Catch-Up Blogging
July 13, 2009 | 2 Comments
I’m back. Sort of.
Because I spent a lot of time trying to relax and now I feel like I need some more time trying to fend off all the nonsense that made me not relax. (Note to ex-therapist: I know, I know, no one or nothing can “make me” do anything, but…whatever.)
Goddamn vacations. But I guess someone has to do it.
Pick me! Pick me!
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Thanks, Dad, for a great retreat.
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Politics, American Style: So, having been privileged enough to have the New York Times within a short walk’s distance every morning last week, I can report that the political status of our nation is… well…fucked.
And, as usual, I’ll keep my sharpened pen pointed at the good liberals – who certainly should know better.
The liberals, of course, have been focused on their kindergarten-like fixation on all-things-Sarah-Palin while continuing to ignore the rug that that their electoral-season hero, Obama, has been pulling out from under them.
If you don’t believe me, just pick up one of the last several columns by the liberal darling Maureen Dowd of the Times. Here, I’ll summarize them for you: Palin is an idiot and I am a clever genius for repeatedly pointing it out. Okay, okay, we get it: Palin is a dimwit. Not to mention an easy target.
But how about a little focus on the issues of the day – especially those that Obama and his Democratic accomplices in Congress are fumbling and/or ignoring daily? You know, things like the war, health care and economic justice (read: where’s the economic relief for those who truly need it?).
Oh, but it’s nice to see that Goldman Sachs is about to post record profits, isn’t it?
Making daily fun of Sarah Palin is a no-brainer. Been there. Done that.
What needs to be done now is to put a spotlight on the Democratic Party’s back-pedaling on nearly every major issue of the day. For years, these same Democrats fed the populace lines about “not having the White House,” or “not having both houses of Congress,” or “not having a filibuster-proof majority.” Well, those excuses are long gone. So what are they waiting for? Courage? A belief in their own electoral-season rhetoric?
Forget Sarah Palin. She lost. You won. Now give us some results.
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Having said that, I will now break the rule. Deal with it.
I actually like it when the right-wingers start pouncing on Sarah Palin. Mostly because I love a good catfight. Meeeeeee-oooooooow.
The right-wing diva Peggy Noonan recently penned a piece in the Wall Street Journal in which she poked Sarah Palin for being an intellectual lightweight. Noonan insinuated that Palin should just disappear so as to protect the image of the Republican Party.
Oh yeah, the party of Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle must protect its deep intellectual image…
Give me a break.
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Speaking of liberals (well, a while ago), Vermont’s Secretary of State, Deb Markowitz, is touting her office’s plans to give each member of the Vermont National Guard who is about to be deployed to Afghanistan for Obama’s War a 100-minute Verizon phone card so they can more easily phone home.
Fine, make it easier to phone home. But what about the bigger picture here? You know, like the unnecessary nature of the war?
Markowitz – a Democrat – is ginning up her soldier-phone-home effort as an early public relations move in her bid to become the Democratic candidate to unseat Governor Jim Douglas. See, she supports the troops.
But wouldn’t it be better for Democrats like Markowitz to be speaking out against the deployment orders and the wars rather than slipping those sent to fight a phone-home card?
Oh Democrats, you never cease to infuriate me.
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ATV comments: Last week, the Burlington Free Press reported that the comments submitted to the Agency of Natural Resources about its proposed rule to allow ATVs on state land were running between 3 and 4-to-1 against the proposal.
Well, what do you know, I was right: ATVers can’t write. But they sure can get in their monster trucks and drive, drive, drive to a public hearing. Perhaps if they put a motor on those pencils…
Bravo to Broadsides readers who certainly contributed significantly to the more than 1000 comments submitted the ANR. Now let’s see if the agency does the right thing. Don’t hold your breath.
Personally, I’m hoping for a good old-fashioned Conservation Law Foundation lawsuit on the matter. Those folks get things done.
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Reading: Paul Auster’s “Man in the Dark,” a slim novella that is as engaging and as hard to put down as any of Auster’s other masterful works. And this one’s got a Vermont connection, too, as its protagonist – August Brill — is a retired literature critic who moves to the Green Mountain State to be with his daughter.
Brill, his daughter and his granddaughter share a Vermont home and a common affliction: broken hearts as “the weird world rolls on.”
Brill also finds the nights challenging, often waking to an over-active mind and left with the challenge of directing his mind’s conversations away from the sad thoughts about his life’s losses and toward the more soothing make believe.
The result is a wonderful tale of a certain Owen Brick, a man who lives in the competing – and colliding – worlds in which Brill creates. And the only way Brick can put an end to it is if he find and kill Brill himself. Unless, of course, Brill kills off Brick first. Storytellers do get bored with their creations, you know.
Auster is a superb writer and this little novel matches the prowess he’s displayed in my particular favorites of his, “The New York Trilogy,” “The Music of Chance,” and “Leviathan.”
Read it.
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Last week a young man with a cheap sailboat took my father, my daughter and me out for a sailing lesson on Lake Champlain. It wasn’t really a lesson though. We were mostly too mesmerized by his sea ballet to focus on or retain much of what he was teaching. He called out the terms and performed the actions – tacking, watching for “luffing,” monitoring the jib, and beating – as we sailed back and forth on a mostly calm lake. It was a fine show. And a wonderful afternoon.
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Congrats to Greenpeace for its creative action against President Obama over his willy-nilly approach to global warming solutions.
More of that please.
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Thanks for playing. Now get back to work.
Activist Malpractice
June 17, 2009 | 3 Comments
All the organizations that claim to contest the present order themselves have all the puppetry of the form, morals and language of miniature States about them. None of the old lies about “doing politics differently” have ever contributed to anything but the indefinite extension of Statist pseudopodia.— From “The Invisible Committee”
Beware of the professional activist, my friends. For they will lead you to policy slaughter and barely bother to conceal their complicity. Winning doesn’t matter to them. Change doesn’t either. Because the paycheck (plus benefits!) is what makes their slumbering efforts feel good.
Their “cause” is just another minor bump in their daily road: take out trash, pay bills, shop for groceries, feign outrage over [insert issue] and then go to sleep. Risk nothing. Quit when it gets hard or uncomfortable. Passion is sanded down to dull edge, whereby simply showing up rings their bell of attainment. Check it off.
When a doctor sleeps through surgery we call it malpractice. But when a professional activist sleeps through an action and misleads a movement we applaud their “effort.” Worse, we marvel at the failure of the professional: “Wow, that took courage.”
Sorry, but losing doesn’t take courage. It only requires not winning. And that’s easy.
The professional activist is hardwired to lose because losing keeps them in business. They celebrate the longevity of their involvement and the age of their organizations as if to spotlight their ineffectiveness: 10 years! 20 years! Send more money! Keep it going! Why? Because they haven’t accomplished anything yet. And it’s a good “job.”
Many years ago I coined the term “Activist Malpractice” in an essay of the same name. I wrote it to put a spotlight on professional activist organizations who would whip up the necessary fear and loathing toward dangers like toxic pesticides and rBGH and then settle for “solutions” like labeling the products that contained these toxins and/or agreeing to 20-year (and toothless) “phase-outs” of carcinogenic pesticides.
But wait, didn’t they say these things were killing animals and people and destroying the environment? Yes, they did. And just as quickly they turned the page and “celebrated” the mere introduction of legislation that they knew wouldn’t pass, ever be enforced and/or save one of the lives they told us these products were claiming.
But they kept their jobs. Got applauded from their largely-disengaged membership. Kept getting their phone calls returned from Capitol Hill. And sent out a new round of fundraising letters for the “next” not-so-great “effort.” We called it “doing bad and feeling good about it.”
This cycle of activist malpractice works most perfectly when it exists within the paradigm of our modern culture’s manufactured disengagement. You know, the one that says: You are helpless without an expert. Or, in the case of the professional class of activists, the one that says: Send us your money and we will solve the issue that we just scared you about. Who knew $25 could solve global warming!?
Because the professional activist needs its followers to be disengaged so that their charades can continue unabated.
Thoreau once counseled his fellow citizens in this manner: “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.” Today’s professional activists have changed that around a bit: “Let your checkbook help us lubricate the machine.”
And around and around we go, resulting in global warming activists cheering the changing of your light bulbs, health care activists cheering “the public option,” anti-war activists cheering “timetables,” and so on. The only true “winners” in any of these “causes” are the professional classes of activists, lobbyists, legislatures and regulators who’ve found that their own personal economic stimulus is based on your fears and lack of true engagement and expectation. Sucker.
Which brings me to the issue of the week (for me, at least) and a current case of activist malpractice: All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). As readers will know from my two previous posts (here and here), the State of Vermont is now proposing that ATV riders have access to state lands, including our forests. It’s an absurd idea that is certainly opposed by a vast majority of Vermonters, not least of which are the hikers, birders and campers who enjoy the non-motorized nature of – well – nature. Imagine that.
But the professional organization that is claiming to lead the grassroots charge against the new ruling is the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), a group that claims to be the state’s “largest, most effective” environmental group. Oh yeah, it also claims to be the “oldest” such group, too (see above reference to age and effectiveness).
Like any good activist organization, VNRC does an admirable job of describing the dangers and problems of the issue at hand. ATVs, they report, are loud, smelly, destructive to the environment and dangerous to both the riders and those who are forced to encounter such machines in the so-called wild. As a result of these clear and present dangers of ATVs, VNRC issues an alert to its members: Danger, danger, they declare, the big-bad Republican Governor (Jim Douglas) and his Agency of Natural Resources are threatening our public lands! And I’m sure the fundraising solicitations went out with even greater haste.
But then comes the activism. And down go the expectations.
First, the VNRC’s Jamey Fidel told the Vermont Press Bureau on the day of the public hearings on the issue that his group was “not necessarily” opposed to the first new ATV trail on public lands that was being proposed. But what about all the death and destruction they whipped us up about? Nevermind. Because they’re now being professional. But keep sending those checks!
Worse, when the hearing finally happened, VNRC showed just how atrophied its grassroots muscles have become: Out of 250 people in the room, an estimated 15 were opposed to the new rule – and probably about two were associated with VNRC (both employees). Nice showing. But keep sending those checks!
Unfortunately, it gets worse. At the hearing, the VNRC’s Fidel got his chance to testify and he more than blandly reads and otherwise mumbled through a thoroughly passion-less recitation of the documented problems with ATVs and the hurried “process” by which the ANR has reached its decision (read: give me more time to raise money!).
Next up to testify: Fidel’s VNRC colleague, Jake Brown, the group’s communications director. And he begins with this: “I’ve owned an ATV for eight years and I ride it as much as I can on the weekends.” Sorry, but you can’t make this stuff up.
Memo to the VNRC staff: Have your “communications director” read your documentation on the environmental threats of ATV use, please.
And what’s that feeling I’m having: Oh, that’s the grassroots rug being pulled out from under me. Thanks, VNRC. Where do I send my check?
It’s called “activist malpractice.” Pure and simple. They raise money to protect the environment and they cower like scared sheep when the opportunity to truly protect it arises. They scare the public with the facts and then they fold like a cheap suit when it comes to the solutions. They scare the public enough to raise some cash about the dangers of ATV riding by day, and then mount an ATV by night and the weekends to frolic in the benefits of their “labor.” Shameless.
Ironically, I approached Fidel at the hearing to ask him a few questions. Specifically, I asked him if he thought Brown’s boasting of riding an ATV on weekends undercut his testimony about the environmental destruction of the so-called sport. His reply: “Not at all.” Of course not – just keep sending the checks!
But Fidel wouldn’t allow me to ask any more questions because he was “busy.”
“Call me at my office and I’d be happy to talk with you about it,” he told me.
“Tomorrow?” I inquired.
“No, I’m going on vacation tomorrow. Call me the week after next when I get back.”
The public comment period for the new ATV rule ends on June 22nd. Don’t count on the VNRC to be generating oppositional comments because its point-person on the issue is on vacation. But keep sending those checks!
Activist malpractice, indeed.
Testifying with a Chainsaw
June 16, 2009 | 20 Comments
Well, someone had to do it. And, of course, we did. We being: Boots, Bel and I.
I’m speaking about the public hearing held on Monday night about the Douglas Administration’s out-of-nowhere plan to allow all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) access to public lands. And while Douglas’ cronies at the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) tried to make the whole thing look legitimate, the whole process stinks more than an ATV exhaust pipe.
First, ANR officials admit almost proudly that they talked exclusively with one and only one group during its planning process for this new regulation to allow these machines to “rip it up” on our state lands: VASA, the ATV association in Vermont. And then they sprung the new rule on the citizens of the state just a couple of weeks ago, planned a hastily-prepared “public hearing,” and gave the public all of ten days to comment on it.
Can you say: Political games? I knew you could. And Governor Jim Douglas plays them like nobody else plays them. In case you don’t have an imagination, let me spell it out for you: Douglas got his political ass kicked during the last legislative session, having two of his vetoes overridden (gay marriage and the budget) and he’s looking like little more than political road-kill of late. So what’s a right-winger to do in such a circumstance? Well, throw a political bone to the ATV crowd, of course.
And so he did, and the VASA crowd lunged for it like a Michael Vick dog. Grrr….give us our rights to do what we want, when we want, where we want, however we want, and to whomever we want. Whatever.
Logic, of course, was an endangered species at Monday’s public hearings. The hundreds of well-organized VASA members who showed up were clearly looking for a fight. But little did they know that Vermont’s mainstream environmental community is about as lame as lame can be when it comes to taking a firm stand – especially when faced with a throng of hydrocarbon-breathing machines-equal-a-sport crowd.
Take, for example, the opening words of the “communications director” of the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), Jake Brown: “I’ve owned an ATV for eight years and I love to ride it as much as I can on weekends.” Huh? Remember, VNRC is the group that has been pegged by the fawning (read: lazy) Vermont media as “the opposition” to the proposed new ATV riding rule.
And so it went, the ATVers were all ready to rumble but their opponents were mostly looking like deer caught in the headlights and far too meek to mutter even the most benign opposition. Take, for example, the VNRC folks (Brown and his colleague, Jamey Fidel) who droned on about “process,” “fairness,” and Brown’s out-of-the-closet proclamations that he was “one of them.” Good luck with that.
But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to tip my hat to those who showed up and didn’t melt from the heat of being surrounded by two hundred angry men: Mollie Matteson of the Center for Biological Diversity, Anthony Iarrapino of the Conservation Law Foundation, Les Blomberg of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse and a few private individuals that, unfortunately, I failed to hear their names or affiliations.
This hearing was absurd. And, frankly, we knew it was going to be absurd given the quickened pace of the process and the all-too-predictable meekness of the eco-crowd. That’s why we planned something equally as absurd for our testimony.
Yep, as the headline would suggest: We brought a chainsaw. Partly because we represent Horse Loggers for Peace (and the executive committee – oops, I mean: the entire group – okay, okay, I mean: both of us – decided to add “and Quiet” to our name for the evening) and partly because we knew how the pro-ATV crowd would be testifying. As in: “It’s public land, we pay taxes, and we want to play with our machines on the public’s land.”
Fine. Let’s play.
The plan was simple enough: Boots was going to testify about the health affects of ATVs – ever seen a room full of ATVers? – and when he got to his concluding statement about noise and air pollution I was going to fire up my chainsaw for a little demonstration. But we’d be in tune with the ATVers’ argument: Being on public land and playing with our own toys and all. We wanted to be as absurd as the proposal at hand.
But, frankly, when I surveyed the room and began hearing the other testimony I thought it would be best to use my time speaking out rather than using my time to fire up a chainsaw and simply getting arrested. But then my daughter, Bel, put this note on top of the papers I was carting around: “I really think that you should do the chainsaw.”
Geez, nothing like pressure from an eleven-year old to not wimp out.
And when they called our names to get in line to ready ourselves for our testimony, my mind was all but made up to use the chainsaw when Bel accompanied us to the podium (the plan was for her to stay in the back and have previously assigned friends be ready to take her home if I was arrested). But there she was, at our side, and giving me the look that said: Don’t be a wimp.
And so it went: Boots got to his final line in his testimony about noise and smell and I yanked the chainsaw out of my bag – without the chain for obvious safety reasons – and fired it up.
I watched the cop across the room, waiting for him to get up and come my way. He didn’t move. I watched the ANR official running the meeting, thinking he’d jump to his feet and demand an end to the noise and smell. He didn’t budge. And I watched the crowd, waiting for them to stop me, but they didn’t move. And so I did what these folks wanted: I made noise. I made smells. And we had a blast.
“What?” I declared after turning it off. “We’re on public land. I own the chainsaw. And I pay my taxes. What’s the problem?”
It was, as I explained, an absurd demonstration at an absurd hearing about an absurd new rule to allow people who own smelly and loud toys to “play” on public land.
Mission accomplished.
Thanks, Bel and Boots.
(Stay tuned for more)
Wild Matters: Ban ATVs on State Land
June 15, 2009 | 4 Comments
Big day. Well, if you care about all things wild in Vermont. Because the Agency of Natural Resources will be holding a public hearing tonight in Montpelier (Pavilion Auditorium, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.) to take testimony regarding its plans to allow all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) access to state-owned land.
Proponents of the letting these gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting and otherwise just noisy and obnoxious machines onto Vermont’s public lands are trying to soft-pedal these new rules, claiming that the newly proposed ATV trails will just be “short connectors” to already existing off-road-vehicle trails on private lands.
Yeah right. If you’ve bothered to follow snowmobile or ATV issues in Vermont, you know that when you give these renegades an inch they take a mile – literally.
Make no mistake, the ANR’s proposed rule to allow ATV access to public lands – no matter how short the original connector trails are – is a huge change in public policy that will almost certainly lead to more and more ATV access to state lands, including our publicly-owned forests. The organized ATV groups – like VASA – don’t hide the fact that they want to ride practically anywhere they can put it in four-wheel drive and rip it up.
The irony in the ANR’s proposed new rule is that ATV proponents are admitting that these new trails are necessary partly due to the current illegal riding by ATVers. Just read these words by VASA’s Danny Hale, as told to John Dillon of Vermont Public Radio:
Unfortunately there’s a fair amount of illegal use already taking place on state land. And what we’re trying to accomplish with a managed trail system is give people a chance to recreate where it’s legal, so that’s going to take a large number of the illegal riders right out of the picture.
Got that? In case you don’t, let me explain: The ATV riders are riding illegally on the public’s land now so, instead of enforcing the laws banning it, the state should change the laws to make it legal.
I’m guessing you’ve got to be around a lot of burned hydrocarbons to come up with that argument.
Unfortunately (and predictably), mainstream environmental groups like the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) aren’t showing a lot of teeth when it comes to fighting back against this proposed ATV land grab. The Vermont Press Bureau, for example, writes in this morning’s papers that, according to the VNRC’s Jamey Fidel, the group “isn’t necessarily opposed” to the first new connector trail being proposed in Island Pond.
Why – oh why – is it so hard from groups like VNRC to take a firm stand? But that’s another story for another time I suppose.
To the group’s credit, VNRC does document the very real and acknowledged problems with ATV riding: pollution, noise, flora and fauna damage, water run-off issues, interference with non-motorized forms of recreation and even rider safety. But with a laundry lists of problems like this, VNRC ought to be flying the “ban ATVs flag” as high as they can.
But, have no fear, the Horse Loggers for Peace (and quiet) will there – at tonight’s hearing that is. And you won’t have any trouble figuring out where we stand on this issue. It should be fun. Join us if you can.
Below are some great links to resources from groups who aren’t afraid to speak up and act out:
Leave it Wild
Bluewater Network
New Rules Project
Food & Water’s Memory Lane: The Ben & Jerry’s Campaign
January 29, 2009 | 3 Comments
Well, what do you say we continue the walk down Food & Water’s memory lane? As some of you will recall, after we secured our “popularity” in Vermont by highlighting Cabot’s use of rBGH, we turned our attention to Ben & Jerry’s refusal to go organic – a stand that they still hold to this day. Hmm, is there another “victory” lurking? I doubt it.
Food & Water held several meetings with Ben & Jerry (yes, the individuals), in 1996 and 1997 in an effort to convince them to single-handedly revolutionize Vermont agriculture by beginning the transition to organic dairy production. At the time, hundreds of Vermont farms supplied the popular corporation with the cream they required to meet their growing needs.
But Ben & Jerry refused to budge, claiming that they “couldn’t figure out a way to maximize their profits” via organic production. And so we gave them one more chance: Begin to move toward organic or Food & Water would publicize the fact that, despite the corporation’s rhetoric, it was sanctioning the use of toxic pesticides that threatened Vermont’s environment and the consumers of its ice cream.
Ben Cohen’s initial response was to offer me a job in their public relations department. I refused. Then he took us to a closet full of Ben & Jerry’s paraphernalia and told us to take whatever we wanted. I remember he was particularly proud of the “hippie ties” – yes neckties – that were recently made in his and the Grateful Dead’s honor. Take whatever you want, he declared.
“Thanks,” I remember replying, “but we’ve told you what we want: We want you to begin moving your farm suppliers toward organic dairy production.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Ben replied.
And so, the campaign was on. And so, too, was the liberal elite pushback. Big time. Whatever.
Our first shot across the Ben & Jerry’s bow was an ad that featured a cartoon family in a Vermont-like setting with a giant ice cream cloud lingering over them. The headline was blunt: “Ben & Jerry’s want to save the world. But who will save us from Ben & Jerry’s?”
The text below explained Ben & Jerry’s refusal to go organic and highlighted the thousands of pounds of carcinogenic Atrazine that was used on the Vermont dairy farms that supplied cream to the ice cream mavens.
Sure, we got our asses kicked in the media and within the nonprofit and funding community. I can remember one call I got from a significant funder and friend of Ben Cohen’s who began her conversation with, “You can’t do this.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Ben’s a nice guy.”
Ben’s affability was never a part of the campaign, I pointed out to her. But I don’t think she ever heard me because the phone soon went dead, as did her support for our campaigns that she had previously declared as “visionary.” I’ll let you decide who went blind, however.
Shortly after the launch of our Ben & Jerry’s campaign, I was invited to speak at an anti-nuke rally in Brattleboro. The person inviting me, Deb Katz of the Citizens Awareness Network, wanted me to be a part of the rally but was nervous about the fact that Ben & Jerry’s had not only given money for the event but the two of them would also be speaking.
“I want you to speak, too,” Katz told me. “But you have to agree that you won’t mention Ben & Jerry’s.”
I told her I’d think about it. And after about ten minutes of thinking about it and laughing rather hysterically with my trusty colleague at the time, Michele Kirchner, I called Katz back: “It’s a deal.”
You see, we made a quick plan. Sure, I’d appear at the rally – right before Ben & Jerry – and I wouldn’t “mention” the company.
And now, for the “rest of the story,” below is an excerpt from an article from the Boston Globe’s Sunday Magazine that featured the work of Food & Water. It was written by Sally West Johnson, who followed me around for days while researching her piece, including a trip to the Brattleboro anti-nuke rally. You can read the entire piece by clicking here.
We had fun. Because, as my activist mentor, Wally Burnstein, taught me: What’s the point of activism if you’re not having fun? Indeed. And people often thought we were devastated by the attacks we were so often under. Hardly. We were laughing. We believed in what we were doing and we were determined to have one hell of a good time in the process.
Here’s the Boston Globe’s description of our day at the Brattleboro rally:
Michael Colby’s time in the sun has arrived, and he’s ready for it. Striding up to the stage on this warm August afternoon, Colby, executive director of a political action group called Food & Water, has a small paper bag clutched in his left hand and mischief in his gray-blue eyes.
Colby is a scheduled speaker at an antinuclear gathering on the Brattleboro Common, a rally organized by the Citizens Awareness Network, based in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in Washington, D.C.
He is well known in the leftist community for his sharp tongue and his no-sacred-cows approach to politics. In an age when much of mainstream political activism has adopted the vocabulary of mediation and compromise, Colby is a pit bull — one with wit, but a pit bull nonetheless.
His bark and his bite have drawn him national attention, including appearances on three network evening news shows, CNN, ABC’s 20/20, and Phil Donahue’s talk show.
Lately, one of the targets of Colby’s bark has been Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont ice cream makers who are known for their liberal activism.
Colby’s Vermont-based group demanded that Ben & Jerry’s stop buying milk from farmers who feed their cows grain treated with the herbicide atrazine, a suspected carcinogen.
Ben&Jerry’s argues, as do a number of environmental watchdog groups, that atrazine in cattle feed does not show up in the milk supply and that organic corn, raised without weed-killing chemicals, is too expensive to find a market.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders of Ben & Jerry’s are at the rally today to join in the antinuclear speechmaking, and the organizers have extracted a promise from Colby that he will not say anything about Ben, Jerry, or the atrazine controversy, but will stick to nuclear reactors and nuclear waste.
Colby takes the stage along with his assistant, Michele Kirchner. He opens the bag, extracts a pint of nicely softened Chubby Hubby, one of Ben & Jerry’s best-known flavors, pulls out a spoon, and begins to eat.
“Doing bad and feeling good about it,” Colby intones between bites of ice cream. This is a phrase that appears often in the Food & Water advertising campaign against the ice cream maker, and many of the 100 or so activists in the audience appear to know that. Others seem intrigued.
“Doing bad and feeling good about it,” Colby says again, pausing for another spoonful of Chubby Hubby. “Doing real bad, and feeling real good about it.”
With that, his microphone goes dead. The audience begins to buzz; people ignore the next speaker’s arrival, flocking to Colby and Kirchner as they descend the steps at the back of the stage.
Was Colby deliberately cut off, people want to know. Yes, he was. Well, why? Doesn’t he have aright speak his mind? Colby now has the platform he was looking for, albeit not an official one.
“Six hundred farmers are using a carcinogenic herbicide,” Colby tells the crowd gathered around him offstage, “and Ben &Jerry’s won’t stop buying the milk made by cows that
eat that corn.”Debbie Katz, president of the Citizens Awareness Network, defends the decision to shut Colby down. “We said that going after Ben & Jerry’s was unacceptable, and he agreed three times not to do that,” she says. “His issue is real and should be brought up in a different forum — just not here.”
Others aren’t so sure “I don’t believe in censorship,” says Bill Addington, an antinuclear activist who has come from Texas to speak against the location of a low-level nuclear waste dump - a destination for Maine and Vermont nuclear waste — in the remote Texas town of Sierra Blanca. And Mardie Ratheau, of Brattleboro, calls the episode a “serious infringement” of Colby’s right to free speech.
It has been a moment of pure street theater: short, punchy, and effective, just the way Michael Colby likes it.
Victory! Cabot to Ban Bovine Growth Hormone!
January 28, 2009 | 17 Comments
Yes, the news is true. And, yes, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.
For those who don’t know and/or forgot (like I almost did), Food & Water – under the direction of yours truly – launched a campaign against Vermont’s own Cabot Creamery in 1995 when we learned that they were about to allow their farmers to use the Monsanto corporations synthetic bovine growth hormone (rBGH), Posilac. And, last week, Cabot announced that it was, indeed, going to be “listening to its customers” and banning the use of the cow drug by August of this year. Like I said: Victory! Yeah right.
There was one grammatical error in Cabot’s announcement however: They said they were listening to their “customers.” But what they should have said was “customer.” Because Cabot’s nearly-fifteen years of flinging their noses at their real customers who were demanding an end to its rBGH use was really stopped by one, single “customer”: Wal-Mart. Yep, it was the mega-retailer who let Cabot know that they were looking for hormone-free dairy products. And when Wal-Mart said, “jump,” Cabot said, “how high?” – especially when, according to dairy industry insiders, Wal-Mart is now responsible for nearly 25% of Cabot’s sales.
But, for the sheer fun of it, let’s step back and look at how Food & Water secured this “victory.” In the spring of 1995 as Food & Water was preparing to unveil a similar anti-rBGH campaign against Land 0’Lakes, an employee of Cabot Creamery approached me with the news that he had obtained an internal memo from Cabot’s headquarters that he was certain I would be interested in. The Cabot employee was right: The memo acknowledged that Cabot farmers were not only being allowed to use rBGH but that its use was well underway. And this was a time when Cabot was publicly declaring a “wait and see” attitude about Monsanto’s cow drug.
After confirming the authenticity of the memo and a few phone calls with Cabot’s executives, a campaign was born. As we said at the time, we weren’t about to go after the Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes for its use of rBGH and then ignore the same consumer and animal welfare transgressions by our neighbors, Cabot Creamery (at the time, Food & Water was headquartered in Walden, Vermont, a mere five miles up the road from Cabot).
The campaign generated enormous attention both here in Vermont and throughout the United States. While most anti-rBGH activists at the time were focused on lobbying the Food & Drug Administration or Congress, Food & Water saw the writing on the wall and, instead, directed our campaigns at the corporations seeking to use the product. I wrote an article at the time, in fact, that described the legislators and regulators as the mere “puppets” in the battle, while the Monsantos and the food corporations like Cabot were the “puppeteers.” And so we aimed directly at the folks holding the strings.
It got mighty heated, too. While our campaign generated thousands of letters, postcards and phone calls to Cabot’s offices demanding that they reverse their decision based on human health and animal welfare considerations, Cabot dug in their heels and called in their favors from Vermont’s political, media and economic elite to help them fight off the big, bad Food & Water.
The facts regarding rBGH’s link to cancer and its known contribution to animal disease and even death were mostly discarded by the rescue squad called in by Cabot to fend us off. Governor Howard Dean held a press conference to condemn us. Newspapers editorialized about our “tactics” being suspect (boycotts?). And even our peers in the consumer and environmental movement (yes, VPIRG and Rural Vermont) came to Cabot’s defense, urging us to take our campaign someplace else. Chickens. But, then again, they’re still operating at full-strength…
After hearing about Cabot’s fifteen-year change of rBGH policy, I wandered out to my barn to peruse my old Food & Water archives (stored in a horse stall, where the horses have dutifully defecated on them and found a real use for them: scratching posts). Oh boy, let the memories flow.
Here are some of my favorite moments while walking down the Cabot campaign memory lane this morning:
• After Food & Water unveiled a radio commercial targeting Cabot’s use of rBGH, Governor Howard Dean held a press conference condemning Food & Water, calling us a “terrorist group” and, while holding up a package of Cabot’s cheese, urged all Vermonters “to go home and eat two Cabot grilled cheese sandwiches.”
• Another “liberal” politician, Elizabeth Ready, a state senator at the time but later the state’s auditor, had this to say to Food & Water via the media: “Either pack your bags and hit the road or change your tactics.” And, remember, this was when we were simply asking people to “call Cabot” and ask them to stop using rBGH.
• Cabot’s spokesperson at the time, Roberta McDonald, was good for more than a few whacky comments about Food & Water, too. Following the Dean “terrorist” analogy, McDonald compared Food & Water to the Unabomber before declaring that, “locking up the leaders of Food & Water would be a better way to protect the people.” Yikes. I guess we were getting on her nerves, huh?
Funny, though, that we don’t hear the same kind of language now about Wal-Mart. I mean, they simply asked for the same thing Food & Water asked for fifteen years ago: Stop using rBGH. Oh well, I guess it’s all a matter of how you ask….
I’ll be sharing some more stories about the early years of Food & Water now that I’ve jumped down the rabbit hole of opening the old files and bringing the memories bubbling up from yesteryear. They were good times. We were fighting the good fight. We were just a decade and a half ahead of the curve of change.
Go figure.
Pop Goes the Obama Balloon, part 1
January 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Please people, no more invites to your little inaugural celebrations next week. I’m not interested. If I want to stand around with a bunch of doe-eyed believers, I’ll go to church. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as excited as the next semi-conscious citizen about the end to the national nightmare known as Bush II, but I don’t think it’s time for idolatry. It’s time to turn up the heat. And, thankfully, we’ve got many good folks out there who are trying to do just that despite the cold shoulder and news blackout they’re receiving from the true-believing masses. Case in point: Karl Grossman.
Grossman’s an old friend of mine from my activist days. He’s the real deal – a journalist like journalists should be: unafraid, unshackled and undeterred in his pursuit of the next great story. If you want an idea of how long – and how deeply – Grossman’s been digging, just check out his website . Lucky are his journalism students at SUNY/Old Westbury.
Below is part one in my “Popping the Obama Balloon” series, a fine piece by Grossman that originally appeared – I believe – on CounterPunch . Well, it’s actually just the introduction. If you want the entirety of it, click here and spread the linking love.
Nice work, Karl. And wake up, people.
Chu, Holdren and the Nuclear Lobby
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex
By KARL GROSSMAN
Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address as president 48 years ago is famous for his warning of the rise of a “military-industrial complex” in the United States. In fact, the original draft of the speech warned not only of a “military-industrial complex” but of the “military-industrial-scientific complex.” Only because of the plea of Eisenhower’s science advisor, James Killian, was the word “scientific” eliminated.
The “military-industrial-scientific complex” was the far more accurate description of the complex of vested interests manipulating the U.S. then—and now. As the incoming president, Barack Obama, draws from this federal scientific establishment for appointments, the warning needs to be sounded again.
Obama has named as his secretary of energy Dr. Steven Chu, a physicist and director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a staunch advocate of nuclear power—typical of the sentiment of those in the national nuclear laboratory system. At his confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dr. Chu declared that nuclear power “is going to be an important part of our energy mix.” He also spoke for an $18.5 billion loan guarantee program for new nuclear power plants.
As his science advisor, Obama has appointed physicist John Holdren, who in 1970 “started my career working on nuclear fusion” at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he noted in a speech last year. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is where the hydrogen bomb, based on fusion, was developed. But, said Dr. Holdren in his January 17, 2008 talk on “Meeting the Climate-Change Challenge,” he “decided” that fusion “was not going to work by the time I died” in terms of non-military use. So he “started looking at approaches to meet our energy needs that could help more quickly.” He has long considered fission, how atomic bombs and nuclear power plants work, as a source of energy particularly to deal with global warming. This despite the overall “nuclear cycle”—which includes uranium mining and milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication and disposal of radioactive waste—having significant greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming.
Dr. Holdren, although he moved on to teaching positions at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard and the directorship of the Woods Hole Research Center, remained “an active consultant until 1994” to Lawrence Livermore, stated a press release issued by Woods Hole upon his nomination by Obama last month as science advisor. (For more on Holdren see Jeffrey St. Clair’s profile of the scientist and his promotion of nuclear power in Born Under a Bad Sky.)
[Click here to read the rest of Grossman’s article.]
Natural Born Trespassers
February 6, 2008 | 3 Comments
Look Mom, no record! Arrest record, that is – because the old Drunken Boat album is still out there. Yep, this morning I’m mailing in the letter to the unflappable Chittenden County State’s Attorney, T.J. Donovan, that vouches for the fact that yours truly has completed the 30 hours of community service he required of me in order to drop the two charges of trespassing hanging over my head.
For those keeping track at home, you’ll recall that I went on one hell of a reckless and lawless spree last year in a rather quixotic attempt to wake the sleepers about the fact that we are, indeed, a nation at war. What can I say? I’m a silly boy who is easily lulled into the illusion that the practice of democracy in the full view of the public still matters.
My first act of wanton lawlessness involved the pursuit of a meeting with Vermont’s lone congressman, Peter Welch. But the ambulance-chasing attorney turned double-talking congressman decided it was best to have us arrested at his office rather than agree to meet with us at a time, date and place of his choosing. Welch, however, quickly realized that the cuffing of his anti-war constituents didn’t look all that good – especially when his supposed “number one issue” was trying to stop the war. Go figure.
Only days after having us cuffed and booked for seeking to meet with him, Welch agreed to meet with us. Oh yes, you all remember THAT meeting, right? Yeah, the one where we had the audacity to ask that the congressman take 10 minutes of unfettered blather time in exchange for five minutes of answering “yes or no” to 15 or so questions about the war and its funding. You know, “yes or no,” kind of like the “up or down” votes he has to cast all day long as a member of congress – no middle ground.
But in the age of terror and bombing the holy hell out of foreign nations, we learned that Vermont’s liberal elite are apparently more appalled by the posing of “yes or no” questions than they are about Welch’s dithering doublespeak and its implied support for an illegal war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Priorities, my friends, it’s all about priorities.
The good news on the Welch front is that despite the hand wringing and soft verbal pokes we received from the liberal appeasers, the not-so-good congressman got the message. Welch, as you may know, went on to basically answer our most important “yes or no” question by pledging to not vote for another penny for the War on Iraq. Mission accomplished, indeed.
And so we, the Natural Born Trespassers, turned our attention to the military recruiters in Vermont, with a goal of shutting down their military recruitment efforts for as long as we could. This was surprisingly easy: Put the word out, show up, and see that the big, tough military boys and girls had left and locked up by the time we got there. Hmm, “the few, the proud and the frightened?”
But, lucky for us, the fellows at the Vermont National Guard had a recruitment office right across the street. And so we paid a visit. Well, make that: We occupied the joint and set up our own little “green zone” in their offices. Until, that is, closing time when we were cuffed and carted to the police station and – you guessed it! – charged with trespassing.
In the 90 or so days that have elapsed since our bloodless trespassing spree, I’ve had about four appearances in Chittenden’s District Court – each featuring a friendly greeting from T.J. Donovan himself. You see, he wants us to go away. And so each time we arrived he had an offer for us. First, he wanted us to plead “no contest” to the charges in exchange for 15 hours of community service. Next, he dropped it to 10 hours of community service. And, finally, he offered to dismiss the charges in exchange for 15 hours of community service for each charge. Deal.
As much as we wanted to take this to a jury trial, the annoying drives to Burlington, the scene at the courthouse and the very likeable Donovan made it too easy to accept the deal and wipe our records clean.
Let me tell you, Chittenden’s District Court is a sad place to be. It’s here where Vermont’s under-employed, under-paid and under-belly makes its appearance. Each morning the halls are lined with dozens of people who have been cited for what seems like mostly alcohol-related offenses: DUI’s, fights, thefts, etc.
The case for decriminalizing pot was on the front pages while we were making our court appearances. And, let me tell you, I have to agree with those who say that pot cases are not clogging the courts. I saw only one pot case come before the court, and it lasted about two minutes as the young man accepted the $200 fine as a plea deal before happily making his way to the exit.
But I still support decriminalization – mostly because it certainly seems like we’re focusing on the wrong drug. I didn’t hear one defendant, for example, declare that he put his face in a bong and then punched a wall, his spouse or the neighbor. But I heard several cases where folks hit the bars and then wreaked havoc on a loved one or a neighborhood. It really seemed like it was one, sad alcohol-related offense after another.
My days at the District Court are over now. I did my time – 30 hours of anti-war work on behalf of you, dear fellow citizens, including 5 hours of planning and implementing our little visit to Governor Douglas’s State of the State speech last month. Now, other than the trespassing case involving our little interruption of John Negroponte’s speech in St. Johnsbury in 2006 that is awaiting a hearing before the Vermont Supreme Court, my record is clean!
Which means: We’re in planning mode. Stay tuned.
{Photo Credit: The Fabulous NTodd}
Our Moment in Court
December 5, 2007 | 23 Comments
Another day. Another court appearance.
Yesterday we made the snowy trek to Burlington’s District Court to stand before a judge and T.J. Donovan, the state’s attorney, and very proudly plead “not guilty” to the charges of trespassing at the offices of our congressman, Peter Welch. Basically, it was a three-hour trip for a mere 30-seconds of the court’s time. And I got to utter these words to the judge who seemed like she wasn’t going to have much patience for any more: “I am not guilty, your honor. And I will be seeking a jury trial and invoking the necessity defense.” Next.
T.J. Donovan – sorry, but that’s just one cool name for a prosecutor – wants to cut a deal of some type. He told us before the court hearing that he’d be willing to drop the charges if we agreed to do some community service. Well, T.J., our actions WERE a community service. So our response to him was: Declare our attempts to meet with our congressman and ask him to stop funding the war a court-recognized “community service” and we’ll sign on the dotted line for a dismissal. Otherwise, let’s go to trial.
Personally, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to pick a jury and put on a trial that will seek to prove that our minor legal transgressions were necessary to prevent the larger legal evils of the Bush war and Congressman Welch’s continued double-speak on whether or not he’s going to continue funding it. And how much fun will it be to serve Welch and his staff subpoenas to be witnesses at the trial? I guess we might get another chance to ask him some “yes or no” questions, huh? Priceless.
People spend thousands of dollars to get Welch’s attention by way of campaign contributions – he’s now collected nearly $700,000 for his next campaign. This trial – with all the free legal help we’re being offered – will be, in comparison, a very cheap way to have a little one-on-one with the Congressman.
Welch has handled this all with the kind of fumble-fingers that one would expect from a rookie. Remember, when we went to his office in October we we’re simply asking for a meeting with him. He refused. And then his staff instructed the Burlington Police to have us arrested.
But Welch quickly realized that having constituents arrested for trying to meet with him looked kind of old-school Soviet Union and all. And so he agreed to meet with us in public, mostly to stem the tide of his political capital oozing like a sieve from a perplexed left. But, just to show that the vengeance will be his, Welch has never requested that the trespassing charges be dropped.
Whatever, Congressman. We’ll just keep picking the scab that is your very confused and confusing record on Bush’s war with Iraq. And, who knows, someone might even use the trial as an opportunity to announce a challenge to your re-election bid. This should be fun.
–
While awaiting our 30-seconds of court time yesterday, the very affable T.J. Donovan took the time to introduce us to Ian Carlton, the chairman of the Vermont Democratic Party. No, Carlton wasn’t there to discuss Donovan’s promising future as a statewide politician someday in the near future. Instead, Carlton was there to go head-to-head with his fellow Dem on a legal matter before the court. Carlton, you see, is a practicing attorney and – thus – had some non-partisan work to do involving a client who got caught stealing. Let’s just hope for the Dem Party’s sake that Carlton is a smoother party chair than he is a lawyer. In the three minutes of court time we witnessed, Carlton seemed to be doing his best Jerry Lewis imitation. Carlton, for example, got softly reprimanded for filling out the wrong paperwork for a plea deal and then almost fell into the lap of Donovan while tripping before the court. And why, oh why, did his clumsiness remind me of a certain political party and its relation to important issues of the day? Just wondering.
Quick Thoughts On Williston Anti-War Action
December 3, 2007 | 3 Comments
Wow. And that about sums it up – the anti-war event last Friday, that is. Well, let me add this: It was moving. It was inspiring. It was energizing. It was empowering. And it was nothing short of an honor to be a part of it. To each and every one of you who helped make it happen: Thanks. I needed that.
If you haven’t read about the event here, here or here, go there, there and there to read about it. They’ve got all the facts and figures – and photos, too! — to give you a sense of what happened. The movers and shakers behind this event, the Peace Club at Mount Mansfield Union High School, deserve one, long moment of recognition and honor for putting this action on the agenda and then working with the “old timers” to make it happen.
These students were tired of seeing the U.S. military recruiters coming to their school week in and week out to hand out recruiting propaganda in the pursuit of more young war fodder. And they didn’t just bitch and moan about it, they took action. They decided that they wanted to return the “favor” and visit the recruiting offices of the military to give them a message of their own: “Out of our schools, out of Iraq.” And so they did.
These students also had a goal of shutting down the recruiting offices while delivering their message. They wanted to participate in a peaceful act of civil disobedience to add a little punch to their message. Specifically, they wanted to hold a sit-in at the offices while also doing “counter-recruitment” by handing out anti-war materials and forming a coalition with Iraq Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out. And so they did.
But before embarking on their act of civil disobedience, they realized they needed a plan and they needed training. And so off they went for an all-day session at Wheelock Farm on a snowy Saturday in November, where they got advice, made a plan, and were trained in the fine arts of civil disobedience.
And then they made a media plan. They made signs. They rehearsed the various scenarios. They met and met again. They checked and checked again. They changed their plans when the military folks let them know that they knew they were coming. But they kept coming. And meeting. And planning. And checking. And just making sure it all worked. And so it did.
On Friday, November 30, 2007, all five military recruitment offices in Williston, Vermont were shut down for the afternoon and evening because of the dream of these students. No, make that, because of the dream and the willingness to act on that dream of these brave students. Better yet, the event was peaceful – even joyful – as 70 or more people made their march with the students to spread the original “Out of our schools, out of Iraq message.”
In the end, thirteen of us – myself included — were arrested for trespassing in the offices of the Vermont National Guard. Standing before a judge and – eventually — a jury to answer these charges will be a small price to pay for having the opportunity to be a part of such an uplifting and hopeful event. Getting to spend those hours with the students, the veterans, the family members of soldiers and the other activists was pure nourishment for the activist soul. I was moved. And I remain moved. Thank you, MMU students.
Onward.
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