The Rag Blog

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.

Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany a result of GM crops?

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist’s trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that “the very existence of beekeeping is at stake.”

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

Honeybee colony collapse drives price of honey higher and threatens fruit and vegetable production.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Beekeepers throughout the United States have been losing between 50 and 90 percent of their honeybees over the past six months, perplexing scientists, driving honey prices higher and threatening fruit and vegetable production.

At a House Agricultural Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., today, members of various organizations came together to share their concerns about what they have been calling the “Colony Collapse Disorder,” or CCD.

Honeybees have been mysteriously dying across the United States, sending honey prices higher and threatening the agriculture industry.
Beginning in October 2006, beekeepers from 24 states reported that hundreds of thousands of their bees were dying and their colonies were being devastated.

In December 2006, beekeepers’ associations, scientists and officials formed the CCD working group, in hopes of identifying the cause and solving the problem of CCD.

A lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California (No. C07-01049) in February names the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as defendants, charging that government regulators have issued “false and misleading statements” about medical benefits of the herb cannabis (Cannabis spp., aka marijuana).1

Americans for Safe Access (ASA; http://www.safeaccessnow.org) in Oakland, CA, the largest national membership organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research, is challenging the government’s contentions that marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use” and that “no animal or human data support” its safety or efficacy,2 despite what the group’s attorney characterized as “mounting scientific and anecdotal evidence to the contrary.”1

For example, a just-released study conducted at the Clinical Research Center, San Francisco General Hospital found that smoked marijuana relieved pain of peripheral neuropathy in HIV/AIDS patients.3 Commenting on the results, Rob Kampia, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group, called them, “all the more remarkable because researchers … are only allowed to test government-supplied marijuana, which is of notoriously poor quality. There’s every reason to believe results would be even better if scientists were permitted to study a better-quality product.”4

Studies conducted in England, where researchers face fewer restrictions, have found marijuana itself, its constituent compounds (cannabinoids, etc.), and a standardized pharmaceutical preparation have been useful in relieving side effects of cancer chemotherapy, as well as chronic nerve pain, spasticity of multiple sclerosis, and other conditions.5,6,7,8,9

Moreover, regarding the safety of employing smoked-inhaled marijuana, a study recently conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles,10 and reviewed in the recent issue of HerbalGram (#73),11 has found that smoking marijuana does not appear to increase a person’s risk of developing lung, head, or neck cancers. This study, which was based on a survey of 611 Los Angeles residents with lung cancer, 601 with cancer of the head and neck regions, and 1,040 residents without cancer, found that even the heaviest marijuana smokers did not have an elevated risk of developing cancer.10

Meanwhile, in another matter related to medical marijuana, an administrative law judge has recommended that University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor Lyle Craker be allowed to grow marijuana for research purposes,12,13 in the latest move in Craker’s six-year quest to break the present government monopoly on producing marijuana for legitimate researchers.2,14 Unless the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) overrules Judge Mary Ellen Bittner’s decision, Lyle Craker and his colleagues may soon provide a high-quality cannabis product for US researchers. If the DEA rejects Bittner’s opinion—and it would not be the first time it has done so where marijuana is concerned—it is possible that another lawsuit might be filed against the agency.

For anyone interested in social progress, the ‘Oaxaca Commune’ stands out as an event worthy of attention and study. In the Mexican state of Oaxaca the overwhelming majority of people suddenly awoke from political hibernation and became active in shaping social life. In consequence, the old apparatus of the state, dedicated as it was to the interests of the rich, was destroyed, and a new structure, based on direct representation of the many, was established.

The ‘popular assembly’ (APPO) that arose out of the mass movement of Oaxaca was not the first of its kind. History has numerous examples of similar political formations, always birthed amid a revolutionary climate.

The first modern example took place in Paris in 1871, when working-class people revolted against the policies of ‘their’ government, and created a new form of social administration to suit the needs of the average person. Like Oaxaca, the ‘Paris Commune’ consisted of delegates from a varying political/social background, working together to enact policies that reflected the demands of the majority, in contrast with the previous government that ruled according to the interests of a tiny elite.

In 1905 Russia, unmistakably similar organizations sprang into existence. These worker’s councils, called ‘Soviets’, were the organizational basis for the failed uprising in 1905, and were reconstructed anew and on a broader level for the successful revolution of 1917. For several years, the coordinated efforts of the nationwide system of Soviets acted as the backbone of organization for the successful civil-war and subsequent reconstruction. Following the successes of Russia, soviet-style organizational methods were constructed throughout Europe in response to the widespread social turbulence caused by World War I. In 1919, the working class of Germany formed soviets of their own, which acted as the foundation for the heroic but failed revolution.

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) – Rebuilding America’s Defenses published in September 2000 and authored by infamous hawks and neo cons such as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle is the blueprint for the US world domination and the wars of the future and now, those of the recent past. The PNAC was founded in 1997 by well-known Zionist neo-conservatives Robert Kagan and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard. It is almost the operational stage to implement in the real world George H. W. Bush’s idea of a New World Order proposed after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Without wanting to be “corny” or “alarmist” and be accused of using the following comparison to “demonize” the Bush regime, the only other blueprint for world domination in recent history was Hitler’s Mein Kampf written in 1923–24 when he was in jail.

Hitler came to power democratically and constitutionally in 1933 and six years later plunged the world into a conflict which cost 50 million lives and destroyed most of Europe and Japan, as well as western parts of the Soviet Union. The PNAC blueprint for world domination has now been activated in 2001 with the invasion of Afghanistan. Iraq followed and there have been threats to Syria and Iran.

In an interview with John Pilger, PNAC co-author Richard Perle stated on the US war on terrorism,

“No stages, this is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq . . . this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war . . . our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

Diplomacy is out of the window since all the plans have been laid about which countries to invade next. Members of PNAC are so self-assured they are advancing the US best interests that they publish policy papers specifically outlining their plans, plans that many fear may be laying the groundwork for a Third World War.

In the original PNAC document the following quote is telling:

“The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” The “new Pearl Harbor” came and went as the Twin Towers were demolished (“pulled” in demolishment jargon) and within hours both Wolfowitz and Cheney were calling for an invasion of Iraq, even before anyone knew who had been responsible for the attacks.

Since that time five and a half years ago, no WMD’s have been found in Iraq, no nuclear weapons, no link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden is still as elusive as ever. So, the justification for invading Afghanistan and Iraq was based on lack of evidence, outright lies, spun and diffused by the corporate media in the pay and at the service of the GOP dominated by hawks and neo cons – especially Fox News. The motivation was not revenge since there’s no proof that Saddam or Osama had anything to do with the attacks on the WTC. The justification was, and still is, the blueprint of the PNAC since these plans have to be executed. This is US foreign policy under the Bush regime and will probably be the same under the “Hillary regime”. The underlying reason is oil and the sustainability of the American Way of Life meaning US world domination.

In a similar way Hitler followed his blueprint using the catalyzing event of the Reichstag fire in 1933, later revealed in declassified documents to have been set by Hermann Goering, to blame this on Jews and communists and so launch a witch hunt against these undesirables. The Lebesraumpolitik (living space policy) described in Mein Kampf led to the conquest of other nations and the demonizing of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities who had to be exterminated to “cleanse the world of such filth”. Nowadays, the corporate media demonizes Arabs and Muslims as “terrorists” as an adjunct to justify military invasions in terms of public opinion and thus the media play their insidious role in furthering the PNAC.

The next PNAC target is Iran. As usual Iran is being painted as a “nuclear threat” since it is enriching uranium to generate electricity. Iran has to do this now since its oil reserves will be almost depleted by 2020. This is like the Iraq-WMD pack of lies so as to justify any attack in the eyes of US public opinion and look as if the US is acting in the interests of “national security” since Iran is now a nuclear threat and could build the Bomb. It is strange that India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons and are not seen as a menace by the US, when neither country has signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty!

At the time of writing the crude oil price has risen to around US$64/barrel due to tension with Iran. This time 15 British sailors were arrested and taken prisoner after violating Iranian territorial waters. This incident may not mean very much but the British navy vessel involved, HMS Cornwall, is filled with the latest electronic gadgetry and the captain must have known where his sailors were. Today Blair said that “efforts to release the 15 Royal Navy personnel will enter a “different phase” if diplomatic moves fail.” Does this sound like a veiled threat?

After Blair’s statement and coincidentally or otherwise, the US Navy has begun its most extensive maneuvers in the Gulf region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but denies saber-rattling aimed at Iran.

Two days ago, on his weekly TV program, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez read an article aloud and on air from the Russian media which stated that “the US attack on Iran was slated for 4am on Friday (Good Friday) April 6th and is due to last until 4pm the same day. 21 nuclear facilities would be targeted, but not the atomic reactor being constructed jointly by Iran and Russia.”

Let’s all hope that the Russian piece President Chavez read aloud is based more on rumor and speculation than facts. But when he read out this news, the US maneuvers in the Gulf has not begun. Involved in what are hopefully just maneuvers are two aircraft carriers, plus their strike groups in the region and war games have begun involving as many as 100 US war planes.

An attack on Iran and a possible land invasion to take oil installations would place the US Empire on the doorstep of both Russia and China – the main obstacles to US world domination. The closeness of the US to these countries’ borders in Iran and Afghanistan could generate a standoff. In contrast to the nations already invaded, Russia and China possess nuclear weapons and have the delivery systems to launch the missiles.

However, PNAC member Richard Perle, when he was in the Reagan administration calling for coups in Central America, claimed that a nuclear war with Russia could be “winnable”. This attitude is highly dangerous for the whole planet, and with US nuclear hegemony greater than ever, there is no reason to doubt that Perle and his cohorts are even more convinced that a nuclear conflict could be “winnable” twenty years later if a conflict were to arise with either China or Russia. PNAC implicitly foresees this possibility if either country is a threat to US global preeminence. It is unrealistic for the US to fight a conventional war in either of these countries due to the geography and demographics of both.

Assuming the Iranian adventure goes ahead – and we sincerely hope and pray that common sense prevails and it does not – the next target could be Venezuela. With the largest oil reserves of any country on the planet, these resources are just a few hours tanker ride away from the Gulf of Mexico coast and vital as US supplies dwindle. The Bush administration has been at loggerheads with President Chavez for almost 7 years.

Chavez’s vision of integrating Latin America and the Caribbean basin, a multi polar world as opposed to a PNAC unipolar one, plus ideological differences in terms of fair trade versus free trade, socialism versus capitalism and his emphasis on national sovereignty are all anathema to the neo con mindset. In no way do they dovetail with US national interests or “US preeminence” in PNAC speak.

Pressure is continually brought to bear on Venezuela using the corporate and international media misrepresenting and manipulating the reality of the Bolivarian Revolution. The next two years will signal what plans the US has for Venezuela, but that is the subject of another article if and when tensions and US threats are stepped up.

The Bush regime will end in early 2009 and perhaps a more moderate president will be elected and diminish world tensions by replacing PNAC with a more “realpolitik” foreign policy. The hawks will definitely try to push their PNAC plans forward in the coming two years while Bush is still in the White House. This could mean that the world will be heading into a more dangerous phase than at anytime since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

The NY Times writes, “But demagoguery and showmanship will do nothing to solve Venezuela’s 20 percent inflation rate…. Venezuela’s currency, the bolívar, has lost about a fifth of its value since January”

Nice to see the Gray Lady up to her old tricks.

I haven’t been covering economic affairs for a couple of weeks, so I thought on reading this that perhaps I had missed the news of Venezuela’s devaluation, though I didn’t think so. And a quick check of Google News (in Spanish, the English language press coverage of Venezuela is worthless) tells me that in fact I didn’t miss it. It did not happen.

Because Venezuela operates with a system of foreign currency controls and allocations on the basis of a fixed exchange rate set by the Central Bank, if there had been a devaluation, to honestly report on it, the NYT would have had to tell us when the last time was that the Bolívar’s official exchange rate changed, but of course that is impossible since the *truth* is that Bolívar’s exchange rate has not changed.

What has changed is the black market exchange rate used by wealthy Venezuelans to turn the local currency into dollars for smuggling out of the country. And I know that bourgeois journalists are true experts on black market currency operations. Because operating in the black market is banned by journalistic ethical standards AND the business practices and policies of reputable bourgeois rags like the NY Times. This brings you a very nice profit if you’re in a country like Venezuela, because you buy all your local currency on the black market, but report all your local expenses at the official rate, and it can get so extreme that every penny you spend in the country comes back to you dressed as a nickel — though Venezuela is far from there yet.

However, unlike other countries in the midst of a revolution where the black market dollar became for all practical purposes the only rate, in Venezuela’s case the official rate is the dominant one because of the billions of dollars a month the country receives from oil exports.

So what the NY Times is telling us is really that the rich are growing increasing desperate about their prospects in revolutionary Venezuela. So they are willing to take growing exchange losses just to cash out. After telling us for years that Chavez is a wild man, a clown, with no coherent plan or policy, adopting this random measure and that arbitrary decision, all of a sudden it dawns on them that there IS a plan … a strategic perspective … of transforming Venezuela’s economy from one moved by increasing the private profits of the few to one moved by serving the needs of the many. And the recent nationalizations of several imperialist concerns shows them that the Revolution has both the political will and political power to increasingly take the country on that road.

That leaves only the question of how to present matters abroad to people who do not and cannot possibly know for themselves what’s really going on. And hence the Big Lie: Venezuela’s currency has dropped 20% since the beginning of the year.

And there will be plenty more reporting and editorializing along the lines of the Venezuelan economic “catastrophe” in coming months and years. For what is coming will be catastrophic for the bourgeoisie and upper layers of the middle classes. Prices will skyrocket in the shops they frequent, full of imported luxury goods which will be priced at the black market exchange rate plus a hefty markup. Many of the stores will fail. It may even get so bad you won’t even be able to get Prada handbags anymore in Caracas. And you can be sure you’ll be able to read all about it in the lying pages of the New York Times.

[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday dismissed [press release] a lawsuit [complaint, PDF; ACLU case file] against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld [official profile] for authorizing torture and abuse of detainees by US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The suit asserted that Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for detainee abuse and that his actions violated the US Constitution, federal statutes and international law. Chief Judge Thomas Hogan [official profile] based the dismissal on the immunity of government officials from lawsuits and the premise that US constitutional rights do not apply overseas. While noting that the allegations of torture were “horrifying,” Hogan concluded that policy considerations counsel against permitting government officials to be sued for political decisions.

Senator John McCain has contracted Rumsfeld’s Disease. This malady consists of a combination of bad temper, misuse of language to obfuscate reality, and a Panglossian optimism in the face of stubborn, sanguinary facts on the ground.

McCain, for instance, hailed that deployment of Iraqi brigades “at or above 75% of their programmed strength”! Put another way, a quarter of the Iraqi troops ordered to Baghdad technically speaking went AWOL instead! If a quarter of all US troops ordered to Iraq fled to Canada or refused to leave their home base, that would be a catastrophe. But McCain manages to deploy weasel words to make this incredible statistic seem a positive thing. Moreover, even his basic facts may be wrong. Last I knew, one of the Iraqi brigades ordered to Baghdad only came at half strength.

McCain alleged that only about 500 civilians were killed in political violence in Baghdad in February, down from December’s toll.

But McCain is wrong to look only at Baghdad. Here is what I wrote on March 1:

An Iraqi official leaked government figures on Iraqi civilians killed in January and February, and tried to spin the US press by saying that there had been a significant drop in such casualties.

But this official reported deaths for 1-31 January and compared them for the toll 1-27 February. Uh, the per day total isn’t that different, it is just that February is a short month and the figures were given through the day before it ended!

1990 divided by 31 is 64 per day.

1646 divided by 27 is 61 per day.

While human life is precious and a drop of 3 a day is welcome, I wouldn’t call that drop significant.

That is, the Iraqi government statistics for deaths in February were not 500 but 1646. And, as I pointed out, the decline in daily deaths is so far small. In addition, it would not actually be good news that 500 innocent civilians were slaughtered in Baghdad alone in February. Baghdad is a fourth of Iraq by population– that would be a monthly death rate of about 2000, some 24,000 a year (the Lancet study published last fall found that deaths from violence occur at a similar rate throughout the country). All the real numbers are much worse than the above discussion implies, since passive information- gathering is notoriously unreliable.

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But, the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value for your efforts.”

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path.

Every day as we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

MORAL: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But, it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

03/26/07 “ICH ” — — What is this thing called democracy? So easy to talk about, so difficult to make real. Pure democracy is not what our Founders gave us. Who would want a simple majority to control the minority? Instead, America was given a representative democracy within a constitutional republic where laws that protect all people trump majority rule. Standing between majority-won elections and government power are elected representatives: writing, overseeing and implementing laws. But when you can no longer trust the elected representatives what happens to American democracy? It becomes an oxymoron.

We have arrived at a delusional democracy. Delusional because Americans overwhelmingly cannot admit the painful truth that their limited democracy no longer works for the good of most citizens. Instead, through corruption and dishonesty, our representative democracy has morphed into a plutocracy that serves the wealthy, power elites and corporate masters that control the political system and through that the economic system.

The Framers of the Constitution had deep concerns about the long-term viability of the government structure they created. Some think that the checks and balances among the three branches of the federal government preserve its integrity. Really? The money that controls the legislative branch also controls the executive branch, and both of those control the judicial branch. Even worse, it has become clearer to increasing numbers of Americans that many parts of the Constitution – the supreme law of the land – have been directly or more deviously disobeyed or distorted. Constitutional rule is a myth.

We have a Congress that gives its constitutional power to declare war to the President and refuses to impeach him for his many violations of laws. We have a President that openly signs laws but says he will not honor them. We have a Supreme Court that decides who becomes President rather than the voters and often amends the Constitution unconstitutionally. We have elections that are not to be trusted. We have a government using free trade globalization hogwash to sell out the middle class. We have rising economic inequality that is creating a two-class society: the wealthy Upper Class and the Lower Class for everyone else.

Overlaid on this delusional system is the myth that having just two major political parties somehow is right and necessary for our representative democracy. In reality, partisan differences are just another layer of corruption, dishonesty and deceit. Artificial political competition distracts. Big money from the wealthy and corporate and other special interests controls both parties, producing mutually assured corruption. They are two faces of the same coin, two heads of the same monster, two puppets controlled by the same masters. Of course the two-party system provides stability. It has stabilized a criminally corrupt government.

Delusional political competition supports a delusional democracy based on a set of delusional checks and balances. The whole system that once worked has become a sham.

Did the Framers anticipate that their system could become such a travesty? They did.

So, in addition to the better known parts of the Constitution, they imbedded what might be called a legal loophole – a kind of escape clause, just in case things went terribly wrong. They have.

The public is largely ignorant of Article V’s option for a convention, when asked for by two-thirds of states, to propose amendments to the Constitution. Worse, nearly all people with political power have opposed using it. Even worse, despite Article V explicitly saying that Congress “shall” call such a convention when a sufficient number of states have asked for one – and that is the ONLY specified constitutional requirement – for over 200 years Congress has willfully disobeyed the constitution and NOT granted a convention. In fact, Congress never had the integrity and constitutional respect to even set up a system of any kind to collect state requests for an Article V convention. Still, we know from the hard work of many that there have been well over 500 such state requests.

People with power in the present corrupt political system fear an Article V convention. Operating independently of Congress and the White House, it might reduce their power and ignite widespread public interest in deep reforms. One trick of the power elites has been to fool people that an Article V convention would inevitably become “runaway” and threaten all that Americans hold dear – especially their freedom. Nonsense. A convention can only propose amendments that, just like proposals made by Congress, must be ratified by three-quarters of the states. Most absurd are the anti-convention right-wingers who profess total allegiance to the Constitution, except for Article V. John T. Noonan, Jr., observed in 1985: “RESPECT, indeed reverence, for the Constitution is a proper attitude for conservatives to cultivate. Is it respectful to the Constitution to maintain that of the two methods of amendment specified by Article V one is too dangerous to be put to use?”

Exactly why did the Framers give us the option of an Article V convention? Listen to the wise words of one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars. Professor Paul Bator wrote this in 1980:

I think the Article V convention represents a profound political protection for us, as a people, against the tyranny of central government. And whatever we say about Article V, I think it is very, very wrong, just because we may disagree with the content of any particular constitutional amendment that is now being proposed, to interpret Article V in such a way as to clip its wings as a protection for the liberties of the people. That is why I think it is profoundly important, particularly for constitutional scholars, to be hospitable toward the concern that Article V represents, which is that there be a way out for the states and the people if a willful and intransigent central authority governs us in a way we find unacceptable.

We definitely need a way out. Two of our best presidents explicitly supported using the Article V convention option – Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower.

Have any recent presidential candidates expressed support for an Article V convention, even mavericks like Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, and Pat Buchanan? They have not. Have any third parties demanded an Article V convention? They have not. Have any mainstream media exposed Congress’ failure to obey the Constitution’s Article V? They have not. Has the Supreme Court or any elected official that swore to obey the Constitution faulted Congress for disobeying the Constitution? They have not.

If you are not a rich and powerful American, ask yourself: Has your government become so untrustworthy, dysfunctional and unacceptable that you should demand what our Constitution gives you a right to – an Article V convention?

Thomas Jefferson said “a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical.” Have many Americans concluded that rebellion has become necessary? They have not.

But some of us want to pursue political rebellion, not by using violence and not hoping against reality that necessary reforms will come from within the two-party controlled political system. No, we want to use what the Constitution grants us. We have created Friends of the Article V Convention to inform the public about this constitutional option and also to prod the states to demand a convention and the Congress to finally obey the Constitution and give us one. Check the group out at www.foavc.org to learn much more, and seriously consider becoming a member.

03/26/07 “ICH ” — – Jared Diamond, E. O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins and many other reputable scientists from diverse fields cite human overpopulation as a root cause of many seemingly disparate, catastrophic problems that our planet, currently, faces. Whether the issue is extinction of an inordinate number of species over a small period of time, warfare over resources, ruin of all oceans through acidification, inevitable loss of major energy sources (i.e., oil and coal), massive migration by large segments of various social groups, ozone layer depletion, global warming, worldwide loss of potable water, large-scale increase in various kinds of poisonous pollution, an overwhelming proliferation of waste materials or any number of other severe myriad indicators, every one of these dilemmas point to one common denominator — too many people using up too much before it can be replenished or before alternative sources are put in place (i.e., for oil, minerals, coal, etc.).

However, governmental and other world leaders are surprisingly silent when it comes to citing overpopulation as an ultimate cause of sweeping planetary destruction. In the same vein, they don’t strive to find a workable solution. Indeed, many, instead of expending lavish amounts of money on developing feasible substitutes for oil and coal or encouraging universal access to birth control, choose to spend funds in enormously expensive war efforts.

Deep down and whether it is publicly announced or not, we all know the covert reason for these actions. It is simply a bid to garner the last remaining vestiges of oil or other resources for their own country’s citizens at the expense of others. How shortsighted and brutal is that?

Meanwhile, is there an absolute limit to human growth — a finite carrying capacity for earth? Yes. How long can earth’s natural support systems sustain exponential expansion? This is not known and, to a certain extent, the answer is dependent on the way that we want to live and the types of surrounding environments that we want to have. Dystopian films, like “Soylent Green,” point out this fact all too clearly — presenting a warning that is terrifyingly clear.

In any case, information about and realistic solutions for the ravages of overpopulation desperately need to be examined on a global scale. Attempting to address the symptoms — the assorted environmental dilemmas and social conflicts that are signs of this larger crisis — is simply not enough!

Upon the Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge where the chachalacas gather in small groups to screech for dawn, John Neck takes Jay Johnson-Castro for a winding-down ride. The two friends have returned here nightly during their five-day walk against immigrant prisons, because out here where the desert plants drink freely from estuary water, life is in love with itself.

Even looking at the people out here tending to their backyard citrus groves, you can’t help but breathe a vision of life harmonious and full of grace. True, it’s a different lay of land than what the friends saw recently on the Texas Rolling Plains, but what’s the same is rural people who know the earth well enough to live off her.

As they crisscross the winding resacas of the Rio Grande Delta on their paths to and from a poisoned sampler of South Texas prisons, Laguna Atascosa always welcomes them back with a grin as if to say, wasn’t that some fukked up bullshit you saw back there, and thanks for being men enough to cry.

Not that the child prison of Los Fresnos wasn’t grim enough on Wednesday, or that the hidden secrets of Port Isabel didn’t moan underground Thursday from back behind the thicketed gates, but Sunday at Raymondville was a special spike through the heart-a concentration camp of windowless plastic hothouses where a babel of forty or more languages gets melted into one universal cry of injustice.

On a hot day you can walk into one of those steaming plastic shells and smell nothing but puke as the earth’s most fukked over stomachs do everything possible to disgorge the poisonous foods they have been conned into eating. On a cold day you can do the same thing shivering.

Once a day at Raymondville, they let the hapless masses out to remind them of sky, and then an hour later they are shoved back in. It gets to be too much. What is there for everyone to do but watch the young man who ties his bed sheet somehow to the ceiling and makes himself a noose. Everyone watches, even the guards, because there is nothing else to do. In the end, they don’t let the man finish his act, but the guards never lift a finger either way.

For a dedicated attorney such as Jodi Goodwin who walks with Jay and John this Sunday, her willingness to help overflows her ability. For one thing is the sheer number of languages that greet you. Even if you want to help that woman from Ethiopia, it would cost thousands of dollars to hire an interpreter, which is money you don’t have.

Goodwin remembers a time before blankets at Raymondville–a time before winter coats. Both of these things she demanded for her clients and got. From August through December she even demanded press coverage which is impossible to sue for these days.

Sunday Goodwin was the walk’s guest of honor. She showed up on time, got a friend to help her park her car at Raymondville, and then returned to talk and walk with Johnson-Castro as loyal cars followed slowly behind. During the final hour, the walk was joined by Dallas supporters Dr. Asma Salam and Jose Delarocha who will host prison vigils in Dallas on Wednesday and Thursday. The Dallas vigils will call attention to a forthcoming federal ruling in the matter of habeas corpus for the Hazahza family who were split up between Texas prisons last November and who have yet to be reunited in freedom.

In a widening circle of conscience that began in Austin last December, the walks of Jay Johnson-Castro and John Neck have exorcised the secrets of five immigrant prisons in Texas: T. Don Hutto, Rolling Plains, International Educational Services, Port Isabel, and Raymondville. In Dallas they will try to pry another family free.