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massive corporate planet-killing projects like this one, which is destroying the Amazon--by deforestation and conversion of forest to soy farms--and is also destroying the atmosphere by huge tanker shipping of goods across the oceans in polluting vehicles, as well as by the huge deforestation that precedes soy production (the forest cleanses the atmosphere of CO2 and other pollutants). A double-whammy to the planet. These massive assaults on the environment are driven by global corporate predators and are completely unsustainable. They are actually--really, truly, literally--killing planet earth.
As always, beware of WaPo disinformation and rightwing/corporate framing. What does "it was peaceful," and "no one resisted" mean? The article doesn't explain, and the answer has probably been edited out--black-holed. Does this global corporate predator have private paramilitaries using threats and violence to defy the law and to punish grass roots environmentalists, as is often the case in third world countries that are rich in natural resources?
Also, consider this sequence:
"Cargill became a target for residents, activists and federal prosecutors who called the port illegal and tried to shut it down. But the port also has strong support from many in Santarem, who see it as a key element for economic development to rid the region of grinding poverty.
"The rain forest, as big as Western Europe, lost 6,450 square miles to deforestation between 2005 and 2006, a decrease of 11 percent from the year before, Brazil's Environment Ministry says." --WaPo
Where do they get the info that the port "also has strong support from many in Santarem" who want to "rid the region of grinding poverty"? Sounds like corporate disinformation to me. George Bush also exuded concern for Latin America's poor, on his recent visit to Brazil. Does anyone really believe that lying, murdering corporate Pinocchio's nose didn't grow another foot as he said it? What's real are the "residents, activists and federal prosecutors" who "called the port illegal and tried to shut it down." Their views and actions speak for themselves. Who are these others? Cargill employees? Local real estate developers? Big landowners? The article doesn't say. I am very suspicious. Giant corporations like Louisiana Pacific and Georgia Pacific used the "jobs" argument to devastate the redwood forest in northern California. They mowed the forest down. Now they are gone. The mills are closed. The trees are gone. The jobs are gone. It's over. The forest will never grow back like it was. Too many species that are vital parts of the redwood forest ecosystem--major species like the coho salmon and the marbled murrelet--were extinguished. And it takes a thousand years for the redwood forest to slowly grow the magnificent, strong, tight-grained wood that was here only a short time ago. All gone, never to be replaced. And the salmon fishing fleet has gone belly up, due to logging impacts on salmon spawning habitat. So much for "jobs."
Corporations create "grinding poverty." They don't alleviate it.
SECONDLY, after putting "grinding poverty" out there for the reader to think about (or not think about), WaPo mentions that 6,450 square miles of the Amazon forest were lost in one year (2005). Then they add that this was a "decrease from the year before." This is like saying that Bush/Cheney's heinous war killed a thousand people in Iraq last year, a decrease from the hundred thousand they killed in the initial bombing in March 2003. An improvement, right?
This is called framing. And they get this stat from a government minister. Lulu's government supports the superhighway that is planned through the Amazon to truck soy beans--from deforested areas--to Cargill's port. His government does not have a good record on the environment. That his is a leftist government--i.e., basically, good government principles, democracy--is probably why the environmentalists and prosecutors who finally got the port shut down are still alive, and can fight for the law to be enforced. But, like many Democratic leaders in the US, Lulu is a sucker for the "jobs" argument. He is much like Gov. Edmund G. Brown in California in the 1960s (a very liberal governor in every other respect)--and like every California governor since then. The destruction of the northern California redwood forest greatly accelerated starting in the '60s, and no law--and there were many--could stop that corporate juggernaut. Democrats have been equally bad--if not worse--than Republicans on this issue.
I hope this is not the same scenario, but I fear that it is. In California, a lot of trees are wasted on the matter of "environmental reports." Then the corporation does what it damn pleases. The law is only a temporary stopgap--a game that corporations play very well--but human beings have not found the way to stop the destruction of vitally needed wild areas that proceeds apace, no matter what the law says, and no matter that our planet is dying because of it. Short-term profits. Short-term thinking.
I love trade. I think it is a great human characteristic--our love of variety, our creative, adventurous spirit. And I know that a lot of people involved in destroying forests--and our planet--are just good people, like you and me, trying to feed their families and lead essentially good lives. It is when CORPORATIONS become involved--massive, monopolistic monsters--who suck up all the profit, to the already rich, and control politicians and governments with their money and power--that we have gotten into trouble, as a species. Traditional farmers, family farmers, small scale farmers tend to have great respect for their land, for nature and, not incidentally, for trees and forests. (The fertility of the land is connected to the ability of nearby forests to filter water gently down to the farmland. When forests are cut down, floods wash away the fertile soil. Forests also ATTRACT and even create moisture. In ancient times, the gods of agriculture LIVED IN THE FOREST.) Corporate farmers, on the other hand, start with cutting down every tree in sight, massively pollute the land with pesticides, convert it to monoculture, over-mechanize production--and today, commit all sorts of additional crimes, such as using genetically modified seeds, and horrid mistreatment of animals--to squeeze every last bit of short-term profit out of nature, and then push inferior and even harmful food products on the rest of us. Ever eat a corporate tomato--and then taste a real tomato? Corporate culture is ugly and tasteless, and along with its ugliness and tastelessness comes vast harm.
So, there IS a way to create a sustainable economy in the Amazon--just as their was, at one time, in northern California--if you eliminate the super-rich and the super-greedy from the formula. Lulu, you listening?
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