I'm an Energy Voter, Too

Frequent viewers of the network news stations may have become aware of the recent "I'm an Energy Voter" ads that have started popping up in support of domestic coal energy.  The ads capitalize on public discontent with large petroleum companies, then dangle coal power in front of the viewer as a sort of magical fix to all of America's energy concerns.  By using the attention grabber of "Coal: America's Power," and by saying increasing coal production will "create jobs," the commercials brush over environmental and health concerns, acting as though coal production would bring nothing but good to everyone.  This is simply not the case.

Coal is an extremely dirty source of energy, and is the exact opposite of the sort of energy we should be pursuing.  For example, in 2006, coal accounted for 49% of US energy production, but was responsible for 83% of CO2 emissions by energy production, meaning the ecological impact of coal is many times greater than other sources of power.  Less than half of domestic energy production accounted for over four fifths of CO2 emissions, yet large energy companies are pushing for increased coal production.  If coal production accounted for an even greater share of domestic energy production, the environmental impact would be vast, and irreversible.  It isn't only in carbon emissions that coal falls short of safety expectations, it also puts out dangerous quantities of sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which are extremely hazardous to our health and the well-being of ecosystems near to the plants.  This is not just a climate change issue - coal is one of the largest culprits of smog creation, primarily composed of poisonous sulfur oxide and nitrous oxides. There is nothing that effects everyone so broadly as air quality, and nothing that is more important to protect.

Around the same time that I began noticing the coal advertisements, I also started hearing more and more about the benefits of natural gas.  Large companies, like Shell, are touting their natural gas interests because it has "50% fewer emissions than coal," and represents a clean and sustainable source of power for years to come.  While natural gas is certainly a better energy choice than coal, one method of extraction which has gained a lot of attention in the news lately, hydraulic fracking, is environmentally devastating.  Fracking is the process of shooting large quantities of high-pressure water into the ground in order to unearth natural gas supplies that are otherwise unreachable.  There are widespread concerns of atmospheric and groundwater contamination, with residents reporting undrinkable or flammable water near most large fracking sites.  The natural gas industry denies these claims, arguing that there has not been any direct causal relation between the actual fracking process and groundwater contamination.  But that is precisely where the industry's verbal sleight of hand may go unnoticed.  They claim that the actual fracking process, or the injection of the water into the soil, has not yet been linked to environmental damage, and the science is still unclear on the matter. There are, however, many associated processes that go along with fracking, such as construction, operation, flowback (when the fracking fluid and natural gas comes flowing back out of the earth), and frequent blowouts in the distribution pipes, all of which have been linked to severe environmental damage by independent researchers.  The most recent study (2012) commissioned by the EPA initially held that fracking was a dangerous process, before industry lobbying caused the EPA to narrow their scope to the water injection process.  This is dishonest, and unfair.  Residents of counties near hydraulic fracking operations have reported undrinkable, sometimes even flammable, water, and the ecological impacts will only become known in the years to come.  The hydraulic fracking process also releases dangerous methane gasses, carbon dioxide, and other hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.  Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 20 times as harmful as CO2 in trapping atmospheric heat.  The fracking process has been shown to release from 4-8% of the extracted methane into the atmosphere, which would have a devastating impact on global climate change.  What is more disturbing about the whole affair is that court documents related to the fracking suits are sealed after the suits are resolved.  Taking the evidence as a whole, there is more than reasonable suspicion that the gas industry is aware of enivonmental effects of fracking, yet is suppressing this information in the name of profit.  In light of similar scandals in other corporate-dominated industries (BP underreporting scope of Deepwater Horizon leaks, LIBOR scandals in London, Big Pharm suppression of life-saving drugs), I believe that the natural gas industry is wilfully ignoring the health of residents so they can reap even greater profits.

Beyond the environmental impacts, pursuing greater coal and natural gas production will not serve the interests of the American people.  New technologies allow further distribution of natural gas by liquifying it, then shipping it around the world.  The market for natural gas abroad is very profitable, with prices per ton sometimes 4 or 5 times as high as they are domestically.  The largest and most profitable market is in Asia.  If energy industry lobbyists get their way, all that will happen is a great increase in energy exports, a fattening of industry executives' pocketbooks, and ecological havoc across this great nation.  Similarly with the Keystone XL pipeline.  Even if you don't believe in global warming, (although nearly every credible scientist does) the Keystone pipeline won't do you a lick of good, and likely will do a lot of bad.  Everyone should have the right to clean air and water.  Nothing should be supreme to that right, not even electricity production, and especially not profit.  The answer to America's energy problems is not more of the same, but a complete and total green revolution.  But that deserves a post in its own right, so I guess I'll just leave it at that.

On U.S. Military Primacy

    The United States holds a special place in world politics, that of the strongest global power -  economically, politically, and militarily.  This position, however, is not revered by the rest of the world, but resented; not lauded, but despised.  It is time for the United States to relinquish her stranglehold upon the world.  I urge this not only in view of the antagonized world, but also as a matter of national self-interest.
    To oversimplify history, the 18th century was the birth of the idea of the United States, while the 19th and 20th were the failed actualizations thereof.  Americans gloriously cast off the tyranny of one empire, then immediately donned the mantel of empire themselves.  In the 19th century, rich white men exploited natives, robbing them of life and land, Africans, removing them from their homeland in slavery, and women, by refusing them enfranchisement and education.  This was a systematic process designed to retain the status quo: wealthy Caucasians perched upon the backs of the repressed lower classes.  After fully colonizing the mainland, the American empire set its sights abroad.  The frontier was proclaimed "closed."  In other words, the natives had been dispossessed of their land, and there was nobody remaining on the mainland to steal land from.
    The 20th century was a procession of ever-increasing imperial dominance, all under the guise of democracy and freedom.  The Spanish-American War of 1898 was the precursor to this sort of imperial conquest.  Much of the scholarship around the war has been done on the Yellow Journalism of the time that may have whipped up the war fever.  This journalism vilified the Spanish for their atrocities against the Cuban revolutionaries, and painted the American soldiers as heroic protectors of liberty against a repressive regime.  This formula of journalism and vilification would remain mostly unchanged until today, only with ever greater perfections of the exact recipe.  American imperialism did not slow after this first sortie, but rather accelerated.  The United States took interest in the Philippines, opposing popular revolt there, attempted to install a puppet government in Cuba, stole Hawaii from the natives, and claimed sole possession of the Western Hemisphere in the Monroe Doctrine.  This is not to mention the clandestine actions taken in Central and South America by the CIA and other secret government arms.  These actions were all taken either to create business opportunities or to protect those already illegally and immorally fashioned.  And all of this was done under the auspices of liberty and democracy.
    Then there was WWI.  America, citing isolationism as the political paradigm, while maintaining a Western Hemisphere empire, claimed neutrality in the war.  This ostensible neutrality is undermined by the American dollars flowing to both sides of the conflict in Europe.  Quite simply, we were hedging our bets.  Loaning out huge sums of money to both Germany and Britain seemed like the best way to ensure profit.  It was only when Britain, where the preponderance of American money way, was poised to lose, that the United States intervened in the war.  American armed forces entered the conflict, using the sinking of the Lusitania as a pretext, to protect their business interests.  We entered the war a small nation and emerged a global power.
    Turning to WWII, there was a clear moral action to be taken.  There can be no denial that Hitler and the Nazis were immoral, aggressive and evil.  Thus, the United States had a moral obligation to come to the defense of the attacked nations.  This, however, is not how it happened.  Instead, we practically begged the Japanese to attack us, giving a pretext for further United States domination of East and South-East Asia.  Japan made it clear to both the United States and the international community that they were being squeezed industrially and militarily by Western Colonial powers.  They felt the pressure of ABCD: Americans, British, Chinese and Dutch economic interests.  Instead of placating the Japanese's concerns, we vigorously pursued further colonization of the Philippines in particular and of the entire Pacific in general.  We ignored warnings from the Japanese, much as we ignored German warnings that the Lusitania would be sunk if it came into German waters, then acted shocked when the warnings were actualized.  Then, of course, the United States war machine was reinstituted to bring us out of the Great Depression.
    The Cold War will be remembered by posterity as one of the darkest events in American history.  Much as how terrorism provides pretext for war and infringement of civil liberties today, communism was vilified in all apparitions, real of manufactured.  I only need to mention McCarthyism to show the end result of the route we are on again today.  However, as appalling as McCarthyism was from a civil liberties perspective, it pales in comparison to the havoc we wrecked abroad.  Wars of attrition in Vietnam and Korea were waged with no conceivable end gain.  We came in bearing the banner of democracy, yet instituted wars and regime change against the will of the people.  How is that democracy?  Instituted military action against the will of a people is the most fundamentally undemocratic action a nation can take, and the United States used the pretext of Communism to take this action many times in the Cold war.  War can only be justified if the moral benefits outweigh the costs.  There is no possible argument that can support Cold War military actions on moral grounds.  Similarly, clandestine actions in South and Central America, creating America-friendly regimes and puppet governments, were disgusting and wrong.  They were not enacted to defend Capitalism as a bringer of wealth nor the free market as a method for freedom and self-determination, but rather to protect specific American corporate interests.  We murdered thousands, wasted American lives and resources, overthrew sovereign nations, and forever blighted our reputation abroad, all in the aim of defending corporate profits.  Colonialism per se had been replaced by corporationism.
    The question, then, is "why?" Why would a nation undertake, so often and so avidly, such immoral actions?  It is all in the name of profit.  Not even profit for many, but profit for few.  A massive invested capital interest in was in WWI, and the profits reaped led to the Roaring Twenties.  The Roaring Twenties were not, however, a time of great prosperity for all Americans.  It was a time of fabulous profits and speculating on Wall Street, which did little else than sow the seeds of its own demise when the stock market inevitably crashed.  The Great Depression that ensued left many Americans unemployed, and putting men in uniform and women in factories provided a perfect employment solution.  If poor men died in combat for a rich man's war, then that was actually good for the system, as there would be less expense in veteran's benefits and one fewer person seeking employment upon coming home.  Once this gigantic war machine was set in motion, it needed ever-increasing conflicts to sustain itself.  With the gradual ceding of sovereign powers back to Axis powers after WWII, American soldiers were no longer explicitly needed abroad.  This would mean a massive homecoming of workers and a vast reduction of arms and munitions production.  Thus, the economy would suffer doubly.  The solution, find an enemy, and do so quickly.
    The solution was ingenious in that it provided an enemy that was an idea, not a place or people.  Not only was this enemy a military threat, it was an economic, ideological, theological and secretive threat.  The secrecy of the Kremlin fueled the fears over what exactly the Russians were doing and how far their influence really spread.  The logic of the times was to always assume the absolute worst scenario, regardless of how improbable that may be.  The constant klaxon call was that Communism was threatening to come to America.  Thus, the free market was threatened at a paradigmatic level.  So it was in the interest of the United States economy to defeat Communism as an idea as well as a foreign force.  It was also profitable to produce munitions for what was labeled a moral struggle, and it was better to keep young men away from home, in the military, where they could learn discipline and unquestioning obedience of superiors.
    Regardless, the Cold War is over, and logically the United States war machine should have shut down.  However, American military spending has continued to increase even in the absence of any superpower enemy.  What has now been substituted as the face of the enemy are terrorists: people so foreign to the bible-thumping, good-ole American perspective that they are easily vilified.  This is a beautiful model as far as the military-industrial complex is concerned.  This is not a war of equally matched superpowers clashing on the battlefield; it is a ridiculous struggle of hopelessly out-matched guerilla warriors, who are defending what is held most sacred to them.  They cannot win, but neither can we - and therein is the crux of the plan.  It is the perfect model of endless military consumption.  Bombs explode in the desert, bullets pepper the landscape, tanks and military vehicles endlessly traverse the desert, and every action increases the profit margin of the military industrial complex.
    This is a never-ending sustainable conflict.  The enemy can always fade into the shadows providing the military with ever more need to develop new scouting and tracking devices, to launch more surveillance missions, and above all to hold a constant military presence worldwide.  Military researchers and developers are happy, industrial producers are happy, fat cat politicians with defense industry-funded campaigns are happy, but hundreds of people lose their lives. This is all done in the name of spreading democracy and in the sacred American national security.
    The plan is flawless from the perspective of the military industrial complex.  However, from the point of view of the American people, the so-called "War on Terror" is the most detrimental action, whether analyzed morally, economically or politically.  As stated before, a war is only justified if the moral benefits outweigh the moral consequences.  Consider for example, how many Iraqi and Afghani citizens have been killed in order to protect American "national security."  Why is our national security supreme to their sovereignty?  We have invaded two sovereign nations preemptively, illegally, without world support, and with little regard toward collateral damage.  The message sent to the world, and the one received by the Middle East, is one of hypocrisy and arrogance.
    Economically this war is bankrupting the government in order to sustain the military industrial complex.  If military spending were cut to a fraction of its current turgid state, education, police, health care, and welfare could all easily be paid for.  There would be no need for a partisan discussion of a welfare state or a descent into socialism, because the services would be covered by the surplus.  It is only in times where money is scarce that such humanitarian projects are objected to.
    Politically the "War on Terror" has destroyed America's reputation worldwide.  Not only in the Middle East, but all across the world, nations are calling for an end to war.  They call the wars illegal, immoral, and wrong.  In today's ever-increasing globalization, we cannot afford the censorship of our historical allies, or the preclusion of emerging allies, based on our marriage to a faulty military system and ill-advised wars.  Demilitarization and an immediate end to warfare are the only solutions to save face on the global scope.
    Ironically, even from a national security perspective, our actions abroad are counterproductive.  Recent polls have shown a lack of knowledge in the young Afghan population about the attacks on 9/11.  This means that these people have no knowledge of even the pretext used as to why their homes are being destroyed.  The perception from the region, rightfully so, is that the United States is a repressive foreign power exercising its might in the region in pursuit of self-interest.  This broad-based belief, coupled with civilian casualties and constant military presence will of course breed unrest.  There need be no mastermind behind the scenes pulling the strings of the Middle East to brew unrest, because the seeds of unrest are constantly being sown by the occupying power.  A surge or further military action represents America's lack of confidence in the people to govern themselves as well as poses a security risk to the civilians.  If a foreign standing army was in the United States, regardless of how well-intentioned they would claim to be, American people would revolt, and rightfully so.
    There are currently over 700 active American military bases worldwide.  This includes tens of bases in Japan, where war has been finished for well over half a century.  While the United States maintains such a large military base abroad, there are zero foreign military bases on American soil.  Why?  Because a foreign military base on American soil would be an affront to American sovereignty. This shows the supreme arrogance and hypocrisy of the American military.
    The solution is simple: demilitarization.  This would reduce expenditures, release the stranglehold the military-industrial complex has had over our nation, and save face internationally.  The only way we can lead arms reductions talks is by enacting arms reductions ourselves.  Other nations have laid the conditions that they will disarm only if the United States does so first.  So the solution is simple: disarm.  Be a leader through action, not through empty promises.  The road to peace is never through war.  Let us cast down our military might, and welcome a more secure and peaceful age.
    It is difficult for other nations to accede to American demands when the United States does so as if from on high and rarely takes the same actions herself.  The route to smoother international relations, and hence a greater, not lesser, geopolitical role, is to renounce supremacy and end the hypocrisy.  America will remain the most powerful and richest nation on earth, but will not do so despite the international community, rather, with the support thereof.  America will not need to defend her interests through military actions, but rather through strengthened cooperation among her allies.  I call for an immediate end to war and disbanding of military bases abroad, as well as a substantial arms reduction.  The protection of American interests by the rifle is self-destructive and immoral.  Protect the nation morally and lawfully at the negotiation table, not on a fabricated battlefield.

Job-killing Regulations

Jobs have, understandably, been the primary focus of politics in America for the past few years, but at what cost?  Are there instances where, with our economic blinders on, we forget about the other important roles of government beyond job creation?  I am very tired of hearing each side of the political spectrum accuse the other of promoting "job-killing" legislation; in particular, the Republican attack has been relentless.  In fact, nearly every policy President Obama or Democratic legislators have proposed has been labeled "job-killing," if not socialist and atheist as well.  I'd like to argue that the loss of some jobs is worth it, and may be even necessary to our survival in some instances.

Let's take the EPA as an example, which has become a favorite punching bag of politicians as an example of broken government.  The EPA is billed as "anti-business," a "job-killer," and as a classic example of bloated national government, without taking into account the necessary purpose of the agency.  The most obvious argument for the continued existence of the EPA is the mounting climate change crisis.  It is unfortunate that the most obvious argument for the EPA can be derided by some as environmentalism (as if that is a dirty word), or liberal tree-hugging.  Protecting the environment is not some selfless act, undertaken simply because one loves those verdant greens; rather it is an act of self-preservation.  When the environment deteriorates, where the hell else are we supposed to live?  It is not as though the decimation of forestland and ecosystems solely affects vegetation, we are also intimately connected to our surrounding ecosystems.  For a capitalist society with a fetish for self-interest, environmentalism should be a no-brainer.  Perhaps we should turn our creative energy (which is vast, and mostly wasted) to a collective goal: a real, tangible, and broad response to global climate change.  Doing so would serve both collective and individual interests, and, if done properly, could create, rather than destroy, jobs.  More on that later, back to the climate change for now.  It is absolutely stunning to me that we can still have so many climate change deniers, who vehemently proclaim that man has no part to play in the warming process, or, conversely, that we are absolutely powerless to stop it.  The evidence in support of man's effect on the global climate is staggering, while skeptics provide evidence that is insubstantial, irrelevent, or outright false.  For a list of climate change deniers' claims and the scientific rebute, visit http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Apart from the selfish arguments for environmentalism as self-preservation, we have a moral obligation to lead the charge against man's decimation of Earth's natural resources.  Small island nations are literally faced with a ticking time bomb, because rising ocean levels threaten their very existence.  For example, the Maldives, a collection of low-lying islands in the Indian ocean, is in immenent threat of being swallowed by the sea.  As CO2 emissions accelerate the melting of Arctic ice, which is melting at an exponential rate, ocean levels are predicted to rise.  This would have disasterous effects globally, not only in the major coastal metropolises (think London, New York, LA, and countless others), but also for millions of people in less-developed areas.  Many south-east Asian countries and island nations would be particularly devestated by a rise in ocean level, not to mention the well-documented correlation between climate change and natural disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis.  As the world's leading country in CO2 emissions per capita, and with the second-highest gross CO2 emissions, it is incumbent upon us in the developed world to make great strides in reducing our carbon output. I am not suggesting that the EPA alone can accomplish this goal, rather that the EPA is an important piece of the puzzle that cannot be discarded in the name of economic exigency.

What I'm proposing is a lot more regulation and a carbon tax, which I see as the only viable measure to bring down carbon emissions in a meaningful way.  I'm fully aware that this is the exact opposite of what business leaders and many politicians will fight for - I'm also not worried about the next election cycle and can entertain more honest and objective solutions.  We have seen, time and time again, that self-regulation does not work in private businesses.  The profit motive trumps all, especially when regulation would fly directly in the face of that profit motive.  Therefore, I propose expansion of the EPA to make it into a meaningful regulatory body, with real punitive force if violations are uncovered.  Currently, energy companies dominate the political landscape, and have cemented the claim that "regulations kill jobs," despite all evidence to the contrary: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/11/14/367539/american-electric-power-ceo-epa-regulations-will-create-new-jobs/.  What they really mean is that regulations will stop the reckless and dangerous exploitation of land and natural resources taking place every day across the country.  A more powerful regulatory body would create jobs in both the private and public sectors, by opening new positions in the EPA as more inspectors are needed and more research is being conducted, as well as in industries that are striving to meet the new standards.  Mike Morris, the CEO of American Electric Power, put it bluntly: "We have to hire plumbers, electricians, painters, folks who do that kind of work when you retrofit a plant. Jobs are created in the process - no question about that."  Furthermore, a carbon tax would redirect dollars from wealthy executive pockets toward the kind of work we can all agree on: funding police and other emergency services, providing for education, and paying for health care and social security.  To say that a 1% tax on carbon emissions is not worth the additional education or public safety dollars is a moral failing, in my opinion.  It represents the worst evils of the capitalist system, like blind pursuit of profit, and a wilful neglect of consequence. 

Even if environmental regulations did kill jobs, they are still worth it. The food we eat, the air we breath, and the water we drink should all be central concerns to all Americans (and no, the solution is not to buy bottled water.  Apart from the wasted plastic, it's more likely that chemicals leaching into the water from the plastic will harm you than drinking filtered water.)  If one person dies from water poisoning that could have been prevented by stronger regulations, how many jobs is that worth?  If I proposed regulation that could save ten lives, yet cost hundreds of jobs, is it worth it?  In the current political climate, the answer is tragically no.  We so blindly pursue job growth that we forget the real human costs of capitalist ventures.  Time and time again companies act against the health concerns of residents, one need only look at the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf, hydraulic fracking in the Appalachians, drilling in native lands in Alaska, or countless other instances where energy companies act against the interests of inhabitants.  And no, BP's nifty little Gulf coast tourism campaign does not make up for their past failures.  The EPA was tragically ill-equipped to deal with that disaster due to its lack of well-trained regulators.  Sounds like a good place to create some new jobs to me.