defence greenwash on war games a toxic lie

May 21st, 2007

or Why we can’t trust the military to be environmentally and socially benign

shoalwater bayIn 2005 the Australian Defence Force (ADF) commissioned an environmental report into the effects of military training exercises Talisman-Sabre 2007 (TS07), in the Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA) just north of Yeppoon. While the Maunsell Public Environment Report (PER) gave the military the greenwash they were probably looking for, it overlooked issues of the known toxicity of military chemicals and important social justice issues not addressed anywhere else. For the more cautious of us it also provided a valuable insight into the natural values at risk by war games in that area.

The military would ike to convince us that practicing for war can be environmentally friendly. They would have us believe that thousands of troops, hundreds of tanks and vehicles, nuclear power warships, weapons testing, land and sea bombing and live firing can leave nothing but footprints and tank tracks.

However, war and the practicing for it, have grave environmental health implications that are well known. Agenda 21, the international covenant on sustainability, says in principle 24 that “Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development”. Practice for war, the testing of weapons and military training exercises use the same tools as real war. Toxic chemical pollution, unexploded shells, heavy vehicles and ships, and the waste of maintaining that equipment and the almost 30,000 Australian and United States troops using it at TS07 - all have effects on the environment and the communities they interact with. Military bases and war games put at risk our rights to a clean, safe and just environment to live in and the preservation of that environment for future generations. And they increase the public acceptance of violence and force as a means to an end.


What’s at risk?

The SWBTA is a 454,500 hectare area with 300km of coastline, listed under the Ramsar, Jamba and Camba treaties to protect birds and wetlands, is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and adjacent to the Byfield National Park. It is of vital importance to many endangered species and habitats. The SWBTA is used by various military groups for about 300 days of the year as well as major events such as TS07.

*Ramsar listed wetlands* The Ramsar convention protects wetland of international significance for their environmental benefits accrued to clean water. Not only is the habitat value of this wetland threatened by military activities, from Waterpark Creek, which flows from within the SWBTA, arises the water catchment for the town of Yeppoon. The source of Waterpark Creek is in the Dismal sector of SWBTA, where most of the live firing occurs.

*Endangered species habitat* Shoalwater seagrass meadows form one of the remaining food habitats for the endangered dugong. The dugong is suffering from population decline in many parts of its range, numbers halved between 1990 and 2000. The remaining 4000 Australian dugong are the world’s biggest population. The UN 2002 Report on Dugong recommends that remaining dugong habitats in Australia be protected.

Shoal water Bay is absolutely vital breeding habitat for the endangered green turtle: it has the highest concentration in the world of this declining species, this is their premier breeding habitat. The population of green turtles is thought to be declining worldwide.

Shoalwater Bay is home to many species of fish and its protected situation and extensive mangrove ecosystem makes it an excellent fish refugia and breeding habitat. The seagrass meadows are also the breeding place for economically important species such as rock lobsters, blue swimmer crab and 20 species of prawns. Other endangered species such as the logger head turtles and Humpback Whales also visit Shoalwater Bay. In fact the Maunsell TS07 Public Environment Report lists 38 endangered and vulnerable species in Shoalwater Bay alone, and over 100 endangered and vulnerable species in the combined training areas proposed for use in TS07.

*Sonar and sea life* Sonar is known to effect cetaceans, and dugongs, turtles and fish also respond to sonar. Sonar is thought to cause whale and dolphin beachings, cause brain hemorrhages and ‘the bends’. Sonar and ocean noise has also been found to injure and kill fish by vibrating their swim bladders, reducing catches and affecting the viability of eggs. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority cite, “detonations of explosives, the use of live munitions and the use of active sonar” as threats to marine life in the area.


Can we trust the armed forces to protect the environment?

Although the PER says “No nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological munitions will be used during TS07”, in reality all military vehicles and munitions use toxic chemicals and heavy metals with the potential to harm the environment. The toxicity of chemicals used in munitions was never considered in any part of the PER.

The commitment of the US and Australian forces to “protect the environment, conserve biodiversity, and protect and preserve heritage… for future generations” (Maunsell PER Final 2007) is a hollow one given their environmental track records.


Environmental Track record of the armed forces

vieques still a mess The United States Department of Defence (U.S. DoD) have been described as the world’s biggest industrial polluters, given the toxic legacy that their bases and facilities have created worldwide. Project Censored estimates that “the U.S. military generates 750,000 tons of toxic waste material annually, more than the five largest chemical companies in the U.S. combined.” The U.S. DoD has sought exemptions from many important environmental laws in the U.S. including the Migratory Bird Treaties Act, the Wildlife Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Hardly the actions of good environmental stewards.

Wherever U.S. DoD activities have been carried out, dangerous toxins used in the testing and use of munitions, fuelling and maintenance of vehicles, use of nuclear materials have contaminated the environment. These include: Heavy metals, dioxins, PCBs, nuclear materials including depleted uranium, rocket fuels including perchlorate (primary ingredient in rocket fuel, a thyroid toxicant causing birth defects and newborn development which has been found contaminating groundwater in 20 U.S. States), RDX (an explosive compound and neurotoxicant), and TNT (an explosive compound linked to anemia and altered liver function), white phosophorus (found to have decimated Alaskan fish grounds for two decades) are amongst some of the worst. The U.S. Have over 2000 bases worldwide and no community has ever been compensated for their pollution.

In addition the U.S still use weapons that are banned by the U.N, (depleted uranium and cluster bombs which have long lasting effects and cause many non-target deaths), while the ADF does not use these weapons, it does not ban the use of the latter. The U.S have the world’s biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert. Without going into the issue of nuclear threats here, suffice to say the nuclear industry is perhaps the single greatest chemical threat to environmental health and justice worldwide.

The Australian army often boasts of their great environmental record, but they were complicit in the massive areas of radiation contamination in South Australia, and have dumped at sea of chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas, decommissioned boats, other chemicals, ammunition and day to day naval waste. There are also air pollution effects around military airbases. And most of our military equipment is U.S. made and hence has the same pollution issues that U.S. DoD does.


Social Justice & War Games

The effects of certain weapons on people’s health are so widespread as to constitute a global health issue. Social risks posed by military presence include: increased crimes, rapes and violence.

*Increased crime and sexual assaults* Off duty US servicemen engage in drug dealing, prostitution, sexual assault, rape and even kill locals. They often get off without prosecution. During the 2005 Talisman Sabre games US personnel were arrested for drug offences. In 2005 there were 2, 374 reported sexual assaults in the U.S involving military personnel.

Sexual assault is a problem where ever troops are posted. Women in the US army are so afraid of sexual assault by their peers that several serving in Iraq in 2006 actually died of dehydration because they were afraid to drink late in the day in case they would need to use latrines late at night. The army tried to cover it up. There have been over 500 reports of sexual assault amongst troops in Iraq since 2002, the true figure probably much higher. Drink spiking and sexual harassment are also a problem within the ADF.

Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the rates of sexual harassment and assault of civilian women increases in Rockhampton during war games, although there are no hard statistics and it is recognised that many women do not report to police. As far as we know, no action to combat sexual harassment of the locals has been considered by the ADF or US DoD.

*Indigneous land rights* The land on which the SWBTA is sited in the traditional land of the Durrumbal people. The fact is the traditional landowners are beholden to the military for access to their own land and thus not at liberty to speak their minds on this issue.

In April 2007 Maunsell released their revised Public Environment Report for the SWBTA. It did not consider the toxins in munitions, nor many social justice issues mentioned here.

After receiving hundreds of submissions from concerned citizens, they concluded that the general public

byfield locals protest military in their back yards

had to “take the time to understand the commitments Defence is making to ensure environmental sustainability “. We understand them very well as an elaborate and superficial green washing exercise that

fails to take into consideration many serious environmental and social effects of war games. Because the ADF sees Shoalwater as “Australia’s single most important area for the conduct of amphibious and combined arms exercises” any other conclusion would be surprising.

The ADF commissioned Public Environment Report is online [here] (pdf file)

More info on the protest camp at Peace Convergence

The Peace Convergence is a nonviolent gathering in the Shoalwater region on 18 to 24 June 2007. The peak period of the Convergence will be on the weekend: Friday 22 June to Sunday 24 June.

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US military NIMBY

February 10th, 2007

You might be wondering how militarism could be one of Australia’s big environmental issues. I guess in one sense our contribution to the war on Iraq and wars in general are possibly the most thorough environmental devastations possible.

But I want to be more specific: our government has in mind the kind of collaboration with the US that will mean that military bases will be having even more affect on our environment than ever before. We’ve already experienced the widespread contamination of the British governments nuclear weapons testing in South Australia and the indigenous owners of that land still pay the price. In June 2007 the Taliman-Sabre joint war games will see at least 30,000 US troops visit our shores and possibly twice as many Australian soldiers will also be involved.

Military bases and war games put at risk our rights to a clean, safe and just environment to live in and the preservation of that environment for future generations. And they increase the publics acceptance of violence and force as a means to an end. The military pose many risks to
environmental health: toxic contamination, noise pollution, sonar water pollution, and social upheaval including increased crimes, rapes and violence. We will also see increased nuclear traffic: nuclear power vessels potentially carrying nuclear and depleted uranium munitions. All part of Howard’s wider plans for both strategic domination in our region and increased “interoperability” between Australian and US forces.

The US has around 2000 bases in worldwide. Military bases engage in major industrial operations - testing and use of munitions, fuelling and maintainence of vehicles, use of nuclear materials - creating a lethal cocktail of toxic substances including heavy metals, dioxins, and PCBs.

Military bases are a vast and unaccountable multinational activity, generating an estimated (imperial) ton of toxic waste every minute. The military, especially the US, are thus one of the world’s largest polluters - larger than the biggest five US chemical corporations combined.

One of the worst cases is perhaps the former Vieques base in Puerto Rico in the Carribean. The US DoDs 60 year presence on Vieques destroyed the environmental, health, social and economic basis of the island. Children die of cancer and many contracted asthma and respiratory diseases.

Depleted Uranium and other heavy metal pollution, chemical pollution including TNT (an explosive compound linked to anemia and altered liver function) , perchlorate (primary ingredient in rocket fuel, a thyroid toxicant) and RDX (an explosive compound and neurotoxicant), contaminate the land and water the biota including coral reefs, endangered species and archaeological sites are literally destroyed by constant bombing, navy sonar are linked to whale beachings unexploded ordinances, rusting and abandoned shrapnel and vehicles litter and pollute the landscape sunken fishing nets that still entrap fish and badly affect the ecosystem and surprisingly, the US DoDs presence has decimated the Vieqan economy.

Far from financially benefiting the local economy, the effect of the 60 years naval presence caused an ecological and economic disaster. On several occasions the local subsistence fishermen were told they were not allowed to fish for weeks on end while war games were going on.

In 2003 the people of Vieques after a campaign of civil disobedience that put their lives at risk within the bombing range, succeeded in getting the US DoD out of their region – after 60 years of occupation. Elsewhere US bases and personnel have similar impacts. In Japan, US bases at Okinawa are a source of ongoing protest and contaminate air, land and sea, the noise of jets making daily life unbearable for many. I haven’t time to enumerate the many military sites storing materials that pose radiation hazards, - the US DoD has over 200 tons of plutonium in storage for instance: only 1 millionth of a gram is need to case lung cancer.

There are also social issues: off duty US servicemen engage in drug dealing, prostitution, sexual assault, rape and even kill locals. They often get off without prosecution. The 2002 deaths of 2 Korean schoolgirls run down by a US military truck resulted in widespread riots there. There are a number of past and present class actions being taken against the US DoD at home for contamination, especially in the light of Congress’ dropping of environmental rules for DoD activities. It seems they think alls fair in war.

This Thursday night SBS screens a doco about the toxic legacy of Clark Air Base, in the Philippines, which was closed in 1999 after 100 years, but still sickens the locals – giving children leukemia and other cancers and contaminating their drinking water. The site of the former base has not been cleaned up, much of it is now used for tourist and residential and some of it was used to house the victims of the Mt Pinatabu eruptions, resulting in increased still births, miscarraiges, gastric upsets, skeletal pain and unexplained rashes. Scrap metal scavengers around the base have been killed by unexploded ordinances.

The Australian army often boasts of their great environmental record, but they were complicit in the massive areas of radiation contamination in South Australia, or the dumping at sea of chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas off Cape Moreton, Townsville and Sydney, also the ocean dumping of decommissioned boats, other chemicals, ammunition and day to day naval waste. Tere are also air pollution effects around military airbases. And most of our military equipment is US made and hence has the same pollution issues that US DoD does.

The kinds of activities the DoD engaged in at Vieques are the same kinds of things they want to do now on Australian soil and water: ship to shore bombing runs, testing of new weapons, aircraft and vehicles and on shore leave for troops. The US DoD need us now Vieques his closed – no where else can they do ship to shore bombing, it is banned on US shores.

Vice Admiral Archie Clemins, told The West Australian that traditional US training grounds around the world were disappearing and Australia was an attractive option. He said, “You have to have places to drop bombs, you have to have places to shoot live weapons, places to fly planes over that make noise, places where you can actually test and exercise your capabilities. I think Australia in the future is going to be one of the places we’d like to exercise with the Australians, as well as with the US Navy. You now have some of the finest ranges in the Western Pacific which we cannot get anywhere else. ”

Despite the promises they make about not using depleted uranium on our soil, insiders say they do have it on board their nuclear powered vessels. In any case, the presence of any military operations in the relatively pristine Shoalwater area is bound to result in contamination and destruction of some kind. Perhaps the most insidious, is that we are expected to accept increase militarism and violence in our communities and as a nation.

They have already started bombing Australian sites in QLD, WA and the NT in 2005 with operation Talisman-Sabre in 2007. That’s why the Peace Convergence collective, that I am a part of, are organising events to blockade the war games at Shoalwater Bay, near Rockhampton.

“Military activities will occur in civilian facilities such as Sydney, Rockhampton and Brisbane airports, and military training bases such as Qld’s Shoalwater Bay, Townsville and Cowley Beach and the NT’s Delamere. The Tasman, Timor and Coral seas will also be sites for military exercises and access.

Operation Talisman Sabre will utilise areas of high environmental significance, i.e. world heritage areas (WHA), natural heritage listed sites which include indigenous sites and Ramsar wetlands. These areas are habitat to many migratory birds and threatened species such as dugongs and humpback whales. Environmental impacts identified by the Department of Defence include effects on air quality, fire potential, noise pollution, waste disposal and spills and erosion from amphibian craft landings and weapon target zones.”

http://www.peaceconvergence.com

Speech given at Students of Sustainability 2006: Militarism and Environmental Health and Justice

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new qld anti-nuclear group launched

August 8th, 2006

The Howard government presents so many targets for people seeking social justice. Thanks to all of you who’ve come here today to enumerate them. I’m here for all those reasons, but one of my primary concerns is the inroads that the Howard govt is giving the nuclear industry in this country.

With dollar signs in their eyes, the Howard govt has told the world that Australia is ‘open for business’ for uranium mining. They’re talking up nuclear power as a mad-man’s solution to climate change, and nuclear waste dumps on indigenous lands. They’re already irradiating our food and letting nuclear powered vessels carrying nuclear weapons enter our ports and train here. There vision is for a landscape littered with nuclear reactors, polluting uranium mines and nuclear waste barrelling down our highways and through our suburbs while we sleep. These things have been done against the will of the people, of the states and as usual, without the consent of indigenous people.

This week they stage a protest outside the Lucas Heights reactor, many thousand of kilometres from the proposed destination of it’s waste. The Central Land Council is completely against it, saying it will threaten their way of life. This week the Howard govt, true to form, introduced the
Radioactive Waste Management Bill - overturning their previous decision to consult indigenous people over the site of a proposed nuclear waste dump in the NT. The fact is, the govt will never find a place that wants to live next to a nuclear waste dump. There is no ‘state of the art’ guaranteed safe storage site.

Perhaps the most insane suggestions emanating from a govt known for radical ideas that threaten social and environmental health, the science minister Brendan Nelson, is pushing for nuclear power. He says we willhave nuclear power plants withint 20 years. All but the most fatalistic profiteers would accept that this is legitimate solution to climate change. No, it’s not safe. Nuclear power plants are replete with small accidents and leaks, they’ve been linked to cancers in the communities that live near them.

But importantly, nuclear power is no solution to climate change either for two important reasons: electricity provision accounts for only 15% of world GHG emissions! Nuclear power wont’ stop deforestation, car pollution or cows farting! And secondly: it actually contributes to climate change – the mining, processing, enrichment and transportation of uranium is energy intensive and done with fossil fuels. There are so many other reasons why it’s unviable economically and socially, but these are the biggest holes in the argument.

Still , they are going gung-ho on uranium mining. With dollar signs in their eyes, the federal govt have recently permitted the expansion of the Roxby Downs mine, which already uses 60 million gallons of water a day. With the US and China the biggest buyers of Australian uranium, Alexander downer’s claim that we can monitor the use of our uranium is laughable. It will be used, directly or indirectly in the production of nuclear weapons. The Australian govt are now implicated in nuclear weapons proliferation. But that comes as no surprise to peace activists, who note the increased US military presence in Australia and the military nuclear devices that come with them.

Australians don’t want to live in a nuclearised state, with the increase threats of contamination, accidents and weapons in our midst. QLD anti-nulcear, environment and Peace groups have recenly convened the QLD Anti-Nuclear Alliance. If you interested in getting involved why not come to our public meeting this Sunday, November 13, at 1pm, at the offices of Senator Andrew Bartlett in Brusnwick st. see me later for more info.
Thanks for listening.

speech given at anti-howard protest

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texan peace activist deported by howard govt

September 19th, 2005

Well I can’t say I’ve ever been more shocked than the day I heard that Scott Parkin, US peace activist, had been detained by the Department of Immigration for deportation. Everyone who met Parkin during his three months he was in Australia, would agree that he’s just an all round nice guy. Quiet, polite, gentle, not argumentative, intelligent, and likeable guy, totally dedicated to the cause of non-violence. Really not the kind of person who one would expect could be accused of “incitement to violence” even indirectly.

Scott’s visit to Queensland was mostly a camping holiday. He got together with some of us activists as you would whenever you’re on holiday look up like-minded people to hang out with. He did that throughout his journey and made many friends. One of the ideas Scott talks about is the need for activists to tell our own story. And as you do when you meet new people – Scott told his story. Sometimes he did this in a room full of people (at the Brisbane and Sydney Social Forums), sometimes he did this on the radio. His story was pretty darn interesting and informative.

This idea has been developed extensively by NV trainer Starhawk (who incidentally did get a visa and wasn’t deported on her recent visit to Australia despite her involvement as an organizer in many, many actions over the years). Starhawk is very articulate at telling her own story and has a strong support network, perhaps making her a less desirable target for ASIO. This speech she gave at Humbolt State University is an excellent explanation of the concept www.humboldt.edu/~edsummit/starhawk.htm

Scott stories, perhaps unhappily for his continued stay in Australia, included coming up against the very rich and powerful Halliburton Corporation. Halliburton still have US Vice President Dick Cheney on their payroll. They recently won over 4 billion in contracts to the US forces in Iraq, despite a case currently claiming they ripped off the American people for millions. They have branches in every major city in Australia, operating in conjunction with their recruitment company Kellogg, Brown and Root.

We can be scared by what happened to Scott, but if we do that, we miss a very valuable opportunity to tell our stories. Starhawk writes: “You know, that overwhelming spell saying, “You can’t mobilize, you can’t organize at all. You’re terrorists if you do.” In spite of that, millions and millions of people around the world came out and stood up and said “No. We are not going into Iraq.” We are seeing this spell being cast by the Australian government, while at the same time they describe as ‘weak’ any criticism of their policies by opposition parties in order to get their authoritarian ‘security’ powers.

Starhawk writes:

Anyone who stands up for any of the values of things like compassion and education and nurturing and love and care and concern for the next generation (values which have not coincidentally been associated with women throughout history) is considered to be weak and, by extension, woman-like and unmanly and therefore not fit to lead or rule, as the case may be. I think that some of us who have been in the feminist movement for many many years and have been pointing out these little things kind of have fallen away and stopped talking in those terms for awhile, but have kind of been awakened and said, “You know what? We have to actually start contesting the way this spell works on us by constructing a reality in which our only vision of strength is aggression and brute-power and force.” And that’s relegated to men, which really doesn’t do justice to men, because there are plenty of men around who are actually kind, loving, nurturing, and compassionate and care about the next generation

Scott is one of those men.

To mitigate the injustice done to Scott, it’s important that Australian activists keep up the struggle against the war, against the bastards profiteering from it and to continue to tell our own stories in defiance of the threats made by the governments’ persecution of peace activists.

We need to keep the pressure on Halliburton and the ANZ (the target of many successful actions in Australia already). And we need to be prepared. Scott shared his knowledge on Non Violent Direct Action at workshops while he was here and we can continue to train ourselves and be ready for what the government and their agencies is going to throw at us. If we are going to be persecuted for our dedication to peace, then we need to live that peace and capitalize on the opportunity to reach many people with our stories. Think about why you are a peace activist, so you can be prepared to speak when your time comes. The ‘Battle of the Story” has started in earnest.

And finally, from Starhawk a counter-spell:

The counterspell for fear is courage: facing the possibility of the worst and then going ahead with what you know is right. The counterspell for despair is action in service of a vision. The counterspell for paralysis is stubborn, persistent passion.
Even if we’re wrong, if nothing we do makes a difference, courage and passion are a better place to be than hopelessness, cynicism and fear. If the authorities repress us, that’s better than becoming people who repress ourselves. If we see our dreams ripped out of our hands, that’s better than never daring to dream at all.

And if we tell our own stories with enough intensity and focus, we’ll start to believe them, and so will others. We’ll break the spells that bind us. We’ll start to want that other world we say is possible with such intensity that nothing can stop us or deny us. All it takes is our willingness to act from vision, not from fear, to risk hoping, to dare to act for what we love.

There are lots of great NVDA training notes on the net. My personal favorite is the comprehensive work of Starhawk:
www.starhawk.org/activism/trainer-resources/trainer-resources.html

Australian NVDA resources:
http://www.greenpeace.org.au/getactive/happen/run.html
www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/nsw/protlegal2
www.nonviolence.org.au/training.html
www.activistrights.org.au

More info on Scott Parkin’s case see: www.melbourne.indymedia.org

Friends of Scott Parkin

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veganarchy: liberation for all, not just the workers

April 13th, 2004

Without a doubt, those who seek to dominate others are fucking up the planet for the rest of us. No argument for the ‘greater good’ holds any water when greed and power-driven egoism are motivators. When Ruddock casts off refugees in genuine need in the name of security, when Howard gives out millions in corporate welfare in the name of jobs, when Bush bombs the crap out of innocents in the name of justice, the underlying reason is power and the money that affords it. This much is not in dispute amongst left thinkers. So long as any one person, any social institution, any organisation, has this kind of life and death decision making power over other people, injustice will prevail.

The hierarchy of power has been identified by anarchists, feminists and some ecologists as the root ideological cause of injustice. Power leads to resentment, to fear, to toadying, to violence, to desecration. Power can only be maintained by force, sometimes economic and covert, more often overt and actual as recent political events have shown. The power of one class of peoples over another is mirrored in human attitudes to one another right down to the family unit: in husbands over wives, in parents over children, and down there, at the bottom of the kicking heap, is the family pet. This hierarchy of oppression is institutionalised in schools, in politics, in industry.

· Work and consumerism are the institutionalised oppression of human freedoms: turning humans into workers, cogs in the economic machine so that an elite few may reap the benefits of their work while manufactured needs keep them chained to the work treadmill.

· Motherhood, marriage and pornography are the institutionalised oppressions of womankind: turning free thinking human beings into child-bearers, babysitters, free labour in the home, and sex objects.

· ‘Development’ is the instiutionalised oppression of the natural world: turns trees, mountains, rivers, the oceans - habitats - into wood, minerals, irrigation, seafood, pollution sink: resources for exploitation.

· Farming and hunting are the institutionalised oppression of animals: turn wildlife and domesticated animals into food, fibre, oil, sport, entertainment: resources for humans.

In such a system both morality and compassion are bereft. Domination is an effective tool in extracting the maximum profit from animals, nature, women, and workers alike. Visualise a power pyramid where the elite few hundred billionaires live extravagantly at the top. Each one of their luxurious lifestyles is supported by the blood, sweat and tears of millions upon millions of other people - workers, the free labour of women; and upon billions of animals who are labeled food & fibre resources - as if the suffering of the many is of no importance in the pursuit of economic gain to the select few. This is capitalism.

In the current political climate even human life seems to have decreased in value to many. Mass deaths of human beings under the bomb has become a daily occurrence that elicits less and less compassionate response. As the mass media depict the ‘just’ war, all our instincts to recognise the wrong and the suffering in that war are being ignored or suppressed. We begin to wonder if we are the ones who are at fault. Is not the history of humanity strewn with the bodies of innocents dying in ‘just’ wars? Perhaps the sacredness of human life does not really exist, that no one really has the right to live, that it is a ‘dog-eat-dog’ world? Yet at base we know a fundamental wrong is occurring. Time will show this war to be as bloody and filled with unjustified deaths as every other war in human history. We should not be complacent just because the majority have been deceived by the media to believe in this war. So too we should not be deceived into believing that it is better for the economic system and everyone as a whole if rampant free-market capitalism is allowed to rage unhindered. Clearly it is not: the vast majority of the world are poor. Now more than 80% of the world share less than 20% of it’s wealth and the gap between rich and poor widens yearly. We should not be deceived into thinking that the oppression of women everywhere is less wrong if it is done for religious or cultural reasons any more than we would tolerate Howard’s policy of trying to keep women in the home for economic reasons by making childcare an unaffordable luxury. Each person should have the right to live their life unhindered by the bullying of governments insofar as they are not hurting others. The UN Declaration of Human Rights insists on this.

So too we should not be deceived by industries into thinking we need things that we do not need. Production keeps the economic clock ticking over, but it decimates the natural world with pollution, deforestation and the exploitation and suffering of animals and people alike. The bulk of consumption does not fulfill vital needs, but feeds the grossly bloated economic beast and its masters holding the reigns.

All these forms of oppression are interconnected. They are systemic to a culture that puts money before morality time and again. So long as women and workers have to prostitute themselves for money, so long as the natural world and other species are killed and destroyed for profit - we should not be complacent. Neither should we be complicit. The consumer of luxury goods, the consumer of pornography, the consumer of animal flesh are all complicit in this systematic oppression for money. Compassion is of course the key. We resist this unjust war because we have compassion for the suffering of strangers on the other side of the world. How much easier is it to have compassion for the equally real suffering going on all around us in other species as well as our own?

To forgo animal flesh is obviously not the end of the revolution. Yet who amongst the left would feel comfortable about wearing Nike shoes or eating at McDonalds? We forgo these dubious pleasures for reasons of human and environmental exploitation. Veganism is but one step in building the personal integrity of non-participation in the unjust society we live in. I am a vegan because I have compassion for animals, so too I am an anarchist because I have compassion for human beings and an aversion for violence. The revolution in this way is as personal as it is political.

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