PART 6 OF 6:STANDING ROCK: PROFUSION, COLLUSION & BIG MONEY PROFITS

STANDING ROCK: PROFUSION, 

COLLUSION & BIG MONEY PROFITS

BY CORY MORNINGSTAR

@http://www.theartofannihilation.com/

Colored Devolution's

Environmentalism is dead. Today we bear witness to 21st century anthropocentrism.  The goal is no longer to protect nature and all living things. In stark contrast, the goal is to now propel technology at the expense of nature and all living things. A “clean energy revolution”, at the expense of what little remains of nature and non-human life, for the gratification of human desires. In this sense western societies have collectively devolved to the most contemptible depths imaginable. Yet, as a conditioned society, few notice. As always, youth are targeted and groomed, the sacrificial lambs for continued capitalism. [Further reading: From Stable to Starr-The Making of North American Climate Heroes]#HerdingSheep

 

Wear blue. Wear red. Wear yellow. Photos-ops. Branding. Playful gimmicks for the bored, privileged masses. Those with the highest social metrics receive the most funding. It’s a race. A race to the bottom.

Flood Wall Street marketing: Wear blue. #Other98

Flood Wall Street marketing: Wear blue. #Other98

Flood Wall Street marketing: Wear blue. #Other98

Climate March Delhi India, September 2014. Wear blue.

Standing Rock marketing. Wear blue. #Other98

Wear Red: Red Lines for Climate Actions Manual, COP21, Paris. [No matter what action you do, please also share your action on social media so the rest of the world can see it. Take a photo or video and post on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (if it’s on Facebook, please make sure it’s public)  and then use make sure you add #D12 or #redlines. You can also send an email to socialmedia@350.org”][Source]

COP21. The above photograph appears in an article titled “Indigenous Peoples Take Lead at D12 Day of Action in Paris – Official response to COP21 agreement”. 350.org’s “red” campaign is interwoven into the statement. [Source] The reality is that Indigenous Peoples are used as photo-ops by NGOs to advance an elite and patriarchal agenda that only propels further Indigenous genocide.

 “The process of influencing a mass audience to respond reflexively to induced prompts — like marching in parades or flooding financial districts wearing the color blue — requires looking beyond the civil society fad of I-pad revolution, and examining modern social “movements” as cults. Icons like Klein are as interchangeable as Hollywood starlets, but mass hypnosis of social activists by Wall Street titans using foundation-funded NGO is a troubling development.”— HIJACKING THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT, April 25, 2016

The Bishnoi: Eco Warriors Since the 15th Century (India)  – In 1730, 363 Bishnoi men, women and children gave their lives to protect trees from being lumbered to build Maharajah Abhay Singh of Jodhpur’s new palace.

Solar Technology  | Marketing in 21st century anthropocentrism

To prevent the king’s men from cutting down their forest, Bishnoi men, women and children gathered around the trees and hugged them.

Wind turbine technology | Marketing in 21st century anthropocentrism

This tragic event, known as the Khejarli Massacre, is also the first recorded event of the Chipko movement (hugging trees to prevent destruction, or just to love them) in history… long before the 1970's. [Source] Today we chop trees down for “green” biomass, solar and wind projects.

The new environmentalism created by the N.P.I.C. Climate March Delhi India, September 2014. Wear yellow.

Avaaz climate campaign

The above image captures the dreams and aspirations of 21st century anthropocentrism: solar, wind, wealth. Nature is virtually non-existent in the “climate factory” poster. It floats in the background as an afterthought.

Above: 350.org style guide: “Focus on people. Whenever possible, use visuals to emphasize that climate is a real, tangible human problem – not an abstract ecological issue.”

Collectively, Western society has been conditioned to believe that anthropocentrism is environmentalism and anthropocentrists are environmental activists. It is quite possible that this may be one of the best examples of successful social engineering to date, as financed by the world’s most powerful oligarchs.

Storytelling has always served as an integral, influential and dynamic component of human development and evolution. Today our stories are being scripted by those in power and used as subtly persuasive but powerful weapons – against ourselves. Whereas in the past environmentalism was the fight to protect nature and non-human life, today’s anthropocentrism serves to protect first world privilege, human life (Anglo) – at the EXPENSE of nature and non-human life (as well as non-Anglo human life). Today storytelling is a key component of behavioural change experts, marketing executives and NGOs who employ effective storytelling to sell us anything they wish, inclusive of death and war. [SYRIA: Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for Empire] Yet, in this sense, we could categorize these soft-power “movements” as those that fall in the category of “color revolutions”.

CONCLUSION: Manufactured Activism & Rebranding Control of Dissent

 

Militarism and Genocide in Exchange for the Maintaining of Privilege – An Agreed Upon Alibi

Collectively, American citizens have been most tolerant of a buildup of fascism and militarism over the past years and decades. Providing this is carried out in a somewhat covert manner with a charismatic veneer (The Obama administration/democrats) it is not only acceptable, but has resulted in a pro-war “left” that has cheered on (or been silent on) illegal invasions, occupations and coups throughout the middle east and global south. However when the same blatant racism, classism and fascism is carried out by an openly fascist leader (who lacks the political correctness that the imperial-liberal left demands) the same imperial-liberal left brigade cries a river of crocodile tears.

In this same way, American citizens have been most tolerant of the Bakken genocide that feeds their oil addiction and ensures their highly consumptive lifestyle, and most importantly, ensures their privilege remains intact. This is an unspoken known. How many Americans  actually recoiled at the words of Madeline Albright “we think the price is worth it” in response to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children? The ugly truth is, we are willing to participate, to stay silent, provided we are guaranteed the right to pretend otherwise. As just one example consider the ongoing and endless Congo holocaust to service our tech desires. The response is silence. Collectively it is understood and agreed upon that “we think the price is worth it.” We want our technology. New cell phones, computers, renewable energies, electric cars. Like the Obama charisma that created a veneer of fabricated  innocence and American exceptionalism, giving imperial-left liberals full license to ignore the millions that have suffered and died under his murderous administration, the NODAPL gives license to imperial-left liberals to appropriate a similar alibi. We can brand ourselves as moral citizens standing in unity with Indigenous nations, all while we maintain and propel a system that promises further genocide to Indigenous people in the Bakken and throughout the globe.

Win! Credit: Solar Mosaic and US Department of Defense | “The US military knows better than anyone the importance of energy independence,” Mosaic president Billy Parish was quoted in a company press release. “Mosaic is pleased to offer more Americans the opportunity to tangibly support this by investing in rooftop solar energy for military families. As a father, I’m working everyday to create a secure home, nation, and planet for my children.” [Source]

Once again, the NPIC is succeeding at sanitizing a critical discussion that should be centered on Indigenous peoples and an ongoing Indigenous genocide due to colonization, assimilation and industrialization (which NGOs will only further via global campaigns for “clean” energy). Instead of focusing on these issues as well the key issue of sovereignty, the NPIC works to ensure the masses focus on a singular pipeline, a subterfuge to marginalize and reframe all systemic issues. We focus on the transportation method of oil (in this case, again, a pipeline) rather than what is the driving force of oil itself. What we do not touch upon and what is never discussed is the question of who benefits – at the expense of what groups and nations of people are sacrificed. Nor does non-human life enter the discussion, let alone the thought-process whatsoever. This is due to the fact the environmental movement that materialized decades ago is now obsolete. Via the conditioning of our societies and the non-profit industrial complex who work at the bequest of their elite financiers, cultivated “activists” are in truth anthropocentrists. Manufactured “activism” today must be re-defined as full blown anthropocentrism en masse. Today’s 21st century “activism” (anthropocentrism), has nothing to do with the protection of nature, of Earth, or her non-human inhabitants. Further, this “green” anthropocentrism, born of European-American ideologies shaped, molded, and nurtured by elite power structures, is an anthropocentrism that believes in, and caters to white supremacy, even if this belief is subconscious or subtle (aversive racism).

Today’s 21st century anthropocentrism is given more credence when barely an eyebrow is raised by the fact that NGOs now partner with and aid militarism [October 14, 2016: A Cynical Environmentalism: Protecting Nature to Prepare for War] and even produce terrorist factions under the guise of humanitarian assistance. One key question is this: why do we remain blind to the fact that NGOs who push for a new global infrastructure of “clean” energy are financed to further advance imperialism?

October 14, 2016 from the article: A Cynical Environmentalism: Protecting Nature to Prepare for War:

 “Altendorf was speaking on September 5 in Honolulu, Hawaii, at a panel discussion hosted by the US State Department entitled “Department of Defense Conservation: A Good News Story.” The event was held at the US Pavilion of the World Conservation Congress (WCC), a gathering organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This year’s WCC, attended by over 10,000 conservationists, scientists, government leaders, NGOs and members of civil society from 192 countries, also included representatives of the Army, Navy and Air Force who were eager to talk about caring for the natural world.” — A Cynical Environmentalism: Protecting Nature to Prepare for War, October 14, 2016

“By rebranding itself as a guardian of nature, the military improves its own public image and achieves a veneer of unassailability while bolstering its primary mission, which is, of course, the ability to wage war. In reality, war’s brutal and merciless goal of domination and control is the furthest thing imaginable from nurturing or preservation.” [Source]

Remix: : “By rebranding itself as a guardian of Indigenous sovereignty, the non-profit industrial complex improves its own public image and achieves a veneer of unassailability while bolstering its primary mission, which is, of course, the ability to protect current power structures. In reality, the oligarchies merciless goal of domination and control is the furthest thing imaginable from nurturing or preservation.”

+++

Revolution doesn’t always come in the form of a gun nor does enslavement always come by way of man. The 21st century version of colonialism has found a new weapon in NGOs.

The last word goes to Assata Shakur: “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of people who oppressing them.”

Epilogue

The Army Corps Of Engineers having announced a pause in the development of the Dakota Access Pipeline has prompted 350.org’s Bill McKibben to declare a “a smashing victory” for Indigenous activists, “one that shows what nonviolent unity can accomplish.” This sentence alone, which further romanticizes “nonviolent direct action” (the key talking point of the entire campaign), prompts critical questions deserving of critical analysis.

On the surface, this appears to be a victory for Indigenous sovereignty (albeit if only temporary). However, a rerouting of the final segment of this particular pipeline (87% completed) is not a victory to the Earth in any way, shape or form. The chair of the Standing Rock tribe was clear in his statement that the rerouting of the pipeline was all that was required to make the situation go away (Oct 28, 2016: “Reroute this pipeline, and this will all go away.”) So why did NGOs – that have never shown any meaningful interest in the welfare or land rights of Indigenous peoples nor their sovereignty, worm their way into this particular Indigenous struggle?

Many questions arise. Was this decision made simply to completely disperse the growing crowds that took many months to mobilize, in order to commence construction at a later date with no remaining resistance? Will the application simply be resubmitted in a few weeks time to be approved under the Trump administration?  Will the protest be utilized to stall the pipeline, protecting the interests of Warren Buffett’s BNSF (crude via rail)? A few thing are certain. One: In a global economy close to stall speed, amidst a world swimming in excess oil, there is no urgency for the completion of this pipeline. Two: Warren Buffett’s BNSF profits are already taking a hit. The completion of the Dakota Access (like KXL) would further impact BNSF profits in a slowing economy. Three: Buffett has funneled well over 30 million dollars through his family’s foundation (NoVo) into the Tides Foundation which then disperses the funds amongst selected NGOs carrying out anti-pipeline campaigns.

Regardless, elite powers including the Clinton Global Initiative, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and the Bush Foundation have a new billion dollar model for rolling out the third industrial revolution under the guise of “clean energy”. The tribes are key. A model for the continued pillaging of the planet, under a protective, if not scared, Indigenous veneer. The capitalists have finally found a use for the Indigenous nations. Continued patriarchy and imperialism repackaged as matriarchal self-reliance. Reflect upon the fact that 90 trillion dollars are required to build the “new economy” infrastructure. The fact that this very industrialization (from 1740 to today) has brought us to the precipice of our own extinction is altogether lost. The race for what little remains of our ruthlessly plundered planet accelerates.

We have entered the 21st century where social engineering via behavioural change expertise has become paramount in shaping whole societies to the desires of global hegemony. Corporate warfare is being waged via the most gentle form of soft power. The non-profit industrial complex is the clearinghouse for the distribution of these soft power mechanisms. The Standing Rock protests have undoubtedly served as an experiment in the study of manipulation, conformity, obedience,  assimilation and neocolonialism. Consider the organizing surrounding the Standing Rock protest has been referred to as “a template” for the future by 350.org executive director May Boeve.

This is not to suggest that this campaign was engineered (or co-opted) from inception exclusively for experimental/observational purposes (although this too is possible).  Rather, it is more probable, that once underway it was recognized as a prime opportunity for the NGOs (extensions of elite power) that comprise the non-profit industrial complex, to apply, test and observe methods of manipulation and exploitation following their initial engagement. Although this hypothesis may sound implausible to some, the fact that the NPIC has begun its foray into training programs across the globe, makes such speculation both sound and rational.

Can citizens of other cultures, in other countries, many/most of non-Anglo descent, be coerced to disregard and ultimately disband their own traditions, customs, beliefs, by their own will, in exchange for American ideologies? To achieve this, without force, surely is a most effective method. What better way to observe the successes and failures of such a mission than Standing Rock. A separate and distinct culture, right here on (stolen) American soil.

Akin to the global contagion of both Christianity and Catholicism, can a global belief in “the new economy” as constructed and desired by elite powers also be pounded into the masses? Can the masses be conditioned to live and breathe this ideology like are we breathe – without notice? Can a pathology of pacifism be reconstructed as sacrosanct – where non-obedience to the pacifist dogma would be paramount to the seven deadly sins?

This is sought occupation, not physical, but of hearts and minds. Which will undoubtedly prove far more powerful than physical occupation of lands and citizens via force. Obedience and subservience are in fact the pathway to the “new economy”.   This series has attempted to give readers a glimpse into how this is to be achieved and for what purpose. 

http://www.theartofannihilation.com/standing-rock-profusion-collusion-big-money-profits-part-6-conclusion/

PART 1:MCKIBBEN’S DIVESTMENT TOUR – BROUGHT TO YOU BY WALL STREET

Had this almost done when they disappeared my old blog,this is important information so I will  be redoing this 15 part investigation over the next couple of weeks.

MCKIBBEN’S DIVESTMENT TOUR – 

BROUGHT TO YOU BY WALL STREET

BY CORY MORNINGSTAR 

Truth has Died. Artist: Francisco Goya, 1814

Acceptance and Subservience Required

Industrialized capitalism is destructive, by its very nature, to all life on Earth. This is even more so when wedded to investment capital. Every living thing on the planet is now on its way to being commodified – including people, who are now considered “human capital” in 21st century parlance. [1]

A recent flood of seemingly urgent reports was released, in waves, over the month of November 2012. This was to ensure a sense of urgency, to inaudibly signal that the launch of the “green economy” resonates with civil society. The role of the non-profit industrial complex in the unveiling of the illusory green economy to the world has never been so vital. For it is only via these very institutions that it would be possible to manipulate civil society into embracing a suicidal model that locks the world into catastrophic, irreversible ecological collapse once and for all. The non-profit industrial complex, in tandem with the corporate-media complex, allows Euro-Americans to collectively continue their fetishized addictions and unspoken racist ideologies unabated – in exchange for the sacrificing of our own children to appease the corporate gods. 

350.org’s Divestment Tour |More Bread & Circuses

Movement or cult? Image: The First Unitarian Church for Do the Math in Philadelphia – “ready to put the climate movement into a new gear.” | November 17, 2012

“You can see that all the co-optive forces that have worked together to elect and re-elect Obama are now emphasizing coming together in a greater, ongoing, funded, top down cohesiveness. These friends of mine believe they have the strategy for saving the planet and it wonderfully coincides with feathering their own nests! The Insider might seem to be a minor irritant, but like Counterpunch itself they can’t stand it because it exposes them for what they are, lap dogs and liberal PR flacks with funding from what I call the Dem 1%. This “Progressive Movement building” bullshit from the Van Jones crowd is not a movement for radical change, it’s a hog trough designed to maintain the liberal corporate status quo. But for many it’s hard to see when your head is down and you are slurping up the funding slop” – Author John Stauber responding to a member of the Business Ethics Network who reacted with indignation and feigned confusion to Stauber’s quote, which was cited in a Counterpunch article. Stauber’s “punishment” was expulsion from BEN.

350.org’s most recent campaign is its “Do the Math” divestment tour. The stated goal of this campaign, which appears online as a project of Fossil Free [2], is to pressure educational and religious institutions, city and state governments, and other institutions that serve the public good to divest from fossil fuels. The identity of the individual who registered the website is listed as private. Such campaigns (not unlike those of electoral races, hence the name “campaign”) are designed, thus destined, to not challenge the hegemony of the fossil fuel industry in practice, but rather, only in theory. Such sophisticated public relations campaigns as this one are quite genius in a multitude of ways. Cloaked under the guise of tackling the root causes of the global climate crisis, such campaigns change nothing. Rather, they ensure the populace is participating in what it has been convinced is meaningful action – and nothing more.

350.org’s “Do the Math”

350.org front man, Bill McKibben tells us that “It’s not all right to be profiting from the wreckage of the planet” yet he will not tell us that the unparalleled violence upon the planet and its most vulnerable peoples is inherently built into the system of industrialized capitalism. He will not tell you the simple fact that every day this system is allowed to continue represents one more day of profiteering from the wreckage of the planet and brings us one day closer to our shared global annihilation. Further, McKibben undermines any campaign that attempts to bring this most critical issue to the forefront of the global debate.

Many inadequacies in both the science and the logic have already been made clear by many reputable activists. On July 24, 2012, three responses to McKibben’s July 19, 2012 article in Rolling Stone magazine [“Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – make clear who the real enemy is”] by Anne Petermann, Dr. Rachel Smolker, and Keith Brunner were published on Global Justice Ecology Project. Selected excerpts are as follows:

Anne Petermann writes:

“Can the very markets that have led us to the brink of the abyss now provide our parachute? McKibben points out that under this system, those with the money have all the power. Then why are we trying to reform this system? Why are we not transforming it?” “… if you focus solely on eliminating fossil fuels without changing the underlying system, then very bad things will take their place because it is the system itself that is unsustainable. It is a system designed to transform ‘natural capital’ and human labor into gargantuan profits for an elite few: the so-called ‘1%.’ Whether it’s driven by fossil fuels or biofuels or even massive solar and wind installations, the system will continue to devour ecosystems, displace forest-based communities, Indigenous Peoples and subsistence farmers from their lands, crush labor unions and generally make life hell for the vast majority of the world’s peoples. That is what it does.”

Keith Brunner writes:

“Bill offers divestment campaigns, à la South Africa, as a favored strategy to hit the fossil fuel companies financially. Sounds great, except when you look at the trends over the past few years of big institutional investors – like pension funds and university endowments – to move their money (often through a private equity intermediary) into, amongst other things, ’emerging market’ natural resources and infrastructure funds, facilitating land and resource grabbing across the South. It’s what the ‘progressive’ climate-aware fund managers (like the CERES folks) are advocating, and it’s a problem. And that’s another place where he misses the point: Yes, the fossil fuel corporations are the big bad wolf, but just as problematic is the system of investment and returns which necessitates a growth economy (it’s called capitalism). That Harvard University endowment fund manager has a ‘fiduciary responsibility’ to get a certain annual return, which means they have to put their money into growing, profitable funds or firms or states (what’s the difference anyhow), which grow through exploiting people and dismantling ecosystems. We aren’t going to invest our way to a livable planet. We need to focus on the root causes and false solutions, lift up the community solutions, and push the big green groups to become more holistic in their analysis so they don’t shoot us all in the foot.”

A Semblance of Cowards

This view, upheld by most activists, even outstanding ones, that we must “push the big green groups to become more holistic in their analysis so they don’t shoot us all in the foot” is based on a collective naiveté and false assumption that corporate environmental NGOs can be made to “do the right thing” by moral suasion. The steadfast refusal of real activists and real grassroots groups to acknowledge and unapologetically expose the non-profit industrial complex as the gatekeepers of hegemonic rule represents the movement’s greatest and most tragic failure.

They are not shooting “us all in the foot,” they are shooting us all in the head – at point-black range.

As surreal as it is, the so-called climate movement has sabotaged any chance of mitigating a full scale global ecological collapse, having instead cleared the way for corporate profiteering, deforestation, fund-raising and full-out omnicide. Collectively, this faction of the 1% values their privilege more than life itself. 

The 350.org Divestment Tour: 

Brought to You by Wall Street

Ceres Conference 2007

“Efforts to control corporations’ destructive impacts must have a critique of corporate power at their heart and a will to dismantle corporate power as their goal, otherwise they reinforce rather than challenge power structures, and undermine popular struggles for autonomy, democracy, human rights and environmental sustainability.” – Corporate Watch

People may ask themselves just why the financiers of climate destruction would give a flying fuck about the climate. One may wonder just why McKibben and friends went to the Wall Street billionaires to solicit their input (and permission) on exactly just what type of divestment would be suitable to their liking. Yet, the answer is astoundingly simple: the “Do the Math” divestment tour is not a campaign meant to impair (let alone destroy) Wall Street, big energy, or finance capital – rather it is a strategic public relations campaign, another well-orchestrated distraction for the masses.

A key design element within the non-profit industrial complex is that “movements” are created top down. In the case of Rockefeller’s 350.org/1Sky, the game is simply this: 350.org locals take their marching orders straight from the top (350.org International) while “the top” (McKibben et al) take their marching orders directly from their funders – and in the case of 350.org’s Do the Math Tour, those funders are Wall Street investors.

McKibben, along with key 350.org staff, developed the divestment campaign in consultation with Ceres Investors – referred to fondly as their “Wall Street friends.”

Such loyalties are par for the course in the corporate enviro world where Wall Street execs can be referred to as “our Wall Street friends.” Never mind that Wall Street is the very root cause of our multiple and ever accelerating ecological and economic crises, not to mention the global food crisis. These crises are not truly “crisis” in a spontaneous sense, rather they are strategic by design with the aim of furthering corporate profit, which is simply insatiable. [Watch: The Real Hunger Games – Big Commodity Traders Control World Grain Market. See more videos on this topic here.]

The 350.org divestment tour announcement states:

“It’s simple math: we can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon and stay below 2°C of warming – anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all – unless we rise up to stop them.” [Emphasis in original.]

What McKibben and the 

“Progressive Greens” Won’t Tell You

This 350.org statement above is incredibly dangerous and misleading as it implies two things: 1) that we can continue to burn more fossil fuels for some time; 2) that only when we exceed 2ºC do we risk catastrophe for life on Earth; and fails to mention a third: the fact that we are already committed to a minimum temperature increase of 2.4ºC (Ramanathan and Feng), even if we stop burning all fossil fuels today.

“[But] we should accept the fact that we have actually written off some of the southern hemisphere communities as a consequence of sticking to 2 degrees centigrade.” – Professor Kevin Anderson [Also see “What Defines Criminal Negligence?]

“…we need urgent to radical reductions way beyond anything we’ve been prepared to countenance, we’ve really left it too late to go for a 2 degree C.” – Professor Kevin Anderson

For now, let us ignore the fact that in 1990 the “Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases” warned that a global temperature increase “beyond 1 degree C may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage” while a temperature increase of 2ºC was viewed as “an upper limit beyond which the risks of grave damage to ecosystems, and of non-linear responses, are expected to increase rapidly.” The disappearance of this paper represents perhaps the greatest cover-up in history not to mention a crime against humanity. The report was quietly and deliberately buried by NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the scientific community and governments. Economic growth, sacrosanct, trumped life itself.

350.org states that fossil fuel corporations are “planning to burn it all – unless we rise to stop them.” Stop them by doing what? Appealing to Obama? Signing a 350.org petition? Getting some universities to not invest in them? Rather than deal with reality (capitalism, imperialism, militarism, etc. etc.) 350.org continues to lead in the manufacturing of hope for the hope industry. 350.org ensures audience acceptance and mass appeal of their brand precisely because they do not tell their target audience that it will be absolutely necessary to give up their privilege if we are to salvage a planet conducive to life as we free-fall into the anthropocene epoch. [4] 350.org ensures their audience that there is no need to question our (suicidal) economic system (let alone the necessity to dismantle it) while “real” climate catastrophe is always far, far away. 350.org is the soma of the 21st century.

“False consciousness of the nature of American liberalism has been one of the most powerful ideological weapons that American capitalism has had in maintaining its hegemony.” — James Weinstein

One must take note of 350.org’s obsession with fossil fuels exclusively. With certainty, 350.org, in tandem with the non-profit industrial complex, is strategically preparing the populace to accept what Guy McPherson calls the “third industrial revolution.” This “climate wealth” agenda will include false solutions such as biomass, unbridled “green” consumerism, carbon market mechanisms such as REDD, etc. What it will not include is: the urgent necessity to destroy the expanding military empire, to transition from/dismantle our current economic system, to address the industrialized livestock industry, to massively scale back and conserve, to employ tactics of self-defense by any means necessary, nor anything else that is imperative to address if we are to mitigate full-out omnicide. In a nutshell, the agenda will not include anything that would actually pose any meaningful threat to the system. It’s always divide and conquer with the corporate/elite-funded NGOs. The point is to ensure the masses fight meaningless battles and never “connect the dots,” to use 350.org’s phrase. Just like the Avaaz founder MoveOn.org, 350.org successfully induces consent.

Language is everything in the world of fantasy and public relations. Consider McKibben’s statement expressing surprise how his article “Terrifying Math” went “oddly viral” in Rolling Stone. This is hardly the case. In the non-profit industrial complex, all “messaging” is polled prior to publication in order to measure public response and appeal to the status quo. Most messaging is not written by so-called activists but instead is written by highly prized PR executives who help the hope industry distribute their harmless campaigns to the selected/cooperative networks.

350.org and friends serve a vital purpose. These organizations successfully make certain that the public feel good about themselves. Simultaneously, they ensure obedience and passiveness to the state in order to secure current system/power structures and keep them intact. As always, such campaigns focus on list-building for those who benefit and profit from email lists, etc. This focus is done under the guise of “movement building.” One need not be a rocket scientist to comprehend the common sense rationality that organizations funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund will never conduct anything meaningful that would serve to challenge the root causes of the climate crisis. This is a cynical game played by those who fund the NGOs within the non-profit industrial complex. The costs are high with 400,000 dying each year from climate-related disasters. Fortunately for the oligarchy, a deep-rooted racism that purrs like a kitten, humming along under the movement’s veneer, ensures these deaths have no meaning whatsoever. [September 27, 2012: “Nearly 1,000 children a day are now dying because of climate change, according to a path-breaking study published Wednesday (PDF) and the annual death toll stands at 400,000 people worldwide.”]

Author Christian Parenti raises many key questions for consideration in his article Problems With the Math: Is 350’s Carbon Divestment Campaign Complete? published on November 29, 2012:

“The official version of capitalism holds the stock markets exist to help firms raise money for investment. But empirical investigation reveals that the opposite is more often the case. In reality, the stock market, though culturally powerful, is not particularly important to how capitalism actually creates wealth (and pollution).

“So how will dumping Exxon stock hurt its income, that is, its bottom line? It might, in fact, improve the company’s price to earning ratio thus making the stock more attractive to immoral buyers. Or it could allow the firm to more easily buy back stock (which it has been doing at a massive scale for the last 5 years) and thus retain more of its earnings for use to develop more oil fields.”

It must be noted that Wall Street’s 350.org’s divestment campaign serves yet another vital purpose. We have now reached the critical juncture where corporations will begin the slow process of ridding themselves of their toxic holdings while preparing for a new wave of unprecedented, unsurpassed “climate wealth.” We are about to witness the global transition to profitable false solutions under the guise of “green economy” coupled with the complete commodification/privatization of the shared commons by the world’s most powerful corporations. All while they simultaneously greenwash themselves as noble stewards of the Earth. In the human species closing epilogue, this will be the greatest lie ever told sold.

Ceres 2013: Guest Speakers: 350,

PG&E, Bloomberg & GM

On May 1-2, 2013 in San Francisco, California, Bill McKibben joined 350’s divestment campaign partner, Ceres, at the 2013 Ceres Conference. From the Ceres announcement:

“Bill McKibben Joins the Ceres Conference Speaker Lineup! Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books and is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org. Time Magazine called him ‘the planet’s best green journalist’ and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was ‘probably the country’s most important environmentalist.'”

McKibben joined other featured speakers such as Ezra Garrett (Vice President of Community Relations and the Chief Sustainability Officer for Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation), Curtis Ravenel (Global Head, Sustainability Group, Bloomberg), Mike Robinson (Vice President for Environment, Energy and Safety Policy, General Motors), and many others involved in the promotion and growth of “green” capitalism. Sponsors included Bank of America, PG&E, Bloomberg, Wells Fargo, Sprint, Baxter, Citi, Ford, GM, Brown-Forman, Walt Disney, Prudential, TimeWarner and many more of the planet’s most powerful corporations. Tickets for the conference ranged from $600 (student rate) to $1200 each, with a discounted price of $259 per night for the Fairmont Hotel.

The Art of NGO Discourse

Tank cars at Canadian Pacific’s Port Coquitlam yard east of Vancouver. Photo by DARRYL DYCK.Economic Planning Associates (EPA) estimates that railcar manufacturers have received orders for more than 89,000 rail cars — the highest level since tracking began in 1980. Deliveries are expected to increase from 58,000 units in 2012 and stabilize at more than 64,000 units annually over the next five years. Due to lack of manufacturing capacity, the unit prices are up, and there are some indications that manufacturers may even be selective on the orders they take. [Source: Shale Oil and Gas: Revitalizing Inland Transportation Networks, Sept 2012]

“Mr. Rockefeller could find no better insurance for his hundreds of millions than to invest one of them in subsidizing all agencies that make for social change ad progress. – Frank Walsh, The Great Foundation

And while your attention is successfully diverted from the fact that giant algae blooms are now thriving under thinning Arctic sea ice (June 18, 2012: “First, we were thinking, ‘This can’t be. This can’t be possible. There’s no way this can be what it looks like,'” Kevin R. Arrigo, a biological oceanographer at Stanford University in California and lead author of the study, told CBCNews.ca. “Then the next thing was: ‘Has anybody seen this before?'”) … and while huge crabs more than a metre across have invaded the warming Antarctic and while the elites are hopeful that you’ll buy into a divestment campaign that doesn’t actually give us a hope in hell of averting ever-accelerating planetary ecological collapse, let me leave you with this…

NGO discourse in America takes many forms. In the sixties, the revolutionary black power movement became the recipient of massive funding and then took the form of black capitalism, with the product of this solution being the current status of Black Americans, who are in a worse position than at almost any other time of their history in every possible way. Similarly, the dire consequences of development and environmental degradation resulting from unbridled mass-consumption as modeled by the West opens up the dialogue of the illusory “green economy” as the solution. The necessity to ban genetically engineered food becomes a “demand” for classist (to be ingested by the poor, uneducated and children) and ineffective labeling.

The necessity to shut down the tar sands in their entirety (as boldly voiced by the most conservative of voices such as scientist James Hansen (Put the Brakes on Tar Sands, Feb 18, 2009) and the former head of I.P.C.C, Rajendra Pachauriof the United Nations (“Canada’s oil sands should be shut down.” Sept. 21, 2009) deliberately evolved into “Stop the Keystone XL!” – conveniently dismissing the fact that the Keystone Pipeline was 2/3 completed and in operation before the K.X.L campaign was thrust into the public realm. Gone is the original grassroots demand from 2005 to “Shut down the Tar Sands,” which is nothing more than a distant memory. And while 350.org exclaimed “Stop Keystone XL!” (a message reverberated by the obedient “progressive” media), the rail industry [3] was busy building the 40,000 oil tankers required for the transportation of tar sands oil, now near completion. [4] The selling feature of this transit method, put forward by industry, is that short of an armor piercing round, these tankers will not leak if they derail. Meanwhile, the construction of the oil warmer facilities in North Dakota (near the Bakken oil fracking fields) has been completed. Eight trains of 110 tankers can carry the same capacity of oil that the Keystone and the KXL can facilitate. BNSF Corp. is now transporting approx. 500,000 barrels of oil daily. Nowhere in the KXL campaign did it convey that on November 3, 2009, Berkshire Hathaway announced that, using stock and cash totaling $26 billion, it would acquire the remaining 77.4 percent of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation, parent of BNSF Railway, that it did not already own. This was the largest acquisition to-date in Berkshire’s history. [Further reading: Keystone XL: The Art of NGO Discourse | Part I]

The oil tycoons have achieved the best of both worlds. They toast to our collective naiveté and subservient demeanor.

The list of successful NGO discourses goes on and on for miles. Billions of dollars are not pumped into the non-profit industrial complex for nothing.

http://www.theartofannihilation.com/mckibbens-divestment-tour-brought-to-you-by-wall-street/ 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation, Political Context, Counterpunch, Canadians for Action on Climate Change and Countercurrents. You can follow her on twitter: @elleprovocateur ]

Notes:

[1] Human Capital: “Fourthly, of the acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants or members of the society. The acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his person. Those talents, as they make a part of his fortune, so do they likewise that of the society to which he belongs. The improved dexterity of a workman may be considered in the same light as a machine or instrument of trade which facilitates and abridges labor, and which, though it costs a certain expense, repays that expense with a profit.” – Adam Smith defining “human capital”

[2] Fossil Free partners are: Responsible Endowments Coalition, Energy Action Coalition, Sierra Student Coalition, As You Sow, Better Future Project, California Student Sustainability Project.

[3] July 28, 2011: Rail makes a comeback in moving oil around the US | January 24, 2012: Warren Buffett cleans up after Keystone XL |  January 2012: BNSF expects shales, domestic intermodal and other promising sectors to propel 2012 traffic beyond GDP-growth levels | June 27, 2012: Southern Pacific Resource Corp. completes arrangements to transport and market bitumen via CN to the U.S. Gulf Coast | August 21, 2012: Railways ship bitumen to relieve pipeline bottlenecks | January 7, 2013: Alberta bitumen makes it to Mississippi by rail | August 16, 2012: Keystone XL pipeline construction begins amid protests | March 5, 2013: Buffett Says Gloat Like Rockefeller When Watching Trains

[4] “Tank cars are owned by either shippers or lessors, not by railroads. At year end, Union Tank Car and Procor together owned 97,000 cars having a net book value of $4 billion. A new car, it should be noted, costs upwards of $100,000. Union Tank Car is also a major manufacturer of tank cars – some of them to be sold but most to be owned by it and leased out. Today, its order book extends well into 2014. At both BNSF and Marmon, we are benefitting from the resurgence of U.S. oil production. In fact, our railroad is now transporting about 500,000 barrels of oil daily, roughly 10% of the total produced in the ‘lower 48’ (i.e. not counting Alaska and offshore). All indications are that BNSF’s oil shipments will grow substantially in coming years.” [Source: Berkshire’s Corporate Performance vs. the S&P 500]