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A bit of news from the home front here at Small Farm Future, and a few reflections based around it. Today, my wife received a suspended prison sentence for disrupting a court as an act of protest against government inaction on climate change. Here is a short video she made explaining her behaviour and making the case for radical action beyond business as usual, with her own vision focused around small-scale farming. Please share it with your networks if you’re minded to – pebbles, ripples and all that.

At an earlier court appearance, she was troubled to be told by a magistrate that her right to protest climate policy had to be balanced against the right of people such as car drivers to go about their business. In her view, this encapsulated the distorted priorities of our decisionmakers in effectively trading off present niceties with the very stability of Earth systems that enable human and other lives.

Here’s an excerpt from the livestream of the court disruption, and here she is talking outside the court after her sentence with Shel, her partner in non-crime, with some good points well made by both of them, in my opinion.

I don’t know if her course of action today was the right one. She and I have discussed many times the choices to be made in the face of the world’s present looming crises and the limited powers of individuals, including the individuals in government, to effect change. I don’t think there can ever be clear answers to the question of what is to be done. But I’m pretty sure that we do need to do something orders of magnitude faster and deeper than current climate policies if we’re to meet the challenge. So why not glue yourself to a courtroom? It’s not as if anything else is working much better.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Degrowth and law – how to combine these concepts?

May 13, 2021

Degrowth and law – how to combine these concepts?

Reconciling degrowth and law isn’t always easy, given the anarchist underpinnings and anti-statist leanings of some in the degrowth community. One vision of a degrowth world is of decentralized, autonomous, convivial communities of people in tune with their supporting ecosystems, consuming no more than they need, sharing as much as possible and treating each other with compassion, fairness and mutual respect. No central state power, no police, no borders, no masters and servants, no conspicuous consumption, no oppression. This, however, doesn’t necessarily require a world without law, just a world with law that is much different from the forms of law that prevail in today’s rapacious and unjust world. Humanity’s overarching challenge is to learn how to stop individually and collectively doing harmful things we are used to and conditioned to doing. Meeting that challenge, through degrowth or otherwise, requires some form of law. For reasons that follow, I propose that that the emerging field of ecological law is well suited to help guide a transformation to degrowth societies.

Contemporary law, including environmental law, is anathema to degrowth. Dominant forms of law today are tied to hierarchical structures centered around states and private property, and contemporary law is a fierce handmaiden to many aspects of the prevailing neoliberal order, including capitalism, that degrowth challenges. Environmental law is part of this contemporary law. In calling for ecological law that transforms contemporary law, the Ecological Law and Governance Association’s (ELGA) Oslo Manifesto (2016) notes that the roots of environmental law in anthropocentrism, human-nature dualism and individualism has rendered it fragmented, reductionist, blind to ecological interdependencies and weak in comparison to law that protects private interests and state sovereignty.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

SELCO: Someone WILL Enforce the New Rules When the SHTF…And You Probably WON’T Like How They Do It

August 15, 2020

SELCO: Someone WILL Enforce the New Rules When the SHTF…And You Probably WON’T Like How They Do It

Words are important, to be sure that we are talking about the same things and situations. We need them so that we can somehow “categorize” things.

Why?

Because we are living in a world where we want to have reasons and “boxes” where we can put all those reasons for everything. We want to then file away the actions that we are going to take because of those reasons.

We want everything to make sense because it is easier to work in a situation where everything has sense and reason, and where there is a clear and clean solution to everything. Not to mention we want to live in a world in which we want to make a stand – a hard stand – because we live by norms and rules that most people think are written in the stone.

It will not work in that way.

Not in a real and serious SHTF.

Right here I want to make a point that I do not classify myself as ‘better than the average prepper’ in anyway, because I do not live with such a strong need for reasoning and structures, I do not have a higher quality of daily life because of this,

BUT…

I do feel better prepared for serious situations because I do not ‘need’ to always have structures and clear reasoning for my actions. This enables me to decide and act more impulsively and intuitively because I do not need to engage in a lengthy or detailed ‘reasoning’ process.

WROL vs DROL…where to start?

WROL is a word that most people imagine describes something like complete anarchy, absence of rules, law, and everything that makes up a society. Does this mean a society where human rights are absent, dictatorship rules, no freedom at all. Is that WROL?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lawlessness

June 6, 2019

Lawlessness

Pablo Picasso **Rest (Marie-Thérèse Walter)** 1932

With the news that Julian Assange is “wasting away” in Belmarsh prison hospital, and with UN rapporteur Professor Nils Melzer’s report detailing how this happens, I’m once again drawn towards the lawlessness that all “authorities” involved in his case have been displaying, and with impunity. They all apparently think they are literally above the law. Their own laws.

But they can’t be, nowhere, not above their respective national laws nor the international ones their countries have signed up to. They can’t, because that would instantly make any and all laws meaningless. So you tell me where we find ourselves today.

There’s this paragraph in an article by Jonathan Cook entitled Abuses Show Assange Case Was Never About Law, which lists “17 glaring anomalies in Assange’s legal troubles”, that sums it all up pretty perfectly:

Australia not only refused Assange, a citizen, any help during his long ordeal, but prime minister Julia Gillard even threatened to strip Assange of his citizenship, until it was pointed out that it would be illegal for Australia to do so.

See, Cook is already skipping a step there. Gillard didn’t take Assange’s citizenship away, because that is against Australian law, but it’s just as much against Australian law for a government to let one of its citizens rot in some kind of hell. Still, they did let him rot, but as an Australian citizen. At that point, what difference does anything make anymore?

This is a pattern that runs through the entire Assange “file”, and it does so to pretty astonishing levels. Where you’re forced to think that the countries involved effectively have no laws, and no courts, because if they did, the actions by their governments would surely be whistled back by parliaments or judges or someone, anyone. They’re all essentially lawless.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A War on Science, Morals and Law

December 14, 2018

A War on Science, Morals and Law

A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists accuses Trump’s Interior Department of “relentless attacks on science ranging from suppressing and sidelining the work of the department’s scientists to systematically refusing to act on climate change.”

To put it mildly, this is concerning.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is an advocacy group whose words are chosen to advance their viewpoint. They refer often to “science,” which we assume to be non ideological, universal, and true. In this sense, science is the highest guiding principle that all should follow, as it is in the best interest of our nation and planet.

In practice, the power dynamics and other social divisions within our society don’t go away when one does “science.”

Yale sociologist Justin Farrell points out that disputes over the management of nature can be more moral than scientific in nature. Science can tell us how many wolves or grizzly bears live in Wyoming, or how much habitat and genetic diversity they need to survive as a species. But the belief that humans should manage nature to preserve intact ecosystems is a moral one.

Economics and politics matter too, as we determine whose interests and opinions matter most.

What’s it worth to us to protect Bears Ears National Monument, which encompasses land sacred to Native Americans? To Native Americans and those who support them, the land is priceless. The mining industries can put a specific price tag on the minerals in the ground.

Whether it’s worth banning mining on land that is beautiful, ecologically valuable, and sacred to Native Americans is a moral question, not a scientific one.

That said, science is needed to help us make sound decisions that compromise between groups with competing values and interests.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fixers

August 23, 2018

Fixers

Gustave Caillebotte Young man by his window 1875

If there’s one thing that is exposed in the sorry not-so-fairy tale of former Trump aides Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, it’s that Washington is a city run by fixers. Who often make substantial amounts of money. Many though by no means all, start out as lawyers and figure out that let’s say ‘the edges of what’s legal’ can be quite profitable.

And it helps to know when one steps across that edge, so having attended law school is a bonus. Not so much to stop when stepping across the edge, but to raise one’s fees. There’s a lot of dough waiting at the edge of the law. None of this should surprise any thinking person. Manafort and Cohen are people who think in millions, with an easy few hundred grand thrown in here and there.

But sometimes the fixers happen to come under scrutiny of the law, like when they get entangled in a Special Counsel investigation. Both Manafort and Cohen now rue the day they became involved with Trump, or rather, the day he was elected president and solicited much more severe scrutiny.

Would either ever have been accused of what they face today had Trump lost to Hillary? It’s not too likely. They just gambled and lost. But there are many more just like them who will never be charged with anything. Still, a new fixer name has popped up the last few days who may, down the line, not be so lucky.

And that’s not even because Lanny Davis is a registered foreign agent for Dmytro Firtash, a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch wanted by the US government. After all, both Manafort and Cohen have their contacts in that part of the world. Manafort made tens of millions advising then-president Yanukovich in the Ukraine before the US coup dethroned the latter. Cohen’s wife is Ukrainian-American.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Great Britain has become an Orwellian, globalist police state. Once the land of the Magna Carta, it’s now the land of tyranny.

May 30, 2018

Great Britain has become an Orwellian, globalist police state. Once the land of the Magna Carta, it’s now the land of tyranny.

Free speech is gone–the imprisonment of Tommy Robinson proves that. There was no legitimate charge, no trial, no due process. Instead, he was disappeared into jail where death threatens him. Remember, an anti-Muslim Englander was imprisoned for a year for leaving a bacon sandwich near a mosque. He was murdered while locked up. The same threat looms for Robinson. The media are not allowed to talk about it. It’s the ‘law.’

Robinson is a whistleblower who cast light on a huge problem in his country: Muslim pedophile rape gangs. Apparently Muslims are a protected caste and so Robinson was arrested and locked up. He was on parole and the British authorities were determined to lock him up again on any pretense. They said he was a ‘threat to the peace,’ which is ridiculous.

What’s next, England—people getting ‘disappeared’ into gulags or the being shot in the back of the head, Stalin-style? It’s good to see many patriotic citizens in England protesting Robinson’s arrest. Unfortunately, they’ve all been disarmed. Let that reinforce a lesson for us Americans: Never, ever give up your guns. If our government ignores our Constitutional rights and tries to ‘disappear’ us into prison camps, we’ll know what to do. Remember the words of Solzhenitsyn:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Spain is only the Blueprint for How All Governments Will Act

October 8, 2017

Spain is only the Blueprint for How All Governments Will Act

What is going on in Spain is the blueprint what what other governments will do. The Spanish people themselves outside of Catalonia are deeply divided. Many see this as offensive and others see the government as offensive. We are looking at the breakup of the USA as well and do not forget the civil war to prevent separatists in America. The real issue is that people ban together for creating society and civilization and then government abuses its power and the process of decline begins. This is throughout history and it really does not matter what culture or country. It is all the same.

Spain’s Constitutional Court, the puppet of Rajoy, on Thursday ordered the suspension of Monday’s session of the regional Catalan parliament. Rajoy is demonstrating that government will not tolerate losing power. You can always write a law and claim it is unconstitutional to separate. That does not make it legal, moral, or ethical.

Reuters reported: “The suspension order further aggravated one of the biggest crises to hit Spain since the establishment of democracy on the 1975 death of General Francisco Franco. But Spanish markets rose on perceptions the order might ward off, at least for now, an outright independence declaration.”

The structure of the EU in attempting to federalize Europe required a single federal debt. That is what they failed to do so you ended up with a half-baked cake. This is why we have the problems in Europe as we do. But make no mistake about it, this is a political problem and what happens in Europe will be a contagion as it was in 1931. This will eventually cause major problems politically in the States as well.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Correction To Commenter Matt Damon

March 12, 2017

A Correction To Commenter Matt Damon

Dear Mr. Damon (I like you: can I call you Matt? You’ll never read this anyway, so I’ll call you by your first name).

So, dear Matt,

The cause of liberty needs people with your spirit. However, I’m sorry, but your recent defense of liberty and independence is so much inconsistent that it weakens that spirit.

Yes, the world is upside-down. But not because, as you say, “the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power”, but because the idea of law has been subverted.

The law intended as non-arbitrary limit to all coercive power (that is as non-aggression principle) has been replaced with the law intended as instrument of arbitrary coercive power.

In other words, the world is upside down not because the power is held by the wrong people, but because the prevailing idea of law makes political power (i.e. coercive power), whoever holds it, unlimited. And the nature of an unlimited power is to expand.

When you say that the problem is that “the wealth is distributed in this country and in the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth” you embrace the same idea of law that makes political power unlimited. That is the same abstract idea of law that produced Nazism, communism and the contemporary democratic totalitarianism: that idea of law is called legal positivism.

The problem is not that wealth is allocated in the wrong way. The problem is that wealth is allocated. That there is the power to legally allocate wealth. The very possibility of coercive resource allocation implies the unlimited power to coerce people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Panama is Small Change

April 10, 2016

Panama is Small Change

There is a conspiracy engaging in theft, counterfeiting, fraud, extortion, blackmail, bribery, influence peddling, drugs, terrorism, and war that makes the Panama Papers’ exposures look like a small-town police blotter account of juvenile shoplifting. This criminal enterprise launders trillions, not billions, of dollars; it involves major political, business, financial, academic, and media figures in the US and around the globe, and it has perpetrated its crimes far longer than Mossack Fonseca’s clients’ have hid their money and illicit activities.

The dark conspiracy is the US Government. It takes over $3 trillion a year in taxes. Anyone who refuses to pay is sent to jail. Stealing one dollar out of every six the US economy produces is insufficient for its purposes, so it borrows anywhere from $500 billion to over $1 trillion a year. Future interest payments and principle repayment add to the involuntary obligations imposed on the productive…and their children and grandchildren.

The law forces its populace to accept pieces of paper and computer entries—irredeemable for anything more valuable than identical pieces of paper and computer entries—as “legal tender.” The government creates said paper and entries at will. Their value, such as is, rests on compulsion and unenforceable promises by the government not to create too many of them. Such promises have invariably been broken, and a dollar has about 4 percent of the purchasing power it had in 1913 when the central bank was established. That 96 percent depreciation counts as more theft; the government is the primary beneficiary from currency depreciation.

Every conspiracy needs accomplices. With stolen and counterfeit funds, the government bribes millions. Their acquiescence makes them complicit: money for votes. Nothing is as nauseating as thieves demonstrating their “virtue” by using stolen funds to maintain themselves in power. Of course they keep a generous portion of what they steal; the Washington metropolitan area is the richest in the country.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law

October 3, 2015

Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law

CSX is one of the major rail companies that is profiting from the oil-by-rail boom led by North Dakota’s Bakken crude oil. On September 28th, a day that is apparently national “good neighbor day,” CSX broadcast the following message on Twitter.

Which is a nice message. But CSX and the rest of the rail industry can turn into a horrible neighbor for many communities across the country. Why? Because as rail companies they are essentially above the law due to a legal doctrine known as “pre-emption.”

Pre-emption means that rail companies are not subject to any local or state laws. So if they want to build a new propane transloading facility near a school or neighborhood, they can. And CSX and others in the industry do.

A new article by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) details how pre-emption has allowed for the construction of oil and gas transloading facilities on rail company property with little to no oversight in communities like Grafton, Massachusetts.

In Grafton, the owner of a small railroad constructed what is now the largest rail propane facility in the state. No construction permits were acquired. No environmental assessments completed. And as NECIR reports, the rail company’s neighbors weren’t very happy about any of this.

Residents were dumbfounded: The location was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, less than 2,000 feet from an elementary school and atop the town’s water supply.

That is the reality of pre-emption. As we’ve reported on DeSmog since oil trains started derailing and exploding, pre-emption applies to all areas of rail operations.

Rail companies believe they are not subject to “right to know” laws regarding the transportation of dangerous materials through communities.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Can the law protect us from climate change?

July 24, 2015

Can the law protect us from climate change?

Can the law protect us from climate change? Do we have a legal right to a stable climate? Are governments responsible for preventing dangerous climate change within their borders? One month ago I would have answered these questions with “most likely not”, but one extraordinary court case changed that to “hopefully, yes!”

I have been following this case from the moment John Jopling recommended to me the book Revolution Justified by Roger Cox, the lawyer behind the climate case. (an interesting read, John wrote a great review about it.) This led me to study the 120 page indictment and follow the court case on a live stream. This article will first introduce why this case is different than others, secondly how it has been received in the Netherlands and thirdly how to proceed from here with the COP21 in mind.

1. The case

As a lay-person in law and legislation it was surprisingly easy to understand the legal documents and Roger’s book. Basically the argument is that the government has to protect its citizens against external threats. This is a widely accepted government task. If a neighbouring country were to invade we would expect the government to coordinate the response. The difficulty is that we do not yet perceive climate change as the immense threat it clearly is according to climate science. In Revolution Justified the parallel with the ban on asbestos is made. In both cases it seemed initially like a good idea to make use of a polluting resource, but gradually the unexpected consequences piled up. According Roger Cox the level of consensus required to ban asbestos was lower than the current level of consensus on the dangers of climate change.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

You May No Longer Think Wrong Thoughts, Citizen

May 21, 2015

You May No Longer Think Wrong Thoughts, Citizen

Shortly after the election victory that probably surprised no-one more than himself, David Cameron launched into explaining to the hoi-polloi what further transmogrification of the State is in store now that he’s got a free hand. He inter alia elated the audience with the following zinger:

“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach.”

In other words, dear citizen, mafia uncle State will no longer leave you alone if you merely “obey the law”. Your “narratives of grievance” henceforth won’t be tolerated anymore!

sun shine As one reader remarked, all that’s missing now is Frau Bluecher making her entrance …

Cartoon by Steve Bell

As the Guardian reports, this means that now that the Lib Dems will no longer be able to veto Cameron’s more outlandish ideas, he intends to keep us all safe by fighting terrorism by means of an Orwellian thought police.

“A counter-terrorism bill including plans for extremism disruption orders designed to restrict those trying to radicalize young people is to be included in the Queen’s speech, David Cameron will tell the national security council on Wednesday.
The orders, the product of an extremism task force set up by the prime minister, were proposed during the last parliament in March, but were largely vetoed by the Liberal Democrats on the grounds of free speech. They were subsequently revived in the Conservative manifesto.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘We the People’ Need to Circle the Wagons: The Government Is on the Warpath

May 16, 2015

‘We the People’ Need to Circle the Wagons: The Government Is on the Warpath

“The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” ― Mark Twain

How many Americans have actually bothered to read the Constitution, let alone the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights (a quick read at 462 words)?

Take a few minutes and read those words for yourself—rather than having some court or politician translate them for you—and you will be under no illusion about where to draw the line when it comes to speaking your mind, criticizing your government, defending what is yours, doing whatever you want on your own property, and keeping the government’s nose out of your private affairs.

In an age of overcriminalization, where the average citizen unknowingly commits three crimes a day, and even the most mundane activities such as fishing and gardening are regulated, government officials are constantly telling Americans what not to do. Yet it was not always this way. It used to be “we the people” telling the government what it could and could not do. Indeed, the three words used most frequently throughout the Bill of Rights in regards to the government are “no,” “not” and “nor.”

Compare the following list of “don’ts” the government is prohibited from doing with the growing list of abuses to which “we the people” are subjected on a daily basis, and you will find that we have reached a state of crisis wherein the government is routinely breaking the law and violating its contractual obligations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK Prime Minister David Cameron Proclaims – It’s Not Enough to Follow the Law, You Must Love Big Brother

May 15, 2015

UK Prime Minister David Cameron Proclaims – It’s Not Enough to Follow the Law, You Must Love Big Brother

It’s not just those domestic extremists and crazy “conspiracy theory” kooks who took serious issue with UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent overtly fascist language when it comes to freedom of expression in Great Britain. For example, in a post published today, the UK Independent describes the quote below as “the creepiest thing David Cameron has ever said.”

Screen Shot 2015-05-14 at 11.52.20 AM

This statement, and others like it, are a huge deal. This isn’t how the leader of a major civilized Western so-called “democracy” speaks to the citizenry. It is how a master talks to his slaves. How a ruler addresses his subjects. I think the following tweet by Glenn Greenwald earlier today sums up David Cameron’s attitude perfectly well:

This is really the mentality of Her Majesty’s Government RT @akaSassinak But now it is not enough to obey. You must LOVE BIG BROTHER.

Those of us who are in disbelief over David Cameron’s recent language, don’t have to just point to the quote above. There’s a lot more to it than a simple quote. For example, the Guardian reports:

The measures would give the police powers to apply to the high court for an order to limit the “harmful activities” of an extremist individual. The definition of harmful is to include a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress or creating a “threat to the functioning of democracy”.

A “risk of public disorder,” or a “risk of harassment alarm or distress.” Think about that for a second. Pretty much 90% of all speech could be classified as posing a risk to all of those things. It’s basically banning any criticism the government doesn’t like. Truly remarkable. Now here’s how the magnificent “democracy” of Great Britain plans on dealing with such “extremists.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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