U.S. National

This visionary conversation between Ernest Callenbach, author of the legendary ECOTOPIA (1974), and Harvey Wasserman, author of SOLARTOPIA (2007), about our green-powered future was filmed by EON and can be viewed at blip.tv and youtube.


Harvey Wasserman: It's an honor to be with the author of Ecotopia, which inspired me and so many others to become active on environmental issues.

It also inspired me to write Solartopia, What I’d like to talk about is getting from Ecotopia, the first vision of an ecological society, to Solartopia, a vision of a totally green-powered Earth. Yours is the first realized vision of an ecological society and thirty years later I’ve tried to write a companion or follow-up piece with a vision of a solar-powered society.

I read Ecotopia in the early seventies and I just re-read it, and what’s amazing and shocking and gratifying about it to me, as I’m sure it is to you, is how much of it came true.

Ernest Callenbach: Not enough.

On May 19th, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on "Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks."[1] They called for a moratorium on GM foods, long-term independent studies, and labeling. AAEM's position paper stated, "Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food," including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. They conclude, "There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation," as defined by recognized scientific criteria. "The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies."

We hear it all the time. Nuclear reactors produce 80% of the electricity in France. Their reactors are “safe” and that means the U.S. should build new reactors.

This is the sound byte. But are reactors truly “safe” as advertised? After studying the facts, the answer is an emphatic “no.”

In France, politics has overwhelmed science in defining “safe.” For nearly 30 years after French reactors began operating, not one medical journal article was published on cancer rates near reactors. Intimidated by the power of the nuclear industry, French health officials didn’t dare look for dirty laundry, even though over 100 radioactive chemicals – the same in atomic bomb fallout - were routinely being released into the air and water.

[Author's Note: I'm dedicating this piece to the courageous animal defenders and rescuers comprising the ALF, the Justice Department, the Animal Liberation Brigade, and the other militant direct action groups who are taking the fight to vivisectors and the rest of their ilk comprising the animal exploitation complex. Given the relentless nature of the systemic torment and slaughter of millions of other sentient beings that take place day after day, violent responses from nonhuman animal lovers are inevitable and are a morally acceptable means of extensional self-defense on behalf of the voiceless, defenseless victims. As my close colleague, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, surmised---and I back him 100% on this---the assassination of a vivisector or two would probably save millions of nonhuman animal lives. And given the escalating situation at UCLA, who knows what may happen?

Employing myriad tactics and strategies, those of us pursuing empty cages will prevail, and, as another steadfast ally of mine, Dr. Steve Best, stated in a speech he gave at Oxford in 2005, "wipe vivisection off the map." I yearn for that day.]

A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation reveals shocking abuse at New England's largest egg factory farm - Quality Egg of New England (QENE) in Turner, Maine. The hidden camera video shot in early 2009 gives a startling glimpse behind the closed doors of one of the nation's leading egg producers, exposing the rotten truth behind battery cage egg production - heinous cruelty to animals.

State officials responded to the findings of the investigation this morning by executing a raid on the farm.

MFA's investigation reveals: • Rotting carcasses in cages with live hens still laying eggs for human consumption.
• Workers and managers killing birds by grabbing their necks and swinging them around in circles - an attempt to break their necks which often resulted in prolonged, torturous deaths for the hens.
• Supervisors and workers throwing live birds into trash cans, leaving them to be slowly crushed under the weight of other birds' corpses and unable to access food or water.
• Birds suffering from broken bones, bloody open wounds, and untreated infections.

I took a month-old parsnip out to the compost pile yesterday, and I could tell it came from the supermarket because of the thick coating of wax that covered it. Without thinking about what I was doing, I started peeling the wax off. It was as if someone had decided, for some odd art project, to turn the parsnip into a candle, proceeded to put a few layers of wax on it, then changed their mind, and decided to sell it as a parsnip anyhow. My hands now covered with wax, I realized that I didn’t even find this waxy parsnip suitable for putting in the compost, much less eating. "Here," I said to myself, "is another reason many people like to get their food fresh from local farms."

Since there was little appetite for my recent polemic in which I advocated including necro-cannibalism as an integral part of our strategy to combat ecocide and world hunger, because very few appeared to take note of the fact that it was not my intention to carefully craft an update of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (I was actually hurling a hunk of concrete into the placid waters of the indoctrinated readers’ minds in order to observe the resultant splash and subsequent ripples), and since despite the depth of Homo rapien moral depravity and their sheer indifference to the suffering, murder, mayhem, and destruction that the human collective causes in order to satiate our desires and perpetuate the disease we call civilization, reader response indicated that the thought of eating our “fellow man” was taking things a bit too far, I’m advancing yet another potential solution to the myriad and complex maladies we’ve inflicted upon nonhuman animals, the Earth and ourselves.

U.S. vs THEM – How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America’s Security. J. Peter Scoblic. Viking (Penguin,) New York, 2008.

In a work that is well focussed, Peter Scoblic has written an intriguing historical review of the second half of the Twentieth Century on into the recently passed Bush regime. In U.S. vs. THEM, the writing narrows on to a main theme of how the decisions and actions of the conservative/neoconservative mind have only increased the nuclear danger to the world. At times the consistency of that narrow perspective can be irritating as a bit more contextual perspective, a slightly broader sweep could have presented a broader historical picture, but that was distinctly not Scoblic’s purpose and the book needs to be read on that understanding. There is much more to conservative and neoconservative policies and actions than the increasing nuclear proliferation threat, but this work retains an accurate and direct view of the nuclear issue.

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with election integrity hero, Steve Heller. Our last interview was back in August, 2007.

You achieved notoriety a few years back. You stole the Diebold documents in January of 2004, the search warrant was served on your house in August of 2004, you were indicted on three felony charges in February of 2006, and you pled guilty to one felony count of unauthorized access to a computer in November of that same year. [For more background and details, all of the press and many of the blog posts on Steve Heller's case can be found here .] So what's happened since then?

Well, in terms of my case, what's happened is that when I pled guilty, I had to pay $10,000 in restitution to the law firm from which I stole the Diebold documents, and I was put on felony probation for three years. After one year, we petitioned the court for a reduction of my sentence from a felony to a misdemeanor. That petition was granted, and as of now, I remain on misdemeanor probation.

We are encouraged that PAW (Paw Advocates for Wahoff) is making steady progress toward the reinstatement of Lisa Wahoff from "Paid Administrative Leave" to her position as "Director of the Franklin County Animal Shelter".

However, PAW cannot rest for one minute, but hastens to redouble all efforts in order to achieve Lisa's speedy return to the Shelter, where she is sorely needed during this period of investigation by the County Commissioners. In the meantime, the Commissioners need to know that the community does not appreciate playing politics with its most vulnerable animals. PAW presented its first batch of signed petitions in favor of Wahoff to the County Commissioners on February 5, 2009. With more moderate weather, we will now be able to get many more petitions distributed, signed, and delivered on a weekly basis. People just need to be made aware of them to eagerly sign, and even help in the petition drive. (See attachment to download petition)