Carrying Capacity
123. Catton, vii.
124. Ibid., 39.
125. Ibid., 41.
126. Mumford,
City
, 38.
127. Ibid., 36.
128. Ibid.
129. Catton, 43.
130. Ibid., 42.
131. Ibid., 43.
132. Ibid., 52.
133. Faust, 81.
134. Neal Hall, personal communication, November 1, 2002.
136. One could argue, of course, that because the constant importation of resources is necessary to the perpetuation of cities (and their political/historical successors: empires and nation/states), and because those who have fully internalized the values of these ever-expanding cities have come to identify their own survival with the perpetuation of the city/empire—instead of identifying with their survival as human animals within a community that includes both humans and a landbase—
all
wars of empire are in some twisted sense wars of self-defense.
137. From the perspective of the activists, this may not be a bad thing: not only do they get job security, but they get to pretend they’re doing something meaningful while not threatening their own identity—or privilege—as civilized.
139. Genesis 1:28.
140. Pearce, 5.
141. Cited in Catton, 93.
142. The night I gave that talk I was suffering a flare-up of Crohn’s disease. After I got home I collapsed and was in bed for months. I took Western medicines. Now, as I put the final editing touches on this book, I am in the midst of another flare-up, this one far worse. I have been sick for five months. At first I tried ignoring the sickness, hoping it would go away on its own. That didn’t work. Then I tried herbs from an extraordinary Chinese herbalist, but they didn’t work either. I tried Western meds. They aren’t helping. Now I am set up to take a high-tech drug in two weeks (twelve-and-a-half days, actually, or, to be more precise, 289 hours, not that I’m counting). It’s supposed to work wonders. My point in mentioning this is that these are not abstract questions. I am fully aware that without these high-technology drugs I would quite possibly die within the next month or two. This disease—a disease of civilization—would probably kill me. I am also aware that the fact that these drugs will probably save my life is not a good enough reason to not take down civilization. Years ago I interviewed someone who had been an anti-civilization philosopher until open heart surgery saved his life. That changed his perspective. Saving my own skin is not a good enough reason to kill the planet. I am also aware that I am taking this high-tech medicine, with all of its attendant costs to the planet, to vivisected animals, and so on. If not taking it would by itself stop the horrors, I would of course not take it. But my not taking this particular medicine will not stop the horrors. I will take it.
143. Bacher, 1.
144.
San Francisco Chronicle
, September 26, 2002.
145. St. Clair and Cockburn. See also “Get the Facts and Clear the Air,” National Campaign Against Dirty Power,
http://cta.policy.net/dirtypower/
(accessed September 3, 2004).
146.
Anderson Valley Advertiser
, November 19, 2003, 2.
147. Jensen,
Culture
, 60.
148. Ibid., 87-89.
149. Faust, 184.
150. In other words, I didn’t know the answer to this question, but because I am male I was required by law to still give an answer.
151. I can, however, say that when I’ve shared the stage with traditional indigenous peoples, I’ve noticed that they have nodded in agreement when I’ve mentioned this predator/prey relationship.
152.
Anderson Valley Advertiser
, August 18, 2004, 8. I’m sorry again for the male specificity.
154. Actually the river flows are a little more complex: while what I said about the Russian River being tapped out because of vineyards is true, that effect is actually invisible because of the diversion of the Eel River into the Russian River. In fact, the Russian River used to close off seasonally, but since
the Eel diversion, it hasn’t. There’s actually more water flowing down the Russian River today than historically. There’s even a project under way to decrease the amount of water to make it resemble natural flows more closely. So far, so good. But it gets sticky really fast: part of the reason for the diversion from the Eel is that the town of Santa Rosa dumps its treated sewage water into the Russian River, and wants to follow the mantra of “the solution to pollution is dilution”; the other part of the reason is recreational. Drinking water and water for vineyards is all taken from groundwater—that underground part of the river we don’t see. We see the effects of this mainly in secondary streams, which dry up, and in the drying up of people’s wells. But it may also be that were the flow from the Eel shut off entirely, the Russian River would probably go to levels lower than its natural flow: you can’t take water from a region without affecting water flow. The bottom line: people have messed up what nature was doing with these rivers—the Eel is depleted by diversion, and the Russian River floods worse every year, partly because of the diversion and partly because it has been boxed in and has had so much sediment dumped into it. I am grateful to Leha Carpenter for this analysis.
155. My thanks to Sean Tanner for this paragraph.
156. “U.S. Military Spending,” 9.
157.
Oxford English Dictionary
, compact ed., s.v. “addict.”
158. Engels, 668.
159. Murray.
160. Fisk.
162. Exodus 20:5.
163. Deuteronomy 6:14-15.
164. And for those of you naïve enough to think Capitalism is guided by some mythic invisible hand of some mythical Free Market™, I give you the words of someone who should know, Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, an agricorporation that has done as much as almost any other to destroy the lives of family farmers the world over: “There’s not one grain of anything in the world that is sold in the free market. The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians” (Barsamian).
165. Baran, xvii.
166. New World Vistas, 89.
167. Safire.
168. I’ve dealt with this at length elsewhere. See, for example, Jensen,
Culture
, 174-85.
169. My thanks to Deda Bea for teaching me about toxic mimics.
170. Glaspell, 188.
171. Jensen and Draffan,
Strangely Like War
.
172. My thanks to Jeff and Milaka Strand for this analysis.
173.
Estrogen Effect
.
174. My thanks to Nita Halstead for this analysis.
175. Oregon State Senate Bill 742, 72nd Legislative Assembly.
176. Severn, 8.
177.
Anderson Valley Advertiser
, April 2, 2003, 9.
178. George Draffan and I used the following analysis in our book
Welcome to the Machine
.
179. Quotes from the
Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual—1983
.
180. Ibid.
181. Ibid.
183. Ibid.
185. Ibid.
186. Ibid.
187. Ibid.
188. Cockburn, untitled, 9.
189. Priest and Gellman.
190. Rutten.
191. Kirby. His statement makes me wonder whether Dr. Bruno Broughton has enough of a brain to feel pain. I’m sure that there are honeybees that would be willing to sting his lips and see if this leads to “anomalous behavior.”
192. Rand. For what it’s worth, she absolutely emphasizes the word
white
in the last sentence.
193. He says this like it’s a bad thing.
194. Ah, now there’s the point!
195. I know this was a rhetorical question, but the answer is
quite often
.
196. Note that following premise four of this book, the only blood that matters, the only lives that matter, the only broken hearts that matter are those of the exploiters.
197. U.S. Congress,
Congressional Record
(56th Congress, 1st sess., 1900), vol. 23, 704, 711-12. Note that this speech was met with applause in the galleries. The entire speech is worth reading for its jingoism as well as its seamless applicability to today’s invasions and the continued march of empire.
198. Ledeen, “Creative Destruction.”
199. Ibid.
200. Mersereau.
201. Ledeen, “Machiavelli.”
202. Beeman.
203. Ibid.
204. Ledeen, “Faster, Please.”
205. Ledeen, “Scowcroft Strikes Out.”
206. Ledeen, “Iranian Comedy Hour.”
207. Ledeen, “Temperature Rises.”
208. Ledeen, “Heart of Darkness.”
209. Ledeen, “Willful Blindness.”
210. Ledeen, “Lincoln Speech.”
211. Leggett, 173-74.
212. St. Clair, “Santorum.”
213. Scherer.
214. Regular.
215.
Anderson Valley Advertiser
, July 2, 2003, 6. The speaker is Karen Hughes.
216. I peeled this one off numerous websites.
217. Heinen.
218. I’m thinking of songs and stories that teach us how to live in place. There’s no reason to let members of the cult of the machine claim ownership of the word and concept
technology
.
219. Genesis 1:28.
220. Tiger salamanders, for crying out loud! As recently as during my childhood in the sixties, tiger salamanders were still as common as, well, as common as the toads that are now just as endangered.
221. Jensen,
Culture
, 382.
222. I was going to call them masturbational, but at least masturbation feels good.
223. Weiss.
224. Llanos.
225. Ibid.
226. Weiss.
227. That was perhaps the central point of my book
The Culture of Make Believe
.
228. I’ve talked about this in my other books, too, but I think it’s a point that bears repeating.
230. “Rebuilding America’s Defenses
.
”
231. Ibid
.
233. Mokhiber, 16-17.
234. Ibid., 3-4.
235. Reckard.
236. Baker.
237. Which means only those civilians killed by those who oppose the policies of the U.S and its allies.
239. Jensen,
Culture
, 107.
240. Crévecoeur, 214.
241. Johansen.
242. Franklin, 481-82.
243. Axtell, 303.
244.
American Cynic
.
245. Axtell, 327.
246.
American Cynic
.
247. Ibid.
248. Stannard, 105.
249. Morgan, 74.
250. Ibid.
251. Ibid.
252.
Alcatraz
.
253. Reich, 3-4.
254. Malakoff.
255. Dvorak.
256. Schor, 19.
257. Wilkinson.
258. Most of my account of the Bolt Weevils comes from Losure.
259. Kinda makes you proud to be an American, don’t it?
260. Welcome to the club.
261. Sadovi.