Osama's dead... now what?

Media everywhere have been trying to ferret out the meaning of the May 1 Navy SEALS raid that killed Osama bin Laden, with praise for President Obama and/or Bush, criticism of one or both, and a fair amount of speculation of what al-Qaeda might do next.

What none of the coverage I've seen (at least in our area) even touches is the fact that Osama's death solves none of the real problems that prompted him to start hating the West in the first place. Remember, after all, that he was once OUR guy in Afghanistan vs the Soviets, and he was then fighting a war that, in his mind, never changed -- a war to drive foreigners out of Muslim soil. Once the Soviets departed in 1989, he largely vanished for a while, until the first Iraq War, when we used his homeland, Saudi Arabia, as a staging ground, defeated the Iraqis, and set up semi-permanent shop in Saudi.

We aren't in Saudi in significant military numbers at the moment, but are still in Iraq, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere -- and all of them for two interrelated reasons: money and power. In this case, both of them manifest mostly as oil. Yes, I know Afghanistan lacks the black stuff itself, but we're there due to our junkie's relationship with the repressive regime in Riyadh which provides significant doses of our drug of choice.*

If we had broken or seriously reduced our dependence on crude oil starting back in the 1970s, we would not have felt the need to defend the Saudis in 1991, and therefore not have given bin Laden a new target to point his twisted obsessions at. We wouldn't, therefore, be involved in three wars in the Mid East now, and would be free to do what our conscience says we should: support real change in those countries. Likewise, we would be able to truly help the people of Pakistan address the serious crisis mainstream US media doesn't discuss -- they're reeling from last year's massive floods and have disintegrating food and fuel systems that threaten the stability of South Asia.

To be clear, OUR addiction did not justify the Twin Tower attack or al-Qaeda's subsequent activities and ranting, but we could have PREVENTED some or all of it by having some foresight.

We are the wealthiest culture that has EVER existed, but a large part of it is unnecessarily wasteful and redundant: multiple cars and TVs per household, dozens electrical devices left running constantly, giant office buildings that are empty (but sucking energy) about half of every day, the ad-driven demand for the latest fad, failure to build a good transit network, overpackaged everything, etc. Almost all of that waste has been produced by and perpetuates an economic system that is obsessed with the sociopathic notion that we should be in constant competition, when humanity has survived this long primarily because we learned how to share and cooperate. Selfish, greedy people in the Ayn Rand model might have the upper hand over the short-term (they certainly seem to run the global economy now), but that selfishness is rapidly undermining both our culture's capacity to provide for our needs and Earth's capacity to support us.

It's obvious we cannot rewrite history, but it's equally obvious we can't keep enacting the insane script that claims it's "destiny" for us to do whatever we please in the world. That script is one that leads toward more war and our self-destruction as a society -- probably even as a species. There are in fact limits to growth of our economy, our population and our overall impact on the planet. Other cultures and other species do have a right to exist and are not there to serve us.

We are one of many parts of this amazing, wonderful living system called Earth and have a responsibility to ensure that it continues to be a healthy place for life. That means it's long overdue time we stopped playing juvenile, showoff games of power and prestige and started acting like intelligent adults by doing what we know must be done to solve the problems we face. For the U.S., that means leading by quickly weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and resource wasting practices while diverting what funds we have left to building a strong, localized alternative energy network, rebuilding our communities, and cleaning up the ecosystem. Money and power (in the political and energy sense) are tools, not reasons for existence, and certainly should not be the causes of our suicide.

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* Saudi Arabia is not our top oil source; it's fourth after Canada, Mexico and the U.S. itself. But it has the world's largest remaining supply of the easy-to-reach, fairly inexpensive oil, and therefore has an inordinate amount of influence. Several sources, however, note Riyadh may have been lying for years about how much it actually has, and the evidence indicates it is not capable of meeting growing global demand. At the same time, all of the non-OPEC sources are rapidly in decline and almost every oil producer is showing signs of holding back some of their oil for their own people rather than exporting it. While some countries have claimed new discoveries, they're almost all from deep-ocean sites that are extremely dangerous and expensive to tap. Add all that to rapidly growing demand from China and India, and we've got a huge mess on our hands known as Peak Oil, which global production numbers show actually hit in 2006.

(It's after midnight and I'm mental toast, so I'll come back later to add the links that support all of these things.)

Press Release #1

Peace abroad. Vibrant communities. Healthy food. Honest government. Fair taxes. Real representation. An economy that works for us. An environment that can support our grandkids.

Don't you wish Massachusetts had those things?

So do we, but we need your help to make them happen.

We're the Quinebaug Valley Chapter of the Green-Rainbow Party, seeking to give a voice to all those who feel left out of the major parties. For some time, the Tea Party movement has had center stage as the voice of public concern about where society is going. But many of us do not share its views and don't like where that effort seems to be heading.

We Greens want to focus our energy on things that will help everyone:
Environmental stewardship, including clean energy, effective transit, local food and climate change; affordable, accessible single-payer health care that promotes prevention; responsive, real democracy that truly serves the people; peace on our streets and overseas.

Isn't it time we worked to create a future that's more than just the next stock statement? We think so, and if you do, too, join us. For more info, contact quingreens@gmail.com, go to our blog "Quinebaug Valley Greenspeak" at quingreens.blogspot.com, or call us at 508-347-1537 (Daphne) or 508-764-8042 (Gus & Maureen).

APB: Food

In the upper Quin Valley (that is, the MA towns, basically), we really need to put out an all points bulletin on our missing food supply.

When the average person thinks nothing of buying mangoes from Central America or India (as the T&G was promoting on 4/17), strawberries from California, beef from Texas or Argentina, etc., we're in trouble. It's nearly impossible not to have to do some of it, since there's presently no way locally-grown food can support the thousands of people in our towns. Even in the town that used to be dubbed a "cow town" -- Charlton, with its large agriculturally-zoned areas -- the number of active farms is significantly below what it needs to be, while the population has grown immensely. That needs to change. 


I don't know how often I've had to go somewhere (usually for work) and passed by dozens of houses with well-mowed lawns, some of them huge. They're so ubiquitous some have argued there's a deep-seated psychological need to see something that vaguely resembles the African savanna we evolved on. Personally, I think that's bunk. I'm more inclined to think they're a throwback to a much more recent, aristocratic era, when the medieval rich could show off large swaths of land they did not need to farm because someone else was feeding them.

For decades now, we have been those aristocrats -- maybe not in actual wealth (although even in recession, we're far richer than almost everyone in history), but certainly in our sense of entitlement, thanks to vast quantities of energy, mostly from oil. We've gotten so used to expecting the food to keep coming to our store shelves, and thence to our tables, few of us consider just how vulnerable that supply system really is or how profoundly lucky we have been for so long.

That CANNOT continue forever, and some pretty strong evidence is signaling it's time we ripped up those extremely boring monocultures of grass and start planting food again: The Great Plains is experiencing a drought worse than the Dust Bowl; the Mississippi River's flooding is setting new records; the recent southern tornadoes were stronger than ever; oil prices are higher than they were this time in 2008, when they peaked at $147 in July ....

Need I go on?

Because New England has largely lain fallow, unfarmed for most of a century, our soil is generally pretty fertile. Because our ancestors did most of the heavy lifting, there are lots of acres that are free of the big rocks our region is infamous for. Because we've done a lot in the last few decades to clean the rivers and lakes, our water supply is mostly good (and with global warming, our region is expected to get more of it, unlike much of the present grain belt).

Those all give us a good chance to be able to resume feeding ourselves, if we're willing to get off our arses and get to work. Although the Commonwealth defines 5 acres as the minimum to merit formal protection as a "farm," or two acres if you sell $1000 per acre, those requirements in practice mostly apply to owning farm animals. Very little prevents most people from growing a sizable part of their own vegetable supply on less than that. Even apartment dwellers can plant a bunch of things in containers on their windowsills, and there are several books and websites teaching people how to support themselves on a suburban acre or less.

Our individual physical health needs it, and so does the well-being of our towns. Besides, there are few things more rewarding that knowing YOU grew dinner!