Report From An Outpost

Posted on by

A brief synopsis of human conditions in response to questions posed by the new Chief of Outpost Guardians, Galactic Command (COG Galcomm). This report is given from the socio-political perspective of Americans, the culture in which this outpost is embedded.*

Outpost E6A1.ox

This outpost is manned by a single pre-contact observer, in the urban environs of the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States of America, specifically the city of Oakland. While it is equipped with a resonant quantum gravitational space-time reintegrator (requavator), tourist traffic is not carried on at this time, to ensure pre-contact obliviousness is undamaged. However, we do support the entry and exit requavation of Galcomm surveillance and assessment teams, and the field trips of Organite researchers in Earth and human dynamics. Our requavation capabilities are ample and can provide the carapace biosynthesis needed by any Galactic Organite to blend into humanity. Because of E6A1.ox’s isolation and minimal transport operations, observations can be carried on without notice or interruption.

Introduction

First, let me congratulate Namunon Rupa for the appointment to COG Galcomm. I, and all OGs, are aware of how important the role of COG Galcomm is, as the sensory receptor nexus for all Organites with respect to the pre-contact disconnects. What follows is a brief response to the questions you addressed to E6A1.ox, as an addendum to the appointment announcement transmission. Beyond that, I will add commentary as can readily be supplied for a speedy response, yet within format limits. Greater elaboration will follow in subsequent regular reports and as requested by Galcomm.

The World

Earth today is a planet that is rapidly heating due to exothermic human activity — half of the subterranean paleo-liquid hydrocarbons have been consumed, primarily in the last eighty years. Humans have yet to devise minimum entropy systems of planetary energetics, so their use of energy is marked by waste and rapid environmental degradation. What could be a human paradise with ample water and temperate climate for several million years is instead a planet with overwhelming privation, widespread bloody conflict, rapacious conquest by plutocratic elites, and environmental catastrophe likely within decades. The most powerful country (a political entity) from which world plutocracy is building its planetary empire is the United States of America.

The Western Hemisphere

Calculations of present trends in the Planet America Model (developed in collaboration with socio-calculationists in the Planet America Special Interest Section, Institute of Pre-Contact Studies) indicate environmental collapse leading to border-expanding warfare within a century. This year alone, the Caribbean has experienced four devastating hurricanes in succession, a consequence of greater stored heat in the atmosphere and biosphere. The thermohaline cycle is expected to collapse in twenty years (plus or minus five) because of dilution in the North Atlantic due to polar melting and the rise of sea level.

The model projections show that America (the common name of the United States of America) will invade Canada to secure its natural resources, particularly oil, natural gas, water, minerals, wood and territory for military use and for waste deposits. Canadians would be absorbed into the American population, as the majority are white-skinned. This invasion would be prompted by the abrupt climate change after thermohaline collapse, from the currently warmed temperate conditions prevailing at mid latitudes on the North American continent, to a nearly Siberian drought-tundra situation.

The climate in the Caribbean and Central America would be much wetter, and with a greater frequency of severe storms. Floods would wash away what high winds have not swept away, especially in regions denuded of deep-rooted vegetation. Agriculture will be severely hampered, and waves of eco-collapse refugees will stream to Mexico and then north into the southern United States. The southern portions of South America will also be colder because of the general planetary cooling after the thermohaline collapse. Too bad all that atmospheric waste heat was not properly used in the first place, to support the development of organite civilization!

The United States will experience socio-racial shock under the deluge of invasions from the south, and it will invade Mexico to stem the tide and secure resources — oil and water. The Mexicans and Latin Americans, being of darker skin and different language from American elite standards, will be contained in a manner now being practiced by Israel in Palestine (see reports from E2P1.ox). The American military occupation of Mexico will expand south into Central America, becoming a draining overreach.

These invasions will propel the South American countries to merge into an armed alliance, which they will be able to do despite American attacks given the over-extension of American attention. The armament of the south will be done by withholding resources from export to America, such as Venezuelan oil, and using them instead for indigenous social and military needs. This will occur on a continental basis as the Latin Americans will be unified by language (Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, not difficult to bridge), by opposition to the “Colossus of the North” (under history, see “American Intervention”) and the defense of their homes. The Latin American forces that will fight the United States over control of the Venezuelan oil fields (in twenty five to thirty years) will be made up of troops from all over South America.

There will be numerous internal revolutions during this South American Renaissance, causing the collapse of some political regimes, a major expansion of socialism (see the political sections in the references) and the merging and reformation of a number of countries with a rectification of borders. The entire process in the south will be relatively bloodless, aside from the sustained terrorism organized by the indigenous plutocracy supported by America, until such terrorism can be eliminated through social revolutions, which will see a few small scale retaliatory massacres of pro-American plutocrats.

The Global Probabilities

The Latin American Renaissance will be possible because America will be overextended with its North American occupations, its projected Australian occupation (see reports from E4M2.ox on the anticipated post eco-collapse Indonesian Oil War) and the interconnected Oil Wars of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Western Pacific.

A global analysis requires integrating the projections of the Planet America model with those of other regions: East Asia, Eurasia, Islamia, Western Europe and Africa (where America will mount resource raids). At this time the boundary of Islamia and Eurasia — the Caucasus region — is in turmoil that will devolve into the next major war, the Global Oil War expected to last thirty years. The consensus of model projections is for a weakening of the American empire, perhaps even the disappearance of the American political state, under the combined pressure of the Latin American Renaissance, a Euro-Russian alliance (to secure Middle East oil, repel African eco-refugee invasions, and credibly counter American long-range nuclear capability), a Sino-Japanese allied imperial expansion contending for command of Indonesia with American-occupied Australia (though some models predict the reverse, a second Sino-Japanese war), and a fracturing of Islamia from Algeria to Indonesia as different warlords fight and ally themselves with the three blocs contending for Islamia’s oil: America, Euro-Russia (Eurasia), and East Asia. These matters are too diverse to describe here, they require a consolidation of Earth OG reports by Galcomm technical committees, and further analysis by pre-contact academics.

What remains clear is that until the natural conditions of the planet change radically, the expansion of the American empire will be unimpeded. The mechanisms used for this expansion — capitalism (the economics of imperialism) and fossil fuel energy (paleo-hydrocarbon combustion) — are the primary sources of global warming and accelerated socio-physical entropification.

Aspects of American Politics

American politics is impossible to understand on the basis of its literature, since it is entirely a product of subterfuge, denial and obfuscation. However, it is easily possible to understand the purposes of American political customs and institutions, by inquiring as to the effects of these on the great mass of the American public, and upon the much larger mass of Earth’s people. From such empirical observations, and the historical record (being careful to analyze the source motivations and embedded biases of these), one can arrive at a number of basic political facts. Below, I list a number that have been constant over much of American history, and which also find parallels in the histories of many human societies (naturally, there will always be individual exceptions to the generalizations stated below).

1. Ordinary people are always the victims.

2. Capitalism is more important than human life, even of fellow Americans.

3. American politicians will literally walk over piles of dead to raise their ambitions. A notable example occurred in New York City shortly after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001.

4. Media lies and Americans accept the lies.

5. Americans are biased against Islam, Arabs and Muslims.

6. Americans believe Israel is stealing Palestine and oppressing the Palestinians; they accept this situation, and American foreign policy reflects this acceptance.

7. Heroes are unionized blue collar workers — firefighters, police, flight attendants — and soldiers; they are supposed to die selflessly, provide patriotic backdrops to political figures who represent corporate interests, and not strike for higher pay.

8. State capitalism is a system into which all pay while few benefit. It is popular with those few, who insist it be mandatory for everybody. Its attraction rests on the possibility of gain disproportionate to contribution, as with theft. The distribution of benefits is rigged (unlike honest gambling where they are randomized, and except for the house take and discounting skill at the game). The purpose of government is to host the forums that mediate the many dealings that go into arranging the schedule of benefits. Access to these forums is proportional to wealth. America is a welfare state, and in each person’s mind their subsidy is justifiable while everyone else’s is not; the purpose of the public is to be a source of wealth that is as disorganized and unsubsidized as possible.

9. The making of money is an obsessive-compulsive disorder — an addiction. I do not mean pay for work, for the products of hand and mind labor, but about accumulating wealth. All addiction is a “loss of soul,” and to such possession the addict will sacrifice anything: people, scruples, ethics, public safety, The Bill of Rights.

10. The political energy equation: oil = military power = political power = economic power. The equation works backwards as well: money buys power to use the military to secure resources — imperialism.

11. The purpose of all political speech is to befuddle the public mind and distract it from the obvious: the goal of plutocracy is to keep its money and take yours. There is no other goal, whether organized privately as corporations or publicly as government. The recent increase in popular poverty is a clear sign of the success of the economic policies of the present political administration.

12. Ignorance is embraced as a means for social control by the elite, who work to degrade educational standards (which have fallen steadily during the last thirty years in direct anti-correlation with the rising dominance of the present majority political party) and to encourage religious dogmatism. People indoctrinated to dogma are intellectually incapacitated, being trained to dispense with evidence and logic that contradicts implanted precepts. In adapting the psychology of religious faith into the psychosis of remote control political programming, the American capitalist elite is reaching for its apotheosis in fascism. The appeal of ignorance is its ease — thought is work — and its consequence is fear, everything is an unknown and the unknown is a threat. Where the ignorant seek certainty against their fears, religion flourishes. Where religion flourishes, the capacity for cruelty and injustice expands. Elites meld the religious to the political to control the mass of the people and to channel massive popular energy into directed action — war — which taps that capacity for cruelty extracted from the vast reserves of fearful ignorance.

In Conclusion

Pardon the prolixity, but I have reached the usual limit of regular OG reports, and there is yet much to tell. Another fascinating topic here is sex (humans have two sexes and each individual is expressed as one, as opposed to our internalized multiphasic sexuality). However, since I have addressed the specific questions sent, and then elaborated somewhat on several aspects of American political customs, this is a good place to stop. I was beginning to diverge into a discussion of American religion, which is exceedingly involved as a political and psychological topic, though largely bereft of intellectual content (amazingly, few Americans realize each individual actualizes the consciousness of the universe, the Organite essence). In America, religion is an emotional aspect of nonthinking, and of subterfuge when thought is political and economic calculation.

Thank you for your interest in Earth Station E6A1.ox, and be assured I will be happy to respond with special reports on specific questions about this world. Just write.

Earth Outpost Guardian E6A1.ox

References

* Footnotes are suppressed as the intended distribution is among the pre-contact technical committees of Galcomm and academics specializing in Planet America. Terms not defined are as given in standard references: Glossary of Planet America; History of Human Psychodynamics on Planet Earth; Planetary Americanization: An Empire of Emotion, Calculation and Delusion.

<><><><><><><>

Originally published at Swans.com on 4 October 2004
http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgarci23.html

<><><><><><><>

Energy for Society in Balance with Nature

Posted on by

“Solar power at 1% conversion efficiency on 2% of the land area of the United States of America would produce the total electrical energy use of the nation, 4 trillion kilowatt-hours per year (4T kWh/y).”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

<> The Economic Function Of Energy <>

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Economics is the consumption of energy to process matter and produce action for the maintenance and renovation of society. Just as form follows function, the right choice of an energy technology for any society is a function of its economic model and socio-economic goals. Politics is the process of determining the allocation of costs and the distribution of benefits for an economy. Therefore, the selection of the energy technologies to power a society is based on political consensus and political power.

Industrialization is a synchronized and mechanized form of economics. For example, suburbia and exurbia are industrializations of the concepts of village, town, and city. They are the stretching of human settlements into 2D space with a compensatory time contraction provided by an energy-intensive kinetic network of unitary transport vehicles.

Public debates on the influence of industrialization on the global heat balance (the average temperature of much of the biosphere), and the sensitivity of climate change to inputs of industrial waste heat and waste matter (e.g., CO2, methane, soot), are political debates on economic forms couched in terms of the relative convenience, profitability and environmental impact of different energy technologies.

Energy For Human Development

The United Nations uses an economic parameter called the Human Development Index (HDI) to characterize the typical standard of living of every nation. It is observed that affluent nations have high HDI scores (HDI ranges from 0 to 1) and a high use of electrical energy per year per person (in kilowatt-hours/year/person the range is from 0 to 30,000), while poor nations have relatively low values for both quantities. (1)

Data from 2005 include the following:

1. The range of annual per capita electrical energy use among 177 nations was between 40 kWh/year/person and 29,247 kWh/year/person. The range of HDI was from 0.281 to 0.963.

2. The United States of America ranked 10th in HDI, at 0.944, with 13,456 kWh/y/p for 4.5% of the world’s population, which produced 24.4% of the CO2 emissions from human activity.

3. The People’s Republic of China ranked 85th in HDI, at 0.755, with 1,484 kWh/y/p for 21% of the world’s population, which produced 12.1% of the CO2 emissions from human activity.

China is racing to develop, and a momentary digression is necessary on account of its rapidly changing data. Between 2004 and 2009, China’s primary energy use grew by 40%, electricity use by 70%, energy imports by a factor of three, population by 2.7%, and CO2 emissions by 44%. (2) After 2007, China’s CO2 emissions exceeded those of the United States (though per capita emission remains far below the US level). Between 2008 and 2010, world CO2 emissions rose 12.1%, US CO2 emissions by only 0.57% because of the economic slowdown during 2009, and Chinese CO2 emissions rose by 17.2%. In 2010, China’s CO2 emissions were 24.6% of the world total, and the US share was 16.4%. (3)

The United Nations calls the striving of each nation to elevate the standard of living of its population its economic development, and a fundamental part of such development is a greater availability of electrical power.

We can visualize the sequential stages of economic development as an HDI climb up an energy ladder. People who burn matter to generate heat, and have a pre-industrial society, advance their economic development by shifting to fuels of higher chemical energy content: from crop waste and dung, to wood, charcoal, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, and then ethanol and methanol.

The higher stages of economic development are those experienced over the last two centuries by the now highly industrialized nations. Coal was the fuel of 19th century industrialization. Oil and natural gas are the fuels of rapid mass mobility and heating, and power the hyper-animated form of industrial society we know simply as “the 20th century.” Civilian nuclear power became available near the middle of that century, and remains our most concentrated source of energy for producing electricity.

In 2005, the world average HDI was 0.741, and the world average electrical energy use was 2,465 kWh/y/p. People whose lives are characterized by the low end of the HDI scale (near 0.3) can be said to remain, for the most part, in the 18th century. Those in mid-range HDI conditions (0.5-0.6) experience 19th to early 20th century living with some sprinkles of the 21st century, perhaps occasional encounters with consumer electronics like cellular telephones, or militarized police with all too modern automatic guns. Nations with HDI near the world average (0.7-0.8) are clearly modern, though they will still experience many austerities. The plateau of affluence is defined by those nations with HDI above 0.9, and energy use above 6,000 kWh/y/p.

The different levels of economic development existing today mean that no single strategy for advancement is appropriate worldwide, even though it is clear that every national strategy for development must include an effort to improve the reliable availability of energy broadly.

Several nations in the affluence plateau, like Germany, are seeking to make a transition to a post-nuclear, post-fossil fuel economy without a loss of HDI. Energy sources being explored include: solar (photovoltaic and thermal), wind, ocean (wave and tidal), hydroelectric (river power), biomass (agriculture for fuel), and conservation, perhaps the richest though least popular source.

Nations that are industrializing now, like China, and are heavily reliant on coal and oil, could decide to skip the atomic age of mid-20th century America and Europe, and leap-frog to a post-nuclear, post-fossil fuel and ultimately high HDI economy by the middle to late 21st century. A recent report in Spiegel Online International notes: “In 2004, Germany held a 69 percent share of the global solar panel business. By 2011, it had declined to 20 percent” because “Chinese competitors offer systems of equivalent quality at significantly lower prices.” (4)

Nations that remain largely pre-industrial and struggle to meet the basic needs of their people, as outlined by the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG), (5) might conclude that duplicating the 19th and 20th century developmental path of America and Europe is just not possible today, nor conscionable since the raising of their people’s HDI cannot wait two centuries. They might decide to leap-frog from the 18th to 21st centuries, bypassing the intense industrialization of the coal through nuclear economies, and instead invest in the low capital development of many local sources of renewable energy, which would be distributed near its generation sites through low-power micro grids. Such a ubiquitous, frugal, renewable-source and essentially “gridless” power system is in contrast to the concept of a few capital-intensive technologically complex and large coal, oil and nuclear power plants feeding electricity through massive regional and long-distance transmission line systems, to eventually fan out to each particular home. Just getting enough electricity to illuminate homes (enabling reading and study at night) and to power simple machines like water pumps and refrigerators (and hand tools, and perhaps even recharge cellular telephones) everywhere in a currently low HDI nation would be a revolutionary improvement.

At this point we can pose a multitude of questions with one simple query: what are the best energy technologies to power our economy into the future?

Energy Choices For An Uncertain Future

Consider the selection of energy technologies to be: renewables (R), coal (C), oil and natural gas (O), and nuclear (N). Under renewables we group the technologies that harvest energy without resorting to burning (solar, wind, ocean, hydroelectric, geothermal and conservation), and may include some biomass schemes, like methane-generating digesters of farm, household, and municipal wastes, despite the fact that they produce a fuel for burning, which produces carbon dioxide gas. Under renewables, we exclude schemes for the industrial scale agriculture of crops intended to be processed into liquid fuels and methane; this is just the depletion of soil that could be producing food to instead fuel automobiles, farmed oil.

If we think of economic development as a process of concentrating technological complexity and capital for the purposes of improving a society’s well being, then the right fuel to power that society is one whose degree of energy concentration is compatible with the technological concentration of the society. Here, we are referring as much to E. F. Schumacher’s concept of “appropriate technology” as to the earlier description of the energy ladder. (6)

Forms Of Energy In Our Quests For Power

The appropriate choice of an energy technology for any given society will usually be some mixture of the major technologies, labeled here as R, C, O, and N. Let us identify the major attraction of each of our four technologies as follows:

R: achieve MDG, power to end poverty (social power).

C: commercial power.

O: military power.

N: political power.

Renewables can be deployed locally with little capital and are thus the first choice for moving pre-industrial people out of poverty and into the upper half of the HDI range, which corresponds to lives in humane and secure conditions that Americans and Europeans would see as elementary 20th century life.

Coal is abundant, it can fuel the great furnaces of heavy industry, and it can provide the heat to generate electricity for billions of people. This is why China burns so much coal, and why also America and Europe continue to use it. Coal is the fuel of commercial power gained through heavy industrialization, a 19th and early 20th century technique of development that is perfectly suited to countries whose typical experience of life is of a comparable time, and who have much greater ambitions.

Oil is the “liquid gold” that is refined into the fuels that make the automobile culture, the airline industry, and the highly mobile global reach of the United States military possible. The many large, heavy, complex, low-mileage, high-power vehicles of the US military could not exist without jet fuels, high-octane gasoline, diesel fuel, and fuel oil; the Air Force would be grounded, the Navy tied up at port, and the Army reduced to marching or horse-drawn wagons, since their trucks, tanks, and helicopters would be immobilized.

Civilian America could probably live quite well with only renewable energy, but it would be impossible to maintain today’s military capabilities without petroleum-based fuels. Renewables are low concentration technologies, they require large collection areas, and are completely unsuited to military mobility. If very high energy density batteries were available, perhaps the US military could maintain solar energy farms (probably all of Arizona), that constantly charged them up, to power its electrified vehicles. However, electric battery technology has not achieved anything near the energy concentration of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Electric cars remain rare because their batteries take up more space than the gas tank, which they are far heavier than, and they provide less range before being exhausted and requiring a lengthy recharge.

Nuclear reactors can power large ships like aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines, as well as large static bases, but are far too cumbersome for most military tasks. Coal can be liquefied into a fuel (producing more CO2 than the extraction of crude oil and its refinement to liquid fuels) and is probably what the US military would turn to in the event that petroleum ceased being available.

The many liabilities of nuclear power are well known, and today are being highlighted by the Fukushima disaster. But, nuclear power always has one irresistible draw: it is the source of nuclear weapons. The fascination here is entirely that of political power, the belief that in possessing nuclear weapons one possesses the ability to make the ultimate threat: to obliterate an enemy. What is often forgotten is that in order to carry out the threat one needs a reliable and accurate delivery system, usually missiles. As more nations acquire nuclear weapons and missile systems, another consideration becomes the ability to survive retaliation. As purely war-fighting tools, nuclear weapons have become obsolete because Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) guided chemical high explosives conveyed by missiles and drone aircraft can destroy targets with an accuracy of meters, eliminating the need for large-area blasts to compensate for the targeting inaccuracy of unguided gravity bombs and ballistic missiles. However, possession of nuclear weapons certainly gets their keeper the attention of other nations.

A Simple Model Of Energy Choices

So, the first method we might try for prioritizing a society’s investments in energy technologies would be to rank the four types of power the decision-makers might want (political, military, commercial, to end poverty), and then by the corresponding code letters shown earlier, we arrive at a preference ranking of energy choices. We might guess at the following two examples, and then compare them to reality:

United States:
military, commercial, political, social; (O, C, N, R).

China:
commercial, social, military, political; (C, R, O, N).

In 2009, the United States produced 37% of its energy from petroleum, 25% from natural gas, 21% from coal, 9% from nuclear power, and 8% from renewables, the bulk of which was hydroelectric. Grouping petroleum and natural gas together, these portions become: O at 62%, C at 21%, N at 9%, and R at 8%. (7)

In 2005, China produced 81% of its electricity from coal-fired plants (C), 17% was hydroelectric (R), and 2% from nuclear power (N). Petroleum is refined for the liquid fuels used for transportation. China is the world’s leading producer of renewable energy, the bulk of which is hydroelectric. With an eye to the future, China is also the largest producer of wind turbines, solar panels and solar water heaters. At the UN climate summit in 2009, China pledged to have 15% of its energy generated from solar power within a decade. (8)

An Improved Model Of Energy Choices

The previous type of analysis is too simple — we want greater insight into the politics of energy. Decision making in most countries is a blending of competitive interests, how do we account for the many possibilities of this? My response was to devise a detailed model based on the decision theory of Richard C. Jeffrey. Decision theory combines ideas from statistics, probability theory, and logic, and is the result of work by philosophers, mathematicians, economists, and logicians. (9)

The essential points of my improved model are as follows. The agent making the decisions about national investments in energy technologies is assumed to be a composite of several characters. Each of these characters represents a major constituency or interest as regards national energy policy. I considered three single-minded characters: “no nuclear,” “stop global warming,” and “maximum energy now.” The deciding agent is a weighted sum of these three characters. For example, if all three characters had equal political power, then the agent’s preferences would be an equal blending of “no nuclear,” “stop global warming,” and “max energy now.” If the portions of political power for the three characters happened to be 1/7 for “no nuclear,” 4/7 for “stop global warming,” and 2/7 for “max energy now,” then the preferences of the deciding agent would be a composite of the single-minded preferences in these same proportions. Five case studies, each with a different set of political weights, were calculated from the model and are described below.

When the deciding agent is entirely the single-minded character “stop global warming,” the ranking of investment choices is R, N, O, C (renewables, nuclear, oil and gas, coal). Clearly, this character holds off on burning as much as possible, and only reluctantly agrees to it when there is no other source of energy. Notice that a single-minded concern for global warming leads to a preference for nuclear power over combustion power.

A deciding agent that is equally split between “no nuclear” and “max energy now” (and does not care about global warming) is most likely to rank investment choices as C, O, R, N. The numerical results show that this agent is equally comfortable choosing coal or oil, so the ranking could just as easily be O, C, R, N. If this deciding agent had less of the “no nuclear” character, so that its preference ranking placed R last, then this agent would mirror the actual character the US energy mix: O, C, N, R.

A deciding agent that is equally split between “stop global warming” and “max energy now” (and does not care about avoiding nuclear) is most likely to rank investment choices as R, C, and then N and O equally. The numerical results show that the single most preferred technology is coal, but the concern over global warming boosts the incentive to invest in renewables. If this deciding agent had less “stop global warming” character, so that C was first in its ranking of investment choices, then this agent would mirror the actual character of the Chinese energy mix: C, R, N, for the generation of electricity (O is used for transportation fuels).

A deciding agent that is equally split three ways between “no nuclear,” “stop global warming,” and “max energy now” is most likely to rank investment choices as not-N, R, O, C. This agent’s first priority is to stop, end, and prevent funding for nuclear power. The next priorities are positive investments in energy sources, ranked as R, O, C.

Because of its natural preference for nuclear power, the “stop global warming” character is directly opposed to the “no nuclear” character. A deciding agent that is one part “no nuclear” and two parts “stop global warming” (and has none of the “max energy now” character) will most likely rank investment choices as R, N, O, C. This is the same ranking as that of a single-minded “stop global warming” agent. However, because there is a minor portion of the agent with the “no nuclear” character, another ranking that is nearly as probable is R, O, N, C.

While it is possible to elaborate models of this type into systems of great complexity to capture many types of opinions on energy policy and their relative political weights, and to use computers to calculate projections on the possible directions of a society’s energy politics, I think it’s better to keep the models reasonably simple and to use them as guides that help the mind organize the information from which decisions are to be drawn, and then to bring out the most important points. John von Neumann (1903-1957) said: “The purpose of computation is insight, not numbers.”

International Energy Politics

Based on what has been presented up to this point, we can propose the following as six points of probable conflict [1-6].

High HDI environmentalists, whose major concerns are the consequences of global warming (R, N, O, C), are:

[1] at odds domestically with their military and commercial sectors (O, C, N, R), which are interested in immediate power and profits,

[2] at odds with high HDI anti-capitalists, whose major concerns are political opposition to war, nuclear weapons, and nuclear power (R, O, C, N).

Low HDI economic developers, whose major concern is the immediate raising of living standards (C, R, O, N), find themselves:

[3] at odds with high HDI environmentalists on the issue of economic development (coal),

[4] they find high HDI anti-capitalists disinterested in low HDI economic development (interest is opposition to high HDI power),

[5] they find high HDI commercial sectors competitive with and thus hostile to their industrialization.

Low HDI economic developers are aware of and concerned about global warming, which is why they seek to develop R technology (C, R, O, N).

[6] They find themselves at odds with high HDI commercial sectors, who are disinterested to pay the cost of reducing their CO2 emissions (O, C, N, R), or of developing R technology suitable to low HDI conditions.

If we imagine that each of these conflicts is a simplified reflection of reality, then it is easy to see why the 2011 UN Convention on Climate Change, in Durban, South Africa, resulted in setting to 2015 the completion of an international agreement to limit carbon emissions, and waiting till 2020 for that agreement to take effect.

Now for a change of focus. Instead of trying to answer how societal choices on energy have been and will be made, we give free rein to realistic imagination and ask: what could we do to produce and use energy if there were no political barriers?

The Energy Systems Of Two Imaginary Futures

Let us sweep away all the conceptual restraints placed on the imagination by the fractious politics and societal indecision of our times, and instead visualize energy systems that are physically possible, to power economies that feed some subset of enduring human desires.

US National Solar Electricity System

Solar power at 1% conversion efficiency on 2% of the land area of the United States of America would produce the total electrical energy use of the nation, 4 trillion kilowatt-hours per year (4T kWh/y).

We could imagine a single site in the American southwest that was a square with sides 427 km (265 miles) long; or 100 sites of 43 km (26 mi) square sides; or 1000 sites of 14 km (8.4 mi) square sides. If the conversion efficiency of sunlight to electricity is increased to 10%, then only 18,232 square km (7040 sq. mi) of collection area are needed; this could be one site of 135 km (84 mi) square sides. The combined land areas of the White Sands Missile Range, Fort Hood Texas, Yuma Proving Grounds and Twentynine Palms Base is 18,435 square km (7118 sq. mi); imagine them being used to host a national (publicly owned) solar electricity system, US NSES.

The conversion efficiency of solar (photovoltaic) cells varies with type, age, and conditions, the extreme range being 2% to 43%, where efficiencies beyond about 20% are for specialized devices in research laboratories. One expects 15% to 19% efficiency of solar cells in the field. (10)

Solar-thermal systems convert sunlight to heat, and are of many different types. (11) A solar-thermal-electric system captures sunlight as heat in a transfer fluid (synthetic oil, pressurized steam, molten salt), which is used to generate steam that powers conventional turbine-generators of electricity. One such system, Nevada Solar One, nominally produces 64 MW of electricity from a collection area of 1.2 square km (300 acres), an efficiency of 5.3%. (12)

With a combination of photovoltaic and solar-thermal-electric systems, the United States could use 18,400 square km (7,100 sq. mi) of publicly owned land (converted military bases) to provide 4T kWh/y of socialized electricity, converted from sunlight with 10% efficiency (sunlight at 1000 Watts per square meter is assumed for only 25% of the time to account for nights and cloudy days).

The obvious difficulties with solar energy are nighttime, clouds, and dust on the reflectors or their glass covers. A solar power system can supply electricity steadily if it is paired with an energy storage system that is filled during daylight hours, and discharged during darkness. We could imagine half the electricity generated during daylight being stored for use at night.

The form of storage could be electrical, in batteries, or mechanical, as the spinning masses of large flywheels, or gravitational, as the pumping of water into elevated tanks or uphill reservoirs. At night, the batteries would be discharged, the flywheels spin down by rotating the shafts of electric generators, and the pumped storage recovered hydroelectrically. We can imagine the US NSES pumping water into Lake Mead (Nevada) during the day, for hydroelectric recovery at Hoover Dam during dark times.

As for the dust, it seems we will always need people to clean windows.

Carbon Neutral Free Market Economy

Americans reached a four-fold consensus: carbon emissions must be reduced drastically, it was absolutely essential that anyone be able to own a 13 mile-per-gallon two ton, four wheel drive SUV (a truck-based automobile), the US military required enough fuel to move all its vehicles all the time, and civilian nuclear power was acceptable if the reactors were well sealed, and the radioactive wastes were moved permanently offshore.

The Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada, (13) a vast sludgy deposit of mixed crude bitumen, sand, clay, and water, with a viscosity like cold molasses, is strip mined and softened by high temperature steam into a pressurized oily slurry that is piped to US synthetic fuel plants along the Canadian border. The large amount of viscosity-reducing heat needed along the entire length of the pipeline is supplied by electric heaters, which are powered from Canadian nuclear reactors dedicated to this purpose.

The large amounts of carbon dioxide gas released by the production of synthetic gasoline is contained at the synfuels plants and piped to the National Carbon Sequestration Portal, by the Pacific Ocean at the Oregon coast. This site has large underground tanks for the temporary storage of pressurized CO2, and its own nuclear power plant, which generates the energy needed for pumping CO2 into the National Carbon Sequestration Site at the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate.

The CO2 is pumped offshore 300 km (186 mi) and down into undersea basalt below a depth of 2,700 m (8900 ft), where it reacts to form stable carbonate minerals. (14) That these accumulating carbonate deposits may lead to an acidification of the local oceanic environment, and adversely affect marine life, is not seen as likely by the designers of this scheme.

Coal is still mined in the U.S., but it is all processed into synthetic liquid fuels for civilian and military transport. Electricity is generated primarily from nuclear power, with a small portion being hydroelectric. To compensate for the loss of coal as a fuel for producing industrial process heat (blast furnaces and such) a much larger quantity of electricity is generated than in the past, to provide industrial heat electrically.

The nation’s 531 nuclear reactors (up from 104 in 2008) are now of a new modular design. When the reactor core has been used up, the control rods are fully inserted into it, the containment vessel is filled with coolant and sealed, and the entire assembly is removed for disposal; a fresh replacement is installed. The spent sealed vessels are shipped to the National Nuclear Embarkation Facility in South Carolina. These sealed vessels, called “plugs,” are carried by specialized container ships to sites along the Mid-Atlantic Bathymetric Disposal Line. This line runs along the ocean floor about 4,000 meters below the surface, parallel and to the west of the rift valley in the middle of the tectonic spreading zone known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The plugs are unloaded through the bottom of the container ship’s hull, and guided by robotic submersibles to prepared emplacement holes, which have been drilled into the ocean floor. The rate of tectonic spreading is about 2.5 cm (1 in) a year, so the Mid-Atlantic Bathymetric Disposal Line moves west, along with the rest of North America, at a rate of 25 km (15.5 mi) every million years.

By these means, Americans are able to continue with their preference for luxury truck-like road vehicles, suburban sprawl, air travel, and a high HDI lifestyle, without increasing the carbon emissions of the nation. However, these emissions remain high on a per capita basis, and global warming continues.

Parting Thoughts And A Fantasy

Life is effort, and effort is energy in use. As a society, the types of energy we use and seek to acquire are reflections of who we are. Our political conflicts are like the squabbles of scavengers assembled around a fallen carcass on the Serengeti Plain, and they have their echoes as conflicts over national and international energy policy. Regardless of whether we choose to tear our earth apart by competitive selfishness, or to nurture it communally, we will have to do a great deal of work to maintain reliable cycles of energy use that sustain our many nations. I believe that working cooperatively releases more energy for improving the HDI for everybody.

An African Fantasy

The Sahara Solar Energy Consortium includes the countries Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. With technical experts from Germany and Spain, and armies of workers from the host countries, the SSEC has built many solar energy farms across the Sahara, transmitting low-cost electrical power to all of Africa, and easily paying for itself (and the African development it enables) by exporting electrical power to Europe via the undersea Trans-Mediterranean Conduit. The SSEC is the world’s leading supplier of hydrogen gas produced by the electrolysis of water. Hydrogen gas is used to power fuel cells used as back-up generators of SSEC electricity. A hydrogen fuel cell is a device that converts the heat released by oxidizing hydrogen (burning it into steam) into electricity. (15) The steam is captured for reuse, naturally.

Notes

1.  M. García, Jr., Energy For Human Development, (a series of reports from 2006),

Energy for Human Development

2. “Energy Policy of The People’s Republic of China,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China

3. “List of Countries by Carbon Dioxide Emissions,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

4.  Alexander Neubacher, “Solar Subsidy Sinkhole: Re-Evaluating Germany’s Blind Faith in the Sun,” Spiegel Online International, 18 January 2012,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/solar-subsidy-sinkhole-re-evaluating-germany-s-blind-faith-in-the-sun-a-809439.html

5. “Millennium Development Goals,” United Nations,
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

6. “E. F. Schumacher” (1911-1977),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher

7. “Energy in The United States,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States

8. “Renewable Energy in The People’s Republic of China,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China

9.  Richard C. Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision, 1965, McGraw-Hill Book Company.

10. “Solar Cell Efficiency,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency

11. “Solar Thermal Energy,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy

12. “Nevada Solar One,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One

13. “Oil Sands,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sands

14. “Carbon Sequestration,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration

15. “Fuel Cell,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Originally published at Swans.com on 27 February 2012
http://www.swans.com/library/art18/mgarci41.html

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

How “The Economic Function of Energy” came to be written.

As part of my professional technical work in 2006, I devised an improved analytical fit (a curve) to the correlation between national HDI and average electrical energy use per capita, for 177 nations. My employer (Livermore Lab) hoped to use this result in grant applications seeking funds for nuclear energy research, arguing it was a social benefit (this was for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP, a program thankfully now dead). I continued in this job effort by applying the decision theory of Richard C. Jeffrey to devise simple models of how an agent (such as a government policy-making body) might rationally select what type of energy technology to invest in for the best results in raising a nation’s HDI.

Given that raising HDI was my stated goal, and not maximizing profits to a group of speculators (such as corporations), my decision theory models always pointed to renewable energy technologies as better than gas, oil and coal. It is obvious that climate change and environmental improvement or degradation have significant impacts on HDI. So, I combined my technical work on HDI curves and decision theory to justify my recommendation that my employer instead focus on the improvement of solar and renewable energy systems. This was my last project before retiring in 2007. I found much of the data quoted in “The Economic Function of Energy” during 2006-2007.

In 2007, I was urged (by two academics) to write a clear explanation of climate change science, aimed at convincing Alexander Cockburn (1941-2012), the political journalist, and the publisher-editor of Counterpunch (along with Jeffrey St. Clair), that his climate change skepticism was misplaced. That article is

Climate and Carbon, Consensus and Contention
4 June 2007

Climate and Carbon, Consensus and Contention

and it did not change minds one way or the other. Also, it is a very good article.

In 2011, I thought I would write a book on energy and climate change politics based on all I had learned in my investigations into

Energy for Human Development

Energy for Human Development

, HDI, energy policy decision theory models, and climate change science.

In December 2011, I completed an outline for this planned book, and that outline is now published on this blog.

Closing the Cycle: Energy and Climate Change

Closing The Cycle: Energy and Climate Change

Once I had the outline, I realized that my imagined book would be encyclopedic, which is to say impractical for me to write. I decided that the best way to make use of all that I had learned was to write reasonably-sized articles for a general readership, articles that were informative and clear without diluting the technical insights, and which provoked thought (I hoped).

“The Economic Function of Energy” is the result of that focus. It is my favorite of my essays to date, I think it is my best work of synthesis. It won’t change minds one way or the other, but I am very happy I developed to the point where I could and did produce it.

Enjoy!

<><><><><><><>

What Does It Mean To Be American?

Posted on by

I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the altered states in America
And to the republic-of-dreams for which it stands,
One nation under the gods, the goddesses,
The spirits of the ancestors,
And the great unknowable void,
With liberty to imagine justice
For all.

“Are you an American?” I’ve been asked since I can remember and to this day. I’m never sure, let’s just say I’m trying.

Being born here is not enough. I know, I was, and still most Americans think I’m a foreigner. I was born in the upper West Side — Spanish Harlem — in the time of Machito. I have a black moustache (well, had) and a permanent tan “to die for” — if your skin is plucked-chicken white and you can afford the “color.” I’ve been taken for every kind of Latino (I’m Cuban-Puerto Rican), for Egyptian, Persian, Turkish, and even black.

“My story is much too sad to be told…,” Ella Fitzgerald doing Cole Porter’s “I Get A Kick Out Of You,” that’s me.

Today, there is much feverish fantasy about patriotism, and many assume a real American is the usual stereotype of the beer-bellied, baseball-cap knuckle-headed, pasty-faced palooka who drives a pickup; loves the 3 B’s: baseball, basketball and football; eats steak without vegetables; and is entwined with a tight-ass cowgirl or bimbo-fluffy suburban SUV mama, who’s got the mall floor plan imprinted in her cerebral cortex, and has mapped out decades of smothering protective love over the lives of her young: Jennifer and Jonathan, or Kiley and Toby, and is as far away from Lou Reed’s “a girlfriend named Samantha” in “Street Hassle” as it is possible for human genetics to produce. And still, such people can be real — it is not automatic — as can many a “Samantha” and her inner-urban boyfriend, perhaps the quintessential Anglo-American, the one that makes a suburban lovesick New Jersey Jewish rock-and-roll composer boy realize how much he aches to be the ultimate Anglo — “I Wanna Be Black.”

“…you have drank — of the fountains — of innocence…there’s a dream — where the contents — are visible…where the poetic — champions compose…,” Van Morrison doing “Queen Of The Slipstream,” that’s me.

Real Americans have vision not to be confused with greed, motivation and drive not to be confused with ambition, and innocence not to be confused with stupidity.

“It’s knowing that your door is always open – and your path is free to walk…” Elvis doing “Gentle On My Mind,” that’s me. “True love — travels on a gravel road…” that’s me channeled by Elvis, along with so many others.

There are many American-born fakes. The loud ones self-identify with variations on the mantra “America is Number One!” Real Americans don’t care about being a number, they care about being. Is George W. Bush a real American? Nah, he’s a fake. There’s lots like that, cheap crap passed off to a dumb-ass public who’ll pay good money for something big, loud and empty. Dubya is a real fake, of which we have lots, since big fat useless empty is a big part of fake America, which everybody knows of course, but which we still feel necessary to be embarrassed about when we think. Not embarrassed enough to stop producing them, there’s just too much money to be made pushing out fake stuff, and money is GOD, money is Jack Number One in Jack-Off Nation. That’s why Rupert Murdoch (another fake) is here. And the multi-million head penis of Jack One are the guns of Jack-Off Nation, stroked compulsively in an auto-erotic neurosis to discharge our fantasies of power. Guns of the Pentagon world-jacking, guns of the street punks car-jacking, guns on the lobotomy-umbilical TV net volition-jacking, guns in the playgrounds in grammar schools child-jacking. I’m dying, I want to vacuum every dollar out of every pocket and portfolio in the country (and those “offshore”) and light a bonfire that can be seen from space: smoke-signals to the Tralfamadorians, “Send help!”

But wait…

“Our life — together — is so precious — together — we have grown — we have growww-ow-ow-own…and our love — is still special — let’s take a chance and fly away — somewhere — alo-o-own,” John Lennon’s “Starting Over,” that’s me, that’s real America, “…don’t let another day go by — it’ll be — just like starting over…”

Yes, lots of foreigners are REAL Americans, and lots of born Americans are pure fakes. Get it? OK, I’ll keep going.

“Your love – is lifting me higher — than I’ve ever — been lifted before…” Jackie Wilson taking flight, there is hardly any higher peak of Anglo-American ecstasy. If you are unmoved, you are un-American.

Anglo-American? Yeah, “such a feeling’s coming over me…” Karen Carpenter doing the best country music ever uttered (yes, this is true). The true voice of white American imagination with heart. OK, Elvis gets in there, and James Taylor brings country to philosophy when he opens with “Something in the way she moves…” Yes, heart is the high of love, and it draws us all in. “Love me tender — love me sweet — never let me go — you have made my life complete — and I love you so…” to hear Elvis do this and be unmoved is to be from Mars. Beyond all the money-grubbing, soul-sucking scum that interposes itself between the pure American artist and the audience, is the product of genius, a direct pipeline to the eternal, the universal voice of being. “Holy smokes and land sakes alive — I never thought this could happen to me — I got stung!…”

“Get Happy,” that’s true America. Hear Judy Garland do this Harold Arlen tune to get the real feeling of being an American. A New York Jewish composer writing a Negro spiritual (sort of), and sung by a Jewish-American gamin vocal genius. Even so, love the Ella Fitzgerald version — can anyone sing better? Frank Sinatra said of Ella, “man, woman or child, she is the best.” On this, he was right. “Hallelujah — hallelujah — come you sinners — gather round…a land where the weary are forever free…forget your troubles and just get happy!…” Brothers and sisters, this is the best revival you will ever attend. Listen to the sax in the Ella version, the real thing, feel it? If you’re moving, you’re American. “Get ready for the judgment dayyyyyyyy!”

And what will our Judgment Day be like? Wilson Pickett will lead the choir in “Everybody Needs Somebody,” as the waiting and wanting rejoice at their liberation and reward. Dubya and the fakes will be clueless, but probably worried on seeing the Vietcong in judges robes behind the bench.

The Vietcong are real Americans, one of our purest strains. They are one side of the American psyche denied in a psychosis of self-avoidance, a schizophrenia of psychic amputation. Instead of throwing troops fed on Rexroth and Kerouac at them, we unleashed troops fed on Playboy and quarter-pounders at this Buddhist, Third-World side of our psyche. We saw the tragedy of cornball-fed doughboy Cain killing riceball-fed water buffalo boy Abel. Ho Chi Minh could have been the Teddy Roosevelt inversion for our times — imagine his face on Mount Rushmore.

Instead of Ho’s visage in the Black Hills, we have the Black Wall etched in tears, the scar that will never heal because truth-facing is MIA. Time for some “Highway 61 Revisited,” (“God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son,’ Abe said, ‘Man, you must be putting me on’…”), time for some Aretha Franklin (“Baby — baby — baby…”). Our artists can only point to the moon, and we could see that light were we willing to forsake obsessing about the fingers. Dance on, danzón, bugaloo.

“Good lovin’…” by the Rascals, the best rock and roll song ever. If you disagree, you haven’t heard it loud enough. Can’t take it? Then, if you’re young, you’ve not got the American pulse; c’est la vie.

But, must everything American be blaring, brassy and bawdy? Of course not, listen to the Navaho flute of Nakai, or the soaring sonorities of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, yes Bohemian and yes American. And listen to Dvorak’s musical grandson: Duke Ellington.

The pulse is deep, it is wide, it can soar high, it can connect to the navel of the world and unfurl the panorama of eternity, and it is grand, and generous and heartbreaking, like a starry sky melting into the melon glow of dawn over southwest desert mountains. The wail of fighter plane turbines drilling through that reverential space is part of real America too, but it is that part which is so easy to make fake.

So, what makes for real America? Is it historical primacy, or historical prominence, or just longevity? “The People,” ersatz Indians, Native Americans, “indigenous peoples” are the bedrock of America, the impermeable stratum to which the blood that soaked into the land settled to cake and bind into a matting supporting the overlaying weave of America that Europe, Africa and Asia have knitted into the fabric of our culture. The noises of this catastrophe, this tragedy, this miracle, are woven into the sounds of its music, its joy of Cuban son, our salsa, the lubrication of spirit, the celebration of time’s passage that bathes the soul in effulgence of inchoate insight, beating like the heart of an infant, a hummingbird, or — in slow motion — a rock-and-roller. A real American is the issue of the survivors from old cultures that have fallen away, or are kept hidden from public defilement. They are Adams and Eves, innocent, spoiled and open to inheriting the earth, ignorant, cold and witless to the hunger of the outer world crushed by the weight of America’s joy. To be a truly real American is to see all this, to be driven insane by the clarity of understanding the holocaust we unleash upon this earth, and of splashing out unhindered by truth or moral vision, into a life of maximal creativity and expression. How else are we to understand a Billie Holiday, a Jim Morrison, a Winslow Homer, a Dorothy Day?

When you understand what it means to be a real American, then you can see that most Cubans are real Americans, where most Floridians are not; that most Mexicans are real Americans while most Californians are not; and that many immigrants will never be real Americans, though probably most always were. If this essay makes no sense to you, then you are sober in your delusions, for I am drunk in my insights. Insight knows itself to be particular, whereas delusion imagines itself to be general. This separates Carlos Castañeda from John Ashcroft. If you don’t like my icons, then pick your own, just make sure they are real, like Crazy Horse and Noam Chomsky, instead of fakes like George Armstrong Custer and Henry Kissinger. If this rant makes any sense to you, then you are capable of seeing that the America that will survive into the 22nd century, in peace and security, is as remote from the America of George W. Bush as that of Mark Twain was from J. P. Morgan’s, or Kurt Vonnegut’s was from Richard Nixon’s.

Real America is like a psychic glue binding us all together across our ethnic and intellectual territories, with a common sentiment that is Henry Fonda in “12 Angry Men,” Gregory Peck in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Sidney Poitier in “Lilies Of The Field,” Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” and the voice of Ella Fitzgerald doing the songs of Gershwin and Cole Porter.

We all have our private-language ethnicities, some based on culture and tradition, like Vietnamese or Mexican, others being intentional modern concoctions based on identity. But real Americans connect trans-ethnically through a psychic web of mutually-held vision and appreciation. Real America is alive in the Carnivals held in schoolyards by parents gathering funds for music and art education, and library books for their children, by issuing the products of their kitchens: cookies, bundt cakes, lumpia, spring rolls and ribs. Watch the kindergartners dance the Hula!

The real America is a spirit that is too easily raped, as George W. Bush and his gang have done, and too tough to be easily overcome, as the delusional enemies of our delusional nation have assumed.

When the Lincoln of our times is found, then the many chords of real America will sing in harmony, and the fascist myopia of taxless property will fall away before a harmony of vision worthy of Eugene V. Debs. An America that fails to open its loving arms to its own cannot survive, and cannot be real. “Do I love you, do I?…” Oh yes, Ella.

<><><><><><><>

Originally published at Swans.com on June 7, 2004
http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgarci15.html

<><><><><><><>

Environmentalism, Maslow Needs and Civilization’s Power Cycle

Posted on by

“The relationship between society and nature and the need to provide a decent standard of living for every human being under conditions of nonstop population growth present themselves as quandaries defying pat responses.” (Louis Proyect, “The Life, Loves, Wars and Foibles of Edward Abbey,” http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/15/the-life-loves-wars-and-foibles-of-edward-abbey/)

Louis Proyect’s article is very good because it is so thoughtful, rather than polemical, in presenting the conundrum of achieving naturally sustainable prosperity and advanced social development worldwide. Among the conflicting attitudes he points out are that between anarchist “Abbeyists” (after Edward Abbey) intent to prevent the industrialized exploitation of the wilderness lands of the American West (e.g., by sabotaging road building and logging equipment, and protesting dam construction) versus the zeal for rapid economic growth through gargantuan projects (e.g., hydroelectric dams, mines, metal refining plants, atomic power) in the New Deal ideology of socially regulated capitalism during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, as well as under the Stalinist Marxist-Leninist Communist Party in Russia (the Soviet Union), and the Communist Party in China to this very day.

How do we strike a balance between the elevation of impoverished masses versus the despoliation of vast wilderness?; the satisfying of dire human needs and enduring popular desires versus preserving an abundance of unaltered nature for future appreciation?

Can we better understand the concern by any person or group for preserving the environment and regulating, transforming (to “green”), reducing or even eliminating industrialization (a.k.a. “development”) so as to preserve wilderness and minimize further global warming, by seeking to locate their concerns within Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs? Let’s try.

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) devised a hierarchical classification of human needs, which can be summarized by the following five tiers, from most basic to most elevated:

1. Physiological
Meeting the physical requirements allowing the human body to function and human life to survive.

2. Safety
Having personal security, good health and well-being, financial security, and social security and insurance against accidents, illness, ill fortune and traumas.

3. Love and belonging
Belonging to and being accepted by a social group: an intimately bonded pair, a family, friendships, worker solidarity crews, religious groups, professional organizations, sports and enthusiast associations, gangs.

4. Esteem
Possessing two levels of esteem: first, that achieved by being held in high regard by others generally, or at least being respected or recognized for having gained social status, fame or notoriety; and, secondly, self-respect achieved by having met the challenges of one’s personal life — experience.

5. Self-actualization
The desire to become all that one believes one could be, and the desire to understand all that one believes one could know. Ultimately, this is self-transcendence, the giving of oneself into a higher goal, purpose, state-of-being or consciousness.

Human beings are sufficiently complex that most of these five types of needs are being addressed simultaneously in every individual at every stage of their lives, and regardless of their culture. However, the stage of one’s development (e.g., infancy, childhood, the teens, maturity, old age) as well as one’s culture and external circumstances (e.g., prosperity and peace, devastation and war) will strongly influence the weighting each of the five needs receives in any individual’s psychological processing of the moment.

People who live close to the land and which may be threatened by immediate despoliation, such as Amazonians witnessing clear-cutting of their tropical forests, and river pollution caused by the dumping of wastes from mines, drill sites for fossil fuel extraction, and industrialized meat-producing farms, would have an environmentalism grounded in Maslow’s basement tier of the physiological need for survival.

People in the poorer urban and rural neighborhoods of the developed world who are concerned about their exposure to dumped toxic chemicals, such as in the notorious Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls, New York, in the 1970s, and the many rural areas in Appalachia poisoned by toxic mine wastes, and American communities today dealing with the poisoning of their water supplies by the dumped effluents from hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) wells for the extraction of geologically trapped natural gas, will have an environmentalism based on Maslow’s second tier, the need to achieve personal security and ensure personal good health and well-being, and avoid experiencing catastrophic ill fortune through illness and financial ruin (as with the collapse of property values).

Some environmentalists whose personal circumstances leave them secure as regards Maslow’s physiological and safety needs are motivated by a need for inclusion in a supportive social group, and they participate in organized environmental activism. Their roles in such groups might be quite low-profile and ordinary, but they are rewarded by a sense of worthy purpose and the camaraderie of others similarly dedicated.

For some secure individuals (regrading the first three levels of needs) environmental activism is a way to achieve esteem in the eyes of the larger society. Such individuals might be scientists, academics, authors, celebrities and policy-makers who work to inform, alert and motivate larger public audiences to the immediate moral imperatives and more distant social benefits of a concerted national effort to preserve environments, stop antiquated though still profitable (and/or subsidized) extractive industries and industrialized carbon-dioxide producing practices, and to begin now to transform the entire paradigm of how humanity concentrates and uses energy. It is a simple fact of human nature that being seen as a hero is a very strong motivator, even among people who seek that recognition in work for the public good.

A higher level of esteem-fulfillment is achieved by individuals whose environmental activism becomes a personal challenge through which they seek to fully develop their own potential as creative and productive individuals, in a way that maximizes their personal contributions to the public good. The need fulfilled here is that of gaining a self-respect that withstands critical self-scrutiny.

The first four levels of needs as defined by Maslow are called “deficiency needs” because if they are not met the individual will feel anxious and tense — their experience of life will be deficient. Once the deficiency needs are satisfied, the individual will be psychologically freed to focus on the highest level need, which is for self-actualization.

Self-actualization is a need that is beyond any concern of gaining esteem in the eyes of society, or even of emerging triumphantly from rigorous self-criticism. This is a self-respect beyond ego-gratification, gained through the knowledge that one has made good use of the unique opportunities life has offered you, with results that have made a positive difference whether such an effect is noticed in your lifetime or not. Self-actualization is the transcendence of consciousness beyond the stratum of social convention and ego — spirituality if you will — in this case achieved though a dedication to environmentalism.

It is easy to see that when lower tier needs are unfulfilled it is difficult if not impossible to focus on higher tier needs. The mental tranquility of self-actualization is more easily achieved in a safe place and with a full stomach.

A broad environmental movement would include a wide variety of people, from those close to the land and in poverty, to the bureaucrats, consumers, careerists and celebrities of the movement, and on up to the spiritual environmentalists. A successful movement will include a wide spectrum of personal motivations that all focus on a unified social purpose.

Louis Proyect describes three other examples of clashes between human needs (pursued traditionally) and modern environmentalism. The subjects of these clashes are poverty relief financed by oil revenues, whaling, and undocumented Mexican immigration into the U.S.

The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is banking on the country’s vast oil reserves to pay for popular economic and social uplift, and this scheme is currently weakened by low prices on the global oil market. Northern Hemisphere environmentalists (in secure personal circumstances) would prefer Venezuela to formulate development plans not based on oil extraction, but it is economically and psychologically impossible for a conscientious nation with many poor people to cease exploiting a toxic resource it has in abundance and which the rest of the world lusts for, regardless of the environmental consequences. This is a clash between tier 1 and 2 needs in Venezuela, and the upper tier needs of environmentalists from the wealth zones of the Northern Hemisphere.

It is obvious that industrialized whaling (today by Japan, Norway and Iceland) has been economically unnecessary for over a century, and is morally and environmentally indefensible now. Its perpetrators claim they are preserving cultural and occupational traditions, but all industrialized nations are sufficiently advanced and sufficiently wealthy to quickly end the practice and occupationally rehabilitate, or pension off, their whalers, without damage to their national economies. Basically, the appeal to “tradition” is an excuse without merit. Whaling is part of a past that industrialized humanity has evolved far beyond.

However, it might seem unkind to oppose the whaling from long canoes and small boats by the 1,200 member Makah Indian band of Washington State, who kill their whales with hand-launched harpoons followed by rifle shots. The Makah’s whaling is a kinship ritual of ancient tradition, the whale meat being shared out in a communal ceremony, a potlatch.

The first whaling clash here is between environmentalists from some of the Northern wealth zones who are operating from their upper tier needs, and non-environmentalists from different Northern wealth zones who are fanatically focused (as in Santayana’s epigram) on their mid-tier needs for belonging and esteem, which they cannot imagine achieving in new non-whaling ways.

The second whaling clash here is between environmentalists from the Northern wealth zones who are operating from their higher tier needs, and impoverished North American survivalists (81% of Makah live on a reservation with 51% unemployment) who are operating from their mid-tier needs for belonging and esteem, which they wish to continue finding through ancient traditional practices of communal labor-intensive whaling and the dividing of the spoils.

Industrialized (commercial high-tech high-power artillery) whaling is completely inexcusable and we should ban it without further consideration. What about Makah whaling? I would end this practice also.

One can and should have sympathy for American Indians and other aboriginal people whose populations and cultures were destroyed, or severely eroded, by colonialism and expansionism (e.g., Manifest Destiny). The enlightened attitude toward such cultures today is to allow them to organize their own affairs on the lands they retain, and to exercise their cultural practices with minimal interference. That said, I do not believe that an appeal to tradition, as a sacrosanct form of social inertia, is justified as an excuse to resist transitioning to healthier and more intelligent social norms. All human societies have evolved as they have gained more knowledge about the workings of their environments, and all the human societies of today have moved beyond many of their ancient practices, some of which were barbaric. There is no reason why the Makah cannot devise a communal labor-intensive activity that produces an abundance of food without killing a whale, for a special occasion in which it is shared out. They can continue affirming their cultural ties of belonging and mutual esteem by evolving their communal ritual to fit the expanded environmental understanding humanity now has globally. A living culture evolves in response to environmental change and increased knowledge.

Some American environmentalists are opposed to the large influx of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin American, and they advocate for effective barriers to illegal border crossings, because they see this human tidal wave as a social phenomenon that degrades the quality of the environment in the American Southwest. The combination of masses of people tramping through fragile desert terrain, the accumulation of garbage dropped by migrants, and the increased vehicular and air traffic associated with border patrol operations, all degrade the wilderness areas of the American Southwest. The migrants are simply desperate to walk out of a failed economy and into relatively better circumstances, and then to be able to wire money back home to their families. The impact on the environment of this mass migration is just collateral damage in a class and cultural war for economic survival. Anti-immigrant American environmentalists are operating from their upper tier needs, in opposition to the migrants who are operating from their basement needs.

Everything is intertwined in the real world, and it will never be possible to solve one problem, such as “climate change” or “environmental degradation,” in isolation from all the other factors that combine to produce the cycle that powers civilization. The four grand links of that cycle are: economics, environmental stewardship, energy development, and industrialization.

Economics: the personal need by billions of laboring people for economic security.

Environmental stewardship: the preservation or degradation of natural environments, sustaining habitability and harvesting resources.

Energy Development: how energy is extracted from nature and made available for powering civilization: electricity and fuel.

Industrialization: how the work performed by industrialized civilization meets the economic needs of humanity’s billions (and so on around the cycle).

“Fixing” an environmental problem (like global warming) is impossible without making adjustments in economics, energy development, and industrialization (energy use and political economy); you have to straighten out the whole wheel.

Problems in the economic dimension, such as poverty and mass illegal immigration, are linked to choices made about energy development, such as the burning of fossil fuels which causes global warming and in turn leads to the problem of degraded environments desperate migrants flee from; and those economic problems are also linked to choices made about how the benefits of industrialization are to be shared out with the laboring masses: politics.

It is much easier for activists to think one-dimensionally about the link in civilization’s power cycle that is their special concern, such as environmentalism, and to hammer away at society on that note. But, the nature of our world is such that enduring improvements along any one of civilization’s four fundamental dimensions will result from a linked evolution of all of them.

Those activists who seek to advance their vision of society multi-dimensionally, though their particular concerns are narrowly focused (such as in environmentalism), will have a more complicated job of advocacy, but the results of their work are less likely to be futile.

<><><><><><><>

The following two web-links lead to articles that contain the technical “back story” to what I call “civilization’s power cycle.”

The Economic Function Of Energy
27 February 2012
http://www.swans.com/library/art18/mgarci41.html

Closing the Cycle: Energy and Climate Change
25 January 2014
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2014/01/25/closing-the-cycle-energy-and-climate-change/

<><><><><><><>

“The Economic Function Of Energy” is now also posted on this blog at:

Energy for Society in Balance with Nature
8 June 2015
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2015/06/08/energy-for-society-in-balance-with-nature/

<><><><><><><>

Addendum, 8 November 2019: Articles Related to the Above

Global Energy, Population and Warming by Manuel García, Jr., http://manuelgarciajr.com
what they are, what will happen, and what we should do;

<><> Complete Overview (Parts I, II & III; 3 links):

Our Globally Warming Civilization (2 June 2019)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2019/06/02/our-globally-warming-civilization/

Oil, Population, Temperature, What Causes What? (9 June 2019)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2019/06/09/oil-population-temperature-what-causes-what/

Ye Cannot Swerve Me: Moby-Dick and Climate Change (15 July 2019)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2019/07/15/ye-cannot-swerve-me-moby-dick-and-climate-change/

<><> Science Explained (energy, physics, computer models described; 2 links):

Closing The Cycle: Energy and Climate Change [25 January 2014 (7 December 2011)]
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2014/01/25/closing-the-cycle-energy-and-climate-change/

Climate and Carbon, Consensus and Contention [18 September 2017 (4 July 2007)]
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2017/09/18/climate-and-carbon-consensus-and-contention/

<><> Technicalities (green energy, HDI, physics, math, numbers, possibilities; 3 links):

Linking Energy Use And Human Development [9 June 2019 (28 April 2006)]
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2019/06/09/linking-energy-use-and-human-development/

Energy for Society in Balance with Nature [8 June 2015 (27 February 2012)]
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2015/06/08/energy-for-society-in-balance-with-nature/

Energy for Human Development (9 November 2011)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2011/11/09/energy-for-human-development/

<><> Sociology of Global Energy, Warming, and Human Extinction (3 links):

Environmentalism, Maslow Needs and Civilization’s Power Cycle (20 May 2015)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2015/05/20/environmentalism-maslow-needs-and-civilizations-power-cycle/

Choosing Dignity During Climapocalypse (26 May 2018)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2018/05/26/choosing-dignity-during-climapocalypse/

Black Gold, Maximum Entropy (Redux)
21 June 2019 (21 October 2013)
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2019/06/21/black-gold-maximum-entropy-redux/

<><><><><><><>

Piel Canela — Español-English

Posted on by

Piel Canela is a popular song for dancing to, written before 1952 by Félix Manuel Rodríguez Capó (January 1, 1922 – December 18, 1989), a Puerto Rican singer and songwriter who had a long and fruitful career under the name of Bobby Capó. He was a prolific songwriter and very popular crooner with a mellifluous voice and elegant style of singing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Cap%C3%B3

Piel Canela was first recorded when Bobby Capó was the singer with the legendary Cuban band Sonora Matancera, in Havana. Rogelio Martínez, the bandleader of Sonora Matancera, had chosen Piel Canela for recording from out of numerous unpublished songs Capó had shown him (in 1952).

The story of Bobby Capó, in Spanish, is given at the following web page.

Bobby Capó, “El Ruiseñor de Borinquen”

Piel Canela
[Bobby Capó]

—> [instrumental breve]

Que se quede el infinito sin estrellas
O que pierda el ancho mar su inmensidad
Pero el negro de tus ojos que no muera
Y el canela de tu piel se quede igual

Si perdiera el arco iris su belleza
Y las flores su perfume y su color
No seria tan inmensa mi tristeza
Como aquella de quedarme sin tu amor

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú
Y solamente tú
Y tú y tú

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú [coro]

Y nadie mas que tú

Ojos negros piel canela
Que me llegan a desesperar

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú
Y solamente tú
Y tú y tú

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú [coro]

Y nadie mas que tú

—> [instrumental]

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú
Y solamente tú
Y tú y tú

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú [coro]

Y nadie mas que tú

Ojos negros piel canela
Que me llegan a desesperar

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú
Y solamente tú
Y tú y tú

Me importas tú
Y tú y tú [coro]

Y nadie mas que tuuuuuú

<><><><><><><>

Cinnamon Skin
[a translation of the lyrics sung by Bobby Capó]

—> [brief instrumental]

Let the infinite sky lose all of its star-shine
And the oceans wide lose all their immensity
But that gleam in your black eyes must always cheat time
As that cinnamon in your skin should always be

If the rainbow were to lose all of its beauty
And the flowers all of their perfume and color
Though sad I would find each a minor tragedy
Compared to that of never being your lover

I care for you
for you, for you
So totally for you
for you, for you

I care for you
for you, for you [chorus]

And no one else but you.

Your black eyes and cinnamon skin
Drive the desperation that I’m in.

I care for you
for you, for you
So totally for you
for you, for you

I care for you
for you, for you [chorus]

And no one else but you.

—> [instrumental]

I care for you
for you, for you
So totally for you
for you, for you

I care for you
for you, for you [chorus]

And no one else but you.

Your black eyes and cinnamon skin
Drive the desperation that I’m in.

I care for you
for you, for you
So totally for you
for you, for you

I care for you
for you, for you [chorus]

And no one else but youuuuuu.

<><><><><><><>

Piel Canela

Bobby Capó


[The songwriter singing his song, a recording both of its time and for the ages. Bobby Capó’s singing was so velvety smooth, caressingly warm, and yet so clear, fluid and briskly paced; this is a recording of his sound in the early 1950s.]

another posting of the song with Bobby Capó:

Eydie Gormé y Trio Los Panchos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVNf_CfdamM
[The wonderful Eydie with Los Panchos in a meltingly happy rendition, both bright and elegant, from 1964.]

Natalia y La Forquetina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS85aKyRxhw
[A little girl voice and a band with sci-fi spacey electronic sounds hip-hopping through Piel Canela in 2005. Massively popular. Great songs live through every generation’s stylings because they are pure at heart.]

Bobby Capó canta Piel Canela con la Sonora Matancera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhNPzLLv4l8
[Bobby Capó at an outdoor concert celebrating the long life of Sonora Matancera, this being 1989 and their 65th year. Bobby Capó remained the smooth elegant crooner to the end.]

La Sonora Matancera (65 aniversario, concierto completo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooI8M7Ks_yk

[Sadly, this video is now gone!]
[This video with a playing time of 1:45:15 shows the complete 65th anniversary concert by Sonora Matancera with many singers in New York City’s Central Park in the spring of 1989. Bobby Capó’s entrance to the stage begins at 1:11:27 and his set ends at 1:19:00. Daniel Santos follows and continues till 1:27:14, then Celia Cruz powers through to the finish. Rogelio Martínez had joined the band in 1926 and became its director in the 1930s. For traditionalists, Rogelio Martínez’s death in 2001 marked the end of the band, as few of its musicians from the 1950s remained. Javier Vásquez, who had joined Sonora Matancera in 1957, carried on with a younger group in Las Vegas, Nevada, continuing with the name “Sonora Matancera.”]

Manny Manuel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BUWLcdMBv0
[A stylish reimagining of a dance club of the late 1940s and early 1950s with a performance of Piel Canela, for Puerto Rican TV in 1997. This video is just one segment of an entire program of Bobby Capó music, called “Siempre Piel Canela – La Musica de Bobby Capó.” Totalmente borinqueño.]

<><><><><><>

What I Have Learned

Posted on by

What I Have Learned

Thinking is freedom,
Self respect is strength,
Letting go is liberty,
Character is fulfillment.
Life is a gift,
Love is all giving.

Don’t rush,
Don’t get greedy,
Don’t get angry,
Don’t expect courtesy or appreciation.
Be peaceful,
Be happy.

Life is a gift to you,
Love is your gift to others.
Life may reward your love given,
but who knows?

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

Obsesión — Español-English

Posted on by

Pedro Flores (March 9, 1894 – July 14, 1979) was one Puerto Rico’s best known composers of ballads and boleros. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Flores_%28composer%29

Pedro Flores’ song “Obsesión” was written before 1935, the date of its recording for Columbia Records. This is a male’s love song in the ancient tradition of declaring love and pledging fidelity by showing passion, “obsession,” in an effort to win the affections of a wisely playing-hard-to-get female. Such songs come out of times and cultures where decorum was expected and practiced, so the obsession being displayed here was understood to be only a sincere amorous expression that was uninhibited in relation to antique social norms. It was not intended to be anything like the psychotic behaviors we are now accustomed to seeing erupt unhappily, and too often, in our mad modern hyperactive inattentive mind-numbed zeitgeist. “Obsesión” soon became very popular and many women singers, also, have made it their own since its early years. This song translation is poetic, not literal.

Obsesión
(Pedro Flores, letras según la grabación de “Como Es El Amor” por Panchito Riset y Daniel Sanchez con Pedro Flores, 1935)

—> (instrumental)

Por alto está el cielo en el mundo,
por hondo que sea el mar profundo,
no habrá una barrera en el mundo
que un amor profundo
no pueda rompér.

Amor es el pan de la vida,
amor es la copa divina,
amor es un algo sin nombre
que obsesiona a un hombre
con una mujér.

Yo estoy obsesionado contigo
y el mundo es testigo
de mí frenesí,
y por más que se oponga el destino
serás para mí(ííí). (1)

Por alto está el cielo en el mundo,
por hondo que sea el mar profundo,
no habrá una barrera en el mundo
que un amor profundo
no rompa por tí.

—> (instrumental)

Yo estoy obsesionado contigo
y el mundo es testigo
de mí frenesí,
y por más que se oponga el destino
serás para mí(ííí). (1)

Por alto está el cielo en el mundo,
por hondo que sea el mar profundo,
no habrá una barrera en el mundo
que un amor profundo
no – rompa – por – tí(ííí). (2)
<><><>

1. se extiende el “í” de “mí.”

2. Rallentando, se extiende el “í” de “tí.”

<><><>

Obsession
(Pedro Flores, lyrics following the recording of “How Love Is” by Panchito Riset and Daniel Sanchez with Pedro Flores, 1935)

—> (instrumental)

As high as the sky is above us,
as deep as the ocean’s cold darkness,
never will barriers between us
stand fast against my focus
unbroken by love.

Love’s the bread of every soul’s lifetime,
love’s the cup of fulfillment divine,
for love is that something so nameless,
a swirling where one man obsesses
on one woman’s love.

I am so completely obsessed to love you,
this world is just background in view
of my frenzied mind,
and even if destiny opposes, it’s true
you have to be mine –. (3)

As high as the sky is above us,
as deep as the ocean’s cold darkness,
never will barriers between us
stand fast against my focus,
I’ll break them in time.

—> (instrumental)

I am so completely obsessed to love you,
this world is just background in view
of my frenzied mind,
and even if destiny opposes, it’s true
you have to be mine –. (3)

As high as the sky is above us,
as deep as the ocean’s cold darkness,
never will barriers between us
stand fast against my focus,
I’ll – break – them – in – time –. (4)

<><><>

3. The “i” of “mine” is extended.

4. Rallentando, the “i” of “time” is extended.

<><><>

Panchito Riset y Daniel Sanchez con Pedro Flores – Como Es El Amor (Obsesión)

[The original, the year is 1935, music from Puerto Rico.]

Barrio Boyzz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o0VGhLO7ws
[Jazz a cappella quartet in concert; both crisp and honeyed. 1996]

Suzzette Ortiz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b7CjaM9W44
[Suzzette plays the piano and sings, both with great sensitivity; live. A touching performance giving the song a woman’s voice. 2010.]

Daniel Santos & La Sonora Matancera


[Puerto Rico’s great singer with Cuba’s great band, a recording from probably the late 1940s.]

another recording of the song with Daniel Santos (good sound!):

The Latin Jazz Coalition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrR0ewYYiUI
[A Latin Jazz band in a live outdoor performance in Queens, New York City; the Afro-Cuban Currents Concert, 2006.]

Irene Atienza & Douglas Lora
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUBFv9kaJUU
[A Brazilian duo perform live; Irene sings, Douglas plays classical guitar. Intimate and nice. “Amor es un tango sin nombre que obsesiona un hombre por una mujér.” 2013.]

Konnoduo+nao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTZ32zUF-Bg
[Japanese instrumental trio: flute, guitar, conga; wonderful live performance. 2010.]

Virginia Lopez y Trio Imperio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpmYJatUY1E
[Light soprano voice of the 1950s, very atmospheric of its time. Virginia, a Puertorriqueña, was born in New York City’s West Side.]

Guasabara Cuarteto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAU1iVIS8NE
[Potent Puerto Rican jazz combo and singer propel this bolero through their own extended and modernized version; studio live. 2013.]

Placido Domingo & Maggie Carles – Perdon & Obsesión
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfX5z1k43mg
[A medley of “Perdon” and “Obsesión” as duets in concert; big voices. “Obsesión” begins at 3:33. 2009.]

<><><><><><><>

Cardo o Ceniza — Español-English

Posted on by

María Isabel Granda Larco (3 September 1920, Cotabambas, Apurímac, Peru — 8 March 1983, Miami, United States), better known as Chabuca Granda, was a Peruvian singer and composer. She created and interpreted a vast number of Criollo waltzes with Afro-Peruvian rhythms. Her best known song is “La flor de la canela” (The Cinnamon Flower). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabuca_Granda

I have taken greater poetic liberties for my English translation of “Cardo o Ceniza” than has been the case with my previous translations of Spanish songs. I see this song as a male fantasy of female orgasm, as that fantasy is imagined by a female (the songwriter and all the subsequent female singers). I have chosen to present these orgasmic lyrics in more poetically florid English than I would normally use, since the only other alternative I could think of was a clinical explicitness that risked making a mockery of the sentiment. As is always the case, poetry and song lyrics are best in their original languages.

If this song did not resonate with so much of the sexual fantasy life of males worldwide, it would not be so popular. Without such resonance this song would be like so much of feminist literature, which can be quite explicit and yet attract little male interest. The song is basically a lament about a woman’s inability to find partnership despite being generous and passionate in the giving of her love. We assume the wayward lover is male, but the lyrics are general enough to allow for a lesbian interpretation. The sexual yearning of the female voicing this lament, her submissiveness to the longed-for lover, and the obvious power he holds over her despite her misgivings and prior disappointments at being used, are all very popular male fantasies even as a number of them are thoroughly dishonorable. That resonance with the male id, along with the identification many women will have with the substance of the lament, all make for a universally popular song.

The music of the song is quite nice, always necessary for making a song popular with foreign audiences who do not understand the lyrics.

<><><><><><><>
Cardo o Ceniza
(Chabuca Granda 1920-1983)

¿Como será mi piel
junto a tu piel?,
¿Como será mi piel
junto a tu piel?,
¿Cardo, cenizas,
como será?

¿Si he de fundir mi espacio
frente al tuyo?
¿Como será tu cuerpo
al recorrerme,
y como mi corazón
si estoy de muerte,
mi corazón
si estoy de muerte?

Se quebrara mi voz
cuando se apague,
de no poderte hablar
en el oido.
Y quemará mi boca
salivada
de la sed que me queme
si me besas,
de la sed que me queme
si me besas.

¿Como será el gemido
y como el grito
al escapar mi vida
entre la tuya?
¿Y como el letargo
al que me entregue
cuando adormezca el sueño
entre tus sueños?

Han de ser breves
mis siestas.
Mis esteros despiertan
con tus rios. (1)

¿Pero, pero como serán
mis despertares?
¿Pero como serán
mis despertares?
¿Pero como serán
mis despertares,
cada vez que despierte
avergonzada,
cada vez que despierte
avergonzada?

Tanto amor
y avergonzada,
tanto amor (tanto amor)
y avergonzada.

<><><><><><>
Thistle or Ash
(a translation of Chabuca Granda’s “Cardo o Ceniza”)

How will my skin feel
pressed to your skin?
How will my skin feel
pressed to your skin?
Thistle or ashes,
how will it feel?

Should I open myself to you?,
open myself for you?
How will your body feel as you
drape me completely?
Will it make me come alive
or will it feel deadly?
Will it make me come alive
or will it feel deadly?

My voice will fade away
silenced by the rush,
with no whispered sighs to hear,
no breaths in your ear.
My mouth will wet ravening,
burning for love,
fired by every kiss
thirsting for love,
fired by every kiss
thirsting for love.

How will I whimper to your love
and cry out as mine comes?,
to escape into your life
as now both take flight.
What of the sweet surrender,
the sinking of let down?
Dreams fade in sleep so tender,
will you remember?

My times of peace
are all too brief.
What love I can give is freed
from love received. (1)

Tell me, tell me, how will it be
the morning after?
Tell me, how will it be
the morning after?
Tell me, how will it be
the morning after?
Every time I wake alone
with all my shame,
every time I wake alone
with all my shame.

I love so much
and end so shamefully,
I love so (very very) much
and end so shamefully.

<><><><><><>
Note #1. Literally: “my estuaries awaken with your rivers.”

<><><><><><>

Chabuca Granda – Cardo o ceniza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwpvFOvG9EA
[Modern (<1983) folk-style popular music from Peru; the original version of this song.]

Pamela Rodriguez – Cardo o Ceniza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m423SJBMB4
[Current youth-oriented Latin-American popular music, a cover more popular than the original, “the hit.”]

Niyireth Alarcón – Cardo o ceniza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z2ddoCotck
[An elegant current version from Colombia.]

<><><><><><>

Haunted by the Vietnam War

Posted on by

Perhaps the period in my life during which I experienced the greatest amount of dread were the years 1968-1969, when I was being called by my draft board to be inducted into the United States military for service in the Vietnam War. Ultimately, that never occurred and I have no dramatic stories to tell, either of suffering and heroism or criminality under fire, or of stirring anti-war resistance and subversion. But, I have vivid memories of that time and believe my dread of the Vietnam War has cast a long shadow onto my consciousness. Whenever I hear or read about people in their later years saying about the disinterest by current youth in the formative experiences of these elders “you have no idea what it was like in those times,” I now understand what they are feeling, based on my own relatively easy survival of the Vietnam War, and the ease with which I am taken as obsolete today.

War is horrible, obviously, and to be avoided at almost any cost. I say “almost” because I have reluctantly come to believe that in rare circumstances the necessity to prosecute a war can arise. The difficulty here is in choosing when a situation truly deserves to be recognized as one of those rare occasions that is worthy of justifying war. There is no formula nor algorithm for making such determinations, the justification for going to war is beyond pure logic. Such justification must not only be seen intellectually as rigorous, but emotionally as essential to the self-definition of the people going to war, both as a society and as individuals. Such a broad and deep consensus could only arise in reaction to the most dire of existential threats, which I can only imagine to be truly rare. When greed, ego, religious fanaticism and lust-for-power are denied protection by military force, then no problem of popular freedom and resource allocation is beyond negotiated settlement. We can live without war if we cast away the irrational absolutes that drive us to it.

Unfortunately in our world today, it is still possible for one group of people to face the hostility of another group of people motivated so viciously by their irrational absolutes that the effort required for a necessary defense amounts to a war. The dreadful work of prosecuting such a war inevitably falls on the young and strong members of a society, despite the fact that the policy imperatives and political disputes precipitating the war were carried out by the older, more prosperous and most secure members of that society. How can the sacrifices of war be justified to its young warriors?

I can think of only two justifications: the war is necessary for the survival and self-respect of the society, and the society is worthy enough to merit the sacrifices made by its warriors for its continuation.

I do not believe that either of these conditions were met in regard to the Vietnam War. Yes, I am not very “patriotic.”

But what about today, with crises in the Middle East, and the threat of “terrorism?” The discussion of war becomes murky when we begin considering militarized police actions in response to terrorist attacks, bombings and massacres carried out by non-state gangs operating internationally. The militarized policing forces called upon to hunt down and eliminate such gangs would be (or should be) troops of highly trained professional soldiers-agents with extensive technical support, not masses of conscript soldiers. A “people’s army” is what you call upon to save an entire society under existential threat; a group of professionals – volunteers well-trained and reasonably subsidized by society like King Louis XIII’s Musketeers – is what you call upon to counter violent threats to social peace and tranquility that rise above the level of common criminality. But even though such professional soldiers are volunteers who may be called upon to earn their socially subsidized living by occasionally confronting danger, they are still our brothers and sisters, and our society must never be hasty or casual about sending them into harm’s way.

So, the two justifications for war remain: is the situation truly such a threat to the survival of our society and our worthy concepts of ourselves that it requires an armed response?, and does our society deserve the inevitable sacrifices of our warriors?

What do I mean by “worthy concepts of ourselves?” Primarily, our vision of a free and equitable society, and a solidarity with people in other nations regarding basic human rights. Again, this is a topic that can be made as murky as one wants, but the fundamental point about solidarity here is that: “to maintain my self-respect, I see it in my interest that people elsewhere be free from threats to their lives, dignity and freedom, and I would wish that they could feel the same toward us.”

Of course, the devil-in-the-details with “solidarity” is in what practical steps one society takes in response to the problems of another. Again, the judgments here go beyond logic and rest upon who we think we are, or want to be. As one specific example consider Cuba’s military response to the threats to Angolan and Namibian independence in the 1980s, and its medical response to the threat of the Ebola epidemic in Africa in 2014-2015.

As always, the enemy in our minds is humanity’s various irrational absolutes. “In politics the choice is never between good and evil but between the preferable and the detestable” (Raymond Aron). Does our society deserve the sacrifices required by this war? “This war” is whatever war is now being promoted. Any call to war, on terror, drugs or whatever, should be taken as a call to thoroughly examine American society and rectify its many glaring inequities, to make this society much more deserving of the sacrifices of its potential future warriors. Americans who might be sent out to fight and die for their country in future wars must be given a justification sufficient for their sacrifices, a justification which can be experienced daily as the living reality of our society. This goes far beyond the superficiality and commercialism of our time, and which even the word “socialism” cannot illuminate sufficiently in our imaginations.

What follows are my notes about the Vietnam War, which was frothed up in my memory by several recent encounters and e-mail messages. There is nothing earth-shaking here, just my own thoughts that echo the title of Staughton Lynd’s recent fine article:

Haunted by Vietnam
by STAUGHTON LYND
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/20/haunted-by-vietnam/

Beware, there will be a great deal of hype later this spring about the 40th anniversary of the “end” of the Vietnam War, with the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Don’t fall for the phony patriotism, instead ask for a transformative politics making this a much more deserving nation. There are still many people living with their personal consequences of the Vietnam War. The movie Same Same But Different (more below) is all about that. Not thinking about it is not an end.

My notes, referred to above, were originally sent out as e-mail, and now follow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
15 February 2015 [Presidents’ Day weekend]

Hello,

I can’t help sending out this broadcast message, as I have been moved to think back to the time of the Vietnam War. I myself was not in it, by the luck of the draft lottery of December 1, 1969, and prior lucky bureaucratic congestion from early 1968.

The most important part of this message is for you to see this one hour documentary about American veterans of that war, who returned to Vietnam to work on constructive and humanitarian projects. In the documentary, they tell why they have chosen to do this. Watch, and listen carefully.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

Same Same But Different
https://vimeo.com/68704406

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

I am grateful to Louis Proyect (http://louisproyect.org/) for bringing this film to my attention. You can read his commentary about this film (see it first!) at his blog, at this webpage:

Two Documentaries on Vietnam
http://louisproyect.org/2015/02/13/two-documentaries-on-vietnam/

Louis’ blog entry has embedded trailer videos of the documentaries he comments on, and soon leads to his complete commentary article at Counterpunch, here:

The Mirror of Vietnam
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/the-mirror-of-vietnam/

The second documentary Louis comments on is “Last Days in Vietnam” by Rory Kennedy, the youngest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, and her documentary has been nominated for Best Documentary in the upcoming Academy Awards. Don’t see this, it’s a piece of shit aimed at the head-up-the-ass stupidity that swallows garbage like “American Sniper” with reverential awe.

To see real heroes, see Same Same But Different.

My daughter, Ella, had asked me about my recollections of the times of the Vietnam War, for a high school project, and while I told her about my own slight experiences of that time, I could see that any real transmission of the living experience was impossible. Seeing Same Same But Different is perhaps the best I could offer her, now, to answer her questions most usefully (for her own future).

Another prod to my recollections of the times of the Vietnam War was a group e-mail I received last Christmas, about “remembering those [US soldiers] who served” and died. I reproduce that e-mail (names deleted) and my response to it, down below, to add to my overall comments about this topic today.

By chance, there are some other articles on the Vietnam War in this weekend’s edition of Counterpunch:

Vietnam: Some Real History
by ANDY PIASCIK
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/vietnam-some-real-history/

Revising the Meaning of the Vietnam War
by MICHAEL UHL
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/revising-the-meaning-of-the-vietnam-war/
[A critical review of “Last Days in Vietnam,” by a Vietnam War veteran.]

Michael Uhl is a writer associated with Vietnam Full Disclosure, a website dedicated to publicizing truthful history about the Vietnam War (Pentagon-produced history is unreliable in this regard), and produced by a group of veterans of that war (including a woman nurse who treated combat wounded). See that site for many articles and commentaries:

Vietnam Full Disclosure
http://www.vietnamfulldisclosure.org/

Robert S. McNamara (Kennedy and Johnson Administrations’ Secretary of Defense) had publicly estimated that 3.5 million people, from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, died as a result of the American prosecution of the war in Southeast Asia.

If any of you still enjoy reading books (as in paper), you can learn the historical background to the Vietnam War from

The Untold History of the United States
by OLIVER STONE and PETER KUZNICK
[A good library or bookstore can get a copy for you.]

Oliver Stone, the filmmaker, is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

The most complete detailed [and truthful] history of the Vietnam War is

Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience
by GABRIEL KOLKO
[Kolko, a Canadian and historian, interviewed leading figures in the war during its course, in the U.S., South Vietnam and North Vietnam.]

A recent book on the nature of American military operations in Vietnam (a.k.a. war crimes) is

Kill Anything That Moves
by NICK TURSE

I say more about Nick Turse’s book in the appended e-mail commentary, down below.

An incredible 1971 book of photographs of the war, which was republished in 2001 by Phaidon Press is

Vietnam, Inc.
by PHILIP JONES GRIFFITHS

I think Philip Jones Griffiths’ book ranks with Euripides’ “Trojan Women.”

One of the most affecting books I have ever read was Noam Chomsky’s deeply moral intellectual protest of 1970, against the aggregated atrocities we now label as the Vietnam War, and is

At War With Asia
by NOAM CHOMSKY

This book is specifically about the American bombing of Laos (the country that has suffered the highest amount of bombing per capita, ever, and also subjected to defoliant chemical warfare by the U.S.). One of my best blog entries is about this book, its sources, and its effect on me.

On Reading “At War With Asia,” by Noam Chomsky
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2012/06/20/on-reading-at-war-with-asia-by-noam-chomsky/ 

<><><><><><>
For Ella’s benefit:

The way I “remember” the Vietnam War today, and “honor those who served” is to buy you-know-who a chocolate milkshake every now and then, and to try to get us out into the country with him for a plant-identification ramble on some summer day.

I remember the story our friend told me about his time during the First Battle of Khe Sanh (the “Hill Fights” of 1967). The Marines were under such intense shelling for so long that they were starving (being cut off from resupply), and conditions in the camp were horrible because of the destruction, carnage (piles of dead) and the tropical rain turning ground into mud. He says he lost count of the barrages after about seventy-something, and the many concussions he experienced made him deaf in one ear. After a long stretch of this punishment, a brief and welcome relief came in the form of some hours of clear sunny weather without any shelling. As he sat in his spot, he noticed that a grasshopper had alighted near him, probably also seeking relief in sunshine without explosions. In an instant, he flashed out his arm, grasped the grasshopper, popped it into his mouth whole, crunched and swallowed. That was food. He told me he had done this without any thought whatever, and afterwards he realized what amazing things we can do when motivated by starvation. From what he’s told me, I have been able to identify the battle he was in as that for Hill 881, the First Battle of Khe Sanh (articles below).

Battle of Hill 881
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hill_881

Battle of Khe Sanh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh

The Hill Fights: The First Battle of Khe Sanh
by EDWARD F. MURPHY
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hill-Fights-First-Battle/dp/0891418490

About E. F. Murphy’s book:
“While the seventy-seven-day siege of Khe Sanh in early 1968 remains one of the most highly publicized clashes of the Vietnam War, scant attention has been paid to the first battle of Khe Sanh, also known as “the Hill Fights.” Although this harrowing combat in the spring of 1967 provided a grisly preview of the carnage to come at Khe Sanh, few are aware of the significance of the battles, or even their existence. For more than thirty years, virtually the only people who knew about the Hill Fights were the Marines who fought them. Now, for the first time, the full story has been pieced together by acclaimed Vietnam War historian Edward F. Murphy.”

<><><><><><>

My wife chides me about “old man ranting,” which is to say complaining angrily, or at all, about the political and social stupidities of our time. Who cares what I think?, nothing is going to change, and if there is any slight change it will not be because of anything I have said or written. True enough, amen. So, I don’t plan to write any more in this vein. But, every now and then I have to let out some steam, and this whole “remember the Vietnam War” meme is one, of I hope very few, such occasions. MG,Jr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
APPENDIX

XXXXXXXX sometimes sends me items from “right wing news” sites, and the item below about the Black Wall is one such message. My response to it, on “remembering” Vietnam War veterans, is further below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Dec 27, 2014, XXXXXXXX wrote:

At this Christmas time, I thought we should take a bit of our time to remember those who never made it back from Vietnam, those men and women who should never be forgotten. Merry Christmas to one and all…….

The Wall

A little history most people will never know.

Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.

The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 57 years since the first casualty.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.

There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.

39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.

8,283 were just 19 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.

12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.

5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.

One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam

1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam

31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.

Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.

54 soldiers attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. I wonder why so many from one school.

8 Women are on the Wall, Nursing the wounded.

244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.

West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. In the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales – were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.

The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 – 2,415 casualties were incurred.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

Please pass this on to those who served during this time, and those who DO Care.

I’ve also sent this to those I KNOW do care very much, and I thank you for caring as you do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MG,Jr. response to XXXXXXXX

Here are 2 of my (MG,Jr.’s) articles on history, which each describe many overall facts about the Vietnam War. I registered for the draft the day after Lyndon Johnson’s “I will not run” speech, and I was drafted in late ’68 and 1A all through 1969. In December 1969, I was finally released from the call-up (because of the first draft lottery). The entire experience formed much of my thinking about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” since.

A good friend of mine here is a 1966-1968 ex-Marine, who survived 3 helicopter shoot-downs (surviving 1 was unusual), and a siege at Khe Sanh (there was more than one). He lost hearing in one ear due to concussions sustained by the constant artillery barrages he had to hunker down under (which cut off food and ammunition resupply by land, and made it infrequent, inadequate and inaccurate by air). A Puerto Rican veteran of the Vietnam War [a different Marine from the previous one], who I met in college in 1970-1971, told me how the platoon commanders would send the Puerto Ricans (or “Mexicans”) out “on point” for the patrols. By 1968, half of US casualties (ground troops) were Black and Latino (“Hispanic”). After that the US military made an effort to balance out the hazardous duty, so by the end of the war the casualties fell in close to the proportions of ethnicities/race as they occur in the general US population. In 1968 I was convinced that had I been inducted (as an 18 year old) I’d never get to be 21, and I’m still convinced that was most likely.

Much of the reason the Nixon Administration decided to pull the US ground troops out of the Vietnam War was that by 1969 mutinies were routine (disregard of orders, such as to go out on patrol, and massive drug use, even though the military did give pilots amphetamines to pump them up for missions; also “fragging” was frequent). There were major mutinies of career military officers – whole squadrons of Navy fighter pilots (launching off carriers), and B-52 (Air Force pilots) – in 1972, and entire operations had to be scrubbed as an alternative to mass courts martial. Books have been written about that, as well as the “Winter Soldier” movie (where veterans share their stories, mainly about seeing and participating in atrocities).

A very recent book on the war is Kill Anything That Moves (by Nick Turse) and it draws its material from the “war crimes” files from the US military (which kept track of such things to quash potential prosecutions — Colin Powell was largely responsible for limiting the exposure of the My Lai story — saving the asses of Lt. Calley’s superiors right up to the Pentagon — and its much larger potential fallout: most operations were similar), which are stored at the US Archives (Wash. DC). Nick Turse (researching other history) was shown the material by an archivist, who noted that few people (historians) had bothered to look into it since the ‘60s; every effort had been made by the US military to bury it, and that effort has been a success.

People of my time and age, who were drawn into the War to one degree or another, knew about the things described in Turse’s book, but such stories were not widely reported by the mainstream media; and official government policy coupled with much popular sentiment was to bury the truth. My buddy, the ex-Marine (helicopter gunner) even had to fight to get his veteran’s benefits. A records center in Kansas City had burned and the paperwork about many vets’ service records was destroyed. The government had hired people to interview veterans claiming benefits, but those interviewers were charged with doing their utmost to deny such benefits. My pal had to point out names on the Black Wall and describe in detail where those individuals had been “in country” and how they had actually died (the reports made to families back home were often sanitized). My buddy obviously knew too many “classified” details not to be who he said he was, and to have experienced what he said he had. He told me these interviewers would try to “mess with your mind” to make you hysterical and go away, like “you just killed people, don’t you feel guilty?” My buddy’s wife (who was present as she herself told me, and is part American Indian) screamed at this interviewer and showed sufficient intent to “escalate” her intervention that the guy gave in and approved my buddy’s status as a veteran. My pal had described missions and deployments of specific units at specific times and places that were still officially denied by the USG. So, the combination of factual (and officially embarrassing) testimony, as well as the interviewer’s fear of probably being scalped otherwise, got my buddy recognized as a vet of the unit he had served in (during the years 1966-1968).

My own articles are straightforward history taken from public sources; though I remember the events very well as “news” and “current events” from those times, which I was focused on.

The U.S. may have lost the Vietnam War, but its war criminals got away with it.

My ex-Marine buddy is (now) recognized by the Marine Corps as a member on permanent disability. He spends some of his time helping out other old guys who are on downhill slides to their final exits. He saw many of his contemporaries (including best friends) fall in the war, and numerous others survive the war to get “screwed by the system” and then disappear in one way or another from the good life “back home” (saving tax dollars, I guess). Like my godfather, who was a veteran of the Normandy landings of June 6, 1944, my ex-Marine buddy does not tell war stories, nor does he see “war” and “action” movies, nor go to museums with “Vietnam War” exhibits. It’s best not to trigger dreams. He’s a happy fun-loving guy (like my godfather) because he’s happy to be alive, every day. He’s also a peacenik, and since the war has become an expert botanist. He has lots of metal plates, bolts and rivets in his body, as well a many healed fractures (including spinal) and replacement joints, and a permanent set of aches and pains.

Fifty-Year Look Back 1963-2013, Part I: 1963-1968
MG,Jr.
18 November 2013
http://www.swans.com/library/art19/mgarci75.html

Fifty-Year Look Back 1963-2013, Part II: 1968-2013
MG,Jr.
4 December 2013
http://www.swans.com/library/art19/mgarci76.html

Kind regards.

22 February 2015, George Washington’s 283rd birthday.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

ADDENDUM, 17 March 2015

The My Lai massacre occurred 47 years ago, on March 16, 1968.

My Lai (massacre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Hugh Thompson, Jr., 47 years ago

Hugh Thompson, Jr., 47 years ago

Hugh Thompson, Jr., with the help of his crewmen Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, were responsible for limiting the extent of the massacre (to 504) by landing their helicopter between advancing US troops and fleeing Vietnamese villagers, with Thompson ordering Andreotta and Colburn (manning the helicopter’s machine gun) to shoot the advancing Americans if they attempted to kill any of the fleeing civilians.

“Initially, three U.S. servicemen who had tried to halt the massacre and rescue the hiding civilians were shunned, and even denounced as traitors by several U.S. Congressmen, including Mendel Rivers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Only after thirty years were they recognized and decorated, one posthumously, by the U.S. Army for shielding non-combatants from harm in a war zone.”

I still cry when I read the wikipedia article on Hugh Thompson. I did just now, again.

Hugh Thompson, Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.

Ron Ridenhour, a US soldier in Vietnam, heard about the massacre from his acquaintances who participated in it, investigated it on his own while still on active duty, and on being discharged from the Army began a letter-writing campaign in 1969 to have the US Congress open an investigation. It was through Ridenhour’s efforts that independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh learned of the event, and eventually broke the Mỹ Lai story to the public on November 12, 1969.

Ron Ridenhour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ridenhour

Ron Ridenhour’s letter
to congressional representatives, begging for an investigation of “Pinkville.”
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/ridenhour_ltr.html

<><><><><><><>

Four Hours in My Lai (1989)

This one hour documentary by Kevin Sim and Michael Bilton can be seen as a sequence of seven video segments, listed below. Note that in segment 4 Hugh Thompson, Jr. and Lawrence Colburn describe their actions to stop the My Lai massacre by aiming their own weapons at the rampaging American troops of Charlie Company, to protect a group of Vietnamese villagers. In segment 6, Ron Ridenhour (1946-1998) describes his own discovery of the event, months later, and his subsequent letter to Congress as an act of moral outrage.

The Hugh Thompson, Jr. (1943-2006) and Lawrence Colburn seen in this documentary were men who had yet to receive any public recognition of a positive nature for their actions on March 16, 1968, and subsequently. This documentary, which went on to win a British Academy Award and an International Emmy in 1989, began to change that. Sim and Bilton continued researching the story and conducted further interviews with Thompson and Colburn. They published a book in 1992, “Four Hours in My Lai,” based on the totality of the documentary material they had gathered. It was this book that sparked both public and official interest in honoring Thompson and Colburn. The third member of Thompson’s helicopter crew, Glenn Andreotta had died during military action in Vietnam in 1968. “Exactly 30 years after the massacre, Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn were awarded the Soldier’s Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Army’s highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy.”

Four Hours in My Lai 1/7
(60 minute video in 7 segments)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr3L501DFgg

Four Hours in My Lai 2/7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWDEk0Zr83k

Four Hours in My Lai 3/7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjH3N67Ptko

Four Hours in My Lai 4/7
(Hugh Thompson, Jr.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wew4WoCJ7ZY

Four Hours in My Lai 5/7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0UK3wNRObk

Four Hours in My Lai 6/7
(Ron Ridenhour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ih01m7JG-I

Four Hours in My Lai 7/7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ausfYUkCUbc

<><><><><><><>

Hugh Thompson, Jr. (1943-2006)
http://hughthompson.org/hugh.htm
(hughthompson.org is the foundation organized by Larry Colburn to honor the memory of Hugh Thompson by addressing his chief concerns.)

“Hugh Thompson’s courage and integrity brought the My Lai massacre to a halt. Today he remains a true inspiration for young people everywhere but especially those in the military. Hugh was living proof that doing what is right, without weighing up the personal cost, is the hallmark of great nobility.” – Michael Bilton, author of Four Hours in My Lai

To Swing Wide the Gates of Mercy (~2002)
(Hugh Thompson, Jr. and Lawrence Colburn, together before students)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xadOE9fCzX4

BBC interviews Hugh Thompson Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkFa2lSNAGc

American Experience My Lai PBS Documentary (2010)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69nExfUh34
(Good presentation of the Army’s coverup and Nixon’s political undermining of justice.)

<><><><><><><>

The Scene of the Crime
A reporter’s journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past.
By Seymour M. Hersh
March 30, 2015 issue of The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/the-scene-of-the-crime

<><><><><><><>

The Other Conspirator
(The Secret Origins of the CIA’s Torture Program and the Forgotten Man Who Tried to Expose It )
Barbara Myers
May 31, 2015

“The witness reported men being hung by the feet or the thumbs, waterboarded, given electric shocks to the genitals, and suffering from extended solitary confinement in what he said were indescribably inhumane conditions. It’s the sort of description that might have come right out of the executive summary of the Senate torture report released last December. In this case, however, the testimony was not about a “black site” somewhere in the Greater Middle East, nor was it a description from Abu Ghraib, nor in fact from this century at all.

The testimony came from Vietnam; the year was 1968; the witness was Anthony J. Russo, one of the first Americans to report on the systematic torture of enemy combatants by CIA operatives and other U.S. agents in that long-gone war. The acts Russo described became commonplace in the news post-9/11 and he would prove to be an early example of what also became commonplace in our century: a whistleblower who found himself on the wrong side of the law and so was prosecuted for releasing the secret truth about the acts of our government.

Determined to shine a light on what he called “the truth held prisoner,” Russo blew the whistle on American torture policy in Vietnam and on an intelligence debacle at the center of Vietnam decision-making that helped turn that war into the nightmare it was. Neither of his revelations saw the light of day in his own time or ours and while Daniel Ellsberg, his compatriot and companion in revelation, remains a major figure for his role in releasing the Pentagon Papers, Russo is a forgotten man.

That’s too bad. He shouldn’t be forgotten. His is, unfortunately, a story of our times as well as his.”

Barbara Myers continues, and tells that story here:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176004/tomgram%3A_barbara_myers%2C_the_unknown_whistleblower/

<><><><><><><>

1965-1975, Another Vietnam
unseen images of the war from the winning side
5 February 2015
http://mashable.com/2016/02/05/another-vietnam-photography/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#X66iJAUgqkqS

http://www.anothervietnam.com/photos.html

<><><><><><><>

Addendum, 22 February 2017 (George Washington’s birthday).

The following three videos are about the G.I. Anti-War Movement. Profound.

John Pilger – The Quiet Mutiny [1970]
https://youtu.be/I-eVbJbgUpE

Listen to and watch Rita Martinson sing this song of hers. This is a beautiful example of art in a social cause. The audience was American soldiers in the war. This choked me up, brought tears to my eyes.

Soldier, We Love You
https://youtu.be/7iMusPYq83g

“Soldier, We Love You” (Rita Martinson) is near the end of this documentary. This video also brought me to tears.

Sir No Sir (2005) Documentary
https://youtu.be/3nPJgeg6hpA

<><><><><><><>

30 May 2017

Stan Goff speaks:

<><><><><><><>

For Americans today, I think the all-time best anti-war film is the documentary Hearts and Minds. It is THE BEST film about the Vietnam War, and was released in 1974, while the war was still in progress. I just saw it again a few weeks ago; incredible. What is so compelling about it is that almost all of it is the telling of first hand experiences of soldiers who survived (not always intact). It just so happens I took a Vietnam Vet friend of mine to the V.A. hospital today, for a pre-op medical visit. There were numerous patched-up survivors of military “service” (use) in the hallways. (24 November 2017).

Hearts and Minds
https://youtu.be/zdJcOWVLmmU

<><><><><><><>

ADDENDUM, 3 November 2018

The Significance of the Tet Offensive
Chuck O’Connell
3 November 2018
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/02/the-significance-of-the-tet-offensive/

<><><><><><><>

ADDENDUM, 30 April 2020

A Letter From Viet Nam on the Occasion of the 45th Anniversary of the End of the War
30 April 2020
by Mark Ashwill
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/30/a-letter-from-viet-nam-on-the-occasion-of-the-45th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-the-war/

<><><><><><><>

The War Inside the War in Vietnam
November 11, 2020
Doug Anderson
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/11/the-war-inside-the-war-in-vietnam/

The Best of Medic in the Green Time

<><><><><><><>

Honor the Vietnamese, Not Those Who Killed Them
1 May 2015
Michael D. Yates
https://monthlyreview.org/2015/05/01/honor-the-vietnamese-not-those-who-killed-them/

<><><><><><><>

Of Class Rings, Bone Fragments and Fish Ponds: the Interminable Search for US MIAs in Vietnam
by Mark Ashwill
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/21/of-class-rings-bone-fragments-fish-ponds-the-interminable-search-for-us-mias-in-vietnam/

<><><><><><><>

The Virus of Cruelty in American Democracy

Posted on by

“Men are always the same – fear makes them cruel.”
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

Ignorance is lack of awareness, information and knowledge.

Ignorance can be overcome with personal effort.
Reducing ignorance is work, remaining ignorant is easy.

Stupidity is the defense of ignorance.

Stupidity is lazy and cowardly.

Stupidity shields religious belief from questioning,
and bigotry from exposure and eradication.

The imperative for greed arises out of the fear
of being excluded from the ranks of the secure.

The Republican Party is a conspiracy for theft.
It is a political virus finely tuned to exploit the national weakness of popular stupidity.

Just as lying is the sound of theft, so is hypocrisy the signature of the Republican Party.

The greed imperatives aggregated as the Republican Party
react to humanity with xenophobia and otherization, expressed as:
– racial and ethnic prejudices
– misogynist sexism
– sociopathic attitudes towards wage earners, the poor and the destitute
– homophobia
– pedophobia (as with the destruction of public education).

How can the Republican Party gain votes (ballots, as opposed to dues) for a program that aims to disenfranchise otherized populations, subjugate women, and impoverish most of the public?

You would have to be stupid to vote for that.

Bingo!

Hence, Republican Party efforts to manage the public focus on capturing the DNA of popular stupidity, by injecting viral control directives into the nucleus of public attention, to effect the auto-enslavement of the vast majority of the nation.

The attack on science and the coddling of religion are all part of the strategy
to strengthen the force of stupidity and expand popular ignorance.

Your stupidity is your enslavement, and their triumph.

<><><><><><><>