Millions of people are uniting in demonstrations worldwide against our civilization’s ecocidal march toward extinction, which makes me so happy to see. It’s really encouraging to see so many young people burning with love for their planet and a hunger to reverse the damage that has been done to our ecosystem by the refusal of previous generations to turn away from our path of devastation. This must continue if we are to survive as a species.
The challenge now is the same perennial challenge which comes up every single time there is a massive and enthusiastic push from the public in a direction that is healthy: such movements always, without exception, become targeted for manipulation by establishment interests. I write all the time about how this has happened with the intrinsically healthy impulse of feminism; I just finished watching an MSNBC pundit proclaim that anyone who still supports Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren is a sexist. This corralling of healthy energy into the advancement of corrupt establishment interests happens with feminism, it happens with the healthy fight against racism and antisemitism, and of course it happens with environmentalism.
Of course it does. People get very emotional when you say this, even if you fully support environmentalism and don’t have any objections to the overall scientific consensus about what’s happening to our environment, but environmentalism is not destined to be the one and only popular movement which establishment interests don’t move mountains to co-opt.
We know that our oligarchic empire will do literally anything, up to and including murdering a million Iraqis, to secure control over energy resources. We know this with absolute certainty. Therefore we can also know with certainty that they are working to ensure that when new energy systems are put in place, they are put in place in a way which allows the oligarchs to retain their power, and ideally to expand it, without losing their thrones to rival plutocrats, to governments, or (worst case scenario) to the rank-and-file public gaining control over their own energy. This agenda is on the table. It is happening.
When it comes to our future, the ruling elites have compelling narratives worked up by teams of talented creatives to sell us the products they want us to buy. They know exactly where they want to herd us.
We just have a notion of "No, not that!" We need a vision or we will fail. pic.twitter.com/tyngFzCdPI— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 26, 2019
The ruling elites have many advantages over us, but one of the greatest is the fact that they know exactly what they want and exactly where they’re trying to push things, whereas we the general public, on average, do not. If we only had one positive anti-establishment direction to push in there’d be no stopping us, and as soon as we find one the oligarchs will be done. But in general and on average what we have is a few clear ideas about what we don’t want and a great many vague, frequently contradictory ideas about what we do want. This lack of clarity in direction always leaves us highly susceptible to the influence of any well-funded narrative manager who steps forward to say “Oh yeah I know exactly where we’re going! It’s this way, follow me!”
Luckily for us, there’s a very clear demand we can add into the mix in this new push for environmentalist reforms which runs directly counter to the interests of the empire that is trying to manipulate our healthy impulses: de-fund the Pentagon.
There is no single, unified entity that is a larger polluter than America’s dishonestly labeled “Department of Defense”. Its yearly carbon output alone dwarfs that of entire first-world nations like Sweden and Portugal; if the US military were its own country it would rank 47th among emitters of greenhouse gasses, meaning it’s a worse polluter than over 140 entire nations. That’s completely separate from the pollution already produced by the US itself. None of the sociopathic corporations whose environmental impact is being rightly criticized today come anywhere remotely close to that of the Pentagon. They are going under the radar.
On Earth Day, MintPress brings you a piece originally published last May, on the U.S. Department of Defense’s toxic legacy throughout the world. The DoD produces more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined.https://t.co/iw0tqHyWXj
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) April 22, 2019
And that’s just greenhouse gas emissions, which the Pentagon’s poisonous effects on our environment are in no way limited to. As journalist Whitney Webb highlighted in an excellent article for Mintpress News about the wildly neglected subject of the US military’s ecological toxicity: “Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined, the US Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others.”
Webb documents how the US “has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined”, how US military interventionism in Iraq “has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, crippling the country’s agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food,” and how “US military bases, both domestic and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world.”
“While the US military’s past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the US military from openly planning future contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts,” Webb writes. “Last November, the US Navy announced its plan to release 20,000 tons of environmental ‘stressors,’ including heavy metals and explosives, into the coastal waters of the US Pacific Northwest over the course of this year.”
This is all a massive environmental burden to take on for a branch of the government which provides no other service to anyone beyond bullying the rest of the world into obedience, wouldn’t you agree? So get rid of it.
Surely with all this talk about the huge, sweeping changes that are required to avert climate catastrophe we’re not going to overlook the world’s single worst polluter just because a few think tankers and their plutocratic sponsors believe it’s important for the US-centralized power alliance to retain total global hegemony? If we’re making huge, sweeping changes, the completely needless globe-spanning US war machine would be the obvious place to start.
That’s something we can inject into the mainstream dialogue as this environmental movement grows, and the cool thing about it is that the establishment manipulators can’t reject it or they’ll expose themselves. It’s something we can demand that they can’t legitimately say no to. We can surf this clear, concrete, exciting and utterly indisputable idea on the surging momentum of these climate demonstrations, and the same healthy impulse to save our planet that these budding activists are now embodying will lift it right up and carry it to the top of mainstream awareness. No sane person will reject this, so if anyone pushes back against it to say “No, not that,” they’ll immediately spotlight the insane agendas they serve.
The US does not need any more military power than what other normal nations have: enough to defend its own easily defended shores from unprovoked attack. Anything beyond that, and certainly the hundreds of environmentally toxic military bases circling our planet, exists solely for the benefit of murderous dominating imperialists and sociopathic war profiteers. Demanding a reversal of US military expansionism as a part of the environmental movement is sane on its face and will benefit everyone, and it will also help highlight all unwholesome elements of empire loyalism.
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53 responses to “Want To Save The Environment? De-Fund The Pentagon.”
Start with the Pentagram. Then follow up by de-funding the Criminal Instigation Assholes, who get the US into more wars than the bellicosity of any occupier of the White House. The War Department and the CIA bear the responsibility for every war the US has been involved in since 1946, and they always seem to benefit the most from those wars. Even though they can’t figure out how to win any of them anymore. Isn’t that absurd?
So glad to see this! I am deeply concerned that many young people who are interested in climate justice have NO analysis of militarism and its effect upon everything. There are two things we can do that are meaningful in relation to climate change: 1) absolutely do not support militarism in any way whatsoever, especially not letting ourselves be propagandized as Caitlin as written previously, and 2) seriously consider not having any children. Our local, very interesting meteorologist found a chart showing what personal activities have the greatest impact on the environment, and the first one was having a child. I do not take seriously young people whose first concern for the environment appears to be how it will affect THEIR CHILDREN (and let me make it clear, we are talking about highly privileged and entitled Americans).
having a child is the reason you are here! we are born to spawn! the idea that our planet is small and vulnerable is a nonsense! thousands (if not millions!) of species of creatures live here! and while we are fecking it up, we are not the be all and end all!
any species choosing not to reproduce is dead!
I like the word: Solidarity….Notes on the Edge of the Narrative Matrix, this was a really well-thought out piece, it shows me that you are serious about creating a change in this world. I would like to believe that is is possible to have a planet to live on that every-one Loves; It is so discouraging to hear of all the evil things that people are willing to do, like baby factories, forcing women to have babies which are put up for sale, Shame on us!!!!!
German translation: https://medium.com/@frankdubian/m%C3%B6chten-sie-die-umwelt-rettem-entziehen-sie-dem-pentagon-die-finanzierung-b0294ff31dae
For a broad plan which DOES de-fund the military, see the #realDeal at
https://www.gp.org/green_new_deal
I believe that Global Warming is the least threatening aspect of Limits To Growth, and it has been selected initially to direct behaviors of the herd in the direction of herd-austerity, not elite austerity. http://www.johndayblog.com/2017/09/worse-than-i-think.html
Traditionally, the elites have turned to massive war and slaughter, but the threat to all life, especially their lives, is too high from that now. Their impulses are thwarted at every turn towards massive war, by their own rational fear of death.
They really need to maintain control of the current system, which is their life support system, just as it is our life support system (readers). All of their interests are fairly short term, not past their own lives.
The current system is doomed by it’s own constructs, especially the financial constructs, which depend upon exponential growth for steady state existence, the Red Queen problem (faster to stay still).
The financial system, global financial capitalism, must fail first, and that is some kind of blessing, because it will force structural change upon all of human society, including those now insulated from change by their positions of power.
Well said, Mr. John Day, I was cannon fodder in Viet-Nam until I discovered it was all a big lie, so now I make them pay me for the torture they imposed upon me and the people of Vietnam, every month I get a check and tell myself: “ONE less bomb.” And then I send off a check to my local food bank…..This is how I work to defeat this monster…..
sweet! great solution!
Sorry I don’t think waiting for the system to force new structural changes on us is a good idea. The changes it will make will be worse for the people. The changes that have to be made is to remove the private money creation powers from the elite by the people to create a democratic public money system. The current system fails on a regular basis every 10 to 12 years and occasionally it is a big fail and then a massive transfer of wealth happens. True, we’ve all been made dependent on this system and that is by design as local economies are destroyed to eliminate the alternatives. The system has to be reversed, it will not do it itself becasue it is insane, it has a psycho-spiritual disease of self-devouring greed.
Global human pollution certainly needs to be dealt with but climate change and I am not referring to the biggest fraud ever perpetrated ie AGW due to CO2 that cannot and does not need to be addressed.What needs to be exposed and fully appreciated is the actual cause of the intensifying climate changes.The sun is the main driver of our climate.Cyclical global warming and cooling is millenial.We have currently entered the Eddy Grand Solar Minimum and preparation is essential.
Perry points to another issue that illustrates that as long as we have a for-profit money system we will have a for-profit society.
Sorry, I left your paragraph, Caitlin, at the end of my comment.
“… but environmentalism is not destined to be the one and only popular movement which establishment interests don’t move mountains to co-opt.”
One example of this is the so-called legalization of Cannabis. When Cannabis was legalized here in Canada, most of the grass roots activists were completely shut out of the new regulated system that was co-opted by corporations, although a few saw the writing on the wall and joined the dark side. In several cases, prohibition politicians and top cops who spent their careers criminalizing and chasing harmless citizens like me joined the corporations that were taking over the industry. If I still grew the number of plants I used to when it was illegal, and shared or sold my excess, I would still be a criminal and subject to even worse penalties than under prohibition.
Yes, we can’t overlook the completely needless globe-spanning US war machine but if we’re making huge, sweeping changes the obvious place to start is the money power behind it all, those “plutocrat sponsors” you call them. “Sponsors” sounds so harmless, like the sponsors of my kids soccer team, but these so-called sponsors are much more than that, they are usurers. Why do you think Dante’ put them in the lowest circle of hell below murderers? Why did he describe usury as “…an extraordinarily efficient form of violence by which one does the most damage with the least effort?” Why did all the great religions and great philosophers condemn it? A privately dominated and controlled for-profit monetary system is usury which has devastating physical and psychological consequences for the world.
Surely with all this talk about the huge, sweeping changes that are required to avert climate catastrophe we’re not going to overlook the world’s single worst polluter just because a few think tankers and their plutocratic sponsors believe it’s important for the US-centralized power alliance to retain total global hegemony? If we’re making huge, sweeping changes, would be the obvious place to start.
“When on the road to Thebes, Oedipus met the Sphinx who asked him her riddle, his answer was: “MAN”, this simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy, let us think of Oedipus answer.” George Sefaris Nobel Prize for Literature speech, 1963…..
“But in general and on average what we have is a few clear ideas about what we don’t want and a great many vague, frequently contradictory ideas about what we do want.”
..
Here’s a “we” that know exactly what they want.
More about Twin Oaks:
Want to save America from fascism? Reduce by 90% our number one fascist organization — the military.
Well worth reading; ” Locked, loaded, and ludicrous “:
https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2019/09/25/locked-loaded-and-ludicrous/
Also worth reading ” The Problem With Impeachment “:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-problem-with-impeachment/
People never march in favor of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”
Why are people never marching for that? Isn’t is the most important thing to force governments to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Where is the youth on that subject?
Keeping my Rosary close of course
Dear Michel, what planet are you living on, I would like to come for a visit, those are nice words, but they are just that, words that have no meaning; they are not en-forced, there is no Rule of Law. The Rich make all the laws, and they will only en-force those that make them richer. If you are counting beads on your Rosary, and praying every day, you may be wasting your time here. I just heard a news report on BBC that men were forcing women to have babies which they put up for sale, males, of course, fetching a higher price. This Evil infect’s our planet, Greed and the Lust for Power and Profit, we must find a cure, if we want a future for life on Earth……
wanna de-nuke NK and other “rogue” countries?
de-nuke the United States of Israhell first, and no one needs nukes any more.
and the lifetime peace activists need to really think hard about how they have failed in what they have been doing.
Maybe we’re infested with evil, alien parasites. They’re making us vote for these idiots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrZMlKXmFMU
Every US president should, at a MINIMUM, have been impeached. Name for me your favorite US president, and off the top of my head I will explain to you why he deserved to hang at The Hague. It would be the easiest thing in the whole wide world to be the greatest US president in history, if it were not for the CIA’s assassination Sword Of Damocles and the FBI/NSA’s ubiquitous blackmail operation. Why don’t I leave? Why do people go to the zoo? I don’t learn new languages well, and the other Four Eyes are pathetically grotesque in their subservient complicity. Have a nice day!
well said!
The American Consciousness is steeped in the belief that life is a struggle for who will dominate. Cooperation, compromise, and a desire for peace are considered to be signs of weakness that disarm a person and make them victims in the struggle.
Another day in the make another 500/1,000 pound bomb, why the American People stand for this is a question only our children can answer. We are bequeathing them disaster after disaster. What the f–k is wrong with us? Do we not give a fat rat’s ass about a future? What is it about Re-incarnation that people do not understand? If you return to a burned up world, your future is ashes and dust. If you return to a planet where people actually care about their home, there will be flowers awaiting you! Let me tell you all about this world we currently live upon; My lady got sick with pneumonia last week, I have been trying to get her to check in with the hospital, but it took my good neighbor, next door, to finally persuade her to go. My words were as nothing, tho, I had spent the last thirty years, really loving this woman, who every-time I suggested something to make our lives better, the answer was NO! Yet I made sure the car’s ran, the stove was safe, the wood and coal for the winter was bought and paid for, and now they/mother&daughter are discussing whether or not to toss me out in the cold, because they think I did not measure up to some great expectation of theirs, yet I have always made it on my own, I am ready to put on my walking shoes, and start out walking, that’s how it always is, familiarity breeds contempt, I guess, tho, I always thought it was about Loving one another…..
sorry for your situation! i hope it resolves soon!
Sadly the environmental movement supports 5G, ironic how 20,000 satellites and every electrical device connected to it will be using so much energy, but bye the bye, with 5G in place no other weapons system will be needed. All conventional weapons will pale by comparison of the pinpoint accuracy of 5G and will become obsolete!
Not the environmentalists I know. To them 5G is a threat to the whole environment including us.
Caitlin Johnstone vs The Evil Empire! Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth again but ” the Pentagon ” is humanities monster of monsters. Has Ms Johnstone taken leave of her senses? People do not even think about challenging the Pentagon; never mind speaking about getting rid of it! The logic is true but is it doable. After all the Pentagon is the very essence of evil. Going against the Pentagon is way, way, beyond being brave; it scares my entire being, Ms Johnstone, because it destroys everything and everyone in its path!
No More War
… The Pentagon probably has a spoilsport plan for any administration that tries to defund them, and it won’t be environmentally friendly.
I for one would be ever more supportive of the worldwide movement to curb C02 emissions if they took this on, or were anti war, or if they aimed their vitriol towards the corporations and psychopaths running the show. As it stands, Greta and her followers (with the support of NGOs and the MSM) are actually working towards placing more money, and more control in the hands of the same psychopaths that got us into this mess. Love your style Caitlin, hopefully the message gets through.
Totally agree. The marine environment is the planet’s natural carbon sink.
Iron sulfate fertilization of deep ocean phytoplankton pastures fixes climate change.
The most open, save-the-world secret on the internet just sits there, unrecognized some thirty years since oceanographer John Martin discovered the secret of phytoplankton and iron dust.
Agreed, the Pentagon and Major corporations are destroying and gobbling up our Planet. I am not on the Human caused, global warming, CO2, train though. It’s the Sun folks, could possibly be the prefix to the next ice age as well. Water vapor is a green house gas. Do I have a problem with all of the plastic pollution in the oceans? You bet. The US Navy just throws untreated garbage directly into the ocean. Over fishing of our oceans? You bet. GMO’s? you bet, killing off the Birds and the bees with pesticides? You bet. Human caused global warming? Nope. And the Climate change mantra smells like a rat. And it ain’t just a spin funded by the fossil fuel energy corporations, who are recklessly polluting also. Check this article out.
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwDrRXJgmpXkbZwQHqJhhKTWJfg
Check out russgeorge.net and fisherycrisis.com to start; the scam is more complex than what you have been led to think. Your link seems to lead to a Gmail account creation, not an article.
The answer to world CO2 poisoning is cheap and simple; iron sulfate duct fertilization of deep ocean phytoplankton pastures.
Global warming is human-enough caused. The powers that presume to be were worried about a new glacial maximum in the 1970s and one of the solutions was CO2 saturation of the atmosphere.
CO2 dials up the heat effected by solar, geo-rotational, and cosmic climate influences.
Pollution in the oceans is bad, but the place is becoming lifeless because of CO2 poisoning on top of other mon made pollution.
Overfishing is bad, and fishing policies adopted from some nations seem intended to harm recover. However, fish stocks are crashing because the oceans are starving; not enough iron dust blowing into the ocean to feed the phytoplankton. CO2 in the atmosphere greened the land, and excess absorbed into and acidifying the oceans.
GMOs – yes, real bad.
Killing off birds and bees with pesticides… well, those don’t help, but a leading bird killer may be feral cats. Insect populations are dying of oxidative stress; oxygen poisoning. russgeorge.net has an article on the science behind that. Bugs breath through pores in their bodies, which have to remain open longer to release excess CO2 but then are exposed to more oxygen. With no insects to eat, bird populations die off.
Human made global warming is true. CO2 is the one element in the climate chain we have control over, and we’ve jacked them up to Pliocene levels (5-1.8 mya). Burning all fossil fuel reserves known as of ~ten years ago jacks up CO2 to Eocene levels (56 mya) of 1500 ppm+
The normal process takes thousands of years. We’re allowing the ruling elite to get away with an instant CO2 dump. Climate change is real and the ultimate disaster capitalist play.
“If we only had one positive anti-establishment direction to push in there’d be no stopping us, and as soon as we find one the oligarchs will be done. But in general and on average what we have is a few clear ideas about what we don’t want and a great many vague, frequently contradictory ideas about what we do want.”
..
And until we, the bewildered herd, describe the minute details of a better way of life, we will continue wasting our valuable time bitching at our Elite masters with absolutely no effect, and inevitably we will suffer the environmental and nuclear disaster of the present whatever-you-want-to-call-it arrangement in which a microscopic percentage of the population owns or controls the vast majority of land, wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment for their own astronomical profit.
Actually, a lot of that was done last trip around the wheel. A person who is interested could I’m sure find a lifetime’s worth of reading from the thinking done in the 1960’s and 70’s and that followed on from that. Plus, the whole movement was called a ‘counter-culture’ because it deliberately attempted to create an alternative culture which could draw people away from the toxic western culture of the era. A lot of it was put into practice, with co-operative businesses formed and various commune’s and living and working arrangements that people tried. I believe some of them survive to this day. As recently as last decade I’ve been in a group of 20,000 people who went out into the forest and built their own temporary city where they gathered for a week. Ok, it was in some ways a big party. But it was also an experiment in kind people coming together in what was called a Gifting Economy with co-operative food and services. With lots of people holding seminars and talks on how to organize the world differently. And when it was done, they left nothing behind but their footprints. Welcome Home. 🙂
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I’m not saying the Sixties should be replicated. It ultimately failed, and by now the Oligarchs have been plotting for the last 50 years on how to stop it again and prevent it from ever happening again. Even before think tanks, the generals were always expert at fighting the last war. But, there is a lot of information from that era that shouldn’t be forgotten either. Some smart people thought hard about a better way of life, and some tried to live it. Learn. 🙂
The funny part about the MSNBC foolish lady is that I, sexist as I am for opposing Wall St, have almost certainly voted more often for a woman Presidential candidates than she has. In the General Elections, where the votes really count, I voted for Cynthia McKinney (Green Party) and Dr. Jill Stein (Green Party), while I’m guessing she only voted for Hillary (Wall St War Party).
An old hippie bumper sticker …… “I pray for the day when our schools are fully funded, and the Pentagon has to hold a Bake Sale when they want to buy a new bomber.”
Maive/ never happen, when the Power of Love, overcomes the Love of Power, we will have peace on Earth….Did you ever notice those wonderful credit card offers? We will take on your debt’s and then; and then; you belong to us, get to work slave, you made those debts, and now you have to pay! I pray for peace, yet my prayer’s go unanswered…..
“You have stolen our future!” — G.Thornberg
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And I was struck by how those words are so very true far beyond the issues of climate change and far beyond the youth of today. The charge against modern capitalism summed up in one concise sentence. Thank you.
Any environmentalist who doesn’t know about John Martin’s iron hypothesis, ocean fertilization with iron dust to boost phytoplankton and trap CO2 in living and deep ocean carbon sinks , is not a real environmentalist.
Thunberg doesn’t promote real solutions, just parrots the official mantra. Its a half truth; yes, the elites stole the future, no Thunberg is not telling how or the real solution.
The few environmentalists who do know about John Martin’s science, iron fertilization of marine phytoplankton, will just blather about how its more important for their partisan faction to have the political power than actually fix the CO2 poisioning of the planet. They too are disaster capitalists who need calamity for a living.
You might want to look up Mozhgan Savabieasfahani. Her work relates to this, and she is very approachable.
Hi Caitlin , just curious as to who your non-duality mentor was/is?
Thank you, great article!. You are an amazing thinker, and writer Caitlin.
This is just another great article. Thank you, you are an amazing thinker, and writer Caitlin Johnstone xx
Spot on, Caitlin! I’m lovin’ it.
Sorry. I must disagree. The title of your article should say, “Want to save the World? Defund the Pentagon”
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The military industrial complex affects much more than the environment.
It is more responsible for terrorism than any other organisation. (e.g. financed the mujahideen, which lead to Al Queda; did more to instigate ISIS than any other country, and financed them and others in Syria).
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Is responsible for the deposing of more democratically elected leaders/governments, and more wars in the last 70 years than all others put together.