The Anacortes 52 : Just Keep It In THE Ground

Civil Disobedience - Climate Change

Civil Disobedience, Moral Obligation and The Trolley Problem

I was arrested on the BNSF railroad tracks on May 15^th along with 51 other human beings who had decided that it was necessary, morally necessary, an obligation of duty to the world.  I believe that in a world in which our civilization is to survive into any future that is not extremely degraded with climate change becoming a threat to everyone and every living ecological support system on the planet it is past time to take action beyond the niceties of well-behaved conventional free speech.  

I think most of us believe that we must have a communitarian society, a society that recognizes that what is known to be the best and highest course of action for a good society must prevail against the individualistic tendencies that harm the majority.   That we need a society that recognizes that the interconnected biosphere and the regional bioregions are holistically evolved systems that support human life, liberty, and our pursuit of happiness.  That degrading and destroying these biologic support systems is the major threat to human survival right now and that this threat is the consequence of the fossil fuel-military industrial complex as it exists and as it insists on proceeding and expanding in defiance of the scientific and real every day evidence we can all see unfolding daily.

My case for taking action and doing civil disobedience comes from basic simple moral ethical considerations starting with my thoughts on some well-known academic treatises often presented in college courses.   First I want to visit Peter Singers, “World Hunger and Moral Obligation”.

To approximate Singer’s ideation from world hunger to Climate Change:

1^st Premise: 

If we can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable significance we ought to do it. 

2^nd Premise:

The overwhelming evidence demonstrates that the future with continuation of fossil fuels use, industrial agriculture and the military industrial complex growing and expanded as planned is going to be very extremely bad in myriad forms.

3^rd Premise:

The sacrifices necessary to stop and reverse climate change are minor, almost insignificant compared to the possible future catastrophes if we continue and stay the course we are now on.

4^th Premise:

If one accepts the first three premises then, we ought to do something to stop and reverse human caused climate change. 

I note sadly that our society has not accepted basic reason and moral logic and instead is following the course as dictated by pure immoral individualistic monetary power and politics influenced by money.

Our society has become so sickly twisted by huge individualist wealth hoarding as the status quo modus operandi that we will not or cannot consider stopping harmful outmoded politics, economics, and industrial practices even where they require an insignificant sacrifice in order to ensure against a potentially much larger harm in the future.    It is difficult to comprehend this failing considering that in  the case of stopping climate change the actual benefits of massively reducing the fossil fuel sector of the economy and building its alternative replacement will begin almost immediately and accelerate rapidly creating a future that benefits all of humanity in terms of quality of life and life itself in exchange for the mere sacrifice of one sector of the economy and inconveniencing some few individuals who profit greatly from what is now in place,  individuals  who most likely will still profit and remain relatively well off in the new alternative green energy future.   Are we so controlled by huge individualistic wealth that it is unthinkable for these titans of historical wealth to even think of sacrificing anything for the good of anyone?   Most of us human beings of the 99% majority will actually sacrifice something of great worth to prevent great harm to someone or something we care about and here we are talking about shifting the economy (for now!), nothing more consequential than other historical events such as the end of slavery, a good thing, the sacrifices required to win World Wars 1 and 2, or the loss of US manufacturing due to capitalist free trade schemes over the last decades, a bad thing.

Now I want to visit the psychological ethical problem introduced by British Philosopher Philippa Root Foot, The Trolley Problem.  

 You are standing next to a trolley line, basically a railroad, at a track switch, and a Trolley is coming along.   On the track are tied five people and there is no hope of your doing anything at all except throwing that switch and diverting the train onto the other track, but, on that track stands one person who will surely be killed if you flip that switch.

You could do nothing, not your problem.  Or you could flip the switch and save five people but end up killing the one person who had nothing to do with the whole thing at all.    What do you do?

I believe 90% choose to flip the switch and save the five.  

Now instead, you are on a bridge and a vacant runaway trolley is coming and a large person stands in front of you and you see that there is a bus on the tracks with 20 people in it and you are certain because you’re a physicist that if you just flip the large person off the rail they will fall on the track and be killed and the trolley will be derailed saving the 20 people in the bus.

You could do nothing, not your problem.   Or you could push the large person off killing the poor person who had nothing to do with the situation but save 20 people.   What do you do? 

 And I believe that because our society is ruled by individualistic and selfish economics and capitalistic academics another option is never considered: You yourself grab a heavy object siting there and jump in front of the trolley derailing it and killing yourself, making the supreme sacrifice in order to save 20 people!  

The choice, physically pushing someone creates a lot of doubt and uncertainty as the pusher is directly responsible for the death of the person pushed, whereas the switcher is disconnected from the death of the person down the track.

The moral question from Singer arises here:  Should something of lesser value, one life, be sacrificed to save five lives which we would consider a greater value.   And the civil disobedience aspect arises, would I myself sacrifice something of value to myself, my freedom, my well-being, my very life to stop something very bad from happening.  

Now I return to the fossil fuel problem and climate change.   Now you are standing at the threshold of a gigantic chasm called the certainty of a very bad very destructive train wreck, the climate change train wreck, and on the track is planet earth and everyone who lives on it, on the other track to the right sits the fossil fuel industry and all its related follies, Industrial petro-chemical agriculture and the fossil fuel military industrial complex.  Coming down that track full speed ahead is the The Denial Express and 100 cars loaded with pure gold plated political status quo bull shit. So what do we do?    

Do nothing as it is not our problem.

Or flip that switch and kill the fossil fuel industry, and as a bonus demolish the status quo paradigm which in this case is not even a difficult moral question as I will show.

You are on that bridge over the rail line and a large man stands in front of you at the rail and you see there is a trolley coming fast, there are five hostages tied to the track, named democracy, economics, environment, human health, and peace, and the large man turns to you and says, “hey, you, look at me, I tied those five to the track, and after this trolley runs over them I can collect big time!  Pretty Smart eh?”   

And now you see if you just poke him in the chest he will fall backwards off the bridge and derail the trolley saving the five hostages.  

What do you do?  What do we do?  What ought we to do?

Happily for all ending the fossil fuel industry, pushing it off the edge as it were,  or scaling it back 95% to appropriate uses could entail not harming anyone if it is done as a socialistic communitarian process, that is, rather than the way capitalism likes change where the entire sector is wrecked, bankrupted and millions thrown out of work and massive dislocation and poverty as when any number of industries were dismantled and moved overseas in the past, where for the high priests of economics  destroying communities and throwing millions out of work for “free trade” and profit was justifiable desirable sacrifice. 

We have a moral obligation to do the right thing as there is no real significant sacrifice and no real moral conundrum in saving the world from climate change and killing off the fossil fuel industry.  Plain and Simple. 

But alas, our leaders and the financialized world of capital control does not do anything but prevaricate and procrastinate and make vague plans about voluntary commitments to be met in the indeterminate future that any economist or realist knows is absurd as we cannot predict or know the future, we can only know what is here now and act accordingly now, not later.

So what have we done, legally, nicely, without disturbing anyone, and for 30 years and more:

Write letters to our elected officials

Write letters to the fossil fuel industries

Petition elected and regulatory agencies with massive signature support campaigns

Gain the support of all the well-known environmental advocacy groups

Form local organizations to raise awareness

Write letters to the editor

Start initiatives

Sign Initiatives

Go to rallies and protest marches

Go to hearings and testify

Write comments to regulatory agencies opposing fossil fuel projects

Educate the people on the issues

Change our own consumption habits

Boycott products we find offensive

Try to consume non fossil fuel intensive products

All the while the scientific consensus and the evidence against the fossil fuel industry has been mounting into an accelerating juggernaut pointing out clearly that something substantial should have been started long ago, and in fact one of the major fossil fuel corporations Exxon-Mobile has now been outed as knowing about this from its own closeted studies in the 1970’s that, yes indeed, the fossil fuel based economy will cause massive catastrophic climate change.    

So I put it to the test.  What ought we do?   What ought I do?   For me since the collective society is not taking action in a timely manner and is in effect creating a huge moral hazard, for me it is necessary to join others who are willing to sacrifice much, actually little in the larger picture, but willing to sacrifice freedom, to risk our bodies, and our fortunes, to enter into breach of the law and attempt to stop the hazard, to take actions to awaken people, to bring attention to the crises and to influence and shape public opinion and affect the actions of the political leadership. The sacrifice is worth it, nonviolent civil disobedience actions which harms no one except for interfering with the operations of the fossil fuel industry are absolutely necessary until such time as our political leadership and the economic system takes decisive action to wind down the fossil fuel industry with good plans to transition to the alternatives in a fair measured and socially just manner but with no concessions to the continuation of the current fossil fuel industries. 

For more and more of us the answer is clear we must take our own bodies in solidarity with others and lay down on the tracks, block the ships, the trains the pipelines, the refineries, the coal mines, stop the drilling and the fracking and the production and movement of fossil fuels. 

It is what we ought to do, we must do, what is an absolutely necessary moral imperative.  

Power is the abiltiy to Enforce Cultural Fictions

Liberation is the Dissolution of all Fictions.

The Big Fictions:

Religion and all Mythologies
Race
Class
Gender
Nationalism
Ethnicity
Property
Money
Human Rights or Lack there of due to other fictions
Legal Systems - Law
Economic Systems
Slavery
Feudalism
Capitalism
Socialism
Capitalism
Anarchy
Patriarchy
Matriarchy
Time
Mathematics
Measurement
Language

THE JUBILEE DECLARATION

The Jubilee Declaration

 

When in the course of events it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the monetary bonds which have connected all together, and to assume among ourselves all the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the causes which impel them to this separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all human beings are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, an equitable share of the earth’s resources, and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, more importantly than political processes, systems of monetary exchange are created by human beings, deriving a just and open way for all to participate to their fullest potential , that whenever any form of monetary creation and distribution becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to abolish it and institute a new monetary system, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as shall seem most likely to affect economical-political neutrality and stability, happiness, and sustainability while providing for the needs and benefit of all human beings in harmonious interdependence with the biological ecosystems of the planet.

Providence, Indeed, will dictate that central banking monetary traditions long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that humanity is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms of control to which they are accustomed.   But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, proving invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce humanity, and all political and economic systems under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such central monetary control systems, and to provide new systems for their future freedom.   Such has been the patient suffering of the majority of humanity; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of control and exchange.  The history of the present central banking systems with governmental abdication to money created as debt as the   system of regulating all human transaction and exchange is a centuries long history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having the direct object of the establishment of an absolute plutocratic tyranny over all peoples of planet earth.

 

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

The Private and unelected Central Banking System Has:

The banks and corporations have Refused to Assent to the laws of the nations of the world, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

Have broken and twisted laws and utilized money to influence national assemblies, leaders of nations, and to buy elections to stop laws that the people want, and to institute laws the people do not want.

Refused to create monetary policy that would allow very large parts of the world, including large parts of the so called developed world itself, to become self-sufficient and independent, much less for people to live at a decent standard, forcing such populations to submit to cruel and unusual austerity greatly benefiting the banking systems, and while profiting immensely off the peoples misery and long deprivations claim the people must suffer and pay for  decades and centuries for some notion of proper payment of debts and proper  stages of progress and development.  At the same time several regions have proven that developing independent of the banking systems rules they can become fully developed and modernized in one generation.

Have manipulated the political process globally  by having legislators and leaders favorable to their causes block and delay and subterfuge attempts by the people and the non- banking sectors to secure just and favorable laws, and to institute laws that are harmful and negative for the majority.

Have in effect and in real outcome dissolved or neutralized legislative bodies and political movements by using their huge and immense wealth to obfuscate and confuse any issue obliterating the meaning of fact and opinion destroying historical fact and bringing forth manufactured untruths to be inculcated into the public mind.

Have utilized monetary influence to cause politicians in thrall to the central bankers to delay the appointment of important positions and regulatory authority such that the desires of the people and the laws of nations are thwarted and made useless.

Have supported economic policies that endanger the future of any nation such that the only issue of importance to them is the short term economic gain to themselves and their shareholders who are a very small minority in all nations of the globe.

Have supported the massive redistribution of resources necessary for the people’s well-being and health, diverting an absurd fortune annually to military adventurism and the related profits from war and governmental borrowing to implement war accruing to the banks and corporations benefit, while being immeasurably harmful to all peoples of the world.

Have supported and promulgated the huge militarism of the USA mainly and benefited hugely and unjustly by creating policies that force the government to lower taxes and then borrow the huge fortunes of obscene capitalist gains from the bankers creating a perpetual debt-profit-austerity cycle that is harmful to the people and only benefit a narrow military industrial banking sector while destroying the remainder of society.

 Have obstructed justice by influencing the judicial system and with their huge monetary resources,  manipulating  processes and elections and appointments, acquiring again with their huge wealth the media and publicity to sway their bought politicians and public opinion to appointment of judges favorable to their views and destructive to the administration of fair and just law for the people.

Have taken over the governmental regulatory agencies instituting revolving door policies that subvert the governments function from protecting the people to harassing and preventing the public from receiving justice and compensation and rights against monetary interests that have no care for the health and safety and happiness of the people.

Have subverted most if not all nations with monetary policy and currency trading and other financial instruments and the ability to overwhelm most smaller nations political processes with their huge wealth, and now even subverts the USA and other so called developed and free nations to have standing armies and militarized police , not for the public safety or security, but to protect the banking systems and the resource pipelines to their global commodity producing schemes, and more so to protect a very small extremely wealthy minority from the people’s desire for justice and freedom.

Have and is subtly slowly creating an atmosphere where the military is becoming non civilian and moving towards a system of military separation from the people and the spirit of protecting liberty freedom and justice towards mindless obedience to authority and servitude to enforcing the austerity plans the Central bankers have for the world’s peoples.

Domestic central bankers Have very aggressively moved to combine with foreign central banking interests and powers to subvert and over throw the laws of all lands in the form of passing trade agreements which lay waste to the notion of democracy and freedom of the people to make any choices or laws based on their own local needs, laws which in effect empower central bankers and large corporations usurping the state, the people and all notions of government of the people by the people and for the people..

Have allowed for and promoted the huge expansion of the military empire forcing most nations to quarter troops from the central bankers well controlled military regimes in other nations which then allow the imposition the desires and rules of the central bankers on all peoples regardless of natural laws or human decency. 

Have in collusion with the largest military in the world created a huge black hole of unaccounted for monies expended on unknown projects of immense and staggering proportions, such huge unimaginable sums such that these amounts could solve all our current human needs issues, and yet they claim that there is no money, no way to provide for basic human needs.

Have cut off trade and or made largely unfair and punitary trade laws and legislation with large parts of the world for various reasons not economic or based on real exchange values but largely based on the Central bankers inability to subvert and control those areas of the world.

For instituting the new laws of the USA since 9-11 depriving citizens of the USA and the entire world  the rights to a fair trial.  For transporting citizens of any nation beyond the borders of the Nations they are kidnapped in and not even forcing them into unfair trails but leaving them in limbo forever and in many cases killing and disappearing those who the Central Bankers would not have bring their cause before the public eye. 

Have supported and promulgated monetary policies that are clearly and easily demonstrable to have the effect of impoverishing and then dislocating large population around the world, and then utilizing the conflict of immigration and refugee populations to lower wages, foment conflicts separating peoples into fighting each other, and again deflecting the real world causes of chaos and suffering away from the fact that the central bankers profit immensely from the austerity, the poverty, the dislocation, the relocation, the war and the disarray of the populations set one against the other. 

Have supported and enabled the fossil fuel industry to continue on the course of destroying the planet regardless of the facts pointing out that continuation of this process is suicidal for humanity, and at the same time gamed the financial systems such that the new alternative energy economy has been slowed and discredited and not pushed forward as it should have been in any real free economy that rationally moves forward and changes as need arises.   

 

Have robbed the people of the world repeatedly with for instance the latest mortgage bubble debacle, reducing tens of millions of people to poverty and throwing the entire world into financial chaos, and even when severe wrongdoing and malfeasance is attributed to them, they are now, “Too Big To Fail”.  The people have no recourse and no legal standing to get justice and the Central Banking System has impunity from all laws justice and decency.  In effect the central bankers have removed the right to fair trial, fair remuneration, and equity under the law, taking away rights from the people and elevating banks and corporations to special status, privileged status, to an above the law standing that allows them to rule and abuse the people as tyrants.

In reflecting on these harms and misdeeds and the colossal damage to humanity and the planet we have to conclude that the current central banking system is far worse than any prior offense by Kings or Aristocrats, Fascists, Communists, Feudalism or Religious Dark ages, and is destroying the world and depriving us of our rightful due, a decent world and a decent living, in a safe healthy world free of fear and injustice from tyrants of any description. 

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned the bankers and their appointed representatives in political office for Redress in the most humble terms.   Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury, deeper levels of subterfuge obfuscations and creations of think tanks and agencies non-profits and media outlets which serve to confuse the issues and create chaos in the public mind.  An economic system whose character and actions is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the mechanism of ruling the free and unhindered barter, trade and commerce of the world’s free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to these central banking monetists  other corporate oppressors.  We have warned them from time to time of their efforts to gain control over our political processes and extend unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.  We have reminded them of the circumstances of our being natural citizens with rights and privilege in law and that they are legal fictions in our name.  We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common humanity to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our granting them the right and privilege to conduct commerce with our acquiescence to reasonable laws and rules of conduct.  They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.  We must, therefor acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold any who would harm the people and the natural world irreparably and with no conscience of wrongdoing Enemies in continuation of business as usual, Friends in reconciliation and reformulation of the systems of commerce and distribution of the earths resources.

We, therefor, the progressive and enlightened people of the Planet Earth, in general agreement, living in all nations of the world, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the good authority of the peoples of the earth solemnly publish and declare, that we free peoples of the planet earth are, and of our right to self rule are free and independent economic agents, that each and every one of us are absolved from allegiance to or from any obligations to the Central Banking Systems and the Corporate States and all the related debts and taxations created without our consent, that all generally accepted methods of banking, accounting, finance, interest, profit and loss are to be totally dissolved and declared null and void.   That as free and independent people we have the full power to self issue currency, distribute money as decreed by the common people without recourse to debt or interest nor taxation, that the base of all monetary creation which shall be  a fictional legal tool for us to use as we see fit will not be allowed to be used against us by a small group of secretly appointed people, and economic activity will be not to accumulate  money for use as power and control , nor for war, profits, fame, egotist sociopathy, but to provide the basic needs of every human being at a generous level starting with food, shelter, health care, education by the creation of democratic distribution mechanisms that are controlled by cooperative processes not by a small cabal of centralized wealth and power.