July 15, 2013, carnegie newsletter

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JULY 15, 2013

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Gentle Readers I was a d irector on t he Vancou ver/Richmond health board / / In this iss ue there are 2 longer-than-usual articles on w hi ch was at t he executive level run by wealthy white racist guys 1 two aspects of our present situation. The firs t is about fracking. Fracking uses eno rm ous amounts of water 'racist' because 3 First Nations' women on the bo ard w ere marginali zed ignored insulted and resigned and sand, mixed with toxic chemicals, wh ich are forced into the ground at high pressure to fractu re any way shale rock or coal beds to release natural g as or oil. the Downtown Easts ide was in flames The process is linked to earthquakes and water polluwith epidemics among impoverished drug users tion, which is why communities around the world are who had the highest rate of hiv infections trying to stop it. in the westem world In the recent election, part of the N DP platfo rm was and more health money had been spent dealing with declaring a moratorium o n this technol ogy while a a dozen bee sting reactions on the UBC campus was done. Promises, b ut right after full investigation t han on the vast misery and deaths of the epidemics the Liberals cashed on in on all the mo ney spent to then 1 attended a meeting get them re-elected, Rich Coleman was arrogantl y with the top health officials from across the province boasting on TV how much the people of BC had and the money guy for the health board gained- "They [the NDP] were saying No Fracking drew a pyramid on a blackboard for 2 years!?!" The Liberals are hot-to-trot to g ive big depicting the rising hiv rate business the go-ahead to spend over $1 0 billion to and the point at which 'saturation' would be reached frack extensively, and remake much of coastal BC and then the rate of new hiv infections would naturally into shipping ports for liquefi ed natural gas. This wil l decrease (until it would sometime later rise again) have more extensive environmental consequences than the tar sands monster in A lberta. but at the point of saturation When the people of Quebec spoke out against frackwith fewer new infections ing, the provincial governm ent listened. Quebec put a the health board could say it successfully reduced hiv moratorium on the controvers ial and dangerous without the board having to do anything method for extracttng hard-to-reach natural gas until or spend any more money on the hiv epidemic the environmental impacts could be studied. actually "pandemic" which means out of control You would think the Quebec government has an obwith no end in sight ligation to protect its people and thei r environm ent.

But a U.S. fracking company called Lone Pine ReI EXPLODED OUT OF MY CHAIR sources thinks otherwise. and ripped into that bureaucratic deception Lone Pine, which wanted to frack for gas under the for what it was - a fom1 of genocide St. Lawrence River, has t hreatened to sue Canada "genocide" was coined and defined under the North American Free Trade Agreement

by Rafael Lempkin who declared genocide wasn't (NAFTA). The company is demanding $250 mill ion the number of people killed in compensation for Quebec' s moratorium, whi ch it but any group targeted for destruction says violates Lone Pine's " right" to frack! like vulnerable drug users in the Downtown Eastside We shouldn't have to pay to p rotect ourselves & our environment.

Communities, not private firms, should eventually I was able have the final say on fracki ng and other proj ects that against board executive pressure and more skullduggery threaten water sources, the environment and public to have a motion passed health there should be no penalty for saying " no." declaring Vancouver's First Public Health Emergency The second article is self-explanatory; both are here which forced money loose for several initiatives to give space for the ideas righteous ly dismissed by but this is mere ly one example those with great wealth and power as "conspiracy of how theories."

THEY It' s a conspiracy theory to say that corporations are do us Bud Osborn -

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in control of governments, that media reports what its owners choose as news and how to report it. We resist the gentrification & forced dispersion of low-income communities, have reasoned arguments and common sense looking at the biggest picture .. but get overwhelmed by the concerted (expensive) efforts of the monied interests.[Look at 9/ll agai n; look at US wars of aggression; look at the Local Area Planning Process in the Downtown Eastside and what has actually

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been goi ng on.]

Politicians in Vancouver and throughout other levels of government get reports based on what they want to hear. Most of the concerns of the reps of low-income people are glaringly absent. Even if they get all the facts, the might of corporate control is too much (for them) to fight. Fortunately it's not too much fo r us.

By PAULR TAYLOR

Don't with our water!

"Gasland Part II": The Fracking Empire Strikes Back - By Brett Brownell Multimedia Producer at Mother Jones Movie sequels are typically reserved for superheroes, not scrappy social-issue documentaries. But director Josh Fox's 2010 documentary Gasland, which was nominated for an Academy Award, helped spark such an enormous national interest into the negative impacts of natural gas drilling that he decided to make a sequel.

'When we put the first movie out we were astounded,' Fox recently told Mother Jones. "We ... never figured that 'tracking' would become a household word ."

Gasland ended with coverage of a June 4, 2009, hearing by the House Energy and Minerals subcommittee that addressed the safety and risks of natural gas drilling. Fox narrates, "The FRAC Act is making its way through Congress, and industry is lobbying hard against it." The FRAC Act called for the removal of hydraulic fracturing's exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and would have implemented federal regulation of the industry. But the bill never received a vote.

Gasland Part II premiered on HBO and picks up in the spring of 2010, with Fox touring the Gulf of Mexico by helicopter.

Below, oil from BP's exploded Deepwater Horizon rig streams along the surface. Through voiceover, Fox explains how difficult it was to get clearance to fly in the area. "Journalists would call up the FAA to clear flights," he says, "and BP would answer the phone." It's an emotional sequence, which immediately sparks a sense of injustice and opens up the film's broad theme of industry influence on government.

Fox spoke to Mother Jones about his films and government policy immediately following President Obama's major June 25 speech on climate change:

Mother Jones: What are your initial thoughts on the president's speech and his push to reduce carbon emissions and increase renewables?

Josh Fox: It's remarkable to watch the president, with all the weight of his ability to command rhetoric with the bully pulpit behind him, make a clear speech about climate change and why that's so important for us all to focus on. And that is a rather remarkable thing to see. It's enormously powerful. So the emphasis on why climate change is important and why we should focus on it is amazing. It's exactly what we need. However, the plan itself is completely wrong.

By supporting fracked gas in the United States on a huge scale, both in terms of converting power plants to natural gas and export, and supporting fracked gas in other countries, he will undo all of the good that he's putting forward in his speech. We know now that fracked gas is the worst fuel you can develop with respect to climate change. The reason is very simple, which is that methane, when it's in the atmosphere, is up to 105 times more potent at warming the climate than C02 is in a 20-year time frame-in this short window of time that we have now to tackle climate.

And what we're looking at now is: in the field, in the recent data that's coming in, up to 9 percent leakage in gas fields in Colorado and Utah. New York City, the transmission system is leaking methane into the atmosphere at a rate of about 3 percent. In Los Angeles, where they both produce and deliver natural gas, we're at a rate of 17 percent leakage. Which means, it's 17 times more powerful than coal.

So when you're saying we want less carbon emissions from our power plants and you're not looking at the whole life cycle of greenhouse gas, it's extremely ironic that you're sitting here making a speech about greenhouse gas emissions and advocating the development of a greenhouse gas. Methane: the second most important greenhouse gas in a 100 year time frame and the most important greenhouse gas to control in the 20-year time frame.

Watch more of Fox's response here, via a Skype interview: MJ: What about the mention in the speech that natural gas is "the transitional fuel that can power our economy with less carbon pollution, even as our businesses work to develop and then deploy more of the technology required for the even cleaner economy of the future"? He also made that analogy of taping the breaks before slowing down.

JF: We're heard this over and over again. Natural gas is a bridge fuel. But it's not a bridge-it's a gangplank. It's either a bridge in space or a bridge in time. The bridge in time we don't need. We have renewable technology right now. We should not be converting or creating a single new natural gas fire power plant. We can do all of this with the wind and the sun. We should be moving vigorously towards renewable energy. The technology of which is right ~ere right now.

I think that what we're seeing is that folks are going to have to make this point very clear to the president: that tracked gas is not the way to go. And that this is a wholehearted embrace of tracked gas in that speech. And I really hate to be Debbie Downer right now, because everyone would love to say, "Yeah, we're finally doing something on climate!" And there are good things in this. Absolutely you have to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. That's a no brainer. The question is what do you replace them with? And if you're replacing them with gas, you're not actually creating a better situation with respect to greenhouse gas emissions in the lifecycle as a whole.

MJ: Do you know of or do you support any regulations that may actually be beneficial to cleaning up natural gas drilling?

JF: Once you've contaminated an aquifer, the contamination is pretty much there to stay. You can't get the volatile organics, the benzenes, the BTEX, you can't get that back out again. It's very difficult to do. So there's no such thing as really remediating aquifers. You can treat the water at the surface, but then you've committed yourself to centuries of water treatment, which is both costly in terms of money and in terms of energy.

What I have found out is that in terms of the well failure rate-when you're talking about "Why are these wells leaking?"-well, we know that the cement that is supposed to protect aquifers breaks down and cracks at enormous rates. So 5 percent of these wells leak immediately upon installation, and up to 50 to 60 percent of them start leaking over a 30-year period. So in a couple of decades you have half of the wells that are drilled right now, and you're talking about numbers in the millions of wells drilled, leaking. That's a huge crisis in terms of water contamination. There's no way to fix that problem.

MJ: So it's impossible? ~F: When you have a place right now, like places I know in Wyoming or Texas or Pennsylvania, where people are being toxically poisoned in their own homes by emissions that could be handled , or where people are suffering the effects of water contamination and need redress and need those companies to be responsible for the destruction of their homes, for the destruction of their lands, for the destruction of their towns, that absolutely has to be done. There are regulations all over the spectrum that have to be done to the existing situation right now. But the only policy that makes sense is a nationwide

moratorium: no new tracking, no new tracked wells. r...路 MJ: Regarding the film specifically, was there always an intention for the sequel? Even in the back of your mind? ?

JF: No, I don't think so. When we put the first movie out, look, we were astounded. The first movie was essentially intended for my basic, general area. Like a 25-mile radius around my house in the upper Delaware River basin. The fact that it went further than that, the fact it went to 30 countries and has a viewership in the tens of millions, 50 million in all these places, on television, is absolutely astounding. We also never figured that "fracking" would become a household word, that it would become such a huge issue. I think what we saw though is that our worry on this was concurrent with a lot of other people. That when the natural gas industry was knocking on my door, they were knocking on the door of millions of people. And that became something that we really needed to focus on.

For those people who are going to tune in strictly for the pyrotechnics, we have better and bigger explosions. That's a prerequisite of any sequel. But in terms of this, what we're really monitoring is watching the gas industry light our institutions, light our regulatory agencies, light our democracy on fire.

Watch more of Fox's response here, via a Skype interview: MJ: There's a scene toward the end of the sequel where one of your sources calls you on the phone and describes an interaction they have with an EPA representative who was told by "higher-ups" to back off of their investigation into water contamination. Can you expand on what you know about that?

JF: EPA's a lot of great people. They're a lot of great scientists and their mission is to protect people. It's the Environmental Protection Agency, but it's really a people protection agency. And they're out there trying to do their job and do the science.

And the level of depression and dismay and shock among mid-level EPA folks who are out there doing the work, and then to watching policy come in and take away the things that they're trying to do-sometimes I feel like there isn't enough Prozac in the world to make those people feel better about their jobs. They're going out there, they're trying to protect Americans and then time and time and time again they get their knees cut off at the policy level. , We're not living in a society that science actually dominates the conversation. We're living in a situation where some science is allowed and a lot of it's about policy. And when your science runs into a policy roadblock, all of a sudden the science starts to disappear. You have a lot of the folks, mid-level EPA, not just calling the residents, saying, "Oh by the way, although the head office said this was all fine: Don't drink your water." A lot of people calling me, saying, "Oh, by the way, Josh, there's a report that you need to know about it's in this office. I couldn't take it with me when I resigr'led, but you can find out how to shake it loose." A lot of calls like that.

MJ: In the first Gasland you show a letter you received in the mail from a natural gas company, which offered to pay nearly $100,000 to lease your land for drilling. But you didn't accept tt,e offer. And you've stood firm against it over these last few years, considering that you could have benefited financially.

JF: Absolutely not, I absolutely would have not benefited financially.

MJ: Even with the $100,000 offer?

JF: If they had drilled across from my house, the property value goes to zero. But there's more than just financial benefits in this world. When you live in a watershed area, in a pristine area, and you could watch this whole place fall apart in front of your eyes, you don't sell your soul for a buck. It's just not the way it works. And when you actually understand what this means, when you understand the thousands of truck trips, the leaking wastewater pits, the pipelines bisecting the woods, the volatile emissions that are going to creep into your window every night, the water contamination when we live off of a natural spring that has been there for 100 years. The costs far outweigh the benefits. Not just to the American people and the person who's near the well, but in the long run.

MJ: At the end of the film you have that quote as you're in the halls of Congress, being prevented from filming the hearing, and you say that "they're burning the Constitution as a relic left behind." Where do you stand as an optimist or pessimist considering just how much of a fight you've got?

JF: The first line in the first Gasland is: "I'm not a pessimist. I've always had a great deal of faith in people that we won't succumb to frenzy or rage or greed. That we'll figure out a solution without destroying the things that we love. " I have not lost that sense.

It is an incredibly hopeful experience watching communities come together and actually reassemble democracy. The democracy's been taken away from us. But they're reinventing democracy out there in rural Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, in Pittsburgh. We had 1,700 people come to our grassroots tour in Pittsburgh. Seventeen hundred people on one night to watch

a movie. Unreal. A thousand people in Williamsport, Pennsylvania; 800 people on one night came out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. There's something really happening and really moving, and it's exciting and it makes me very optimistic because it is going to be the engine for how we really combat climate change. Which is strong communities.

MJ: Do you have it in you to keep pushing your message and continuing for what could be the next few years?

JF: Five years went by in the blink of an eye working on this. I don't think this is really about tracking anymore. It's about who we are as a people, and that's something that you can work on for your whole life. It's about our democracy. And it's incredibly inspiring to watch communities rally and people come together. And it's happening on an enormous scale. We're just starting to learn how many people out there who are working on this. There's an anti-tracking organization in every tiny little town throughout the entire southern tier of New York state. What other political issue can you say that that exists about? None. And a fracking organization in every little town across Pennsylvania.

It's remarkable to watch and just be a storyteller and a journeyman and watch it and talk to people. It's the next phase of authorship of this country's energy future. It's gonna come from the people. It's not gonna be deus ex machina or Obama ex machina, or science ex machina. It's gonna be the people. It's not going to be a wind energy company that comes in and saves the day. It's going to be the people who figure this out. And I'm watching them figure a lot of stuff out and be very intelligent about how to make climate choices and how to make democracy choices, how to make energy choices. So I have faith in that. And it doesn't get me tired-it gets me really excited.

Oppenheimer Park *Our Back Yard* Sta1iing July Ist the park is open Monday to Saturday from 9-Spm to the end of August. There is a lot going on over the summer and we love to see yo u come out and be part of the fun.

Park monthly program schedules can be found at the Carnegie information desk or at Oppenheimer Park.

July's Program and Event Highlights: Kids Soccer Program will be starting up again from July 8th- August 19th every Monday from I0- 12pm.

Boys and gi rls, ages 5-1 2 years, are welcomed.

Call 604 253 8830 or drop by the Park to register.

We will take registration all of July.

July 17th - Park Patrons Birthday Party 3pm, Come join us for cake and laughs.

July 20th- UGM BBQ starting at IOam

Sing This, Karaoke Party Thursdays at 3:30pm Whether you s ing solo, with a friend or to a friend, you can show off your talents, be a star & have FUN! Mr. SMOOTHIE is here every Friday at 1pm whipping up fresh, delicious smoothies for everyone to try out.

The Park is a lways looking for Volunteers to help us out. Whether it is picking garbage up around the park, he lping with morning coffee, running a program ... if you would Iike to volunteer at the park come over and see Carrie.

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If it gets Really Hot-

(arnetUe Theatre workshop ~

Summer Classes ~ ACTING BASICS Mondays 6pm-9pm July 8, 15, 22, 29 August l2, 19, 26 in the Carnegie Theatre CJ'etlfe (/uwde~

S ummer has arrived! If you're anything like me, I am sure you are looking fo rward to the longer days. sunshine and warmer temperatures. However, with the vvarmer weather. we need to take extra precautions and ensure we take care of ourselves and others in o ur community . Heat, even in temperate, coastal BC can be harmfu l, and so a little reminder to us allwhile you are enjoying these lovely days; s low down, wear a hat, drink plenty of water, find a shady tree or come ins ide to get out of the heat and cool off. During the hotter summer days, we will open the gym and ensure there is seating available for you to take a break and get cool. The gym is usually one of the cooler locations in the Centre.

I wish you a ll a good start to the summer ahead!

Sharon Belli, Assistant Director

Use imatJillatloa ~ (/is(~Yel" IU'W~ ftue Blll'pl'iseB oa sfatle, No experience necessary, Everyone welcome!

For more info: Teresa 604-255-9401 thirteenofhearts@hotmail.com

"Gite Rcc:fcls ftQVQJ_a EJtcl Raised in a two-tone railroad town trucks east and west, o ne colour of people monotone as the wheat fields o ld time rei ig ion and rusted cars rotting in the cattail ditches sons of bitches, could not get away fas t enough I'm just o ne face in a kaleidoscope now I'm glad to meetcha Mr Wong Mr Crowfoot Mr Poitras glad to be here w herever I am . hope to see the sun rise a few thousand more ttmes hope to be passin' through on another day all the o ld shitho le towns strung like beads on the o ld mainline, the No I, longest highway so damn long sometimes no longer matters where I once came from, just matters that l keep on mavin' AI

When you lose you rself And you've been put on the shelf Just ask the o ld elf "What can I do to he lp?"

If you can lend a hand & help take command You' ll find it so grand That you' ll love our land.

Canada has the best for everyone Rich & poor & middle class alike Security guards at Carnegie tell invaders to 'take a hike' When I reach home at ni ght I am so happy that I've been at Carnegie & enjoyed my friends that I say Dear Lord help me meet my ends or make amends and go back the next day. lfthis is a clue o n how to rebuild one's life then I' ve helped someone else make theirs a beautiful life.

With love, Joyce Morgan

tf ISundays An Outdoor-Multimedia-Visual Arts Market at Napier & Commercial Drive 4 Sundays: August 11 -September 1 Workshops for this summer include: August 11 "Scraps and Stitches," a sewing workshop with Karenza T. Wall August 18 "Collecting Tiny Bits Of Meaning," an upcycle workshop with Magpie's Nest Community Art Space. winners of the East Feast microfunding event September 1 Paper Quilling with Helen Spaxman.

Other Highlights for this summer include: August 11 Vancouver Cooperative Radio: Books and Records Fundraiser August 18 Greater Vancouver Weavers' and Spinners' Guild: Demonstration Live Music Schedule: August 11 Backspin (12-2:30pm); Rio Samaya (2:30-Spm) August 18 Tim Sars Duo (12-3pm); llliteratty (3-Spm) August 25 Clara Shandler: The Sidewalk Cellist (12-2:30pm); The Diviners (2:30-Spm) September 1 Clara Shandler: The Sidewalk Cellist (12-2:30pm); Glen Watts (2:30-Spm)

See vou there!

PeaKing You're the daughter ofthe devil, I'm the son of Zeus.

I'll show you what I can do once they let me loose.

I move fast like a jaguar yet strong like an ox, I'll run you down like a cardboard box.

I'll put you on the ground and tap you out, one of these days you will run from me.

I'll teach you how to tango like the strong and free.

Zachary Viseau

Jane and Amnesty International Amnesty International or AI as it's called , was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a Catho lic lawyer of Jewish descent. Benenson set it up when he heard about two Portuguese students li ving in Portugal, which was then ruled by a brutal dictator called Salazar.

The two students were having a drink and they raised their glasses and said in effect, "Let's make a toast to freedom." Just for doing that they were thrown into prison for seven years. Benenson, who was living then in London England, heard about this.

He was outraged. He gathered together several people. They set up Amnesty International to free persons who were in prisons around the world. These persons were prisoners of conscience who had been locked away for struggling for basic human rights, like the right to protest for example. And these prisoners waged their struggles non-violently.

AI would try to free these people by writing letters to their governments.

By 2013 AI has g rown into a worldwide organization. "It has many enemies," writes Jonathan Power in his book on Amnesty called 'Like Water On Stone', "and lots of friends. Its membership, now more than a million world-wide is sti ll increasing." Power points out tha Al's impact has been huge. And it has rescued thousands of political prisoners from j ails and torture.

So far so good. But then I met Jane in a local church about twenty years ago. "I set up a local chapter of Amensty," Jane told me, which was true. Jane had spent many years trying to free political prisoners and sometimes she'd succeeded.

But Jane was quite conservative. She loathed feminists. "They're a ll dis turbed," she said. She didn't like environmentalists e ither, and she bristled when I told her how I adm ired a local ecologist.She also thought that no Canadian government should spend money on teaching immigrants to speak or write English .

Also she praised the austerity program that's ravaging Greece. "The Greeks must pay the ir debts," she said. "If people lose their jobs and schools are shut down, that's too bad. But debts must be paid."

Jane's work in Amnesty International focused on China. "it's the one country that I am doing all I can do to change," she said. Jane rarely put down the U.S. of A., Britain or Canada. "They are democracies," she said, "and democracies are too precious to criticize."

Now Amnesty has many types of members. But the longer I knew Jane, who was after all my only Am-q nesty contact, the more I kept thinking how conserva1 tive Amnesty was. "It's just run by a group of west side right wingers," l told someone who once asked me about it.

But then Jane and I stopped being friends. I didn't like her politics and she didn't like mine. Then one day I came across Jonathan Power's book on A L I started to read it and was astounded to find out that Amnesty criticized many countries, including China.

But it also had harsh words for the U.S. of A. and many other democratically-ruled places including Britain. Progressive people joined Amnesty and worked for it. So did some conservatives. In short, not all AI people were like Jane. And some people in Amnesty were feminists.

At last, I realize how diverse AI people are. They don't all share Jane's politics and I'm sure glad they don't.

By DAVE JAFFE

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a man of means indeed to still have toilet paper so late in this five-week month

Cuba Dyer

Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) Newsletter Read CCAP re arts: http://ccapvancouver.word ress.com

Jul 15, 2013

It's heating up in the Downtown Eastside: Town Hall Meeting to discuss future of the DTES Is the c ity going to build the housing that homeless people and people in SROs need? Or will they let condos take over the Downtown Eastside (DTES) and push out the low income community?

Those are the crucial questions about the draft plan that the city plans to release at public meetings on July 18th and 20th.

The plan is supposed to be developed by a partnership of about 30 communi ty members (the Local Area Planning Committee) and the city through the Local Area Planning Process (LAPP). But the committee has never formally agreed to what the city is proposing as a draft plan.

So far it looks like the plan might keep condos out of one part of the DTES, the Oppenheimer area. But there is no plan to house 850 homeless residents or replace the SROs with self contained social housing in a reasonable length of time.

These are two points that low income members of the LAPP committee keep pushing for.

It also looks like some parts of the DTES, like Chinatown and the area around Wood wards are just about lost to the low income community if the city plan goes ahead as is. Continued on page 2

A sign on the 6th Annual Women's Housing March. Photo by Caelie Frampton

Town Hall Meeting (cont'd) Other parts of the DTES , like Hastings St. from H eatley to Clark, and the Thornton Park area, could have a lot more social hous ing for low income people IF the city required it in their plan . But so far they are on ly talking about requiring 20 to 25 percent social housing. What's worse, the city's definition of social housing includes housing that rents for just about any amount-so people on welfare or disability or pension wouldn't be able to afford it.

How should low income community members respond to this pl an? What have low income members of the LAP committee proposed? Three thousand community members have signed a petition for a social Justice Zone in the DTES. Do you agree or should members on the committee push for something else? Come to a Town Hall meeting on July 16 to discuss these question s and help ground low income members of the LAPP committee.

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on 'fut:ure changes in t:he neighbourhood Tuesda~

July 1G 11:00 am Carnegie Community Centre Theatre Corner of nain &Hastings Did you sign th e Social Justice Zone Petition?

Want an update on the Local Area Planning PrCi>cess (LAPP)?

What's the future for low-income people in the DTES? How much hou sing is being planned for the DTES? Want to share your ideas?

The Town Hall meeting will be in the Carnegie Theatre at 11 am. Snacks and coffee provided. Bring your ideas and k nowledge Sponsored by the Carnegie Community Action Project This meeti ng is not organized by the City of of the neighbo urhood! This meeting is Vancouver or the Local Area Planning sponsored by the Carnegie Community Process (LAPP) Committee Action Project, not the city or the LAPP committee.- JS "oreinfo:G04-729-2380 www .ccapvancouver. wordpress.com

July 23 Town Hall Meeting On July 23 at 11 am, CCAP will host a Town Hall meeting in the Carnegie Centre Theatre to debrief after the City's open-houses. The Meeting will be a chance for you to talk with other DTES residents about what happened at the City meetings and whether the issues that are important to you were heard.

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Important city planning meetings coming up The city is holding 2 open houses to learn what you think about the "emerging directions" of a plan for the Downtown Eastside:

July 18 between 3:30 and 7:30 at 475 Alexander St. July 20 between 11 am and 3 pm at 601 Keefer St. Three thousand members of the DTES low income community have signed a petition calling for a Social Justice Zone in the DTES. The Social Justice Zone plan calls for: • • • • •

No condos before low-income people's homes Reverse the loss of homes and jobs for low income residents Ensure jobs for low income residents Protect residents' safety End discrimination so everyone can access the services they need.

To support low income residents, tell the city you want a Social Justice Zone in the DTES.

Town Hall meeting on mental health and addiction Are people with mental health and addictions issues getting the help they need? Can you generalize about all the people in the Downtown Eastside after doing interv iews with 293 people in supp01ti ve housing? Those were the main questions addressed at a Town Hall meeting sponsored by the Carnegie Community Action Project on June 14 in the Carnegie Theatre.

The guest speaker was Dr. Bill MacEwan, a psychiatrist a St. Paul 's Hospital.

MacEwan is doing a study of people with mental health and addiction issues who live in hotel rooms run as supported housing by non profit providers. T he study will be published in the fall.

The study started in 4 hotels but expanded • to 16 as people moved during the year.

Every month people in the study were interviewed. They also had medical tests and even MRis of their brains done.

MacEwan's conclusion: "The people down here are vastly underserved ." MacEwan said 95 percent of the 293 people his team interviewed were using legal or illegal drugs. Over 70 per cent had mental illness, he said.

Many of the 30 or so people in the audience were afraid that MacEwan's study would be used by government officials to justify medicalizing povetty and creating only supportive housing instead of social housing without supp01ts.

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Learning from Victoria, BC Take Victoria, for example. When property and business owners expressed concern that "Our Place", a centre for low-income people, was opening in a neighbourhood, it was told to sign a Good Neighbour Agreement.

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The agreement forces Our Place to discourage "loitering." It has to remove graffiti nearby and keep the area around the building clean using its own limited budget. The agreement also forces Our Place to monitor the behaviour of people who use its services outside the building and call the police right away when there are problems. In other words, staff in a building that is supposed to create a sense of belonging for low-income people have to police them.

Should we have a Good Neighbour Agreement in the DTES? -~~

There are already Good Neighbour Agreements in the DTES. Some bars have signed agreements, as has the Union Gospel Mission.

Some people are asking if Good Neighbourhood Agreements can be used to make the area better for low-income people. In other words, what would happen if low-income people wrote a Good Neighbour Agreement that sets out a vision for the neighbourhood and is used to decide what businesses go where?

I

;'

This is one of the questions that CCAP is asking, and the answers aren't simple.

CCAP has been asked to write a Good Neighbour Agreement for city planners to look at. We know that DTES residents have different opinions on whether Good Neighbour Agreements can be useful.

After Our Place, Good Neighbourhood Agreements spread like wildfire in Victoria.

Services like shelters and health centres had to install security cameras, wake-up sleepers, change building exteriors, use their own funds for clean-ups, etc. Most of these agreements included consultation with property and business owners, but not lowincome residents.

Do you have your own ideas, or do you want to talk more about Good Neighbour Agreements in the DTES? On July 16 and 23, CCAP is holding Town Hall meetings on the future of the DTES in the Carnegie Theatre. You can also come to our weekly CCAP volunteer meetings on Fridays at 11:15 am in the classroom on the third floor.

Hope to see you there! - TH 5

Mental health and addiction (cont'd) "These numbers will be used to say everyone in the Downtown Eastside is ill and addicted and that's not the case,'' said Fraser Stuart, pointing out that supp011ed housing is •;)YES FDlt " designed for t ARNE:IIE ~people with 1ttiOII .

- these Issues.

MacEwan said his concern was that a "huge number of people are not getting treatment. Supported housing is not working for them ." He said that

researchers would expect about 3 of the people in their sample to die over 2 years , but 15 actually died. "If you live down here its five times greater," MacEwan said.

But others in the audience cautioned MacEwan against making a generalization about the whole DTES based on a sample of only people who live in supportive housing.

Nadine Anderson said that if people had adequate housing, food, clothes and support they wouldn't have so many mental health and drug use issues.- JS

The good, the bad and the ugly (neighbours): Good Neighbour Agreements in the DTEiS A new development plan for the DTES is in the works, and there 's more on the table than housing and zoning. In the planning discussions , the idea of a "Good Neighbour Agreement" surfaced .

At first , a Good Neighbour Agreement might sound like a good idea. Everyone likes a good neighbour, and most people like to agree. But Good Neighbour Agreements can mean bad neighbourhoods for low-income people.

What's a Good Neighbour Agreement? A Good Neighbour Agreement is a negotiated agreement between people or institutions -

4

usually agencies, services, prope11y owners, businesses and police. It sets out an idea of how people should behave .

In some cases, bars and restaurants sign Good Neighbour Agreements and commit to keeping their clients quiet when they leave. Yet in other cases, Good Neighbourhood Agreements are tools to help wealthier people in mixed neighbourhoods feel safer.

They often do this by more policing and surveillance. The result? The most vulnerable people feel even less safe around the services that they depend on.And this is where things stmt getting tricky.

"Why Are We Being Labelled?"

On June 27th, a group of 40 Chinese community members gathered at the Oppenheimer Park House for our monthly community meeting in Cantonese. We began by saying one thing that would improve our lives or one good thing in our lives that we hope we will continue to have. The responses ranged from being thankful that we have housing, grateful for water and gifts at the Park, to wishing for less homelessness and that income would reflect rent increases and the cost of medications.

At our meeting , we discussed the issue of discrimination in our neighbourhood. I read two responses to the May I 5 CCAP article titled , "Discrimination Against Chinese People." One response was from a group of Dugout volunteers , which was published in the June I issue of the Carnegie Newsletter.

Another was published in the June 15 issue of the Carnegie Newsletter.

The responses may be surprising to some because the participants actually agreed to some of the points raised in the articles: "I don't know why some seniors take so much" and "I think taking a cart is unacceptable."

But they also talked about why they were

6

labelled as if taking more than "allowed" is only a "Chinese-thing", and that aJI Chinese people have this same behaviour. This labelling results in the comment that I hear far too often: that we, the Chinese, receive less than the non-Chinese - whether it be food, clothing, or other hand-outs.

Then we also have the racist attitudes against the Chinese community as a whole, such as those revealed in the letter written by the group of Dugout volunteers or people swearing at Chinese people on the streets. With the aim of stopping the discrimination at service agencies, a group of us met with MLA Jenny Kwan on June 28 to teJI her our experiences of discrimination and to work together toward a solution .

Over the past months of talking with Chinese-speaking individuals, I'm often re11Unded that although each community share a lot of similarities, there are also a lot of differences. Everyone in the Chinese community has their own stories and experiences, and each face their own challenges. When a Chinese person takes more than is allowed, people often generalize and say "the Chinese" instead of "this person." This is racism and it has to stop.

But what about Chinese individuals who are said to take a lot of food and don' t line-up properly? I'm sure their experiences are diverse and rm still trying to understand more about them.

From what I've heard, it is essential to remember what their lives back in China were like . This inc! udes women being treated as "objects'' and "furniture," as Deanna Wong describes (see the a1ticlc in The Tyee by Jackie Wong, titled "Old, Alone and Victims of Racism in Downtown Eastside''). There was also the period of starvation in the mid20th century, with the 30 million deaths in a 3-year period known as the Great Famine.

Those who survived those days of starvation are among those in the food lines. It's no wonder they would try to take a lot of food.

It can be linked to the trauma caused by the period of intense starvation that their fami-

lies and communities suffered. Now this trauma can take the shape of food hoarding.

However, this does not mean there aren't any low-income Chinese people in our community that need food or who may be taking more to give to their friends who are not as physically able as they are to stand and lineup for food .

I hope this knowledge will help us understand members of the Chinese community more. Language is a barrier, but it isn 't a reason to become racist and to be judgmental. Instead we need to be compassionate to other members of the low-income community, as we seek to understand others better.

As I keep saying , the fight is not against others who are in the boat with us and are also being oppressed; our fi ght is against the forces that an~ oppressing us and trying to make the boat we ' re in sink.- KMC

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Vancity Support for this proj ect does not necessarily imply Vancity's endorsement of the findings or contents of this newsletter

Carnegie Centre Classroom (3rd floor) *Join us for lunch *

8

Sewing Shirts Only those white clouds are free to soar beyond the factory window; inside, grey dust scales the cutter hacking out shirts, flinging dismembered parts, inanimate as dead dreams, into open boxes.

Here, life is taped, ruled "At the double!": double seams yoking body to arm; the double load of outside job and housework, the double talk of a radi o playing "Workers' Playtime" while women sweat for a minimum wage.

Their hands cling to a Singer straining like a small, frantic beast towards five o'clock and freedom of a sort; life buttoned down from eight to five, for fifty weeks a year the stop-and-start embrace of these whose limp arms hold only the bone and flesh of a five-day week plus compulsory overtime.

Their eternal home is this dead end where St. Mary is a supervisor w ith hennaed hair, steel eyeglasses and a tongue whipping them forward and God is a scissors-wielding boss slashing seams and wages.

Ne ither the singer nor the song these women are only the necessary insert between the dole and the rent due Friday next, and the young gi rls marry arm to body, try to pin life down by the tail, and dream of collaring a husband, rattling out short and long stitches: hopeful SOS to that future Prince faceless now as these headless ones who will take them away from all this, into a fairy world ofwifedom where life will be a seam less w路onder and the inside will be as perfect as the outside ...

And the older women, \Niser, turn away, knowing that in a woman's world, all hope hangs only by a thread

and they fold the shirts and entomb them tight in plastic, seeing in these pale look-alikes an image of themselves hoxed -in, straight-jacketed, branded in cut-rate, throw-away packages.

Jancis M Andrews **When I was sixteen I worked full time in a shirt factory, sewing the sleeves to the shirt body. Recently, I saw a documentary on the garment- industry and was depressed to see how little had changed.

THE YOGA OF SOCIAL CHANGE A one line response to the word "yoga" is usually something like "Duh, yeah, stretching into weird pos itions" Putting Yoga together with social change gets stuff like "Did you stretch for social change?!" from the highly educated half-wits There is a difference between this practiced ignorance and the response from people who have learned enough to realise how little they know of what there is to know. I practice such ignorance with many things until it becomes obvious that several million people are a lready adept in such-and-such a fleld Maybe that's human nature too. It can happen with

learning computers, finance, social skills. community organising, increasing one's awareness and touching Infini ty.

Consider the following:

* There is in the living being a thirst for limitlessness. * Self-sacrifice and service to humanity. * Capitalism makes humans beggars; Communism makes the beggar a beast.

The first difficulty in bringing these together may be that spirituality and politics o r spirituality and econom ic systems don't meet at any poi nt. T he practice ofTantra Yoga can be the base from which to bring about progressive change in all spheres.

The Body's Eternal Song The spiri tua l energy, called kulakundalinii in Sam'skrta, lies q uiet at the base of the spine. It's like a coiled snake, poised to rise. A lso along the spine are 3 psychic chan nels, the 'ida', 'pingula' and 'suswnna'.

T hese 3 carry the kulakundalinii- as they spiral upwards a long the spine they cross and form w hat are called 'chakras'. Each nexus point o r chakra is a substation of the mind and has a num ber of mental propensities li nked to it. The lowe r chakras control the basest aspects of existence- eati ng, fea r, surv ival, lust, g reed, etc.- and the higher aspects of li fe are expressed through the upper chakras, li ke dign ity, service, res pect, love.

Each of these propensities has a distinct sound, the vibrational essence of its existence. There are 50 separate pro pensities, called vruis, and 50 sounds.

T hese so unds are the 50 letters in the Sanskrit alphabet. When it is pronounced correctly, certain words and combinatio ns ac tually vibrate the chakras, strengthening the vrttis attached. This is the basis fo r much of the emphasis o n the use of Sanskrit words in the lessons ofTantra.

Capitalism and Communism There is a natural law, like the law of gravity or childbirth, that governs the social cycle. It recogn ises fo ur dist inct g roups withi n hu man society and explains how they each have their turn at the he lm. It also sheds light on what symptoms and behavio ur wil be evident as the next phase of the cycle approaches.

The fo ur g ro ups are labourers, warriors, intel lectuals and acquisitors (merchants). The first phase has the labou rers, inc ludi ng farmers and workers, surviv ing and maintaining the land and famil ies. From this so-

cia[ pattern rose the warnors, the strongest and ablest fighters, who became tribal heads and kings. They began to dominate the people, ordering society to enrich and empower themselves through the exploitation ofthe labourers. The warriors, in turn, found themselves needing the intellectuals to keep order and govern thei r territory. Intellectuals, us ually in the form of a priesthood or at least with complex theories that the warriors give obedience to, became indispensable to government. .. so much so that the warriors became only figureheads with the real power inherent in the prime minister/president/first c itizen and their bureaucracy.

As the power of ideas begins-to wane, ever more comp lex theories are evolved, but those merchants/ acquisitors are hard at work to enrich themselves and make both the intellectuals and warriors subservient to them, to aid them in worsening the exploitation of ordi nary people. In th is phase, more and more intellectuals and warr iors find themselves working as laboUJ路ers, unab le to maintain themselves or their families in the face of the greed and grubbing of the acquis itors.

Commu nism was and is the phase of the intellectuals; capitalism is the phase of the acquisitors. Communism in the Soviet Union is fast moving to the next phase, becoming as degenerate as the worst of western capitalist society in a short time.

The next phase is that of a revo lution, with people rising up against the extreme exploitation of the acquisitors and changing the ru les of human interaction.

It is knowing that this revolution is inevitable and coming. that has the practice ofTantra Yoga and work on holistic social change forming what must be an inalienable concomitance.

We are in a state of war. This time the weapons are unemployment, poverty, drugs, economic exploitation, trade deals ("free" trade, NA FT A, GATT) and the acq ui sitors are passing laws, gutting social programs (li ke medicare, pensions, unemployment insurance, education and social assistance) equipping poli ce and arm ies and getting tax laws passed in their constant attempts to make their time at the top permanent.

Sorry, but natural law is on our side. Our duty is to act in all ways opposing the greed and power of such acqusitors. The a lternative is what's usually called 'common sense.'

By PAULR TAYLOR

..

6:15PM WISH 330 Alexander 7:45PM Commercial Drive and 10th 9:00PM First United Church 320 E. Hastings 9:30PM Raymur and Cordova 10:00PM United We Can 39 E. Hastings 10:30PM Fraser and Kingsway We can help get you into detox through Onsite. Talk to driver for detail'

Toronto Public I!ealth has recently come forward calling for a s upervised injection site in their city. as well as publically speaking out agai nst Bil l C -65. Bill C -65 is the proposed legislation putting fUJiher barrie rs towards opening more sites across Canada. TPH clearly sees that their community is suffe ring due to inadequate service for their population of people who use drugs.

Ottawa Public Health has long been an advocate for community health. OPH describes its role as advocating for "public policies that make our city & its residents healthier", however their voice has been notably absent in the recent discussion of the health of people who use drugs. Ottawa needs OPH to be at tbe forefront of the push for safer consumption s ites.

The need for services for people who use drugs in Ottawa is strong. As reported by the Coalition of Community Health and Resource Centres of Ottawa 3000 to 5000 people currently use the Need le and Syringe or Safer Crack Use programs. In 20 I 0, Ottawa Paramedics responded to I ,277 calls for drug overdose of which 36 people were rep011ed to have died. Due to stigma around drug use, overdose death is most probably grossly underreported. As a community we are facing tremendous loss and we wi ll continue to lose members of our community until drastic change is implemented.

According to the 2012 Drummond Report, Ontari o spent $5.2 billion on mental health and addictions due to costs of hospitalizations, community mental health and s ubstance abuse prog rams, law enforcement, s upportive hous ing, fire losses and capital costs. We are repeatedly hearing the call for preventative health care, and safer consumption sites offer just that.

Safer consumption sites have been shown to reduce the spread of blood borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C by providing new equipment, as well as reducing drug equipment litter. This is in add ition to preventing deaths and offering an invaluable point to access health, and social services such as first aid treatment, and addictions counseling.

The push to get a safer consumption site has been gathering in momentum. As a result of the observed 1 need and strong community support Sandy Hill Community Health Centre plans to submit an application for an exemption from fede ral drug laws in order to open a safer consumption site.

Ottawa Public Health monitors infections that are caused by factors s uch as a lack of health infrastructure. They tracked the cases of 360 people infected wi th HIV in the city from 2008 to 2012, and a staggering 1279 people infected with Hepatitis C. They helped found needle exchange programs in Ottawa starting in 1991. We now call on OPH to go beyond tracking, and treating after the fact and make a preemptive move towards a safer community.

Safer consumption sites are better for the individuals whom they serve, and better for Ontario at large. We can't afford the cost of the current system and, most importantly, we can't afford the cost of human life and suffering. lt is time for OPH to speak out.

Drug User's Advocacy League (DUAL) has a lso released a statement regarding Ottawa Public Health fo llowing the steps of Toronto Public Health: Sean LeBlanc Chairperson of DUAL, Drug Users Advocacy League c/o 216 Murray St., Ottawa 613 600 2976 The Campaign for Safer Consumption Sites in Ottawa http://cscsottawa.ca

'Cilvc:s I Fc:na~ 'Citu 'Cilt!u Alone walking in Oppenheimer forget that this green grass has tasted the blood of o ur s isters, brothers forget the crack-inspired murders funny how the Totem says it all and onl y g ives up whispers, spirits echo in the middle of the night I forgot to have fun yesterday worry sometimes about all the junk you have to jettison just so you keep walking tall, hell, walking at a ll somehow it all works it in the end How, only God knows, can't pretend I forgot no one gets out of here alive sometimes time seems end less but we all know all our moments are already bartered & traded away we all have just one day today AI

T-SHIT Got tough clothing Plenti ful skulls & bones death on every T -shirr death in every pair of eyes hell this ain't no paradise just half-dead suckers holding onto life by broken teeth culture of death of crackheads crackin' heads soon to be dead, air, dead air the radio plays requiems for o ld bums shulls & pisspants so tough so filthy Have another hit shit take two won't be long we' ll all be rid ofyou life is tough then, yo u die never knowing why My ripped pantsskulls advertise the lies behind the eyes dead men halfway to hell halfway to paradise

AI

~

IN DISAPPOINTING FASHION Like the Brinks Armoured truck pulling up in front of the Carnegie Centre for the twice-monthly collection . ket,s?1) of money and coupons (volunteer tic .. so~e think of crime the wiser know they don t have time for prison, 360 degrees of people staring, ~he mus ic of sound begins the brand new day of prepanng so mu~h to do so much not t' do a walking house of cards built on indec isions; I hear the questions through endless babble like are there shovels in Heaven's toolshed or does it have artificial turf or worse4 parking lots painted green like " Beautiful British C~lumbia" th.at inc ludes Alberta/Washington/Oregon .. JUSt where IS

this beauty you brag of?

I'm blue (with a touch of green) in the face, all over Creation the world is on fire other places are kneedeep in d isappoimed fashion, their everything being taken by fast flowing water it seems nothing whatsoever is in its rightful place. If it isn't the incred ibly rich doing us wrong after wrong Mother Nature pulls out her bag of devastating tricks, my body fee ls as if it were a suit of polyester armo ur in need of un fo lding, we have reached that particular part of an otherwise overcast year - no one in school the choices of what to do are unlimited yet unclear I am one of few who knows of what or which to do your sun and my skin can never compromise be it long sleeves for longer days the skin I am wearing is the skin I would like to keep from third degree cancer friend ly scolding, l shal l not whine nor complain for j ust over the Rockies peo ples pasts, presents and futures are spi ralling down a hellishly huge d rain I wonder, just wonder, how many wish Nostradamus had been right or o ff by o ne year? the rest I guess assume he was insane. Saint Minus knew him well they went to the same school if that's what you'd call it the younbg huddled together everyone tryi ng their hardest to abolish it but lesso ns must be taught and knowledge must be learned there is ignorance in everyone the trick is to track dQwn what fascinates you then you expand ...

These days survival seems to be a common theme so many nig htmares have turned off every dream if life were a television set you'd be watching nothing but snowwoman and snowman, Look truth is disappointing fas hion give it a shot I'm not going to say what have you to lose, probably a lifetime's worth of things let alone people you do have your lot even the poor can dream at least for now that sound of mus ic of sound can at least be a mentally healthy start, like conclusion-jumping at the Calgary Stampede maybe dreaming out loud is exactly what you and your soul so desperately needT oday can be that day you pick up and put back together all those days that fell apart ... hey, it's a start! you take care

By ROBERT McGILLIVRAY PS: Do yo u ever wonder w hy there is so much misery and tragedy every s ingle day? Don't, take a look at hard liquor ads on TV at 7 in the frickin morning.

Every morning, day & night guzzle responsibly yeah RIGHT!!!!

A

car-negieG .

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

-Margaret Meade

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AIDS POVERTY HOMELESSNESS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN TOTALITARIAN CAPITALISM IGNORANCE and SUSTAINED FEAR

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Eve of Destruction (or How to Destroy a Planet Without Really Trying)路 Humanity imperiled and the path to disaster

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What is the future likely to bring? A reasonable stance might be to try to look at the human species from the outside. So imagine that you're an extraterrestrial observer who is trying to figure out what's happening here or, for that matter, imagine you're an historian 100 years from now-- assuming there are any historians 100 years from now, which is not obvious-- and you're looking back at what's happening today. You'd see something quite remarkable.

For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves. That's been true since 1945. It's now being finally recognized that there are more long-term processes like environmental destruction leading in the same direction, maybe not to total destruction, but at least to the destruction of the capacity for a decent existence.

And there are other dangers like pandemics, which have to do with globalization and interaction. So there are processes underway and institutions right in place, like nuclear weapons systems, which could lead to a serious blow to, or maybe the termination of, an organized existence.

How to Destroy a Planet Without Really Trying The question is: What are people doing about it? None of this is a secret. It's all perfectly open. In fact, you have to make an effort not to see it.

There have been a range of reactions. There are those who are trying hard to do something about these threats, and others who are acting to escalate them. If you look at who they are, this future historian or extraterrestrial observer would see something strange indeed. Trying to mitigate or overcome these threats are the least developed socisties, the indigenous populations, or the remnants of them, tribal societies and first nations in Canada. They're not talking about nuclear war but environmental disaster, and they're really trying to do something about it.

In fact, all over the world --Australia, India, South America -- there are battles going on, sometimes wars. In India, it's a major war over direct environmental destruction , with tribal societies trying to resist resource extraction operations that are extremely harmful locally, but also in their general consequences. In societies where indigenous populations have an influence, many are taking a strong stand. The strongest of any country with regard to global warming is in Bolivia, which has an indigenous majority and constitutional requirements that protect the "rights of nature."

Ecuador, which also has a large indigenous population, is the only oil exporter I know of where the government is seeking aid to help keep that oil in the ground, instead of producing and exporting it-- and the ground is where it ought to be.

The richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died recently and was the object of mockery, insult, and hatred throughout the Western world, attended a session of the U.N. General Assembly a few years ago where he elicited all sorts of ridicule for calling George W. Bush a devil. He also gave a speech there that was quite interesting. Of course, Venezuela is a major oil producer.

Oil is practically their whole gross domestic product. In that speech , he warned of the dangers of the overuse of fossil fuels and urged producer and consumer countries to get together and try to work out ways to reduce fossil fuel use. That was pretty amaz路 ing on the part of an oil producer. You know, he was part Indian, of indigenous background. Unlike the funny things he did, this aspect of his actions at the U.N. was never even reported.

So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible. Unlike Ecuador, and indigenous societies throughout the world, they want to extract every drop of hydrocarbons from the ground with all possible speed.

Both political parties, President Obama, the media, and the international press seem to be looking forward with great enthusiasm

to what they call "a century of energy independence" for the United States. Energy independence 1s an almost meaningless concept, but put that aside. What they mean is: we'll have a century in which to maximize the use of fossil fuels and contribute to destroying the world.

And that's pretty much the case everywhere. Admittedly, when it comes to alternative energy development, Europe is doing something. Meanwhile, the United States, the richest and most powerful country in wor[d history, is the only nation among perhaps 100 relevant ones that doesn't have a national policy for restricting the use of fossil fuels, that doesn't even have renewable energy targets. It's not because the population doesn't want it. Americans are pretty close to the international norm in their concern about global warming. It's institutional structures that block change. Business interests don't want it and they're overwhelmingly powerful in determining policy, so you get a big gap between opinion and policy on lots of issues, including this one.

So that's what the future historian --if there is one -- would see. He might also read today's scientific journals. Just about every one you open has a more dire prediction than the last.

"The Most Dangerous Moment in History" The other issue is nuclear war. It's been known for a long time that if there were to be a first strike by a major power, even with no retaliation, it would probably destroy civilization just because of the nuclear-winter consequences that would follow. You can read about it in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It's well understood. So the danger has always been a lot worse than we thought it was.

We've just passed the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was called "the most dangerous moment in history" by historian Arthur Schlesinger, President John F. Kennedy's advisor. Which it was. It was a very close call, and not the only time either. In some ways, however, the worst aspect of these grim events is that the lessons haven't been learned.

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane. There was a point, as the missile crisis was reaching its peak, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy offering to settle it by a public announcement of a withdrawal of Russian missiles from Cuba and U.S. missiles from Turkey. Actually, Kennedy hadn't even known that the U.S. had missiles in Turkey at the time. They were being withdrawn anyway, because they were being replaced by more lethal Polaris nuclear submarines, which were invulnerable.

So that was the offer. Kennedy and his advisors considered it -- and rejected it. At the time, Kennedy himself was estimating the likelihood of nuclear war at a third to a half. So Kennedy was willing to accept a ve.ry high risk of massive destruction in order to establish the principle that we-- and only we-- have the right to offensive missiles beyond our borders, in fact anywhere we like, no matter what the risk to others -- and to ourselves, if matters fall out of control. We have that right, but no one else does.

Kennedy did, however, accept a secret agreement to withdraw the missiles the U.S. was already withdrawing, as long as it was never made public. Khrushchev, in other words, had to openly withdraw the Russian missiles while the U.S. secretly withdrew its obsolete ones; that is, Khrushchev had to be humiliated and Kennedy had to maintain his macho image. He's greatly praised for this: courage and coolness under threat, and so on. The horror of his decisions is not even (officially) mentioned And to add a little more, a couple of months before the crisis blew up the United States had sent missiles with nuclear warheads to Okinawa. These were aimed at China during a period of great regional tension. Well, who cares? We have the right to do anything we want anywhere in the world. That was one grim lesson from that era, but there were others to come.

Ten years after that, in 1973, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a high-level nuclear alert. It was his way of warning the Russians not to interfere in tlhe ongoing Israel-Arab war and, in particular, not to interfere after he had informed the Israelis that they could violate a ceasefire the U.S. and Russia had just agreed upon. Fortunately, nothing happened.

Ten years later, President Ronald Reagan was in office. Soon after he entered the White House, he and his advisors had the Air Force start penetrating Russian air space to try to elicit information about Russian warning systems, Operation Able Archer.

Essentially, these were mock attacks. The Russians were uncertain, some high-level officials fearing that this was a step towards a real first strike. Fortunately, they didn't react, though it was a close call. And it goes on like that.

What to Make of the Iranian and North Korean Nuclear Crises At the moment, the nuclear issue is regularly on front pages in the cases of North Korea and Iran. There are ways to deal with these ongoing crises. Maybe they wouldn't work, but at least you could try. They are, however, not even being considered, not even reported.

Take the case of Iran, which is considered in the West -- not in the Arab world, not in Asia -- the gravest threat to world peace.

It's a Western obsession, and it's interesting to look into the reasons for it, but I'll put that aside here. Is there a way to deal with the supposed gravest threat to world peace? Actually there are quite a few. One way, a pretty sensible one, was proposed a

couple of months ago at a meeting of the non-aligned countries in Tehran. In fact. they were just reiterating a proposal that's been around for decades, pressed particularly by Egypt, and has been approved by the U.N. General Assembly.

The proposal is to move toward establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region. That wouldn't be the answer to everything, but it would be a pretty significant step forward. And there were ways to proceed. Under U.N. auspices, there was to be an international conference in Finland last December to try to implement plans to move toward this. What happened?

You won't read about it in the newspapers because it wasn't reported -- only in specialist journals. In early November, Iran agreed to attend the meeting. A couple of days later Obama cancelled the meeting, saying the time wasn't right. The European Parliament issued a statement calling for it to continue, as did the Arab states. Nothing resulted. So we'll move toward everharsher sanctions against the Iranian population -- it doesn't hurt the regime -- and maybe war. Who knows what will happen?

In Northeast Asia, it's the same sort of thing. North Korea may be the craziest country in the world. It's certainly a good competitor for that title. But it does make sense to try to figure out what's in the minds of people when they're acting in crazy ways. Why would they behave the way they do? Just imagine ourselves in their situation. Imagine what it meant in the Korean War years of the early 1950s for your country to be totally leveled, everything destroyed by a huge superpower, which furthermore was gloating about what it was doing. Imagine the imprint that would leave behind.

Bear in mind that the North Korean leadership is likely to have read the public military journals of this superpower at that time explaining that. since everything else in North Korea had been destroyed, the air force was sent to destroy North Korea's dams, huge dams that controlled the water supply -- a war crime, by the way, for which people were hanged in Nuremberg. And these official journals were talking excitedly about how wonderful it was to see the water pouring down, digging out the valleys, and the Asians scurrying around trying to survive. The journals were exulting in what this meant to those "Asians," horrors beyond our imagination. It meant the destruction of their rice crop, which in turn meant starvation and death. How magnificent! It's not in our memory, but it's in their memory.

Let's turn to the present. There's an interesting recent history. In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it. Shortly after that, in retaliation, North Korea carried out a minor missile test. The U.S. and North Korea did then reach a framework agreement in 1994 that halted its nuclear work and was more or less honored by both sides. When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn't producing any more. â&#x20AC;˘ Bush immediately launched his aggressive militarism, threatening North Korea -- "axis of evil" and all that-- so North Korea got back to work on its nuclear program. By the time Bush left office, they had eight to 10 nuclear weapons and a missile system, another great neocon achievement. In between, other things happened. In 2005, the U.S. and North Korea actually reached an agreement in which North Korea was to end all nuclear weapons and missile development. In return, the West, but mainly the United States, was to provide a light-water reactor for its medical needs and end aggressive statements. They would then form a nonaggression pact and move toward accommodation.

It was pretty promising, but almost immediately Bush undermined it. He withdrew the offer of the light-water reactor and initiated programs to compel banks to stop handling any North Korean transactions, even perfectly legal ones. The North Koreans reacted by reviving their nuclear weapons program. And that's the way it's been going.

It's well known. You can read it in straight, mainstream American scholarship. What they say is: it's a pretty crazy regime, but it's also following a kind of tit-for-tat policy. You make a hostile gesture and we'll respond with some crazy gesture of our own.

You make an accommodating gesture and we'll reciprocate in some way.

Lately, for instance, there have been South Korean-U.S. military exercises on the Korean peninsula which, from the North's point of view, have got to look threatening. We'd think they were threatening if they were going on in Canada and aimed at us. In the course of these, the most advanced bombers in history, Stealth B-2s and B-52s, are carrying out simulated nuclear bombing attacks right on North Korea's borders.

This surely sets off alarm bells from the past. They remember that past, so they're reacting in a very aggressive, extreme way.

Well, what comes to the West from all this is how crazy and how awful the North Korean leaders are. Yes, they are. But that's hardly the whole story, and this is the way the world is going.

It's not that there are no alternatives. The alternatives just aren't being taken. That's dangerous. So if you ask what the world is going to look like, it's not a pretty picture. Unless people do something about it. We always can. Š 2013 Noam Chomsky