangerous”? It should be obvious by now that the mainstream media in this country have been used and are being used to justify the taking of things from poor people and poorer nations by the rich, and to justify the continued concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the rich. The purpose of the media is not to inform or educate, but to put a good face on a mess of very bad situations, shaping our responses to suit our handlers' wishes while making us stupid.

This would be bad even in ordinary times. But these are not ordinary times. Over all our lives looms a triple threat: the collapse of industrial society due to energy descent, the ruining of our environment, and the dysfunctional responses by the rich and the powerful to these things. To deal with this threat requires a nation that is educated and informed, and thus able to make intelligent decisions. But intelligent people are a threat to corporate profits. So we keep getting lied to, and corporate media continues to train us to make emotional, knee-jerk responses to complex problems.

The biggest liar by far is Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation, which owns Fox TV and Fox News, although other mainstream outlets are trying hard to imitate Fox. Over the next few weekends, I'd like to share some new observations and thoughts that have occurred to me as I have again begun to think about the mainstream media, our relation to it, and possible avenues for breaking free from its influence.

When Decency Confronts Predation

Fellow blogger Stormchild recently wrote a thought-provoking post on her blog, Gale Warnings. The title of the post is “The Underground Railroad, 2010.” Her post makes a point about the role of decent people in protecting their fellow humans from the predations of the powerful. In making this point, she uses the historical events of the Underground Railroad in pre-Civil War America, the hiding of Jews from their Nazi persecutors in occupied France during World War II, and her own experience of being rescued from an abusive work environment by the intervention of kind and perceptive senior managers.

Speaking of workplaces, she writes, “A band of uninformed 'nice guys' does not a decent workplace make; it takes an understanding of the psychodynamics of abuse, sufficient perception to know that manipulative and abusive individuals are plentiful in organizations, and sufficient moral courage to resist manipulations and see through efforts to 'set up' non-abusive individuals to be exploited. This is a tall order, and when it happens, it usually happens because one or two people, placed where they can have an impact, are willing to see, understand, and refuse to play.” She closes with a prayer that this nation (yes, our own U.S.A.) might begin to experience an outbreak of decency, that people might rise up who are willing to “...recognize abuse, call it what it is, and do what they can to oppose it and to support those targeted by it...”

I say “Amen” to that prayer. My focus is the larger society at this time of economic contraction, resource constraints and widespread man-made environmental damage. We are facing an historic transition, and there are preparations that should be made by as many of us as possible, to insure the survival and well-being of as many of us as possible. Yet the making of those preparations is being thwarted for most of us by a rich, powerful minority whose members seek to continue fattening themselves by making a prey of as many of the rest of us as possible. Whereas the abuse that occurs in smaller group settings is often due to complex psychological factors, the abuse that is being perpetrated on a large scale in our society is due mainly to the sociopathic greed of the rich. “Resilience” is hard to achieve when you're constantly having to defend yourself from people who want to turn you into lamb chops.

A typical and repugnant example of large-scale abuse and predation was recently posted on another blog, Shalom Bayit. The author, Ahavah Gayle, wrote a piece titled, “Class Wars, followed by Return of the Robber Barons. Will the Serfs Strike Back? ,” in which she cited a news article about two towns in Kentucky whose water utility was bought by bailed-out insurance giant AIG in 2005. From 2008 onward, the utility began a program of raising water service fees to a level so high that at present, many residents are threatened with choosing between continuing to receive water versus being able to buy food. In November 2008, the utility announced that it was raising water rates by 51 percent, in an attempt to collect an additional $750,000 from a customer base of 8000 persons. By the way, Kentucky is not a rich state, and the residents of these towns are poor in comparison to the rest of Kentucky.

Such predations as these are taking place with ever-increasing frequency all across America. Yet there is very little visible outrage, as most people still seem to be hypnotized by television and deluded by the “American Dream” that promises that just about anyone can get rich – and by Gum, everyone should want to! If there was a genuine outbreak of decency in this country, what would it look like?

For one, it might look like people suddenly becoming willing to inconvenience themselves and link arms with each other in order to stop supporting predatory systems run by predatory masters. If I lived in one of those Kentucky towns whose water service decided to raise its rates to crushing levels, I'd be motivated to get together with my neighbors to create a safe, workable alternative to the water and sewer service. I'd save what cash I could, and use it to buy things like multiple copies of the Humanure Handbook. I'd invite people over to my house and we'd form study groups to learn how to compost our own waste and re-use graywater. I'd form a “rain barrel club,” and we'd be buying, refurbishing, scrounging or making rain barrels like nobody's business. I'd do my best to create an activist community of decent people whose “refusal to play” was able to bring down the strategies of those wanting to make a prey out of them. And it would be work, and it would be inconvenient, but in the end it would be worth it.

There are many systems, many providers of consumer “stuff,” many wealthy captains of commerce who by their sociopathic predation show that they deserve to be boycotted. But righteous boycotts almost always involve some inconvenience, because the targets of these boycotts have done so much to make themselves all-pervasive and seemingly indispensable to modern life. The more you turn your back on these providers and the goods they provide, the harder you will have to work to create alternatives for yourself. A point comes when you can't do it all alone; you need to rely on neighbors and friends, and they need to be able to rely on you, in order to create sustaining alternatives to the things that must be boycotted. I think of the black boycott of the bus service in Montgomery, Alabama, one of the hottest conflicts of the American Civil Rights movement. There is also the boycott of British goods instituted by Gandhi during India's struggle for independence from Britain.

May there be indeed such an outbreak of decency in this country that huge numbers of us turn our back on the predators who now dictate our course, and that we learn to oppose their predations. Let us not be lulled by false promises of ease or convenience into a continued silent support of these predators, a refusal to rock the boat, a default into just “going with the flow.” And may there be many who rise up to defend poor, abused people from their abusers – whether that abuse is relational, societal, political or economic.

The War Against Resilient People

Sometimes, I feel so low down and disgusted,

Can't help but wonder what's been happening to my companions.

Are they lost or are they found?

Have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down

All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?

– Bob Dylan, Slow Train Coming

I'm not yet ready with a follow-up post on fabbers and small-scale manufacturing (I have to work a bit this weekend, just like last weekend), but I thought I'd comment on a couple of news stories I saw this weekend. There's the latest mainstream media report on backyard chickens, from USA Today: “Chickens come home to roost in backyards around the USA.” The article contains the usual photos of blond-haired children cuddling feathered “pets,” as well as listing the familiar benefits of increased food self-sufficiency.

But it also contains statements by politicians in various locales who oppose allowing city dwellers to have backyard chickens. Their objections are ostensibly about the potential for odor, nuisances, abandoned animals and unsanitary conditions. But Iowa City Mayor Regenia Bailey was quite a bit more honest about the real reasons for her opposition: her fears that the achieving of food self-sufficiency by city dwellers might undercut “regional” farmers in her state.

Then there's this article, “Saving The Bed-Stuy Farm,” about a New York inner-city urban farm that is now being threatened with demolition in order to make way for “affordable housing.” The trouble is that the farm has allowed many urban poor people to have inexpensive access to good, healthy food, whereas the “affordable” housing that threatens to replace the farm will most likely simply be “affordable” only in the initial terms of the loans issued to first-time buyers. The housing itself will probably be overpriced in terms of dollar amounts, and will require decades of payments in excess of $1000 a month for homeowners to pay off the loans they incur in order to buy this housing.

The icing on the cake is this item: “Senate Democrats Assured Of 60 Votes To Debate Health Bill.” The so-called health care “reform” legislation they are debating is not really about reform, but will require all Americans to buy health insurance. The only provision for any sort of publicly funded health care is the possibility that the Federal government might provide health “insurance” for people to buy. If the insurance industry can kill that provision, then “health care reform” will mean nothing more than forcing all Americans to give their money to private, for-profit insurance companies. These companies have embarked on a policy of raising their premiums at a rate that far exceeds the rate of inflation. The passage of this legislation will bankrupt large numbers of poor Americans.

The only real sort of health-care reform – a single payer system funded entirely by the U.S. Government – was never even considered by the people in Washington, who are much more interested in spending taxpayer dollars on bailing out gambling-addict mega-bankers, fighting unjust wars, and buying toys for the Department of Homeland Security, who now have their own police force patrolling the streets of major American cities like Portland, Oregon.

All of this is a sorry, yet accurate proof of a statement I made long ago on this blog, that we live and function under a corporatist system that forces as many people as possible into dependence on it, and that it actively opposes anyone who would create a safety net of alternative systems. Yet we seem to love it so. People I talk to at work don't pay much attention to politics or other deeper issues. Anymore, when I talk to them I can see the eyes of many of them glaze over. Maybe it's because they're lazy, or because they're scared of the unpleasant truths they'd have to confront if they did pay attention to deeper issues. Lately, I keep most of my thoughts entirely in my head.

I go to the store, and when I see the magazines in the magazine section, most of them are aimed at getting grown-up adolescents to buy stuff. When I get to the checkout counter, all of the magazines there are taken up with sex and celebrity – full of pictures of airhead doofus adolescent “grown-ups” consumed with their own “cuteness.” This is becoming true even at places like Whole Foods Market and New Seasons – stores which used to prominently feature magazines like Utne, Yes, Adbusters and Mother Jones. Even the so-called “progressive” flavor of mainstream media is increasingly used to maintain a corporatist status quo. The word “progressive” is being redefined to remove any threat to the continued concentration of wealth in the hands of an unrighteous few. The victims of these wealthy are increasingly left without a voice. Yes, there are blogs – but it seems at times that no one reads blogs.

Sometimes I feel so low down and disgusted...

A Scripture Lesson for Goldman Sachs (and their fat-cat brethren)

I'm working on upcoming blog posts on small-scale manufacturing and other technical subjects. This involves a bit of research, and nothing is ready yet, as I've been a bit tied up lately. I am also lining up more interviews with people who will hopefully be able to offer valuable insights into adapting to a post-Peak world.

But in the meantime, I'd like to comment on a story that caught my eye this week. It seems that some of the rich heads of some of the richest investment banks have recently been to church (maybe for the first time in years). Case in point: last month, the Anglican Church held a panel discussion at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The panel discussed “the place of morality in the marketplace.” Goldman Sachs International advisor Brian Griffiths was a prominent speaker at the event. (Source: “Goldman Sachs's Griffiths Says Inequality Helps All,” Bloomberg, 21 October 2009)

At that conference, Mr. Griffiths defended the bonuses planned for Goldman employees for 2009, bonuses so large that they average over $500,000 per capita. (This is at a time when the official unemployment rate in Britain is well over seven percent, and British income inequality is skyrocketing.) Here are some of his outstanding quotes: “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest...We have to tolerate...inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” In the days following, bankers from Barclays Plc and Lazard International visited several London churches, delivering messages such as “Profit is not satanic,” and “Is Christianity and banking compatible? Yes. And is Christianity and fair reward compatible? Yes.” (Source: “Profit `Not Satanic,' Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus,” Bloomberg, 4 November 2009)

Now I don't claim to be an expert on theology, but I am an evangelical Christian, and I have read the Bible a few times, and I think these banksters are in error on a few points. First, the system of usury (lending at interest) on which modern First World banking is based, was prohibited among Jews in Old Testament Israel (although I believe they were allowed to lend at interest to the Gentiles). In the New Testament, indebtedness is generally discouraged. But there is also the curious defense of inequality by the rich bankster class, at a time when unemployment among the working classes is skyrocketing and fifty percent of all American children (ninety percent of all black American children, according to one source) will require food stamps during their childhood. (Source: “High number of US kids get food stamps,” WiredPR News, 4 November 2009)

The Bible actually has some very negative things to say about inequality, especially that inequality that comes from cheating one's fellows. Yet from the remarks by the banksters, it seems they didn't read those things. So in order to save the banksters from making one Hell of a mistake (this is not frivolous swearing; I mean it literally), I have decided to post a pertinent passage from the Good Book (not that I expect them to read it):

Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores.

It happened that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. He cried and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.”

But Abraham said, “Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish. Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that none may cross over from there to us.”

He said, “I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house; for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.” But Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.” He said, “No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to him, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.” – Luke 16:19-31.

Note: this Scripture is taken from the World English Bible, a public domain translation. No royalties are owed to anyone for its use, and it may be freely quoted and read in all settings, public and private.

Make Them Buy Brioche!

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. You have lived delicately on the earth, and have taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn't resist you.

– James 5:1-6, World English Bible (a public domain translation)

As I recently stated on this blog, the global “official” economy is tracing out a “phugoid cycle” of collapse driven by the increasing price fluctuations and scarcity of one key resource: crude oil. This process of this collapse threatens the notional wealth of all who are invested in this economy, and especially the wealth of the rich masters of this economy. It should be obvious by now that the governments of the West, and especially the US Government, are therefore being used to prop up the notional wealth of their richest citizens.

But in understanding the actions and strategies of these governments, we need to see just what “wealth” these governments are trying to salvage. What does the notional wealth of the rich actually consist of?

In the West, a large portion of that notional wealth consists of legally binding obligations placed by the rich minority on the vast poor majority. These obligations have value as generators of revenue streams which enable a small elite class to enjoy a lavish and leisurely lifestyle through the labors of their poorer fellows. Examples of this include the following:

• “Intellectual property” the copyrights of which are held as tradeable property, for things like software, published books and entertainment media like music and movies;

• “Market share,” secured by large enterprises driving competitors out of business;

• Monopoly arrangements, which are the ultimate end of increasing market share;

• Most importantly, interest-bearing debts owed by the poor to rich creditors, and by the rich to each other;

• And lastly, fees charged by insurers in exchange for a promise to cover the costs of financially catastrophic events.

These are the primary assets of many of the world's rich people, and some of these rich have no real assets beside these legally binding, revenue generating obligations.

These legally binding obligations are valuable only as long as the poor are either willing or able to honor them. The trouble for the rich is that from 1980 onward, real wages for the working class have been either stagnant or declining, while the things purchased by the working class have gotten steadily more expensive. Some of these things, such as college education and health care, were turned by their providers into “cash cows” whose price appreciated at a rate that far exceeded the rate of inflation. In order therefore to maintain economic activity and to protect their revenue streams, the rich providers of goods and services were obliged to offer these things on credit, forcing the poor consumers of these things to take on ever more debt until there was no way that most members of the working class could ever become debt-free during their lifetimes.

This arrangement worked as long as the members of the working class were able to pay the interest on their debts, the royalties on the intellectual property they consumed, and the fees on the insurance on which they relied. But from 2005 to the present, that ability to pay all of these obligations was eroded – first, by the spike in oil prices caused by constrained supply, and then by the explosion in costs of everything that depended on oil for its manufacture or delivery. This threatened to render many of the assets of the rich worthless, because those assets consisted of contracts between the rich and the working class in which the working class promised to pay a certain amount per year to the rich, and now the poor were no longer able to make their payments.

The truth is that a large number of working class people in the First World, and especially in the U.S. are now flat broke. They have lost incomes, they have defaulted on loans, they are no longer able to pay for insurance, their stuff has been repossessed, they can't afford cable or new flat-screen TVs and they have no spare change to purchase “intellectual property” like DVD's or music. Their obligations owed to the rich are now worthless, because they will probably never be paid. But there is a further threat to the “assets” of the rich: namely, that an increasing number of working-class people are waking up to what's being done to them by the rich, and are trying to create alternatives to dependence on the rich. This threatens such assets as the revenue generated by market share dominance or monopoly arrangements.

The government bailouts of banks and investment firms are an attempt to re-inflate the assets of the rich, by turning the vast mass of working-class taxpayers into collateral for loans that are now worthless, and to repair the revenue streams of the rich via government confiscation of the labors of the poor. The government has also been employed to criminalize certain alternatives to dependence on the rich, such as the recent “food safety” laws that place huge regulatory burdens on small organic farmers. But as economic activity continues to contract and revenues continue to fall, the rich and their stooges in government are desperately trying to take confiscation to a new level.

This seems to be the motive behind nearly all of the public discussion by the mainstream media and by politicians regarding health care reform in America. Our problem is that most Americans can't afford health care anymore without insurance (it cost less than $100 to have a baby in 1950; it costs $6,000 to $14,000 today), and most Americans can't even afford health insurance premiums anymore, as these premiums are already exorbitant and are continuing to rocket upward. Yet instead of talking about genuine health care reform (as in making health care universally available at a price people can afford), the public debate has been framed as a discussion of health insurance reform. This deliberately misses the point, and is nothing more than a ploy to protect two cash cow “industries” (the private insurance “industry” and the health care industry) and the notional wealth of their owners.

The response of the Congress and the medical/insurance lobby to the health care crisis has been to say, “What? Most Americans don't have access to health care? Then make them buy insurance!” The bill crafted by Senator Baucus and others is a case in point, as it would force all Americans to buy private health insurance or face an IRS tax penalty. This is as dumb as a bag full of rocks. If most Americans can't afford health care, how are they going to afford ever-more-costly health insurance? Will the Federal Government force the people I see next to freeway offramps and sleeping under bridges to buy health insurance?

“Ah,” some will say, “but these bills don't place that requirement on the poorest Americans.” However, placing that requirement on people who are already teetering on the edge of poverty will drive many of them over the edge. If people own the places where they live, or own some other asset like a car, yet can't afford thousands of dollars a year for private health insurance, will the Government seize their assets? Why are the Feds trying to fatten the profits of bloated businesses like Aetna and United Healthcare at our expense?

In continuing to impose ever-greater burdens on the poor and the working class, the United States has come to resemble France under Louis XVI, and the history of the U.S. from 1980 to the present has come to resemble the history of France under Louis XVI and his immediate predecessor. During that time, France had a huge national debt, caused by the wars and foreign adventures of the monarchy, as well as the lavish lifestyles of the monarchs. The French debt was so huge that no other European power was willing to loan money to the French monarchy. France also had a system of heavy and unequal taxation, in which the lowest members of society shouldered the heaviest tax burden, while the nobility paid little or nothing. Then there was the unwillingness of anyone in the French government to reform the systems of power and economy to make them more just and equitable. Lastly, there was the contraction of the French economy due to resource scarcity (crop failures and famine) in the 1780's, in which the poor suffered greatly while the rich maintained their exploitation of the poor in order to continue a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption.

The presence of these factors, combined with the lack of any avenue of escape for the French peasantry, led to the French Revolution. The friction that caused that explosion is exemplified by a saying attributed to Marie Antoinette, who is reputed to have heard that the peasantry could no longer afford wheat to make bread, and who said, “Then let them eat cake!” (“Cake” here is literally, “brioche.”)

We in the U.S. have had avenues of escape from the predations of our rich class, but they are being closed off from us. It would be fairly easy to neutralize the rich non-violently by becoming independent of them. Yet when that avenue is closed off, there no longer remains a safety valve for pent-up citizen rage against the rich who rob us. While history doesn't repeat, it does rhyme, as some bloggers have said. I don't think it's wise right now for anyone in our government to be saying, “Then make them buy brioche!” Not unless you want a nation full of people like Ann Minch.

* * *

P.S. Over the last several months I have been following another website that publishes content related to our present global energy, environmental and economic crises. It has come to my attention that some of the things I have said on this blog are taken up by the writers on that website a few days to a few months after I have said them. This is cool, as diverse people often wind up noticing the same things and commenting on them. What's not so cool is that I have found content on that site that sometimes mirrors almost exactly some of the things I've said, yet there's no attribution given. If I see examples of this again, I think I'll write a blog post titled, “What A Coincidence!”, complete with quotes, excerpts and links.

The Dearth Of Waters

I'm on the road today, on a trip to a jobsite inspection. I have just driven down from Portland to the coast, beneath a doomy, portentious sky lying like a blanket over hills soaked by rain, whipped by strong winds, and clothed with trees turning color. But my mind was entertaining a very different image as I drove.

It was a vision of a formerly green, well-watered valley, now become a parched, cracked landscape beneath a sky of brass in which hung a merciless sun. The land was littered with signs of a former prosperity and fertility that had evaporated away – plantings of trees now dead from drought, a few empty shells of decrepit buildings suggestive of a ghost town, skeletons picked clean, and a desperate, humbled mass of gaunt survivors now trying to figure out how to come to peace with their altered surroundings, that they might somehow live.

Yet their efforts were being thwarted by a small group of extremely wealthy people – the very people who had drained the valley of its life-giving water. For as the valley was being exhausted of its water, the drainers of the valley were sending their agents to seize the stored and hoarded water of the poor survivors. But not even this was enough to satisfy the exponentially increasing thirst of the rich. Thus they began even to seize the survivors to feed them into a giant machine in order to suck the moisture out of their bodies. The machine had several names. Two of its names were “Corporatocracy” and “Crony Capitalism.” Those who passed through this machine were spit back onto the landscape like so much human jerky.

Maybe it's a hokey image (a novelist I am not!). But I think it fits the economic news I've been reading lately. This week, the Oregonian newspaper is running a series on the housing and foreclosure crisis. One of their stories talks about a couple who owned three houses during the height of the real estate boom, yet is now reduced to sharing a condo with a relative and taking food stamps. While it is certainly possible to find fault with this couple for over-reaching, the article makes the telling point that the (really big) banks are getting all kinds of help from the Federal Government (really, that's us taxpayers), while the banks are giving absolutely no help to the average debtor. The Oregonian article also describes the plight of many other people who were not over-extended, yet got into trouble because of the present economic downturn, and who were given no help by the banks.

There's also a blog I recently discovered, called The Automatic Earth, which talks about how out of 4 million home mortgages in trouble so far, only around 1700 have been permanently modified under the Federal mortgage rescue program. Yet the banks were given $75 billion to help rescue distressed homeowners. (You can read more here: Don't audit the Fed, pull the rug) Lastly, I have noticed that people are finally starting to get angry about the medical insurance “industry's” attempt to force the Federal government to define “health care reform” as “forcing everyone to buy private insurance.” Many more people need to get angry, and to let their anger be known. Otherwise, we'll all be sucked dry.

But now, speaking of literal water, I have noticed that my post, The "Congress Created Dust Bowl", seems to be a bit more popular than I expected it to be. Thanks to all of you who have read and commented on it. I mention this post because of a conversation I had with a co-worker a couple of weeks ago. He talked disparagingly about how “the Federal Government is interfering with economic growth by cutting off water to California central valley farmers!” Of course, he knows my views and he was trying to get a reaction out of me.

I mentioned to him that there was a sea in the Soviet Union which the Soviet government ruined in order to promote economic growth in a certain region. Basically, they pumped the sea nearly dry over a period of a few decades. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the name of the sea during my conversation (although the mention of this event did silence my co-worker). But now I remember: it's the Aral Sea. The Wikipedia article on the Aral Sea shows how much it has shrunk since the 1960's, and describes the corresponding ecological damage:

• The Aral Sea fishing industry, which at one time produced one-sixth of the Soviet Union's entire fish catch, has been wiped out.

• The muskrat population in some of the adjoining deltas has been wiped out.

• The sea has shrunk to ten percent of its original size and is now nearly three times as salty as the ocean.

• The dry plains left by the sea's disappearance are covered with salt and toxic chemicals, which are blown onto neighboring populations via dust storms. This has led to high rates of certain cancers and lung diseases.

These are just some of the effects of human stupidity and greed in that part of the world. Could the people demanding more irrigation water from the Sacramento River do the same thing to that river that was done to the Aral Sea?

Answering that question would not be very difficult. One would only need to know how much water was being diverted for farming, how it was being altered, and the likely effect of the diversion and altering (pollution) of the water on the river and its ecosystems. But that doesn't seem like the sort of science project that would interest Fox News or the people putting up the “Congress Created Dust Bowl” signs.