Japan Bets Big on Hydrogen Power

I read a report today that Japan will invest $385,000,000 on building a network of Hydrogen fueling stations across the nation. That should provide for enough fueling stations to pretty much cover all of Japan, plus all the support infrastructure required.  I would call that a major league commitment to hydrogen as a clean, inexhaustible transportation fuel. It's no surprise that Japan has choosen to lead the world on hydrogen. Toyota and Honda have major commitments to hydrogen fuel cell cars. 

Europe has also committed millions of Euros to the construction of hydrogen fueling stations across the continent.

Where does that leave us in North America? The short answer is behind...a long way behind. In the US and Canada, energy policy is still controlled by the fossil energy industry. They own the Congress on this issue. The same is true in Canada, where the conservative government is focused on smoothing the path for the Keystone XL pipeline, that will carry dirty Canadian tar sands oil down through the US to ports in the American south. From there,  mega-tankers loaded with crude depart across the seas.to the rest of the world. 

It's true, the price of gasoline has dropped substantially in recent months due to a glut of oil in the world market.  Cheap gas is certainly easy on the wallet, but current low prices are just a temporary reprieve. Beyond the economics, we humans have an obligation to future generations to disconnect ourselves from dirty fuels. That is the only answer to the overriding global problem of pollution driven atmospheric warming. 

Hydrogen as a fuel option is not a panacea, but  it is a very important part of a cost effective,  clean energy mosaic that can and ultimately will make coal, oil, and natural gas old news.   Bravo to Japan for leading the way on hydrogen infrastructure development.

Michio Kaku on Hydrogen Power

At the 2015 Consumer Electronics Shown in Las Vegas, Michio Kaku, Physicist, author, and well TV science  personality, introduced Toyota's newest fuel cell powered car. The fuel it uses is hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Hydrogen is inexhaustible in supply, non-toxic, and pollution free. When used to power a car, the only exhaust byproduct is water.

I started making videos about renewable energy and hydrogen in the early nineties.  For the last decade,  all of the clean energy thunder has been sucked by a range of battery technologies. There is definitely an important place in our energy future for batteries, but they are not a panacea. 

In 2015, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai will have production fuel cell cars available in showrooms in California.  The big limiting factor on these vehicles is the lack of a fueling infrastructure.  In the US, only Southern California currently has hydrogen available at public fueling stations.  Let's hope the political will with our elected officials is there to rapidly expand the hydrogen fueling infrastructure across the nation. 

I wrote a book called The Hydrogen Age was published in 2007. It is gratifying to see the kind of future I wrote about in that book coming to pass.

Here is Michio Kaku introducing Toyota's first production fuel cell car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puvy6QxlPso

Vermont High School Kids Shred Fox "news'

So, students of journalism at Mt. Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont learned about the standards of ethics in journalism published by the Society of Professional Journalists.

When a story that ridiculed the progressive leanings of Vermonters was broadcast on Fix, I mean Fox, TV 'News' , these high school students dissected the story, looking for journalism ethics.  Guess what? They didn't find any. 

I digress from my referral to the video made by these high school kids for just a moment to comment on what I see as the false equivalence I often hear from intellectually honest conservatives who recognize that the Fox Network is selling a radical right point of view, not practicing journalism.  These caring conservatives often include MSNBC as the intellectual and morally bankrupt mirror image of Fox. 

I pride myself in being at worst, reasonably objective and honest, in the process of informing myself. I watch MSNBC - Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O"Donnell. - most weekday evenings   I reject the suggestion that because what Fox 'News' pushes is dishonest, that what I hear on MSNBC is equally dishonest.  I'm not saying MSNBC is perfect. I'm saying the journalism is honest.  In fact, MSNBC is owned by General Electric and Comcast, two very  powerful corporations. It is my opinion that the corporate mnders have  MSNBC on a short leash. The liberal slant is tolerated in order to attract advertising revenue that is tied  to progressive viewers that have no place else to go.  Subjects that are truly threatening to corporate power and big money do not get airtime.   Case in point: I almost never see stories on MSNBC that spotlight 'Corporate Personhood' and 'Money as Speech'  I like Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O'Donnell. I believe they are doing the best they can to tell stories that honest minded progressives want to hear, within limits imposed by their 'owners'.

What I see with the Fox brand is the polar opposite of MSNBC. The kid journalists at Mt. Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont, tell the story beautifully in their very impressive video.   These young students give me hope. My message to them is 'be the change you wish for'.

Here is a link to the very impressive video produced by journalism students at Mt. Anthony Union High....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzYymuslGDw

The Age of Stupid

This is a remarkable film. Well worth the time it takes to watch. Unfortunately, The Age of Stupid appears to have had a very limited audience, probably; made up mostly of people who already have embraced its message. 

Here is the link to the film, The Age of Stupid... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSdPP9b0pc

Police Violence

In the past year, a lot of light has been directed at some particularly ugly incidents in which white police officers have killed unarmed African American citizens.  What is really disgusting about this is that in many of these cases - Ferguson, Missouri and Cleveland, Ohio  come to mind -  cops who behaved essentially like thugs in uniform have gotten way with murder.

An unarmed black man named Eric Garner was surrounded by NYPD cops in Staten Island. Suspected of selling cigarettes illegally, he was taken down with a choke hold - a method banned under NYPD rules - - and died as a result from asphyxiation. The corner labeled it murder. The district attorney cleared the officer who killed Eric Garner of wrongdoing. This kind of thing has been happening too often to unarmed black men. 

The vast majority of police officers are honorable people, who take their responsibility to the public very seriously. Most of them go through their entire careers without being part of an 'officer involved shooting'.

It's very clear that some police forces are much better at managing their lethal capability than others. In the case of local police forces as in Ferguson, Missouri, the problem starts with the police force not being representative of the community. The citizens of Ferguson are predominantly black, while the police force is almost entirely white.

Here are some ideas I've heard that make sense to me. First, police hiring practices need to be scrutinized closely to assure that the process excludes individuals with a history of racism or gender discrimination. Second, the training process must be revised to moderate the 'authoritarianism' that prevails in the policing process.  The us versus them (being the citizenry) mentality of some police officers must be rechanneled to favor restraint over escalation.

Another very big problem is the high level of tolerance in cases where there has been clear misconduct or excessive use of force in the policing process. Police unions seem to be willing to protect one of their own no matter the circumstance. Moreover, making district attorneys, who depend on the police for 'making' the cases they work on,  also responsible for prosecuting police misconduct, is clearly not working. 

In recent years, the police have been 'militarized' to a high degree, with assault weapons, body armor  and massive assault vehicles being gifted by the federal government to large and small police forces across the country.  Applying the 'SWAT Team' mentality to misdemeanor crimes needs to stop.

The police have a tough, high risk job. They are our first responders when violent citizens break the law. They need to be equipped and trained to professionally manage encounters with criminal behavior, to minimize the danger to the public and to themselves. That said, they also need to be accountable for their actions, and not be given a pass when their conduct is clearly out of line.     

The Richest 1% Owns Everything

A report was just released by Oxfam International. It showed that a handful of people have managed to take control of more of the world's privately held wealth than the other 99% of us combined. They have given new definition to the word, greed. The vast majority of people who are not part of that small, self-absorbed cabal of obscene wealth are fed up. - EMPDX

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In less than two years, if current trends continued unchecked, the richest 1% percent of people on the planet will own at least half of the world's wealth.

That's the conclusion of a new report from Oxfam International, released Monday, which states that the rate of global inequality is not only morally obscene, but an existential threat to the economies of the world and the very survival of the planet. Alongside climate change, Oxfam says that spiraling disparity between the super-rich and everyone else, is brewing disaster for humanity as a whole.
"Do we really want to live in a world where the one percent own more than the rest of us combined?" asked Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International. "The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast."

According to the report—titled Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More (pdf):

Global wealth is becoming increasing concentrated among a small wealthy elite. Data from Credit Suisse shows that since 2010, the richest 1% of adults in the world have been increasing their share of total global wealth . Figure 1 shows that 2010 marks an inflection point in the share of global wealth going to this group. Figure 1 : Share of global wealth of the top 1% and bottom 99% respectively ; Credit Suisse data available 2000 – 2014. In 2014 , the richest 1% of people in the world own ed 48% of global wealth , leaving just 52% to be shared between the other 99% of adults on the planet. 1 Almost all of th at 52% is owned by those included in the richest 20%, leaving just 5.5% for the remaining 80% of people in the world. If this trend continues of an increasing wealth share to the richest, the top 1% will have more wealth than the remaining 99% of people in just two years with the wealth share of the top 1% exceeding 50% by 2016.

The report also shows that even among the über-rich there remain divisions, with an outsized majority on the list of the world's wealthiest people hailing from the United States. And it's not an accident. The world's most wealthy, as the Oxfam report documents, spends enormous amounts of their money each year on lobbying efforts designed to defend the assets they have and expand their ability to make even more.

The world's wealthiest, reads the report, "have generated and sustained their vast riches through their interests and activities in a few important economic sectors, including finance and insurance and pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Companies from these sectors spend millions of dollars every year on lobbying to create a policy environment that protects and enhances their interests further. The most prolific lobbying activities in the US are on budget and tax issues; public resources that should be directed to benefit the whole population, rather than reflect the interests of powerful lobbyists."
Released on the eve of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam says that the world's financial and political elite can no longer ignore, and should no longer perpetuate, inequality at this scale.

"Our report is just the latest evidence that inequality has reached shocking extremes, and continues to grow," said Byanyima, who was invited to act as co-chair for this year's Davos summit. "It is time for the global leaders of modern capitalism, in addition to our politicians, to work to change the system to make it more inclusive, more equitable and more sustainable."

She continued, "Extreme inequality isn't just a moral wrong. It undermines economic growth and it threatens the private sector's bottom line.  All those gathering at Davos who want a stable and prosperous world should make tackling inequality a top priority."

Contained in the paper is a seven-point plan of specific proposals which Oxfam says must be added to the agenda of all world leaders:

1. Clamp down on tax dodging by corporations and rich individuals
2. Invest in universal, free public services such as health and education
3. Share the tax burden fairly, shifting taxation from labour and consumption towards    capital and wealth
4. Introduce minimum wages and move towards a living wage for all workers
5. Introduce equal pay legislation and promote economic policies to give women a fair deal
6. Ensure adequate safety-nets for the poorest, including a minimum income guarantee
7. Agree a global goal to tackle inequality.

On her role as co-chair at the WEF summit this week, Byanyima told the Guardian she was surprised to be invited, because Oxfam represents a "critical voice" to most of the others who attend. "We go there to challenge these powerful elites," she said. "It is an act of courage to invite me."

However, part of the message contained in the report is that economic inequality of this magnitude is not just threat to the poor and disadvantaged but also to those who have traditionally benefited from the model of pro-growth capitalism. As growing amounts of research have shown—most prominently in the work of French economist Thomas Piketty—the nearly unprecedented levels of inequality is hurting modern capitalism even on its own terms.

But just as these levels of inequality are the result of government policies that have benefited the rich, Oxfam believes that a change in such governing structures is the key to reversing the trend.
As Byanyima told the Guardian, "Extreme inequality is not just an accident or a natural rule of economics. It is the result of policies and with different policies it can be reduced. I am optimistic that there will be change."

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

The Nature of Sustainability

 

Over the years, I have tried to be a student of good planetary stewardship.  The ultimate prize is a humanity that functions in harmony with nature. This is what comes when what we take from the biosphere balances out with what we give back to it.  

In the U.S. and in other economically advantaged countries, People mostly take for granted their supply of fresh water, the ready availability of inexpensive food, cheap energy to heat our homes and power our transport options, and esthetically pleasing and healthy living environments.  Up until recently, we have also been accustomed to living with minimal risk of extreme, destructive weather.

These days, the natural systems and resources that we count on for stability in our lives are rapidly disappearing.  If the Earth was a bank with a fixed amount of equity assets, healthy living would equate to getting along on just the interest generated by that equity. In fact, our consumption goes way beyond that. We are drawing deeply into the Earth’s resource equity, and putting economic stability and our lives at ever greater risk because of it.   

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can live in balance with our planet’s ability to provide. We can, but it requires making some hard and some not-so-hard choices on a local, national, and a civilization scale.   

We are using up our fresh water. We are sucking the life out of our oceans. We are stripping our living landscapes bare. We are on a truly reckless path with the only home we have.

Energy is a very big sore spot on Planet Earth. The human consumption of fossil hydrocarbons like coal and oil has put our atmosphere in a perilous state.  Climate change is driven by human lifestyle habits; not just the burning of dirty forms of energy, but also our ever expanding appetite for animal flesh.  These days, the sun, and the wind are inexhaustible in supply.  Moreover, both small and massive scale technologies are now available to convert these clean and natural forms of energy into heat and electricity at costs that are competitive or even cheaper than the dirty energy we’ve depended on since the beginnings of the industrial age.   

There is also a personal lifestyle decision that could dramatically reduce the 80 million tons of methane produced annually by the livestock animals we consume.  The answer is simple:  eat less beef, pork, and poultry. The less, the better.   Keep in mind that methane is twenty times more potent as a greenhouse pollutant than carbon dioxide.  Even a small cut in a person’s animal protein consumption, if widely adopted, could really make a difference. It’s an easy and also a healthy way to move to the right side of history.

Sooner or later, humans will get to the right side of history. We will learn to live in harmony with nature. We  have the technology to take us there.  This much is clear: the longer we put off a transition to a life-affirming path, the bigger the mess we leave for future generations.

If we are going to build a future worthy of our species, a sustainable future, living in harmony with the gifts of nature, we the people must step up and be the change we wish for.    

American Exceptionalism

It's amazing to me that so many Americans continue to buy into the myth that because of our citizenship, we are better than everybody else.  This is not a new idea. When white Europeans began immigrating to the American continent,  they carried with them a religious construct known as manifest destiny. In essence, they believed they were superior in every way to the indigenous peoples that have populated this continent for thousands of years.  They used this cultural and religious meme to justify the forced displacement of native Americans from the land they had traditionally occupied. Millions of Indians suffered and died in the process.

This ugly sense of superiority is still a part of the American brand. We are constantly sold the idea that Americans are exceptional compared to the rest of the world. Too many of us, way too many, buy into this self-absorbed perception. The reality: if we are exceptional, it must be based on the amount of arrogance and self-delusion that we harbor compared to the rest of the world.

Climate Denier Congress

In the 2014 mid-term election, American voters made Republicans the majority party in both the US Senate and the US House of Representatives. 

Let's just take one major issue - Global Climate Change.   There is no question that pollution from our dependence on coal and oil has caused a warming of the Earth's atmosphere, that is already causing some very unsettling consequences. Ninety-seven percent of  atmospheric scientists affirm that climate change is real, and that it is caused by humanity's addiction to dirty fossil energy.  Many, if not all, of the three percent of scientists that say climate change is not real are on retainer to corporations that make their money selling, oil, coal, and or natural gas. 

The physics of climate change are simple. It is real. Those who question that all seem to be connected in some way to the fossil energy industry.

So, where does the new congress stand on climate change? Conservative Republicans are the majority party in both houses of Congress. In the Senate, seventy-two percent of Republicans are climate deniers. In the House, it's fifty-three percent are declared deniers.

It's no wonder our government is dysfunctional. We have the best congress big oil and coal can buy.

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Presenting the Climate Denier Caucus of the 114th Congress

Jan 8, 2015 | By CAP Action War Room

More Than Half Of All Congressional Republicans Deny Man-Made Climate Change

While the House gears up to vote on Keystone XL pipeline legislation tomorrow, here is a bit of important context: 53 percent of House Republicans in the new Congress are climate deniers.

Today, we at CAP Action released a comprehensive look at the extent of climate denial in the 114th Congress. While more than 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and caused by human activity, 53 percent of House Republicans and 72 percent of Senate Republicans deny it. A truly alarming finding of our report: 91 percent of Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee deny humans are responsible for climate change.

You can read the full report, which has an interactive map with details on how each state performs, here. And be sure to check out the infographic below as well, which among other things, details how much this anti-science caucus has racked up in campaign contributions from dirty energy companies:

Taken from The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]

My Message to the Billionaire Ruling Class

Hey, congratulations, rich guys. You’ve made more money than you could possibly ever spend. Most of you are content with that, but a few of you are not. Some of you, instead of using your money to do good deeds and champion genuine progress,  are way off in the opposite direction. By that I mean using your wealth and power to force your self-centered worldview on the rest of us.

The truth is most billionaires - in fact most people who have more than a million or two in assets - are not part of the political hardball being played by a small group of bankers, corporatists, and billionaire psychopaths who behave like greedy thugs.

Being rich is a wonderful thing for those who are grateful for their good fortune, and are willing to give high priority to the common good.  Wealth also offers those who are so blessed an opportunity to be leaders and heroes, who want a future for the Earth that is worthy of our species.

The Gates Foundation, in the name of Bill and Melinda Gates, and to a lesser extent Warren Buffet, has applied billions of dollars to some of the world’s most pressing problems.  But even Bill and Warren, with all the good that they do, are playing both ends against the middle.  Both are substantially invested in the continued massive consumption of coal and oil.  

Journalist Naomi Klein’s most recent book, This Changes Everything, exposes the dualistic thinking that certain high profile billionaires keep hidden behind their polished public images.  They may genuinely want clean skies and a healthy biosphere, but the record shows they are not willing to give up profitable revenue streams from investments that foster our continued dependence on dirty fossil energy.

Too many wealthy people are content to sit on the political sidelines and collect their fat profits, while the economic and culturally corrosive public policy promoted by the worst of their billionaire neighbors makes everybody that already has big money even more rich, even more separate and unequal from the rest of us.

In fact, the real political evil emerges from a very small number of wealthy people.   Almost all the worst offenders are old.  Almost all are politically conservative men, who very much believe in white power and privilege. They aggressively use their wealth and influence to buy politicians and manipulate the American political process, with the intent to maximize their personal interests. I don’t suppose there is much of anything that I or anyone else could say that could turn that small band of big money evildoers in a more benevolent direction. They are simply indifferent to the consequences of their pathological actions.

But there is hope for the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires, who are not hopelessly self-absorbed.  Here’s my message to those wealthy folks, who recognize that they are not immune to the consequences of all the unprecedented, deeply unsettling, global scale challenges humanity must deal with.  I’m talking about climate change and fossil fuel dependence. I’m talking about our reckless, abjectly corrupt, and massively dysfunctional political process.  I’m talking about the human-driven shredding of the biosphere, whose finite water and living resources are being overwhelmed by the demands of seven billion plus human beings. We have made an Earth-sized mess of things.  Humanity and nature are near a breaking point of unprecedented scale.  Every human being has an obligation to get serious about this. Whether you’re a billionaire or an indigenous person, terrified and brutalized by illegal loggers in your forest, you have a life-and-death stake in what happens to this planet. 

To all fundamentally good and decent Americans who happen to be rich, and also happen to be passive or indifferent to our broken political process, I say, time to wake up.  You might think you can escape the consequences of your inaction. Don’t count on it.   History has shown that when the privileged members of a society stand by passively and watch the masses sink, the rabble tend to rise up. They focus their rage and demands for retribution on people of privilege, reserving their greatest ire for those who have shown no compassion for their suffering.  I’m not just talking about the oppressors. I’m talking about those who turned a blind eye to the process of oppression.

In 1794, during the French Revolution, Antoine Lavoiser, who is remembered historically for his contributions to science, was guillotined because he made his living as a tax collector for the ruling class.  The same dynamic that resulted in Lavosier losing his head applies today. Being on the losing side of a life and death, cultural struggle can be a fatal mistake.

Getting on the morally correct, and very likely, the winning side of history, requires making yourself part of the solution.  It is not acceptable to sit by passively while a handful of bad billionaires use their wealth to ruin our environment and tear society apart in the name of profit. End of story.

The Importance of Whale Poop

Asha de Vos is a marine biologist, who studies the impact of whales on ocean ecology. Her TED presentation points up the enormous contribution whales make to the health of Earth's pelagic environment.  Who knew that poo could be such a valuable commodity.

Here is a link to Asha de Vos' TED presentation --- http://www.ted.com/talks/asha_de_vos_why_you_should_care_about_whale_poo?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2015-01-10&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=top_left_image

Americans Need to Relax About Sex

Sex us a totally natural, biological function. Every living species practices it in some way or another. We humans are hard wired to  like sex. There is a biochemical cascade at work in our brains that compels a response to anything akin to sexual stimulation. Additional insight on our sexually tuned brain chemistry can be found in a book I reviewed in this blog. The book, titled The Compass of Pleasure, presents what neuro-researchers have learned more recently about the brain's role in human sexuality. Bottom line; sex is a perfectly normal biological function. Moreover, for humans, it can be a source of a lovely, intoxicating brand of physical pleasure.

Unfortunately, in America, our natural sexual instinct has long been stifled by religious stricture.  The article below addresses the perverse way normal human sexual instinct  is undermined by the American brand of morality. 

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Fantasies of White Sexual Slavery: How Our Nation's History of Sexual Oppression Is Still With Us

By David Masciotra,  AlterNet 

December 31, 2014

For anyone willing to look right in the face of America’s sexual repression, sexist assumptions, and racist fears, Policing Sexuality: The Mann Act and The Making of the FBI by Jessica R. Pliley, is at once a magnifying glass and flashlight. It is an indispensable history of all the American anxieties, hang ups, and priggish obsessions in one neat, little package.

Pliley is a Women’s History Professor at Texas State University, and she writes with the predictable detachment of most academics. Her linguistic restraint is likely the result of Olympian self-discipline, given the sheer insanity of what she summarizes and scrutinizes in Policing Sexuality.

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, prostitution was not only legal in America, but widely available in any major city, and even most small cities. Pliley writes that, at that point in American history, “women’s citizenship was defined through her sexual contract with her husband (the marriage contract), and U.S. policy towards women generally emphasized women’s reproductive service to the nation.”

Prostitution, as historian Thaddues Russell often explains, was actually the first model of independent, even feminist, citizenship and life in the United States. Many prostitutes lived according to their own income and accord, wore makeup, and eventually became business owners.

Because it was subversive to the subservience of women to men, and because of its obvious violation of strict social and sexual mores, prostitution became the target of a religious and progressive reformer campaign for regulation, and later, criminalization. The alignment of religious conservatives and feminist liberals on issues of sexual policing is one of the most fascinating stories in American history and contemporary politics. It is one, however, that most people refuse to acknowledge. Pliley’s piles of evidence make it impossible to ignore.

Suffragists and “social hygienists”, whether motivated by Christianity or paternalist “protection” of young women, used a crowbar to enter into mainstream discourse, and advocate for the prosecution of prostitution. Their crowbar was what Pliley calls, “the American myth of white slavery.”

Even though prostitution by coercion, assault, or threat of violence – sex slavery – accounted for less than ten percent of sex worker cases in America during the early twentieth century, the idea of “white slavery” spread like a contagion across the body politic. Millions of people came to believe that young, innocent, virginal white women were victims of abduction and assault, and forced to prostitute themselves for the enrichment of their immigrant pimps. Because black and non-white immigrant women had no inherent value or innate dignity – essentially, they weren’t human – they could not become part of the “white slavery” myth, and were, therefore, unworthy of protection. In response to an actual case of rape against a young, black woman, the U.S. attorney of Arkansas said that in his state it would be impossible to secure a conviction in a case “where any colored people are connected either as subject of victim.”

Raping black women was pretty much legal, and common, but white slavery was a scourge in need of destruction. One can’t help but wonder how different American history would have turned out if politicians and lawmakers spent a fraction of the time fighting actual slavery as they did combating nearly non-existent white slavery, but rationality and race rarely coalesce in the American story. The Mann Act of 1910 made it illegal to transport women across state lines for prostitution, debauchery, and in the especially dangerous language of the law, “any other immoral purposes.”

Even if cases of coercion and force in regards to prostitution were uncommon, aggressively mobilizing law enforcement resources to prevent and punish them was a good idea. It turns out, however, that the Bureau of Investigation (The FBI in its infancy) used the vague and threatening phrasing of the Mann Act to vigorously and viciously persecute adultery, seduction cases, and anything with the slight hint of miscegenation. “Policing domesticity” is a useful phrase that Pliley employs in her analysis of The Mann Act, making it clear and incontrovertible, that the federal government and local law enforcement agencies, along with an army of volunteers, collaborated to enforce traditional morality against women – to keep them in their place, the home, and in the meantime, to keep the races romantically segregated, and to keep the sanctity of marriage synonymous with positive citizenship.

Promiscuity, even among single women, quickly became a substitution for prostitution. Legislators and police officers believed that the promiscuous woman, because she was more likely to contract a venereal disease, threatened the health of married men who might step outside their marriages for sexual adventure. The men, naturally, almost never faced arrest or prosecution. Meanwhile, white men sexually assaulting black women was not a crime, at least in the response it elicited from law enforcement, but consensual sex between black men and white women, was a prosecutable offense.

Such an ambitious enterprise of moral regulation required significant personnel and funding, and when Congress continued to increase the budget for the fledging Bureau of Investigation, it gave birth to the FBI and the surveillance state. The Immigration Bureau and the Bureau of Investigation moved into nineteen cities, and enlisted a “white slavery squad” – men of moral repute who voluntarily went undercover into brothels, vice districts, and other places of prostitution, to monitor, track, and create a record of sex workers. It seems that the worst assumptions modern critics of State power can make about law enforcement and surveillance don’t go nearly far enough. The rise of the FBI and State sanctioned spying – in its methodology, its practice, and its reason for existence – is inseparable from misogyny, racism, sexual repression, and bizarre, Christian notions of moral purity.

Follow the genesis of the FBI and the surveillance state, through the Red Scare, McCarthyism, COINTELPRO, and the political war against dissent in the 1960s, the assassination of Fred Hampton, and the imprisonment of Assata Shakur, and the warnings of Edward Snowden become even more urgent, important, and frightening. From J. Edgar Hoover to the data mining of the NSA, short of wearing eyeglasses upside down and plastering tin foil over the windows, there is no such thing as paranoia in the face of the American State. 

Policing Sexuality is irreplaceable in any library of American history, but also in the effort to gain an understanding of an increasingly regressive form of domestic politics. Immigrants don’t just constitute a threat to the health and safety of America right now. They were a danger to the virginal bliss and innocence of women and American families in the early twentieth century. Unarmed black men are not just now a menace worthy of police execution. They were ready to rape, kill, and pimp white women a long time ago. Women’s sexuality is not up for negotiation and discipline just because they want their health insurance policy to cover contraception, they’ve always been subversive sluts.  

Tolerance of the State policing the consensual sexual activities of adults, just because the exchange of money is involved, is not only ironic in a nation always priding itself on freedom, but deeply cruel considering that, as Pliley demonstrates in her conclusion, “Laws intended to police sex trafficking rarely benefit those who have been trafficked; instead these laws mark women as bodies to be policed.”

Sex positive feminist Carol Queen has coined the term “absexual”, to describe people who “get off complaining about sex,” and find their stimulation through the moral imposition of their mores on the adventurous and open minded, whose source of pleasure fascinates and frightens them. It doesn’t require the insight of Sigmund Freud to see how absexuality plays a fundamental role in the shaping America’s sexual norms, from the condemnations of puritanical Christians to the concerns of paternalistic feminists. The absexual finds the whiff of what he or she ridicules too alluring to stay away completely, but too scary to actually practice.

Policing Sexuality offers a sad and absurd glimpse into the troubled psyche of a nation that never developed a healthy, sophisticated, and adult sense of sexuality. The punishment it inflicted on prostitutes, promiscuous women, and interracial couples a century ago is a great shame and real sin. The pain it produces in the lives of sex workers right now is nothing short of depraved and barbaric.

It is that very depravity and barbarism that conceived and nurtures American law enforcement and the modern surveillance state.

 

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Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/gender/fantasies-white-sexual-slavery-how-our-nations-history-sexual-oppression-still-us

 

Nature's Trust

Written by University of Oregon Law Professor, Mary Christina Wood, Nature's Trust provides a thoroughly researched review of the trust responsibility of government at all levels in America, to the people and to future generations.

Here is how Professor Wood puts that responsibility in the introduction of Nature's Trust.

The sovereign trust obligation offers a catalyzing principle to citizens worldwide in their common struggle to hold government's accountable for protecting life-systems. Nature's Trust and the primordial rights inculcating it create a populist manifesto that surfaces at epic times through the generations of humanity. These principles stand no less revolutionary for our time and our crises than the forcing of the Magna Carta on the English monarchy in 1215 or Mahatma Gandhi's great Salt March to the sea in 1930.  Resonating deeply and resolutely within the ancestral memory of humanity,  trust principles must now revive to stir a global assertion of citizenship in defense of humanity and all future generations.

Professor Mary Christina Wood has done an enormous service to society by reminding us how deeply entrenched the trust responsibility is in global governance.  We live in a time when the American political process has devolved in a circumstance of  'He who has the money makes the rules.'  Climate change, driven by the human addiction to dirty coal and oil, is a challenge that is not being addressed, primarily because of the failure of our elected representatives to recognize and live up to their trust responsibilities to the people and to future generations.

Trust law is no panacea. The best way to put government back on track would be a Constitutional Amendment that says, 'Corporations are not People' and 'Money is not Speech'.   That's a very tough nut to crack. For now, Mary Christina Wood's  illumination of  natural trust law has inspired a number of court challenges, demanding a proper government response to climate change.  Nature's Trust provides a solid foundation for legal remedy against our government's failure to meet it's obligation to protect nature and the commons for future generations.

This is a very important book. I give it my highest recommendation, with one caveat. The price tag - $40 for a paperback book - creates an unfortunate accessibility problem. I would love to have Nature's Trust for reference in my own library. Perhaps, at some point, they will come out with a different edition at a more reasonable cost.  For now, when I need to visit this book, I will go to the library.

Here is a link to author Mary Christina Wood, appearing on the Bill Moyers PBS Show, talking about Nature's Trust...  http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-climate-crusade/

V-Day and the Power to Transform

The title of this piece is inspired by the first of four core beliefs of a beautifully focused, globally engaged non-profit known as V-Day.

Founded by Eve Ensler, the celebrated author of a truly great piece of performance art known as The Vagina Monologues,  the focus of V-Day is the empowerment of women around the world, with a particular emphasis on ending violence aimed at women.

Four Core Beliefs of V-Day

• Art has the power to transform thinking and inspire people to act
• Lasting social and an cultural change is spread by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
• Local women best know what their communities need and can become unstoppable leaders
• One must look at the intersection of race, class, and gender to understand violence against women

As we move further into the 21st century, the number of civilization scale challenges we face is unprecedented.  Seven billion plus humans are competing for a share of our earth's rapidly diminishing resources.  Economic and social inequality remain rampant. Outright discrimination is a huge factor in the lives of well over half the world's population.  The culturally ingrained oppression of women continues to be a particularly corrosive fact of life. 

My life experience has led me to a firm conclusion: the path to a sustainable, dignified future for humanity requires that, to the extent possible, all forms of discrimination must be eliminated.  Equal opportunity and fair treatment must become more than just a platitude. The empowerment of women in the economic and political arenas is  critical to achieving this goal.

V-Day is a global beacon for the rights and dignity of women.  In February, 2014,   V-Day's One Billion Rising campaign was launched as a worldwide awakening on discrimination and violence against women.  V-Day doesn't take the easy road. One of their principle focuses is the ongoing genocide and violence against women in the African Congo.  Violence and cruelty are an everyday part of life, particularly in the mostly lawless eastern region of the Congo.  On a daily basis, the women of that region are a primary target for roaming bands of armed thugs, who use rape as a weapon of terror.

For V-Day,  there are certainly easier places where they could make a difference. I can't say enough about their commitment to stand with the women of  the Congo.

The fact is the entire African continent has been used and abused for two centuries by Europeans, and later Americans,  who colonized and exploited its human, biological, and mineral resources. Perhaps the most egregious example happened late in the 19th century, when Leopold, the King of Belgium, had the audacity to claim the Congo, an area nearly as large as all of Europe combined, not for his country, but for himself.  Starting in the mid-20th century, the European nations abandoned their African colonies.  The whole continent has, for the most part, been a politically dysfunctional quagmire ever since.

A few years ago,  I was inspired to assert myself and try to make a difference for the people of Africa and particularly the Congo. I am deeply concerned not just about the people, but also about the other living wild animal species in that nation, many of which can be found almost no where else in the world.  The Congo wildlife legacy is severely threatened by human population growth. Despite the ongoing genocide, the population in the Congo is expanding at a rate of nearly 3% annually.  As of 2013, the population was about 75 million,  up 350% from where it was 50 years ago. Moreover, a very substantial share of the Congo population depends on bushmeat (wild animals killed for food) for survival.  As a consequence, in many parts of the Congo, wild animal numbers are plummeting.  This includes gorillas, chimpanzees, and other primates; the closest living relatives to humans.

Despite the severe nature of the challenges, the Congo is a place worth saving. V-Day is committed to that goal.  I share their desire to make a difference.

My approach to making a difference for the Congo has been to develop a theatrical movie project, designed to entertain and to inform.  I have some skills. I've been a successful writer/producer.  I have an Emmy and some other awards for my work.  I started with some assumptions. The first was that I could not do a story that actually takes place in the Congo.  Movies set in Africa generally have not done well at the American boxoffice.  Another assumption was that the future of Africa, and the world in general, requires that women become fully equal on all playing fields with men.    As for genera, dramatic comedy felt like the best way to go. The movie studios covet the 18-25 year old audience.   I was determined that the movie carry a strong message about the Congo and about the championing of women.  I chose to embed those ideas in a fun, highly entertaining package that will appeal to  young adult movie goers.

The story I came up with is about a successful Hollywood writer who, while struggling to get his new script about the Congo made into a movie, becomes a champion for the dignity and empowerment of women.  As I was laying out the structure for this story,  I had the benefit of some very useful critical feedback from designer/photographer, Chad Kirkpatrick. He and I share a similar worldview. Both of us believe that a sustainable future will be achievable only when women have an equal place at the table with men.

With Chad providing valuable feedback, I wrote the script for this project,  which is now titled,  Something Big.    

Here is what Tracey Becker, Producer of the Sony Pictures theatrical feature, Hysteria, said about Something Big. 

 

The Something Big movie is 'a rarity': a well-crafted ensemble drama that entertains highly, while also almost accidentally enlightening the audience..... With a deft combination of political messages, and outrageous yet embraceable characters,  it has a twisty plot that would make the religious right weak in the knees.  Something Big is a fascinating mash-up of  'pick-your-wing' politics',  professional wrestling,  Hollywood insiders, reality television disgraces, the sex worker  trade, and modern romance.... From a marketing perspective,  there is so much to recommend about this script.... The characterizations will likely attract a high caliber cast.... The fascinating world the author has created should speak to audiences on many levels. A t first glance, Something Big is pure entertainment,  but on closer inspection, the themes of greed, self-aggrandizement  and the co-opting of global causes to benefit enterprises that might not have started off so high-mindedly, all contribute to the richer tapestry of this script.

We know we have a good project. Our intention is to assign a substantial share of any income that comes from Something Big, the movie, to the causes featured in the story. That brings us right to V-Day.  We want them to be a friend to the project. We want them to be one of the primary non-profit stakeholders in Something Big.   With V-Day standing with us,  we will be well positioned to protect the intellectual integrity of the project and to maximize the revenue we are able to direct to them and to other groups and individuals that share our passion for elevating the status of women worldwide, for defending our Constitutionally mandated citizen rights, and for protecting the biosphere we all depend on.

'Art has the power to transform thinking and inspire people to act.'  That is a core principle for V-Day, and that is exactly the sentiment that motivated me in the development of the Something Big project.

 Stay tuned.