US House Passes Cap and Trade Bill

Just last week the US congress passed through the American Clean Energy and Security Act, with 219 people (211of whom where democrats) voting for the act and 212 (168 of whom where republican) voted against the bill. The Bill, does many things- from increasing funding for "green energy developments", the expansion of "weatherization programs, and most controversially the implementation of a "cap-and-trade program." Not surprisingly the majority of Republicans and business groups are opposed to the law while most liberals support it. The liberal left will tell you that Cap and trade is a good first step towards substantive climate change. This sort of incrementalism, which is the mantra of the liberal left is meant to be a "first step" towards a more comprehensive climate policy and I mean, honestly, isn't something (no matter how small and inconsequential) better than nothing? Of course, left support for the law is not universal- for one GreenPeace has come about against the bill, as they rightly see Cap and Trade as a "false solution" to climate change.

So what is wrong with Cap and Trade? Why should we as environmentalist, revolutionary ones at that, be opposed to such legislation?

Of course, the cap-and-trade program that the US congress is pushing for will do little, if anything, to address the impending climate crisis. At its best cap-and-trade will be nothing more than accounting magic- having no impact on limiting real carbon emission but making the world a better place on paper. In fact this might be the intended goal of cap-and-trade. Like most "market mechanism" attempts at policy, cap-and-trade intends to provide capitalist an incentive to cut carbon emissions efficiently and effectively while not "harming" the economy in any measurable way (unlike what Republican's claim- the odds are Cap and Trade will make a few people really rich, and have little impact on "consumers."). This of course does nothing to address the root sources of climate change- over consumption, dependence on cheap fossil fuels, and rampant global inequalities, i.e.., capitalism. In fact, instead of undermining capitalism, over consumption, etc, cap-and-trade commodifies the carbon emissions, making just another way for capitalists to profit from the destruction of the earth.

Instead of Cap-and-trade, what we need is a real climate proposal one that doesn't cut C02 by 5% in 10 years, if at all, but one that really does cut c02 by 80% by 2050. Anything less than that will be meaningless, and of course the longer we wait the more we have to cut immediately. Anything less than this will do nothing more than remove short-term liberal guilt about consumption and increase governmental control over the economy and regulation on every day life.

As anarchist's we need to really think through our politics and try to foment a way to address climate change, cut c02 but also weaken the power of the state. Right now all 'solutions" to climate change require the expansion of federal government power and the extension of world governmental authority. This is one of the critiques of the policy by "conservatives' (ala Glenn Beck) but their critique has more to do with regulation of the economic sphere, but they do have a point. Expanding the federal governments power to regulate the economy, might be a worthwhile goal to some, but as anarchists we need to be suspicious. Can we expand governmental powers in the name of confronting climate change? Is there a way to push the state towards its end by expanding its power?

The issue is expressed rather well in The Coming Insurrection. The anonomous author(s) write:

"Managing the phasing out of nuclear power, excess C02 in the atmosphere, melting glaciers, hurricanes, epidemics, global overpopulation, erosion of the soil, mass extinction of living species...this will be our burden. They tell us, "everyone must do their part," if we want to save our beautiful model of civilization. We have to consumer less to be able to keep consuming. We have to produce organically to keep producing. We have to control ourselves to go on controlling. This is the logic of a world straining to maintain itself while giving itself an air of historical rupture. This is how they would like to convince us to partipate in the great industrial challenges of this century. (pg. 78)"

A Greek Uprising?

Long time no post..... Oh well.

There are some really cool things going on in Greece lately. It seems that the anarchist youth there have started rioting and the rioting is reaching its third day. Fuck ya! I am not the biggest fan of a politics of pure destruction but destruction is a needed phase for any revolutionary politics. We have to destroy the old order in order for the new one to flourish.

I would love to find out more info about the grassroot, on the ground, anarchist activism going on in Greece. Anyone know about that stuff? I am sure that they have developed a strong inf0shop/social center scene, I am sure that they have a thriving squatter movement, etc. I wonder what they are doing differently though, because it appears that the Greek anarchists are currently the numerous, organized and really militant. I really just do not know much else about their politics. I would love to see this sort of development in the US.

For folks who want more info:

Greece rocked by Third day of Riots,
NY times link on the Third day of Riots
Greece Riots aren't ending anytime soon!

Climate Fraud, Carbon Profits

Here is an amazingly well done analysis of the Carbon Trading program that folks like Gore seem to love so much by Uri Gordon. While you are at it, check out Uri's blog at AnarchyAlive! and by his new book Anarchy Alive!: Anti-authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory (Pluto Press). The book is really good and Uri is easily one of the brightest people out there writing about anarchism.

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Climate fraud, carbon profits
By Uri Gordon

By the looks of it, environmentalists should be celebrating a great victory. For decades, their warnings about the devastating consequences of pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year were met with a strange combination of arrogance, paralysis and denial. Now, everybody seems to finally recognize the gravity of the problem.

A recent BBC survey polled 22,000 people in 21 countries to find that an overwhelming 80 percent believe that human activity is a significant cause of climate change. And no less than 70 percent say they are willing to change their lifestyles - even in the U.S. and China, the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases. Climate change is the hot new topic around dinner tables, young couples calculate their “carbon footprint,” and jetting around the world with a slideshow on the subject is enough to get you awarded a Nobel Prize.

But is this sudden rush to jump on the climate bandwagon really so encouraging? Not if you look at the bigger picture. One might have expected, for example, that the vindication of environmentalists’ warnings would also translate into more attention to the solutions they have been offering all along: reduced consumption, diversified and self-reliant local economies, and an end to our civilization’s obsession with economic growth at all costs.

But these options remain largely silenced and ignored. Instead, the new hype around climate change is being shaped almost exclusively by global political and business elites, and their interests seem unchanged: more power, more money.

Much has been made of the “success” of the recent climate conference in Bali, where U.S. negotiators finally succumbed to international pressure and ceased to stonewall progress toward a new climate treaty. But the real story remains the flawed content of the Kyoto Protocol and whatever succeeds it. In fact, the international framework on climate change merely strengthens the same global system of inequality and exploitation, whose logic of infinite growth is what landed us in this mess in the first place.

Its centerpiece is a new global market - the trade in carbon dioxide. Major polluters can now buy carbon credits that allow them to pay someone else to reduce emissions, instead of cutting their own pollution. Meanwhile, under the innocuously named Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), governments and corporations can generate new carbon credits out of thin air by financing renewable energy and/or “offsetting” projects that allegedly absorb greenhouse gases.

All this will certainly put more money into the global economy and generate new investment opportunities. Israel, for its part, managed to get itself defined as a “developing country” in the Kyoto Protocol and is not required to reduce emissions, at least until 2012. But it has already drawn undisclosed millions in CDM investments - including schemes for methane capture from the Hiriya landfill and Kibbutz Nirim’s pig farm. But whether turning the atmosphere into just another commodity does anything to effect climate change remains highly debatable.

Environmental-justice organizations like Carbon Trade Watch argue that the CDM system is highly flawed. With no regulatory framework to verify claimed reductions, hundreds of credit-generating projects are being realized under corporate self-monitoring, dangerously relying on the polluters’ own integrity. These potential conflicts of interest were at the heart of the Enron and Arthur Andersen scandals, both pioneers in emissions trading.

Moreover, a ham-fisted approach to ecological complexity guides the use of vast single-crop plantations to allegedly “sequester” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, generating carbon credits for investors to use or sell on. There is only limited scientific understanding of the complex mechanisms of carbon exchange between forests, oceans and atmosphere, and the damage done by these projects may outweigh their benefit. The World Bank’s flagship CDM project in Brazil, started in 2002, involved planting 23,000 hectares of eucalyptus - displacing local communities, destroying biodiversity and the water table, and poisoning the soil with pesticides.

Still, entrepreneurs charge ahead with plantations. The incentive to develop the emerging offset industry takes precedence over any genuine concern for climate stability.

So much for profit. As for power, it takes only a small dose of cynicism to realize that the climate crisis is becoming a new weapon in our governments’ politics of fear-mongering. Our leaders no longer bother promising us welfare or peace - only protection from drummed-up menaces, ranging from terrorism to juvenile delinquency. As long as the alarmist talk is not backed up by any form of action that would jeopardize the existing structure of wealth and power, the climate is a convenient way to keep us scared and obedient.

What is frightening about economic decentralization and local self-reliance is not that they are difficult to achieve - social and ecological approaches to planning and productivity have been successfully tested for years, from England to Cuba to Japan. The real problem is the threat that self-reliant, resilient local economies might pose to the state-capitalist regime. If communities controlled their own food and energy sources, they might turn out to be a bit too independent, a bit too difficult to exploit and command.

And this prospect makes our leaders shake in their shoes.

Uri Gordon teaches environmental politics at the Arava Institute. His book “Anarchy Alive!” was recently published by Pluto Press.

What I have been doing

So I have been very busy writing my prospectus and neglecting my blog. In a way of working on both I am going to paste my "dissertation question". Let me know what you think? In about 2 days I will put the next section. This way I can get my whole damned thing up and maybe get a comment or two about it (anything is welcome). Also, if you want to read or give me some more detailed feedback email me and I can, and would really like to send you my prospectus.
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Dissertation Question:

"The term new social movements is rapidly approaching its sell-by-date"(Crossley 2003).

For this dissertation I have two central questions that I want to answer. First, how has anarchism been able to reemerge as a political force during the 1990s and 2000s? In doing so, I will first have to address, empirically, whether anarchism has reemerged and if it has, whether the new anarchisms are in fact unique. This research will provide much needed empirical evidence, if it exists, for the "new anarchist academics" claims. This is especially pressing since the majority of their work has tended to be either theoretical or based off their personal activist accounts. The one exception is the forthcoming book by David Graeber's Direct Action: An Ethnography, which details the authors' experience working with and organizing the anarchist resistance to the IMF in Quebec, Canada.

Secondly, and more important, what does the relationship between the anarchist movements and state agencies tell us about these relationship, more generally? The relationship between state institutions and political social movements has became a pressing question for the political science side of social movement theory (Banaszak 1996; Costain and McFarland 1998; Rhomberg 2004; Morgan 2007) and there is currently no consensus on the process. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that the current empirical research examines the relationship between pressure groups, that are actively trying to get a seat at the table, and state agencies, which want to limit their political influence. The anarchist movements I will look into provide a unique perspective on this debate; since the new anarchist movements do not want a spot at the decision-making table and claim to exist outside, or counter to, the State. Because of their standing, this allows for a unique glimpse into power relationships.

Of course, it is naive to believe that these groups can exist fully removed from the envelope of the state, especially in the modern era of surveillance and regulation. But, these groups' attempts to remain independent often force the state agencies to over react; which illustrates the importance of "inclusion" that city governments and state agencies place on social movement actors. Overall, the relationships and interactions between anarchist movements and state institutions is uniquely complex and highlights tensions and relationships that always exist but are generally over looked.

As empirical case studies for the second question, I will examine two new anarchist political movements and their relationships with state agencies: the militant forest defense movement and Food Not Bombs. The first case study provides an example of how a new anarchist movement attempts to subvert and disrupt the current institutions, will providing an open space of new institutions to thrive, such as the concept of the free-state which is modeled as a temporary autonomous zone in the woods. The actions of the forest defense movement are not removed from the political process. Instead a complex relationship exists between the radical forest defense activists, with their open hostility towards the state, and state agencies (Forest Service, BLM, Police Agencies, the FBI) attempts to co-opt, include, or eradicate the movement.

The second example, Food Not Bombs illustrates the pre-figurative politics that have became central to the new anarchist movements. In addition, Food Not Bombs rejects city funding support and also does not have the 501(c)3 non-profit standing. In the words of one Food Not Bombs activist,

People often ask if we are a non-profit, tax exempt corporation. Generally, we are not interested in the bureaucracy needed to maintain such an organization. Sometimes, you might use an "umbrella" to assist in arranging a particular donation of money that specifically needs to be given to a non-profit, tax-exempt group. This is fine and it is usually not too difficult to find a tax-exempt organization to do this for you. Specifically, do not seek permission from any government agency to engage in the work you do. Once a group becomes a tax-exempt organization, the I.R.S. has the right to oversee all aspects of its operation and limits much of what it can do. Rather than try to hide from them, we prefer to ignore them (Ewald).

Thus, unlike other hunger relief agencies, Food Not Bombs actively rejects government support and non-profit standing in an attempt to remain independent from state control. This is a requirement if Food Not Bombs wants to complete its stated goal of creating an alternative institution for distributing food outside the confines of the state. Historically though, city governments have not been willing to accept Food Not Bombs rejection of state control. Most Food Not Bombs chapters in the United States have experienced police harassment, fines (for distributing food without a license), or overt government surveillance (ACLU website, Food Not Bombs website). Because of the hostile tension between Food Not Bombs chapters and city agencies, it becomes an interesting case study for understanding how city governments integrate or suppress social movements, and how groups attempt to remain politically independent of state regulation and control.

Why the Police are not Your Friend: Part 1

One of the biggest reasons people give for rejecting anarchism is their fear of what will happen in a world without police protecting them. To deal with this issue I want to look into two myths surrounding the police (with more to come later): first, that not all cops are bad, and secondly that they have a dangerous job.

Sometime in the next week or two, I will attempt to dispel two other myths: 1) that the cops are there to protect you and 2) the cops deter crime.

Myth 1: "Not all cops are bad"

The Chicago Tribune today published an expose that looked into the 200+ incidents of police shootings going back for 10 years. The report noted that a person is shot by the police once ever 10 days in Chicago and that in less than 1% of the around 250 incidents the police officers are found at fault. In the other 99ish% the police officers get off, often even before the autopsy is completed and before testimony from witness is recorded. In many instances, the police oversight review board did not even interview one witness nor look at any of the forensic or autopsy reports.

The Chicago Tribune reports also claims that at least 12 of the people killed where shot in the back, often from very close range. In one of this instance Cornelious Ware, was shot to death by 5 plain clothes police officers who claimed they saw him wave a gun. His 15 and 13 year old siblings claimed otherwise. The forensics evidence came back and showed that the gun found at the scene had no blood on it, even though Ware was shot in the hand that was theoretically holding the gun.

Of course, the police officers where found to be free of all charges and let to go back to work. The civil courts found otherwise, as early this year a Chicago jury sided with the Wares and before the verdict came out the police department gave the family nearly 6 million dollars to keep quiet. The civil court found that the police officers shot and killed Ware and then placed a gun to cover their asses. They originally got off because the oversight board refused to interview people, miss quoted the witnesses (removing the fact that he was unarmed), and refused to look at the autopsy evidence. In addition, the protocol in the Chicago police department is to let the officers meet together before writing an incident report. This allows all the officers to get their stories straight and to fabricate what needs to be fabricated.

What we have here is systemic police misconduct, abuses of power, and departmental cover-ups. It might not be earth shattering information for most people to hear this but it helps dispel the myth that "not all cops are bad." Why is this? Because, this expose shows that there is an institutional framework set-up within the Chicago police department (and ever other major cities) that obfuscates and distorts truth in order to defend police misconduct. This not-so-thin blue line has to go all the way up to the Chief of police and the politicians in the windy city. It also has to include almost the entire police department. It even implicates those theoretical "good cops" who for some reason or another decided to remain silent while hundreds of their fellow cops murdered, raped, and terrorized the mostly black neighborhoods of Chicago. These theoretical good cops, who had to know about the misconduct, could have told the news reporters and made a stand against this gross abuse of power, instead they remained quiet. To quote Edmund Burke (who I rarely quote), "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." In this instance, the "good men" did nothing, and because of it the "bad men" killed well over 200 people. My question is how good could those "good cops" have been? Maybe they where just following orders or did not fully know what was going on? But it seems I have heard that argument before elsewhere…

What also comes out of this story is how horrible a job police oversight boards do. These boards are always just rubber stamps for police decisions. Instead of looking into misconduct and attempting they instead just provide a legal cover-up for the police. The CopWatch program is a much better and more successful way of addressing and stopping police misconduct.

Myth 2: "Cops have a tough and dangerous job"

The other argument in defense of the police is that "they have a tough and dangerous job." This argument is also fallacious. If you look at the statistics there are 676,000 police officers in this country and last year and 147 died on duty (this includes all who died from heart attacks, car accidents, etc). This brings the death rate for police officers to be 21 per 100,000 putting them below carpenters, electricians, coal miners, convenience store workers, and about 30-40 other professions. This number is actually only slightly higher then the death rate in child-birth last year (which was 17 out of 100,000). So if you think the cops have a dangerous job what about the soon to be mothers who are putting their life on the line (nearly as on the line as the police are) in order to have a child? Or the roofer who is always one bad step from killing himself should be allowed the right to kill or maim people.