Mato's Blog: Links May 2014

Environmental news:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/08/the-us-is-losing-the-war-against-deer-disease/
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2370256/chernobyl_how_many_died.html
http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/f0/f/4656/FollowTheHoneyReport.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html
http://ncadac.globalchange.gov/download/NCAJan11-2013-publicreviewdraft-chap1-execsum.pdf
http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-syngenta-and-bayer-cropscience-the-gmo-biotech-sector-cant-win-the-scientific-debate-the-options-are-co-option-deception-and-collusion/5381725
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Folly-Beach-by-Karl-Grossman-Engineer_Money-140517-499.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27433792

Imperial news:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/23319-scathing-report-finds-rocketship-school-privatization-hurt-poor-kids
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/charter-schools-fail-new-reports-call-their-magic-into-question/
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/05/01/attack-intensifies-detroit-retirees/http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/news/economy/poor-government-aid/index.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/10/401ks_are_retirement_robbery_how_the_koch_brothers_wall_street_and_politicians_conspire_to_drain_social_security/
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/04/28/u-s-bosses-hoard-2-trillion-overseas/
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/23/us/georgia-governor-signs-gun-bill/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/terminal-neglect-how-some-hospices-fail-the-dying/2014/05/03/7d3ac8ce-b8ef-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html?hpid=z1
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_post-constitutional_era_20140504
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2014/05/strange-soulless-man-utterly-failed-presidency/
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Orwell-s-Nightmare-The-NS-by-John-Whitehead-Government_Orwellian_Surveillance_Technology-140512-35.html
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/12/fed-great-deceiver-paul-craig-roberts/

Imperial conquest news:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/new-cold-war-ukraine-gambit.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/agents-of-destabilization-the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/5379325
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/05/15/venezuela-stands-u-s-interference/
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/CleanedUOSSSimpleSabotage_sm.pdf
http://www.aina.org/news/20140426025839.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/color-revolutions-getting-our-facts-straight-on-the-arab-spring/5379479
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hell-on-earth-understanding-war-and-conflict-in-the-congo/5382507
http://www.globalresearch.ca/chaos-in-libya-how-the-us-nato-war-destabilized-north-africa-and-now-threatens-europe/5382675

Everything else news:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/forty-years-later-from-dictatorship-to-neoliberalism-portugal-as-a-model-for-a-new-socialism/5379159 There are a few weaknesses (overly optimistic, sometimes vague, sometimes cliched), but it nevertheless is a must read. One needs to listen to the voices of hope carefully.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-economic-catastrophe-and-environmental-degradation-under-the-guise-of-progress-and-development/5379424
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/don-quijones.html The mutiny of the European lab rats will not be televised.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n10/perry-anderson/the-italian-disaster
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/stockholm-syndrome-in-the-baltics-latvias-neoliberal-war-against-labor-and-industry.html
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2014/05/palestinian-collaboration-overshadows-latest-talks/
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2014/05/double-standards-citizens-israel/
http://www.opednews.com/articles/India-Elects-Modi–Is-the-by-Rob-Kall–Commons-Public-Privatization_Democracy_Hate-Racism-Bigotry_India-140516-876.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/10-Reasons-to-Love-Uruguay-by-Medea-Benjamin-Jos–Mujica_Uruguay-140515-253.html

There are no links about Syria, because this was covered in various recent posts, and no links about the Ukraine, because there will be detailed coverage soon, which will include seldom mentioned issues, developments, dimensions like for instance:

a.) The role of the global financial system, which via US bonds, petrodollar/dollar reserve currency, and holding of the gold reserves from many nations in the vaults of Manhatten and Fort Knox is funding the US war machine.

b.) The role of global exploitation and neo-colonialism. The US imports payed by fiat money created out of thin air by the FED can be rightfully viewed as exploitation. The IMF loans with interest rates that let look the IMF like an ordinary loan shark are exploitation. The manipulated prices of commodities and vital technological products are exploitation, the property right regime (for instance medical drugs and GM-seeds) is blatant exploitation.

The mentioned exploitation and the war funding can only be stopped when global trade is diminished (what fortunately seems to be happening right now) and global support systems are gradually replaced by national, regional, and local support systems.

c.) In this respect economic sanctions, though momentarily painful, help to compel the necessary change to a self-sufficient economy. Both Russia and China are big enough to build comprehensive national support systems and production lines which can manufacture and distribute goods in high enough numbers to reap “economies of scales.”

d.) A breakdown of the international finance system would have the additional advantage that banks, equity firms, other criminal institutions, and of course the oligarchs would loose their playground. They may own billions but it is all virtual. What really matters is food and shelter for the people and the tools to produce the necessities of life.

The financial sector is just parasitic, though its demolition would not necessarily mean an instant improvement. A sudden breakdown could be chaotic and the USA has still her military power, which means that the Americans don’t need the global financial system to exploit the rest of the word, they can take what they need by force (seizing oil wells, commanding container ships, coercing trading partners, installing puppet dictators via bloody coups).

But the US imperium risks to loose their European vassals. The relentless propaganda war against Russia has the one and only aim to brainwash the European public and making people believe that economic suicide for the sake of US world dominance is the only option.

US soft power (Hollywood, TV, corporate media, Facebook/Twitter, etc.) is real, it is all-inclusive, absolute, sweeping, yet surveys seem to indicate, that it is still not sufficient to completely subdue and sedate the European public.

A significant faction of Russia’s political intelligentia always wanted de-globalization and they can take their chance now. The blueprints for an economic transition (a more self-sufficient, austere, and sustainable economy) are in the drawers and Russia is clearly able to manage the change. Putin though will have to get rid of all oligarchs, friends and foes alike. Even Putin supporters like Roman Abramovitsch (victor in the Aluminum wars) need to be sidelined — and dispossessed.

The Europeans in the end could be the ones who will pay the highest price, meaning more austerity, more bailouts, higher unemployment, more international economic dependence.

The impoverishment of Latvia, Greece, Spain, Ireland may be just the beginning.

Progressives, liberals, greens, and other remnants of what was in former times called “the left,” will decry austerity, high unemployment, the growing income gap, bank bailouts, and the looting of the nations wealth by scrupulous oligarchs.

These are outrageous injustices and crimes for sure, but the mentioned issues are not the real battlefronts in the rebellion against the ruling plutocracies and the fight for humanities survival.

The real battlefronts, carefully concealed but nevertheless slowly emerging from the shadows, are the sedation, eradication, indoctrination of people by mass media, the steadily increasing chemical and radiological contamination of air, water, soil, and subsequently food, the increasing dependance on global support systems,

The real battlefronts are unequal land distribution, privatization of common goods, centralism (economic, political, social), and urbanization.

With the exception of Greece, which is an ecological disaster zone with only 20 percent arable land, all European countries could produce enough food for their populations. The unemployed would have to be willing to start farming and gardening, they would have to be trained, advised, guided, they would have to get land and housing.

There are million of empty houses to accommodate needy families, abandoned buildings adaptable for co-op workshops or community centers, unused land which could be distributed to unemployed people who are willing to cultivate it.

This is not a fantasy, a chimera, a pipe dream. The change is happening right now, though it is slow and gradual. It has to be slow and gradual, because it needs to be undetectable.

News from the garden

The slugs and snails are kept in check with beer traps, some snail bait (covered and inaccessible by larger animals), and occasional murderous rampages with scissors.

Strawberry leaf spot is fought successfully (at least until now) by instantly removing affected leaves.

Aphids (plant lice) have infected currants and also some of the gooseberry and jostaberry bushes. All together some 30 bushes are in danger and I try to combat the lice with cooking oil (applied via paintbrush) and spraying with strong water jets.

This is not as severe as the strawberry leaf spot epidemic last year, it is just another task added to the already overwhelming workload.

The farmer woman, who’s father owns the nearby tree nursery, helps once a week for four hours, but I would need a more involved partner, who could assist me around the clock.

Subsistence gardening is not for loafers. As I wrote before, I never have worked that hard before in my life and sometimes I feel quite weary and exhausted.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, one positive development cheers me up: The younger resident toad tried it again and laid her spawn into the garden pond. As I wrote one month ago, her first attempt was not successful, because the eggs were engulfed and suffocated by algae.

In the meantime I have removed much of the algae and other organic waste material from the pond. The water is clear, one can see every detail on the bottom. The eggs this time did develop and a crowd of tadpoles are now swimming around and growing day by day.

I’m not sure that it was indeed my little toad friend who grew up in the garden pond two years ago and whom I already have held twice in my hands (covered in a paper tissue though), it could also be that the spawn was laid by her mother, who just wanted to show the daughter how to make it right.

Unfortunately some of the dragonfly nymphs have survived the catastrophic algae bloom in fall which nearly wiped out all pond animals. The nymphs are tough creatures indeed! I caught about two dozens with a butterfly net (works well in water too), but I’m under no illusion that I can completely eliminate them.

They will have their feast every night and eat many of the artless and trusting little tadpoles. But chances are good, that the more clever and stronger tadpoles will be fast enough to escape and find a hideout where the nymphs cannot reach them. These tadpoles will grow up to become lively and sprightly toadlets and they will take bloody (metaphorically) revenge on the dragonfly nymphs!