its own and federal forest protection laws, and is quickly losing its unique and once magnificent redwood forests. In Mendocino County, for instance, 80% of the redwood forest timber volume has been removed in only 30 years; several redwood forest species--the coho salmon and the marbled murrelet--have been driven to near extinction, and others like the spotted owl and steelhead trout are extremely threatened. The rivers and creeks run dirty every winter, from extensive logging operations and log road construction uphill. You can see vast swaths of brown water miles out into the ocean from the mouths of Mendocino rivers after every winter rain. The lumber corporations furthermore use pesticides in these forests to poison and kill native trees with no commercial value (such as tanoak). There is almost no old growth left, but even with the two main coastal logging mills permanently closed, they are still routinely clear-cutting vast areas, for the production of wood chips, crap lumber (weak "yellow" redwood, good for fence posts, maybe) and paper products.
These are forests that, only 50 years ago, still contained many magnificent trees--20 feet in diameter, 300 feet tall, and 500 to 2,000 years of age--with the most beautiful and most amazing wood the earth has ever produced. You find foundations for houses built of old growth redwood that is still red, after more than a hundred years in the ground. The wood strongly resists fire and pests. The trees themselves have no taproot, despite their tremendous height. They hold each other upright by connecting their roots together in a vast but shallow underground network. They also reproduce by sprouting young trees from their roots. Logging destroys this great root network, with the result that logged forests suffer wind-throw (trees blowing down), and can never really recover from industrial logging operations. The average redwood in these forests now is 12 to 16 INCHES diameter (as opposed to 20 FEET in diameter). Their full recovery from this sustained assault of mechanized logging is doubtful, even if they were left alone for a thousand years. The "web of life" has severely damaged.
The Pacific Lumber redwood forests in adjacent Humboldt County contain some of the last old growth redwood forest in the state (and in the world). These lands were responsibly logged--and much of the old growth retained--until corporate predators got hold of them. Charles Hurwitz and Maxxam (the destroyers of savings and loan institutions) raided the company in the early 1990s in order to liquidate the old growth. California regulators, under a succession of both Democratic and Republican governors--and with 2 to 1 Democratic legislatures--have done absolutely nothing to prevent the wholesale destruction of these forests throughout their range, except to protect narrow "view-sheds" that can be seen from the highways, so that tourists don't know what's going on. Pacific Lumber forests are the last of it, and they are going down. The California Appeals Court never rules for the forest; always for the corporation.
The original redwood forest--besides being unbelievably beautiful--constituted the largest biomass on earth. It was one of the bulwarks against global warming. As we pour pollutants into the air, the trees absorb those pollutants and turn them into oxygen. The system of global corporate predation that "capitalism" has become is killing us all. It is destroying our planet, our only home. We should never, ever have permitted essential natural resources to fall into private corporate hands, to be destroyed for short term profits and the enrichment of a few.
I am all for business and trade. Business and trade create the conditions for human freedom. Centers of trade have always been the most vital generators of new ideas, cultural exchange (the mixing of different peoples), learning, invention, science, the arts, and liberal social policy. But the capitalism that has grown out of it has become a monster. Capital is needed (in our current monetary system). Corporations--especially this global corporate predator model, that lives forever and gobbles up everything in its path--are NOT needed. They are a menace to humanity and to all life on earth.
And their boy Bush is now instigating a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East--with his threats against Iran (whose democracy we destroyed in 1953)--that will bring on the "End Days" sooner rather than later. (Read Carl Sagan's "The Cold and the Dark," about the impacts to our atmosphere of even a limited nuclear exchange.) So maybe it won't matter. But if we survive Bush the Mad, then we had better DO SOMETHING about the Global Corporate Predators who put him in the White House. Because it's not just Bush. Bush is the logical extension of Corporate Rule, whose crazy and suicidal activities have corrupted both parties. And if you don't believe me, take a trip to northern California, and hike into the redwood forest past the "view-shed."
The end game for these forests began under the "liberal" Governor Edmund G. Brown (Jerry Brown's father) in the 1960s, and has proceeded apace through four and a half decades of "liberal" social policy. Ask any Californian--or any American, for that matter: "Do you want strong environmental protections?" And you will get about an 80% "yes" rate for an answer. Our will is NOT BEING DONE by EITHER party. And now the Corporate Rulers who control those parties and control "our" representatives are locked into power by means of corporate-controlled electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount capabilities. And one of the Bushite corporations that peddles these election theft machines (Diebold) is right now getting its lock on California. They've ruined our forests and rivers. They've killed off our birds and fish. They've ruined our democracy. They've ruined our planet. And now they want US, as slave labor and cannon fodder for their final, insane profit-taking!
Well, people, what are we going to do about it? I say we start with the voting machines.
See:
For the northern California-inspired campaign against corporate voting machines:
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2005/12/campaign-to-unite-california-election.html For info on corporate voting machines and their extremely fishy results, and what to do about it: www.votersunite.org, www.verifiedvoting.org, www.UScountvotes.org, www.TruthIsAll.net
For the latest outrage of the corporate voting machines (in Ohio--election reform initiatives predicted to win by 60/40 votes flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!)--Bob Koehler article:
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824For the GAO report on the horrendous insecurity of our election system in 2004:
Access to pdf:
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-956Text only:
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05956.htmlFor fun and games at the Beverly Hilton, with Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia (ironic name) election theft companies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340---------------------
I never thought I would be pushing any paper product. I am making an exception for PAPER BALLOTS, hand-counted at the precinct level--NOW!
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