The Republic of Texas movement campaigns for Texas to be officially separated from the United States of America, on the grounds that Texas never acceded to be part of the union and has the right to forge its own future, maintaining sovereignty and resisting integration into the planned North American Union. Senator Ed Brannum is spokesman for the Republic of Texas movement, and kindly granted us an interview.

What are the main reasons that Texas should "secede", or would you rather say, "reclaim nationhood", since Texas has never acceded to be in the United States?

The republic of Texas is and always has been a sovereign Nation ab initio. Seceding has nothing to do with the forward movement of the Nation.

The 10th congress was placed into abeyance in 1845 by a newly elected congress thereby breaching their Oaths of Office as sworn to support the republic of Texas constitution. They accomplished this by not convening the 10th congress under constitutional law and after being elected by the people to represent them. Therefore, in 2005, the declared Texian people came together and called for an election to replace the 10th congress positions that were defaulted in 1845; whereby, the republic of Texas was removed from abeyance and is alive and well to this day.

Do you expect Texian independence to be achieved entirely by democratic means or through legal challenges? How is this progressing?

What do you mean by democratic means? The word democracy or democrat is not recognized in our vocabulary nor is it mentioned in the united States of America constitution or it's pledge of allegiance.

I do not believe there will be a completion of anything "legally" because that is a color of law word used in all the present day courts by the British Accredited Attorneys.

Yes, I believe there will be success using "at law" or lawful common law legislation as long as "We the People" keep all actions under God's law of Nations and using His royal law.

There were nine years of legislation passed by the 1st-9th republic of Texas congress that we are bringing forward or repealing. Remember those were the horse and wagon days compared with today's autos, jets, space shuttles etc.

My elders have told me, many times, that all government actions should always move slowly. This statement is really becoming very apparent when I am witnessing the billions and trillions of dollars currently being wasted with speedy over-the-weekend votes for greed by the United States congress; and, by these speedy actions they are not only destroying their own country from within but, at the same time, they are financially destroying major nations around the world. The republic of Texas is free of debt. Therefore, our progress is coming along in God's time not man's.

How much of a threat do you see of internal violence within an independent Texas, caused by those who wish to merge with Mexico? Do you think there may be an attempt by such people to split Texas up even further?

Texians do not wish to merge with Mexico. Mexico has more problems than they can handle at this moment. I do not feel the cause for any trouble will come from outside our borders unless the US creates some type of action (covert) that will make it appear that Mexico is behind some violence….wag the dog's tail, if you would. The people you may be talking about may be residing inside of Texas. I am not sure whom you are asking about causing violence.

If you would have seen Lou Dobbs a couple of weeks ago on CNN when he was telling about a Russian Professor showing the United States splitting up in six parts he showed a map that very few people would have recognized. The map was on the screen maybe five seconds but it showed Texas as Texas was in 1819 covering from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Not split up.

Are you concerned that Mexico may attempt to destabilize or militarily invade Texas?

In my opinion only, I do not think that there could possibly be an engagement with forces of Mexico, unless the United States desires for that to happen and provokes Mexico to start a skirmish of some sort. There are six million plus fully-armed Texians in Texas. Mexico should remember that in 1836 there were about 15,000 trained troops that came against 157 Texians in the Alamo. There were thousands of Mexico's troops killed and it took thirteen days to take the Texians down. I also seem to recall that in 1941 there was a Japanese top Naval officer who stated after Pearl Harbor was destroyed " I am afraid we have awaken a sleeping giant". He was right. You see, God is on our side so who can be against us?

Do you anticipate that the US government would accept a democratic or legal arrangement to hand over sovereignty to Texians? Can this be achieved in a friendly and diplomatic manner?

The United States of today is nothing more than a corporation just as all States, United Nations, IMF, NATO, etc. are and cannot recognize any sovereign living soul. As an example, the republic of Texas asked for recognition from The Hague of the Netherlands and all documents were returned to us with "lack of Jurisdiction". They can only rule on "corporate" disputes between two or more corporate countries. Corporations cannot recognize living souls. The STATE OF TEXAS SUPREME COURT ruled in 1994, " Lack of Jurisdiction" over the republic of Texas because they are also a corporation.

There is a Treaty of Limits on record between the united States of America and the republic of Texas but finding the true de jure united States of America government has not been accomplished.

When a baby is born in the UNITED STATES the mother signs a birth certificate as the informant that her child is born in the State of ------ not the United States. Therefore the baby is not a citizen of the United States but is a foreign state citizen until later (usually) when he or she is talked into signing some document that makes he or she a Corporate 14th amendment citizen.

The de jure republic of Texas has already claimed its rightful place in North America and will continue to create documentation to remove its trespassers.

I am not naïve enough to think that the greedy Corporatism United States is going to let the seventh richest land in the world go without a fight, especially since they are several trillion dollars in debt and bankrupt. The fight at this time is with paper. Again, I am not naïve enough to think about moving against a super power militarily; and I do not believe Texians will have to worry about that because the greedy ones are self-destructing as I write to you.

Yes, this whole matter can be resolved peacefully as long as our belief and faith in God is first and foremost. Peace will happen in His time frame, not ours.

Do you cooperate with secessionist movements elsewhere in the US?

I have no problem encouraging others to fight for their freedoms lawfully on paper as long as they have included God and His Son Jesus Christ in their actions and they are not just out for revenge and destruction.

Some well-qualified observers have been predicting that it is only a matter of time until the US breaks up into several parts. Do you see this as inevitability, and do you think the central government knows it will have to negotiate?

What the U.S. really wants to accomplish by the year 2010 is to combine all North American countries to include Mexico and Canada. The contracts for seamless borders have already been completed between the countries. This one country would be called the North American Union (NAU). Recently, Bush tried to bring forward the Amero (the new money for the NAU) but I heard it has been rejected by twenty nations plus China. Therefore, I believe that negotiations may be possible in the near future if the U.S. loses its financial integrity worldwide which is slowly beginning to happen with every passing day; and, I believe that Treaties with other Nations for commerce and Trade will develop with the republic of Texas - not the United States. Keep in mind, the republic of Texas Nation is the seventh richest land in the world. These treaties are the recognition needed to complete the control over the lands within the republic of Texas's present geographical jurisdiction claims.

Do passions run high amongst American individuals opposing secession? Is all the opposition from the central government rather than opinionated people as such?

Which Americans are you describing? There are individuals from North, Central and South America. Saying the word "Americans" is a brain-washing technique. Whoever you are trying to describe I would not have any first hand information as to their thoughts.

There is no "central government" as you think. It is all "fictional corporate figureheads" pretending to be government. The constitutions they use are corporate charters. These so-called governments will always oppose the people being truly free. The whole corporate system from bottom to top is designed to keep control of the slaves (the people).

There is opposition from people that do not know who they really are and who are puppets without any rights but have all kinds of "privileges" they pay for unlawfully, such as taxes, fees, licenses, etc.

Do you feel that most Texians generally support Texan national independence?

Yes, I believe that 100% of Texians are for national independence or they would not declare themselves as Texians. Texians are International citizens whereas Texans are corporate state citizens.

Where Texas republic needs help is from people and organizations such as yourself and your website to help us get the word out to the Texans who are corporate State and United States citizens who do not know who they are and most do not know who Texians are. The major mainstream medias have kept the republic of Texas hidden from the public slaves as much as possible with the exception of "negative" news when one of ours gets in some kind of trouble - the media is right on the spot to downgrade the republic.

Would you say that Barack Obama's election to be President and the current financial crisis are factors that will increase support for Texian independence?

I would say "yes" there have been many Texians gained because of the election but not necessarily because of race. The people of North America as a whole that know who they are have lost all faith and confidence in the United States so-called government. They are fed up with the lies, thievery, and mostly the stupidity of the actions being committed without any forethought to what is being done to what once was a great Nation under God.

The world is vastly overpopulated. But it is not just overpopulated by humans. It is overpopulated by domestic animals. This is a concept that is somehow missed by people who claim that voluntarily limiting childbirth in the west helps the planet. Logic is a rarity nowadays. Political correctness thrives on narrow minded ignorance and swallowing ideas without questioning their validity. As a result extreme hypocrisy is common. The media and the state support the idea that it is irresponsible to have any more than two children, and environmentalists regularly applaud those who chose not to have any. Yet there are some facts that are rarely mentioned and are critical to this issue.

As westerners limit their birth rates, with our numbers at least halving in each generation, pet ownership has risen in tandem with the drop in babies. Yet pets have environmental pawprints, and their living breathing bodies take up space just like a human does. Dogs outnumber children in cities.

Pet overpopulation in the United States is a real problem and can contribute to problems for the environment. Just one female dog and her puppies if left intact can produce 67,000 new dogs in one year.

Another fact of course is that while the birth rate of Europe has dropped, populations continue to rise. Developing nations profit financially from the taxes of the childless in the developed nations, consequently breeding a number of children to replace every child not produced by someone conscientious or just (more usually) uninterested in having a child under any circumstances.

But I don't want to talk about immigration here. I want to talk about other ways in which the childless are quite happily abusing the environment. Having a pet, as mentioned, is a significant way. Let us consider how much a pet such as a dog or cat can impact on the environment.

A pet owner complains:

…A recent crisis with my cat has deeply taxed my savings. […] I have spent more than $4500 on my pet in the last three months. She developed lymphoma and the initial hospitalization and testing to find out what was wrong accounted for the bulk of the expense. The rest has been spent on follow-up chemotherapy treatments.

The same piece advises:

One way to avoid such difficult decisions is to buy pet insurance. Although it can be expensive at around $30 a month, it will definitely help soften the blow of a huge unexpected bill (although it likely won’t cover it all).

That $30 is sufficient to feed a child for a week!

Dogs are eating better than we are - and it's killing us.

While most family dogs are fed a nutrient-packed meal of dried or canned food, children are being pumped with over-processed rubbish with cancer-causing chemicals, scientist Dr Peter Dingle said yesterday.

As a result kids are suffering a range of heath problems and diseases, including poor digestion, constipation, obesity, diabetes and hyperactivity.

And that $30 is just for the pet insurance, not covering food and other costs. Whether the owner has insurance or not, treating the sick pet uses resources, with the pet receiving better medical care than humans do elsewhere in the world (despite the liklihood that the pet owner claims to care about the suffering of humanity). The cost of dog food is an added expense and, because it is made of meat, you have to remember the fact that meat production is not at all green. Dog owners do not dispose of dog waste as much as they should. This is a toxic hazard that contaminates land and water.

America's 73 million dogs produce around 10 million tons of dog poop per year — 6,500 tons of that in San Francisco alone, making up around 4 percent of the city's total residential waste. The litter from America's 90 million pet cats results in around 2 millions tons of cat litter being sent to landfills each year. Making the problem worse, clay-based litters aren't biodegradable, as they're already in their final state of decomposition.

Feces left in gardens, parks, empty lots, and on the streets will run off into storm drains and waterways, contaminating them with bacterial waste that can cause human and wildlife diseases.

Taking the dog out for a walk involves driving to the location for many people. Some only own a car for this purpose. And it is impractical or impossible to take the dog into shops, so this often means going out again later to a shop you may have previously driven past that day. Then there are the plastic toys and pet beds - more wasted resources.

Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV? My bet would be on the dog. I'm thinking of all of the resources that go into dog food.

You could argue that children also consume a lot of resources, but that is different. A dog does not have the potential to discover a cure for cancer. A dog is not going to provide for you in your old age.

I personally have nothing against dogs. But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.

Clearly if someone really feels they should not have a child purely because of overcrowding and environmental effects, they should not have pets either. Nor should they consume products from domesticated animals. Cattle take up space and they produce methane which is a significant greenhouse gas causing climate change.

Childless people tend to make up for the resources they would have spent on their children by spending money on luxuries, jet setting around the world, and so on. Basically all of this is Parkinson's Law in action: "the demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource." In the case of humanity the demand will soon have exceeded the resource. What is saved by the green decision to destroy the family (which is certainly what is happening) does not lessen the global overcrowding nor does it lessen the use of resources.

The fewer children our nation has, the better it is for the economy. The state saves on child benefit payments and education expenditure; more women are in the workplace and non-parents have more cash to spend. Many economists consider these the reasons countries with a very high birth rate have the lowest economic growth. So a low birth rate pleases government in that respect. And the better the GDP, which is a measure of economic activity, the worse it is for the planet. People have to decide things with clear heads and realise that remaining childless for green reasons is a lame excuse used by individualists to justify their self-obsessed lifestyles. The overcrowding will continue and so will the consumerism. These things are stopped by caring about your family, and by caring about future generations - not by deciding there won't be any.

John Zerzan is one of the leading advocates of the anti-civilization movement, communicating through speech, literature and action that modern society is unsustainable and harmful to our psychology and freedom. Following in the footsteps of Theodore Kaczynski, Zerzan is a radical anarcho-primitivist and believes that we must get rid of civilization itself, returning to a very simple lifestyle close to nature. His ideas confront commonly held beliefs about primitive people and about our path towards progress.

When was the first time you seriously began to question modern civilization?

I began to question civilization by the early '80s. Began the route to this in the '70s when I was looking at the beginnings of industrialism in England, which led to certain conclusions about the nature of technology (that's it's always about values, never neutral). This went on to thinking about division of labor and soon I was confronted by the nature of civilization. About when Fredy Perlman was making similar conclusions.

Most people today would agree that we live in troubled times, but few would dare to claim the system is fundamentally flawed. What makes you defend the radical viewpoint that we cannot reform civilization to better meet our needs and the future health of our planet?

Freud saw civ [Editor's note: civilization] as the cause of neurosis (Civ and its Discontents), Jared Diamond called domestication (the basis of civ) "the worst mistake humans ever made." It isn't so hard to come to a radical conclusion about it; what is harder is to project an alternative.

A big part of your criticism against civilization is that it gives birth to hierarchies and inequalities. Is it possible for humans to completely get rid of social power structures?

I think it's possible to get rid of the structures; afterall. Homo didn't seem to need them for more than two million years. Power structures emerge quite recently really. That is with domestication, followed swiftly by civ.

German anthropologist Hans-Peter Dürr made a study during the 80’s, which described primitive tribes in modern time displaying extreme social guilt over nakedness and sexuality. Aren’t there other countless examples of primitive tribes where social and cultural norms uphold power and gender structures as part of everyday life?

Primitive is a fairly useless term. The watershed is whether or not people practice some domestication. This sounds simplistic but it holds true universally. Think of a behavior or attitude that we might call negative. Did it exist before domestication? No is the simple answer.

Theodore Kaczynski rejected leftism, because he believed it would inevitably support collectivism, and thus, the growth of large-scale societies. Do you agree with him or have you chosen a different ideological path?

I do agree with that. I am anti-leftist. ('Post-leftist' is a phoney term signifying about nothing.)

Kaczynski also famously claimed that technology creates incentive for its own continued growth. Is technology a necessary evil, or is primitive technology in small-scale communities acceptable, as long as it doesn’t develop into industrial forms?

Tools are fine, that which has little or no division of labor/specialization. Systems of technology are a 'necessary evil' if you want eco-disaster and barren techno-cultures (like this one).

Let’s say we had the possibility of returning to local, self-sustaining communities tomorrow. Would we be able to regulate or prevent communities to unite and begin developing better technology and more advanced lifestyles?

Given what we know about the bad results of political and technological development I would think that people would not want to replicate that path.

You’ve said that the “symbolic thinking” of modern man, including language, mathematics and time, limits and oppresses our freedom. What do you believe led up to the development of these things—why did humanity choose civilization culture and not primitive culture? Do we have a choice at all?

My guess is that the very, very slow movement of division of labor crept up on humans and set the stage for domestication. All of society moves along together so that it is hard to reverse things - which is a big reason technology never goes backward. The whole question of the symbolic is connected, I think, to the movement of alienation. Unless it's just a coincidence that both seemed to have come along together.

Kaczynski argues that we need to destroy key elements of industrial society in order to return to a pre-industrial order. Do you believe this is realistically possible, and if so, are there ethical limits to radical activism against the current order?

I think the elements need to be destroyed but if the population wants technology it will likely, I'm afraid, simply be re-installed. So the challenge is deeper than just physically destroying the stuff. The limits of militancy would seem to be determined in terms of how serious the situation is in one's estimation. That is people who are shocked by radical acts are basically those who feel that the dominant order is mainly sound and healthy.

Do you believe green anarchists are organized enough to be able to overthrow the current system and replace it with your ideal vision, or do anarcho-primitivists need to align themselves with other anti-globalist groups in order to grow more powerful?

What other 'anti-globalist' groups, is one question. Where are leftist groups, for instance, anti-globalization? They want to reform it not get rid of it - because industrial existence, mass society, is fine with them. But a-p folks [Editor's note: anarcho-primitivists] are nowhere potent enough yet to be decisive against it.

What changes do you want to see being implemented as a part of reducing the negative impacts of globalization?

Abolition of globalization ,in favor of radically decentralized, face-to-face community somewhat along the lines of band society, which obtained for thousands of generations.

Some people might compare your views with that of Rousseau. Isn’t there a danger in romanticizing “the wild man” against “the modern man,” imposing a romantic picture of what’s it like to live a primitive lifestyle?

Romantizing or idealizing life outside of domestication/civlization is not a good idea and the road there is not likely to be a picnic. But what are the choices? Continuing on a path of suicide, genocide, ecocide?

The current ecological crisis is beginning to scare many. Is humanity by nature an irresponsible species, or what motivates us to value profit and greed over long-term health for the environment and ourselves?

No, not by nature. Again, consider that war, hierarchy, eco-destruction, the systematic objectification of women, religion, work, etc etc. are products of domestication/civ and that people - who were cooking with fire 2 million years ago -did fine without that exalted development.

Do you believe a collapse of the globalist order is inevitable, or is there a possibility for humanity to unite its best of minds and choose a different path?

I am actually hopeful that as reality continues to present itself unmistakably that there could be a conscious choice in favor of a sane existence. That of course is what I am working toward.

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Visit John Zerzan's site at http://www.johnzerzan.net/ for more information.

Emeritus Professor Albert Bartlett, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been fascinated with the idea of overpopulation and peak energy for some time now. With his scientific and common-sense approach toward these ideas, he has been unable to ignore the simple arithmetic surrounding overpopulation and the consequences humanity faces if it does not drastically curb population growth and petroleum use.

Overpopulation is a politically incorrect topic. Bartlett notes in our interview that any politician running on a platform of population reduction for the betterment of our society would never be elected, and the evidence can be seen worldwide: In the United States, when population growth began to slow after the post-world war II boom, legal and illegal immigration both became easier, and now our borders are simply fading. In Europe, countries like Italy, which had evolved to the point of negative population growth, had leaders worrying more about short term economics than how beautiful more resources for less people could be, and as a result, immigration policy loosened throughout Europe. Now, countries as far north as Sweden have to deal with a huge influx of Muslim immigrants, and Italy has had to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants from all over, simply because their political leaders have wrapped the term progress around forced assimilation of an outside population.

The well eventually runs dry, and this is Bartlett's point of contention. Consider the fact that the United States currently imports approximately 60% of its petroleum, 15% of its natural gas, and 20% of the food we eat. These figures alone demonstrate that the United States has reached its carrying capacity and should quickly limit population by any reasonable means. Dr. Bartlett understands the long term effects of damaging growth – to the environment, to resource supplies, and particularly to personal freedoms once enjoyed in the United States. He points out in his "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy" lecture, that democracy has been reduced in Boulder by a factor of five, when considering population has increased by a factor of five with the same amount of political representation in the city for the past fifty years. These are astounding figures, and one need only look to our own Constitution which was supposed to prevent the effects of power concentration despite population growth. It states in Article 3, "the number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand". The term "shall not exceed" was upheld as a maximum number of 30,000 per representative by President Washington's first veto and federalist papers on the topic. Dr. Bartlett poses a challenge here to those that would insist population growth is somehow necessary to a healthy economy or long-term outlook, or even those that feel richer nations should allow immigration from poorer nations as an altruistic gesture: He states "Can you think of any problem, on any scale, microscopic or global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by having larger populations at the local level, the state level, nationally, or globally?"

This is all aside from the environmental damage and lack of sustainability of any population growth with 6.7billion now on the planet. Population growth ends up having an exponential effect on resource consumption at today's levels, and Dr. Bartlett shows that we already seem to be on the downward slope of available resources, by using the Hubbert curve, so named after Dr. M. King Hubbert. In order to sustain the current population at current rates of consumption, we would have to find more petroleum in the ground than we have ever found before in the history of petroleum discovery and exploration, and even this amount would only last a very short while. This is a simple fact: as the population has grown, we have used an increasing amount of petroleum, and so it follows with Bartlett's arithmetic that to sustain those levels of consumption, more than we have ever used would have to continually be found – and we all know that is not possible. Even with reduced consumption per person in some small degrees, due to green technologies and more conservative energy use, population growth still requires more and more energy. Any population growth at current levels only hastens the end of all petroleum exploration in our world, which would be disastrous in terms of the resource wars and the chaos which will ensue.

As noted by Dr. Bartlett, petroleum isn't just used to power vehicles; it's used for fertilizer to help grow food. This means that we are tying our very survival as a species to petroleum – a non-renewable energy source – with a population dependent on that non-renewable energy source growing by the tens of millions each year. Where is the common sense in politics, such that we are ignoring this problem and pretending it doesn't exist? Dr. Bartlett notes that even Al Gore, someone who has been preaching environmentalist and greenist values for some time now, mentions the issue in his book, "An Inconvenient Truth", yet refuses to offer population reduction as an answer to any of our environmental problems.

Bartlett speaks of solutions such as net-zero immigration policy, and reversing tax policy which rewards those with more children instead of punishing those with more children, considering our current population crisis. Of course, reproduction is beautiful, which is all the more reason to be less careless about reproduction and implement policies and education to help people better understand the negative effects of unwanted children and too many new children. Dr. Bartlett has stated many times in the past: the goal of reproduction education should be that, "Every child is a wanted child". Again, we see a theme of common sense and logic permeating Dr. Bartlett's arguments, yet most are unwilling to accept these ideas because they go against the grain of the freedoms and conveniences we enjoy in modern society, preferring to shut out the idea that one day, this could all end.

And speaking of human convenience in modern society, in response to a question regarding what would happen to human dignity if population growth continues at current rates; Isaac Asimov was quoted as saying: "It will be completely destroyed. I like to use what I call my bathroom metaphor: If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms, then both have freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom any time you want to, and stay as long as you want to, for whatever you need. And everyone believes in freedom of the bathroom; it should be right there in the Constitution. But, if you have twenty people in the same apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door; 'Aren't you through yet?', and so on. In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive overpopulation. Convenience and decency cannot survive overpopulation. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies; the more people there are, the less one individual matters."

This statement by Asimov, quoted by Dr. Bartlett in his "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy" lecture, is profound when considering the mentality of our politically correct world and the crowd which allows it to perpetuate. We are told that all life is special and everyone should be equal, yet we ignore the simple fact that we are creating too much life, which actually reduces the quality of life for everyone in the long term. A conscious decision to reduce our population in the long term by breeding at below replacement levels with the goal of shrinking to a few hundred million would solve most of the resource-related issues in health care, government, and agriculture very quickly. Corrupt believes this should go hand in hand with limited immigration policies and a focus on local, organic cultures which are self-sufficient: after all, if there was plenty of space and resource for everyone, who would want to emigrate away from their culture and homeland?

Part of the problem, as always, is the hunger for power by those that already have it. If one is part of the political elite, able to direct militaries and withstand coup attempts as countries become increasingly unstable, being able to control more people can be seen as a good thing. In a democratic government, being able to represent more people is a good thing, because there's less accountability in government: there are so many people of varying backgrounds in each district, that a representative is free to do almost anything in terms of voting for certain laws, because unified political ideas and beliefs are lost in the crowd. As such, Dr. Bartlett bemoans the fact that even scientists have succumbed to political correctness, when in the past, scientists seemed to pay it no mind. In other words, the people who are currently the most qualified to direct us toward these ideas and pay them the attention they deserve, are making a conscious effort not to do so.

It is easy to lose hope at hearing such facts. The future of our planet and the human race is increasingly uncertain. But Corrupt believes that we are most certainly going to reach a point where population growth will stop. In fact, extrapolating Dr. Bartlett's logic out to its conclusion, there is no question that human population growth will stop. The only question is: will we, as an enlightened species, stop population growth willingly, and pay attention to long term solutions to our problems? Or will we wait until petroleum is completely dried up, there is no more of it to find, and all of our air travel, car travel, water travel, massive corporate-owned farms, supermarkets, and all commercial transportation cease or are drastically curbed down to nearly nothing? In this scenario, our economists and political leaders will no longer be speaking of democracy, helping out foreign nations, allowing immigration, nor will religious leaders be speaking of producing as many good Christians, Jews, or Muslims as possible to fulfill prophecies. Our apocalypse will be in the form of stupidity: continuing to grow well beyond our means and failing to adjust to the simple arithmetic and common sense described by Dr. Bartlett in his published works and lectures.

Recently, we were able to spend some time interviewing Dr. Bartlett to gain additional insight into his ideas.

Frank Azzurro:

Thanks very much for taking the time to answer some questions for Corrupt.org today. We'll be discussing some of your ideas which are reviewed per some essays you published online and particularily the DVD lecture titled, "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy", which I thought was very good, so - let's get right to it. The first question I had was: was there a specific event during your life, either before or after you joined you joined the staff at UC Boulder, which triggered this intense dedication to the idea of overpopulation?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

I don't know if there was a single event... It just sort of grew on me, as I - you know, I dropped out of college years ago, worked on iron-ore freighters on the Great Lakes, and I wondered, will we ever run out of this rich Mesabi iron ore? You know, we'd go out and get 10,000 tons and send them down to a blast furnace in New York. And I sort of dimissed the question from my mind. I said look Al, you're just a dishwasher; and there are smart people in Washington, so if there's any danger of running out they'll alert us in advance so we can slow down. And I'm sort of ashamed to admit how long it took me to realize that the people in Washington will not tell you when there's a problem, and they just go on. And of course most of that Mesabi ore is gone now, and so we have a completely different steel business in this country. And so as I began to lecture on Arithmetic and Growth and applying it to populations I realized more and more that population growth is really the central problem in the whole system. For instance in global warming: If any fraction of the observed global warming can be attributed to the actions of humans, this is all the proof you need, this is positive proof that the human population is larger than the carrying capacity of the Earth. And so we're living on borrowed time. And this means then that it's an inconvenient truth that any and all efforts to reduce global warming that do not address overpopulation are doomed from the start to just be marginal.

Frank Azzurro:

Right. Very true. Now, a lot of the political leaders and journalists today, they talk about greenhouse emissions and "eco-products", things you can buy to say you're "Green", but they never really mention anything about overpopulation or overconsumption; why do you think this is?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

I think it's politically incorrect. Scientists especially don't want to be politically incorrect. Politicians certainly don't want to be politically incorrect. And journalists, by and large- you may get a crusading journalist at some point who will go out and write about it - but by and large, journalists aren't crusaders like that so they won't take it up. In the US it's a problem because something like 80% of the population growth in the US now is due to immigration, and most of it is legal. And so if you say anything about immigration, people will call you all kinds of bad names.

Frank Azzurro:

Yeah, this is true. What changes do you think need to be implemented to the system of our government before our leaders begin taking these problems seriously?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

Well... I don't know. We need to have a national dialogue from coast to coast to say, "Where do we want to be population-wise in 30 years? Do we want to just keep on growing by 3 million extra people every year, or do we want to stabilize it, or do we want to decrease it?" And I like to ask people, when they resist the idea of addressing population growth: Can you think of any problem, on any scale - microscopic or global - whose long term solution is any demonstrable way aided, assisted or advanced, by having larger populations at the local level, the state level, nationally, or globally. Can you think of ANYTHING that will get better if we crowd more people into our cities, our states, our nation, or the world. And there aren't any answers. Nothing gets better. Everything gets worse.

Frank Azzurro:

This is true, I see that as a recurring theme, in the literature for sure, that you sent over. Now, in terms of - what I want to transition to here - is would you support more local communities that are self sufficient, over this kind of national, you know, everything being centralized and regular old international trade being the norm for basics like food and energy... instead of that, go to more of a local model of self-sufficiency?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

Well, we have to, because petroleum production worldwide has either peaked, or is just about to peak. The data are not clear yet. You have to go maybe 8 or 10 years after the peak to see a real downtrend before you can say, oh the peak was back there. But we're very close to the peak and so when we start down the other side of peak, we'll see a rapid rise in oil prices. Now that means then that everything - and we see it already - automobile travel, air travel, ocean travel, shipping things large distances, food in particular - that's all going to go way up in cost. And [indecipherable] will be less popular. So we need to go to getting more of our food locally. Of course some people say there's no problem with food as long as we've got Safeway supermarkets. We don't need farmers.

Frank Azzurro:

Yeah. A very silly notion, obviously. The convenience with which people enjoy being able to gather food from the supermarket is absurd. It can't last. And you know, that kind of leads people into this illusion, where they just buy packaged food. Do you think humanity in that sense is kind of past the point of understanding this simple arithmetic such that the sudden and drastic decline in energy, and democracy, and economic activity you've been talking about here is inevitable?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

I suspect it is. It is inevitable simply because once oil production clearly peaks worldwide then we will we see a peak of almost everything in the society that depends on oil. A peak in commuting traffic, a peak in airline travel. A peak in big agricultural food production, perhaps starting our shift back to the small independent farmers. But part of the shift is going to be hard to do because the best farmland now is being paved over for subdivisions. But I suspect that we will see things just gradually get tighter and tighter, and once it's clear, which might be 10 years from now, that oil production worldwide is well into its irreversible decline towards zero, then people will really panic. Have you ever read the book Limits to Growth?

Frank Azzurro:

I have not.

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

You've heard of it.

Frank Azzurro:

Yes.

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

Well, it was published in 1972 and it was a computer model, where they plotted things like population, food, pollution, energy, and a couple of other variables as a function of time for the world total global economy. So in 1972, they had the whole history from 1900 to 1972, and that part of the graph is history, and the graph in the future was produced by the computer program. And no matter what they did, population in particular collapsed in the mid part of this century- collapsed means dropped 10% or something. That's a colossal, catastrophic drop. And the whole world community of economists just fell all over themselves to say, this is wrong, you know, doing analysis like this is wrong, and it's just too terrible to be true. And the editorial writers picked up on what the economists said, and they repeated this, that it's terrible; and there were claims that the Club of Rome, which had sponsored it, had withdrawn their approval for it or something like this. And I talked once to a member to the Club of Rome and asked him, on that thing specifically, and he said oh no, we haven't withdrawn our approval for it, that's still a good report. Now in 1992 they published a 20-year update, and their conclusion was we lost 20 years. And in 2002 they published a 30-year update. And it still says the same thing.

Frank Azzurro:

Now, you almost think that, if they had started the analysis maybe 20 years earlier, you know 1972 was kind of this blossoming of politically correct thought, that maybe things would have been different...

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

Well, one of the things that economists love to say is that we've proven Malthus was wrong. Now Malthus wrote his essay on population about 200 years ago. And in the environment that he knew, namely of England and Europe around the year 1800, he predicted widespread famine. Well, these economists all say that we have more people well-fed today than ever before, so we've proven Malthus wrong. And I have to rebut it and say, well yeah, but there's more people starving today than there have ever been before, so maybe Malthus was right. And then you look at it, well how come we do have so many people well fed today, and the answer is petroleum. And [modern] farming is just the use of land to convert petroleum into food. And so, without petroleum, we're going to see a peak in agricultural production, and that could trigger this downswing in US population, in world population.

Frank Azzurro:

Right, it's certainly inevitable. And just kind of switching gears here - there was a representative from Louisiana named John LaBruzzo - he recently gained some press by outlining a plan of allowing volunteers on social welfare programs to be sterilized for a thousand dollars. So this is for volunteers. This is probably not a good longterm solution, in terms of protecting liberty, and forming a better society; but in the context of the times, and the information you've shared over the years, what do you think of that plan?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

Well I don't - you know - that is eugenics, and again that has a bad name. And 100 years ago people talked about sterilizing people that were in insane asylums, and - I think society's completely rejected that today to say that the few cases that may have been done, in the past hundred years or so, they were wrong. So... no, I think we just have to educate people, and get them to realize - for instance, here's a very local thing: you have to realize that at the local level, part of the Chambers of Commerce are out promoting growth, and the growth never pays for itself. Your taxes have to go up in your community to pay for the cost of growth in your community. And that's the thing I think we ought to just hit on as hard as we can. And there was a study done by a planter in Oregon, it's in a little book called Better, not Bigger, and the author is Eben Fodor. And he says every new house in Oregon costs Oregon taxpayers overhaul, something in the order of $25,000. Unpaid public requirements for schools, and fire protection, police, water, sewer, all the municipal infrastructure- highways, streets, and so on... it never pays for itself. Yet you hear all these promoters saying oh, yeah, well you've got to get new industry here, to broaden the tax base or something like this. And I'm debating it once in a while, with big promoters, and I say, I know what you mean when you say broaden the tax base. You mean raise everyone's taxes to pay for the cost of your growth, don't you? And yet [indecipherable]

Frank Azzurro:

Right. Given what I feel is your libertarian viewpoints to an extent, I am curious as to your thoughts on the fact that statistically speaking, we tend to have people with higher IQs having fewer children and later in life. And you mentioned education. Would you support measures that would encourage those with higher IQs – well, they're already having fewer children; maybe encourage those with lower IQs to have less children, and vice versa?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

I would just encourage everyone to have access to family planning; to make sure that medical care [is a priority]…the ultimate goal should be that every child is a wanted child. You cannot pick out people by IQs and treat one group one way and another group another way…that is not an acceptable because of the great uncertainties, and it isn't fair.

Frank Azzurro:

And, it might take – we say education and we've been talking about this throughout the interview; what might some of the other measures be, short of, if you simply overthrow regimes; which is a radical solution and tends to be counterproductive...more aggressive than just education, but short of a directionless revolution?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

Well, you can use a tax policy; what you can do is say if you have two children you get no exemptions on your income tax, then if you have 3, 4, and 5 children, each would require higher taxes paid. Now that's just the reverse of what it is now, you get benefits and reductions for extra kids. That in a sense encourages larger families so what you should do is, you can use a tax situation to convey a message that more children don't help get us toward sustainability. You can see that zero population growth is not something to be feared, virtually all of Europe is at zero population growth right now, and it hasn't been the end of the world. There are some problems in making the transition, but there's nothing inherently difficult about having low fertility rates.

Frank Azzurro:

Right, and economically speaking it doesn't make sense; we do have a tax policy that tends to reward people with more kids – certainly something I feel might work. Final question, Dr. Bartlett if you could – if you've thought about this, if you could implement five important changes to society today, what would those be?

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

First of all, through an educational program, try to get the fertility rate down. The second thing would be zero net immigration. It's estimated a couple hundred thousand leave the country voluntarily every year; we could let in a couple hundred thousand so there would be no net gain or loss from immigration. And you do that for a period of time until you get used to it, and learn how to run our society, because it's very clear that any society that has to import people to do the work for the society is by definition unsustainable. The third thing is to put a great emphasis on energy conservation, meaning all sorts of things to get people to use less energy in their homes, their daily lives, and their workplaces, because we need to – we import a big fraction, something like two-thirds of the petroleum we use in this country is imported. We should try to get those imports down just as far as we can. Then I think we need to have a program of good medical care, so people can live longer and more productive lives, but that sort of reinforces that if you do that, if you help people live longer, then you need to reduce the fertility rate to compensate for that. And then I think we need a big environmental program, to ensure the air is clean and the water is clean; that we're not continuing this business of all this pollution that we have. But the top of the [list] is to get the population stabilized and get it on a downward curve, down to a level that is sustainable.

Frank Azzurro:

That's all I had, Dr. Bartlett, right now, and once again, thank you very much for spending the time to talk with me today.

Dr. Albert Bartlett:

All right, thank you.

Frank Azzurro:

Thank you very much!

Correction: Article 1, section 2, states in the Constitution that there should be one representative for every 30,000 people.

Transcribed from phone interview by Frank Azzurro and Anton Rays.

When Leonidas and his meager force marched to Thermopylae, they knew they would die. They had no illusions of merciful treatment should they be captured. Knowing this, they held nothing back. They fought fiercely against the odds against them and were able to hold back the invading army, if only briefly. These men fought to their deaths without even considering surrender.

Today, we celebrate the movie "300." The "This is Sparta" meme was born. We recognize the selflessness and bravery of Leonidas and the Spartans. We admire this and acknowledge them as heroes. We realize that because these men committed the ultimate sacrifice, they were able to change the world and live on as legends. Yet men have not approached battle with this spirit in over 100 years.

James Bowie wrote to Governor Henry Smith, "Colonel Neill and myself have come to the solemn resolution that we will rather die in these ditches than give it up to the enemy." When the Mexican army took Bexar, they raised a red flag signifying that no quarter would be given. The Texians responded by firing a cannon. At the start of the battle, William Travis is quoted as shouting, "Come on boys, the Mexicans are upon us and we'll give them hell!" These men knew there would be no surrender. They were all killed in battle.

Due to the bravery of these men, the phrase "Remember the Alamo!" has entered our vernacular. This was the battle cry which boosted morale during the Battle of San Jacinto, where the Texians finally defeated Santa Anna and Texas achieved independence.

In both battles, the defending armies were underdogs facing overwhelming odds of at least 10 to 1. They fought valiantly and died for their causes. Through their deaths, they achieved a victory. While the opposing armies may have won the battle, they were Pyrrhic victories. Both of these battles were decisive turning points that lead to the eventual defeat of the attacking armies. By committing themselves fully to battle, these men inspired their countrymen, showing what they could do if they only had the will to do so, while simultaneously destroying enemy morale.

There have been times in recent history, when it was preferable to be a prisoner of war of the enemy than a citizen of the country you were sworn to protect. Soldiers of countries with despotic leaders or high poverty levels who were cold and starving would find surrender a way to remove themselves from these discomforts, regardless of whether they had family in their native land or not. They knew the opposing army was obliged to protect them. We could see this happening in Desert Storm and now in the current conflicts in Iraq and Georgia.

When there is no alternative but death, you will give battle all of your energy. This is how heroic battles of the past have been fought that we celebrate today. Even in parts of life that aren't warfare, giving all that we have is the way to accomplish something, even if at personal cost. Whether raising a family, running a company, or helping a civilization expand, we sacrifice something of ourselves to get ahead.

As our time has turned to decay, and our civilization has begun to make collapsing noises from deep within, we see a different outlook, which is that we have censors overlooking our method. These censors come in the
name of Justice and Safety and they comprise the psychological component of the nanny state. Like children with BB guns, we are admonished to make sure no one gets hurt to the point where our ability to enjoy being
children is destroyed. We are told to pay more attention to correctness of method than the sheer power and accomplishment of having a goal, and that is why our society moves backward every minute.

Since we have robbed ourselves of valor, there is nothing for us to do but rebel like teenagers, decorating our rooms with posters that say "I may be forced to go to school, but I don't want to," in the many metaphors of rock music and absurdly impractical political stances. Our frustration, like stale sweat, grows on us until we hate ourselves, all because we cannot honestly strive for anything without succumbing to the neurosis of methodological, moral, humanist critique.

In the film Gattaca, the character Vincent engages his genetically superior brother in a contest to see who could swim the farthest from the shore. Vincent dedicates himself by exerting all his strength to win. His brother holds back, concerned about the return swim. Vincent achieves victory through sheer will alone, not concerning himself with the consequences. This is how valiant battles are fought.

Every type of method-based self-censorship we tolerate makes us weaker. Why should we have a Geneva Convention? War is hell, fight it to the maximum! Why should we have constant propaganda imploring us to stop smoking or wear condoms? Life is struggle, do what seems best! And so on: these little rules, made with the best of intentions, slowly deprive us of the ability to give our whole selves toward struggling for a goal, and while we may be safer, it is our spirits that have lost.

The controversial non-profit political organization Corrupt Inc. has become a dominant force in dissident internet culture. With their brutal and scarily accurate observations of our modern time, it's easy to see how its philosophy can make an impression on someone. And yet one senses that Corrupt is fundamentally different from its contemporaries, both in the optimism of its outlook and holistic view of modern neurosis.

Alex Birch is the volunteer Editor of Corrupt Inc. and its website Corrupt.org. We recently caught up with him to discuss the organization itself, activism, God, western decline, and of course, kipple.

1. What is Corrupt? What is its worldview?

Corrupt is a think-tank researching the problems of modern society and paving way for a new civil order based on traditional values and ideals. We spread information through blog commentary, web media, street activism and book publications.

Corrupt is neither left nor right, neither liberal nor conservative. Some describe us as futuristic traditionalists. We carry some fundamental political ideals from Platonism and uphold the values and the spirit of the ancients, fused with a perspective and focus on the futuristic. Our worldview can be compared to the music of Kraftwerk: technological romanticism. We want to create and live in a modern civilization, but we reject the design behind modern society, and believe we need to progress through organic culture and traditional lifestyles.

2. What are your particular duties as editor of Corrupt.org? What does a "normal day" entail when volunteering for such an organization?

My duties as editor are many; I receive all articles and column submissions, and edit them until they're ready for publication; I'm responsible for all staff members working with us, making sure they complete projects in time and develop their individual skills for the benefit of the organization as a whole; I send out all public communications; I'm responsible for what goes on the website and how it's published, including technical functionality.

In addition to this I have final responsibility for the content we produce and our progress towards our main goals. It's kind of like being in charge of a political party, keeping up with world news, motivating people, and addressing our ideas in public, although we're not big enough to qualify as a party yet.

We have two kinds of people working with us: the staff member and the contributor. Staff members have specific roles within Corrupt and their job is to develop that role within our main goals. They work in teams and maintain regular correspondence among one another, including me, to which they report in their weekly work. Contributors are people who don't have a permanent role within Corrupt, but help us out by responding to project requests.

All people who want to work with Corrupt start out as contributors. Most of them end up staying contributors, mainly because not many people are able to work consistently on a long-term project, and live fairly disorganized lives. It's a product of our society, so we don't hold it against them, although we've basically moved away from spending too much time on contributors in general, since the idea hasn't paid off. Instead we hope to bring people into the movement by keeping us updated with news, interesting articles and videos, and street activism.

3. How does Corrupt plan to balance the need for active contributers with the need for high quality content?

One of the first lessons you make as an editor is that most people don't have their act together. That means you can't rely upon contributors to sporadically finish important work for you. Because of this, Corrupt encourages contributors to participate in light tasks such as voting up articles and commenting on columns with a link back to us. Everyone who has got 5-10 minutes to spare after work/studies can help us out, without any obligations or tedious instructions. The content you see on the front page is produced by people who have proven to us that they can do more than others, and have therefore been promoted to a position equal to their ability. It's the most realistic and pragmatic option to make things happen with a group of dedicated volunteers.

4. Corrupt has internally and externally evolved since its inception. How have you witnessed Corrupt's cultural role change in your time as editor, and what was done to meet these shifts? What changes do you believe are imminent for Corrupt and its potential audience, and how do you foresee the organization adapting to these changes?

Like in most other cases in life, the external changes Corrupt has gone through, reflect internal changes. The people who have followed us since the beginning, have seen Corrupt go from a static-HTML site with simple design presenting the latest articles, to a professional-looking blog with articles, columns, and commentary on the latest news.

We've expanded into the blogosphere and social network world, creating awareness among a new audience of Corrupt readers. This external change reflects a consistent refinement of method in how we achieve our goals. Our first goal is to become an influential media central, and we decided early on to make that happen by utilizing the popular blog format for commentary, add the appreciated articles on topics like politics and lifestyle, and produce joyful, warlike columnists to assist that, communicating a critical but positive message to the thinking segment of the modern world.

As our readers have demanded more media-oriented functions and a possibility to create subcommunities under the banner of Corrupt, we spent a fair amount of time migrating to a brand new content management system, installing functions like the organic groups, user registration, ability to comment on our content, and future features that are still in progress. Before this I was editing HTML pages manually, which simply didn't work when we started to receive more readers. So technically, we've equipped Corrupt to meet the standards and demands of today's blogworld, which we intend to integrate with and succeed in.

As for the future changes, a lot of what we've done is to streamline the way we work. We've cut down on correspondence, administration and technical experimentation, and aimed to develop the fields we currently are doing well in. This is an essential change we've made, because being the few but dedicated individuals we are, there is simply no time and resources to play around with gimmicks. Our focus is on producing quality content and promoting it. As we gain more readers, we hope to expand, at which point we can refine the details I suspect some people wish we implement in the near future.

Another important aspect of our goal to become an influential media central is the publication of literature. By now I hope all of our regulars are aware of the English translation of ecophilosopher Pentti Linkola's latest book, which we will publish via our friends at Integral Tradition. As a matter of fact, Integral Tradition will function as our publishing arm, and we have more books in store for publication, but more on that in the future. What's essential to mention here is that Corrupt is establishing relationships across the web to close in on its goals, where our readers play an important role in spreading the message and suggesting us to friends and family.

5. Many readers who encounter Corrupt express concern at the arrogance or elitism associated with its philosophy. In a time of increasingly legalistic societies and sleazy politics, many citizens of the United States and elsewhere find it difficult to trust another political organization that says it has the answers. In the words of one reader "Well, who are you to tell us...?"

I want to start out by saying that while Corrupt rests on a meritocratic basis, which means that we believe individuals should be judged based on ability and character, we strongly reject the false elitism that we associate with modern behaviour. False elitism is based on ego or external things like clothes, cars and money. The reason to why false elitism is stupid is that the way we dress, talk, or drive, does not necessarily reflect who we are as individuals and what we are capable of achieving in life.

Therefore Corrupt wants to nurture people to develop their natural talents and make most out of themselves. It's unfortunate that some people confuse this for false elitism, but it should be noted that people who feel insecure or suffer from low self-esteem, inherently dislike any kind of system that affirms the inequality between individuals. Likewise, from over 2 years of experience from being an editor, I know that many people today have never been asked to voluntarily use their talents to a long-term project that requires dedication and effort. They can hardly finish a 2-week programming task.

That's why we might come off as "arrogant" sometimes: we've seen so many people flake out and leave us with all the work. Despite this fact, the spirit of Corrupt is in my opinion neither arrogant, nor bitter or negative. We're past all that, and approach everything as interesting challenges. It's an important part of our philosophy: to always appreciate conflict in life and move on.

In the past there have been people who have felt that we have no right to tell them how to live. There are two things I want to bring up here. The first is that we're not telling people how to live; we're pointing out common sense truths about personal health, lifestyle choices and psychological behaviour, confirmed by science, culture, history and religion. If I tell you that if you eat a lot of fast food and rarely exercise, you'll eventually become obese, that might offend some people. Their response might be: "It's my life, you have no right to tell me this."

My response to these people is: "Sure, no one's forcing you to listen to what I have to say. But that doesn't change the consequences of your lifestyle." Corrupt is NOT a big daddy, but that doesn't mean we think every lifestyle choice is sane, or that it doesn't matter if more than half of the people in a population is obese--it does matter. We allow lifestyle differences, just like we enjoy cultural diversity, but we also share the same reality; regardless of where you eat greasy food and spend 8 hours a day in an office, it's going to impact your health negatively.

Setting a healthier lifestyle direction is not about limiting people's taste in music, favourite DVD selection, car brand, or clothing. It's to point people in a general direction; it's about establishing agreement on general principles on how we should live our lives. If we disagree on the most fundamental issues of human existence, our society is going to continue degenerate, no matter how we much we discuss personal liberties.

The second thing is that we intentionally use a writing style that comes off to some readers as provocative and determined. This is part of how we present our ideas: we mock what we see as stupid, expose unpleasant truths without flinching, and point to a positive way out of negativity and ignorance. It's not meant to negatively offend, put off, or upset anyone. But we want to shake people up and show them that this is not a game.

The problems we face today are real. We don't have an exact lifestyle plan for people, but we emphasize general directions and ideas, which we believe are more or less essential to a healthy, productive life, no matter where you live. If you feel you don't need that inspiration--which is great, since it should mean that you already have good control over your diet, your exercise, and the way you spend your free time--we have more to offer that might interest you.

6. What do you believe sets Corrupt apart from other modern and anti-modern political organizations? From whence do you derive confidence in your purportedly functional philosophy? Do you believe you have a fundamental right to dictate how people should live, or do you believe that such an interpretation of your views is an unfortunate misunderstanding?

Corrupt is a unique organization, both philosophically and in regards to method. Our philosophy is called parallelism and suggests that there are several, parallel perspectives to approach reality, which means there is not one societal or cultural design that is superior or absolute, and can or should be applied everywhere to all people. This separates us from communists, neo-nazis, liberal democrats, capitalists, globalists and anarchists, who all believe in one system for all of us.

Our philosophy emphasizes relativity and the beauty of having different communities with different values. At the same time we avoid the pitfalls of pure relativism, since we believe that all societies and all perspectives ultimately must conform to the one and same reality. This means that while democracy remains a bad idea both in America and in Africa, because it fails to properly reflect the change in ability among people in a society, Corrupt may support one community that allows free drug use, and one community where it's banned. Parallelism is therefore a flexible philosophy, without diminishing the holistic aspect.

The Corruptian philosophy is reflected in the method we use to spread our ideas. Unlike most political organizations today, we're not only concerned with politics, and we're not dogmatically defending our view point as the Absolute Right perspective on things. Corrupt is trying to remake modern society, which you don't do simply by changing political direction. We work on all levels, including lifestyle and culture, the latter being a very important part. We want the modern people to embrace a new spirit. We don't think political policies, economical changes, cultural revival, or green activism alone can do it. We consider all aspects in our work.

The method we use to spread our ideas is called asymmetric activism, which means that instead of promoting our own message through a single political channel, and repeating it until we gain domination over other organizations, we want to primarily influence other groups. Therefore we don't have any real "enemies;" we work with leftists, libertarians, greens and separatists. We want these and other key groups to understand and change their point of view to fit the basic values and ideas we represent.

So a leftist could for example agree with us on globalization and come to agreement on certain key issues regarding how a government must operate. Libertarians agree with us on our policy on terrorism, drugs and power structure, where we defend a decentralization of power, and the freedom of individuals to do drugs and sodomy, as long as it's at home and not to any harm of the community as a whole. Separatists find us equally appealing, since we agree with them that pluralism (including variants like multiculturalism) doesn't work. Primitivists, survivalists and greens like our radical but realistic stance on how to deal with environmental problems, anarchists appreciate our instrumental view on power (if it doesn't serve a purpose, remove it), and traditionalists agree with us on the importance of ancient values and traditional spirituality.

Corrupt may therefore be one of the first organizations in modern time to not track down certain groups as enemies, but being geared at creating consensus among people, no matter what political, cultural or religious background they have, and point to a general direction which we believe is realistic and sane. Indeed, many describe us as pure realists, with a flavour of romanticism, meaning that while we remain critical and provocative, we also communicate a playful, adventurous message to our readers. Life should be interesting and we want society to reflect that.

7. Why do you believe what you propose will be better than what is?

I believe that Corrupt challenges the status quo by targeting the root causes for the decline of the modern civilization, analyzing its failures from a larger perspective that transcends all of those currently available today, and finding simple, realistic solutions that are concerned with both our ecology, our society, and our individual spirit.

I believe in Corrupt because no other anti-modern organization out there today addresses all the issues, and believes that we can change modern society without a bloody and useless revolution. Corrupt's reform plan of our politics, our culture, our spirit, our lifestyle, and our technology is all-comprehensive and pragmatic, in that it doesn't serve to spot enemies or blaming certain groups. There's no scapegoating and dogmatism. Quite simply, Corrupt is like the strong dad who comes home after work, finds his family in endless arguments about triviality, selfishness, ignorance and stupidity, and says:

"Listen up, the game's over. Stop fighting. Let's agree on how to move on with the current situation and let's do it now, with passion and adventure!"

8. Is there an objective ground of argument where we can resolve these issues?

This question can be answered both philosophically and generally.

Philosophically: I'm a Nietzschean at heart and therefore remain critical to the idea of pure objectivity. I don't think it's possible to escape viewing the world from a certain perspective, and as long as we're confined within the limits of our subjective perception, we can only come to conclusions with varying objective merits. This doesn't mean everything's relative; it's merely a philosophical note on the basis for our perception of reality.

Generally: If we are to place trust in science, tradition, and history, sure there is. Most issues today (environmental problems, ethnic conflicts, economic recessions, neo-colonialism, materialism, spiritual hollowness) are not new, nor are they so complex that we can't agree on basic ways of solving them and moving on. We face these problems today because humanity as a collective has lived in ignorance of the consequences of its actions. We overpopulated the planet, drained its resources, over-industrialized wild land, and then we asked: "Why do all fish contain cancer these days?"

We allowed multinational corporations to overthrow our governments in secret, importing millions of people as cheap labour to reduce production costs, and then we asked: "Why did the wages drop?" We privatized the economy and began replacing the production of domestic goods with pure financial speculation, and then we asked: "Why are we suddenly in a recession?" We decided to let national interests be controlled by corporate interests, so the hunt after natural resources and world power led us to a new age of colonial wars, and then we asked: "Why don't the Iraqis appreciate our freedom?" We exchanged the traditional values of heroism, honour, honesty, and transcendence for the hollow values of consumer materialism, and then we asked: "Why do our teenagers commit suicide?" We killed the myths and the religious wisdom because we failed to understand what it meant to us, and then we asked: "Why did God die?"

Yes, I believe we can resolve the main problems of modern civilization through fairly objective means, but it's not so much a question of objectivity, as it is about consensus. We have all the "proof" we need to change our civilization, now we need agreement on how to solve these basic problems. Think of it as the Kyoto protocol of all main problems we face today; for everyone it's obvious, the problems affect us all, so we need to sign the contract and work together to change the world. It's possible, but not as long as we keep our heads in the sand and prefer to watch whatever's on television instead. Escaping problems has never done anything good, but a handful of brave and idealistic people have through the history of mankind changed our world forever.

Change is possible, but it doesn't come about by waving a flag, voting on politicians, or donating $20 to Greenpeace every month. We need to change ourselves first, and then actively participate in society to live that change and influence people around us. I'm not so concerned about whether we scientifically can "prove" that we've polluted the groundwater, or "prove" that we live less interesting and healthy lives today. Empirically, for all people living in this age, it's the big elephant in the room. Address it, and we can finally move on to solve the real problems.

9. How do you know our civilization is in decline?

Every civilization is an organism; it has its birth, its growth, its highest ascendancy, its shrinking period, and its eventual decay into death. We place the Western civilization in its shrinking period, closing in on the eventual state of total decay. How we can confirm this? First, we look at history. We study previous civilizations; what gave birth to them, how did they grow, when were they in their prime years, when did they start to decline, and what killed them? We look for basic changes in society prior to their downfall, and find the same patterns in every human society, no matter where you go: leadership is overthrown and replaced by populist commerce rule, the traditional values are replaced by short-term materialism, and the lower segments of the population slowly take over society.

All of this has already happened in the West, and we are now beginning to experience the consequences. Notice that the historical scheme I outline for a civilization doesn't include apocalypses or total self-destructions. Rome didn't simply vanish into thin air when people began to pay more attention to sex and booze than to society and culture; all civilizations suffer a slow, long death, and consequences of bad decisions can take centuries to appear. For instance, we surpassed the number of people our planet can sustain a long time ago, but first now do we see the real horror effects of this in terms of biological extinction of species, mass poverty, and looming food wars.

Along with history, we've lost the connection with traditional culture and its values, which means we become directionless and therefore self-referential, meaning we no longer see society as connected to reality or nature, but as a separate space that exists according to its own norms and values. An idea like equality is one example; obviously no one seriously believes that people are born with equal abilities, but over time we've come to justify this idea by pointing to ourselves. We think we can master the world around us by manipulating ourselves socially, but sooner or later reality knocks on the door and then we act baffled. Science confirms a lot of degeneracy in terms of our health, our psychology, and how we function as individuals, mainly concerning individualism and the inability to think outside of our own immediate existence.

The spiritual aspect of the decline is perhaps the less mentioned but possibly the most important, because what the West, and those regions who are currently following in its tracks (China and Japan being two examples), really has missed is its vitality and forward-motion. We're no longer building great cathedrals, composing great symphonies, writing great literature, revolutionizing philosophy or winning fierce combats (bombing Arab cities to dust for material interests doesn't count). This is what we've really missed.

People live boring, miserable lives, and that's how the decay self-perpetuates itself. It's like one giant negative cycle; the more "modern" we become, the more CORRUPT we live. When something is not moving ahead, but is spending its time justifying its own mode of thought and making up excuses for failures, it's in stagnation, whether it is a political movement, a civilization, a family, or a group project.

10. From what do you derive certainty? Nature has been thoroughly promoted by Corrupt as representing an important level of objective reality outside the individual, but what about the other extrinsic logical designs, like the Infinite (GOD)?

We derive certainty from external, empirical observations and internal, introspective conclusions (intuition, logic, rational discussion). These two dimensions share a common function, so I want to stress that one cannot make an absolute distinction between the both. Regarding extrinsic logical designs, I'm personally critical of whether they actually exist outside of the realm of our world. As soon as we move these things beyond the realm of possible knowledge, we automatically devalue this world, which from a larger historical perspective has contributed to the decline of the Western civilization. To me, the soul, the infinite, God, and immortality, are all important and intrinsic concepts of this world. They are immanent properties of life here and now.

People who believe that these transcendent properties exist externally in another dimension, diverge philosophically from my own personal view point, but do not clash with the larger Corruptian picture. We have many Christians and Traditionalists who might disagree on certain points here, but ultimately we're striving toward the same goal: the creation of a traditional society, culture and spirit for the post-modern age. Part of the ancient traditional outlook is the emphasis on consensus, despite internal disagreements. So this is really a challenge for all of us to consider: Are we able to look beyond details of our individual beliefs and work together for a common future? Or are we still as dysfunctional as all the other moderns, who insist on doing it "my way or the highway," which often turns out being the road to Nowhere...

11. What is nihilism?

Philosophically, nihilism is the rejection of all values; a radical skepticism of moral and ethical systems. Historically it was pioneered by those who rejected authority, cultural norms, and religious dogmatism. It's a reductionist philosophy, which today (per Nietzsche) is often used to describe the modern age: the time of no values and ideals.

To me there are two ways of looking at nihilism: a) the absolute view (passive nihilism) and b) the instrumental view (active nihilism). Passive nihilism is what currently infests the psychology of most moderns today: a passive, self-defeatist and inherently negative view on life. Nothing is worth doing and nothing can be done. It's a self-referential outlook that eventually develops into depression; we begin to justify our lack of participation with life by referring to fear, doubt and confusion. To me, the modern spirit is one of passive nihilism.

Active nihilism takes an instrumental view on the rejection of all values, and turns it into a method of creating new values and new ideals. It's kind of like taking out the trash on Sunday morning, clearing your mind before a university test, or sorting out your emotions about a person that you like. Active nihilism is the view of the ancients who believed that creation, positive and constructive thinking, and fantasy, constitute eternal aspects of the human existence. While the passive nihilist keeps his paper white and says we should stop painting, because someone might be offended or someone might suffer from low self-esteem, the active nihilist shrugs and uses his imagination to paint, because he enjoys creating and playing with values.

If he fails, or dies (hopefully not from painting), oh well, that happens. What separates the active nihilist from the passive nihilist is that he always reevaluates the values and morals, to find the most realistic options and use them flexibly in life. Another way of describing this is to imagine values like tools ("Today it would be beneficial to use my fishing rod to catch some salmon in the river"), instead of absolute commandments ("Thou shalt always use your fishing rod as soon as you see a river").

12. What is parallelism?

Parallelism is the belief that there are parallel perspectives on reality, and that several societal designs therefore can exist without one being "The Right One," even though all designs fundamentally share the same reality. The best way to understand this is to think about religions. There are thousands of different religious and spiritual systems among humanity, but as soon as you begin to study the religious works and their respective traditions, you begin to see certain patterns emerging. Same with cultures and civilizations.

It's not a coincidence; like the cultural flora, humanity has responded to reality in different ways and expressed unique ideas about the world it's living in. Corrupt exists to defend that diversity because it believes there is meaning and beauty in it, and is dedicated to point these co-existing designs to pay attention to the one reality they all share. We can all be Swedes, Turks, Russians and Somalis, but we only have one planet, so let us preserve who we are and protect what creates and nurtures us.

13) What has Corrupt achieved?

There are a lot of fun and inspirational things Corrupt has achieved, these being my favourites:

Jokela High School Shooting Campaign

We managed to provoke mass media world wide by being the only organization in existence to support the ideas of Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the teenager who started a mass shooting at Jokela High School, later committing suicide. The idea behind the campaign was to give Auvinen right that society in the West had declined, and that the school shootings over the past years reflect a society not being able to offer young people the hope and stability they need to grow up as responsible adults. We spoke in French, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and American news about the tragedy in Jokela, and how society ultimately bore responsibility for what happened.

While other people were busy blaming it on a lonely individual, Corrupt chose to contextualize the high school shootings from a larger perspective and point out how they serve as wake-up calls for people who're living in ignorance and stupidity. This campaign received huge response just over a couple of nights and I remember not sleeping for more than 48 hours, just to be able to respond to all media requests and radio interviews. One of our staff members even appeared on an exclusive documentary on Finnish television about the school shootings. Our campaign video has been seen by more than 30,000 people on YouTube.

Corrupt Merchandise

Not so long ago we launched the very first Corrupt merchandise portal, where we sell t-shirts and stickers (more to come!). The "End Democracy" t-shirts were especially popular, so popular that we sold out the L-edition almost immediately and are now working on getting that back in stock. Through merchandise people are able to spread the message naturally by the kind of everyday awareness that stickers and t-shirts signal to people. In addition to the merchandise, we had several groups setting up promotion stickers in cities and at campuses. This, together with the growth of local Corruptian street teams around the world, is bringing us closer to a contact with mainstream society and normal people who want to change life by finding like-minded people and working together on common goals.

Cyberhit: Domination of Overpopulation Debate

We've conducted several so called "cyberhits," or promotion attacks, one on a mainstream article about overpopulation being our most successful. Thanks to a group of dedicated supporters, we placed comments on the article that appeared on one of Britain's largest news sites, and made it to a list of top comments, where we were in a majority. The influence that made is still clear on current environmental articles on the same site, where people now are commonly addressing overpopulation as soon as someone starts to talk about green politics. It was both fun and effective, and we hope to conduct more of these cyberhits in the future, as it's part of our main goals to spread our ideas on the Internet, before we move on to "real life" consensus plans.

Pentti Linkola Book

After Integral Tradition became our official publishing arm, we finished a large translation of ecophilosopher Pentti Linkola's latest book, "Could Life Win - And on What Conditions?" It's revolutionary for Corrupt, since it will be our very first book, hopefully to make it to the big media, and an important part of spreading our ideas about the ecology and what we can do to protect and save the environment. It will be a controversial release; an injection of realism in the green debate today. And, of course, this is only the beginning of Corrupt as publisher of literature.

Interviews: Part of General Consensus Strategy

In order for Corrupt to spread its ideas among other groups and establish general consensus on important issues, we've conducted a series of interviews and relationships with different individuals from different groups of the political spectrum. These interviews have been highly appreciated by our readers and very much so by us working at Corrupt as well. Lots of inspiration have flowed from environmentalist activist John Feeney, cranky tech geek John Dvorak, city reconstructor Michael Arth, and psychology professor Richard Lynn.

From each individual we establish agreement on vital ideas, reexamine our own views, and challenge those of others, to close in on a general agreement on environmental, political, cultural, religious, technological and scientific topics. We will continue to work with other groups and remain a provocative and influential media machine, or as one user commented about our strategy: "[The] policy of listening to everyone [...] and following no one." In other words, realism and determined open-mindedness.

14. The societal stagnation you expose seems to run in cycles. What is Corrupt's plan to prevent these crippling processes from becoming inevitable?

I'm glad you bring this question up, because I believe this is the key to understand how we're going to have to approach the decay we're seeing in the West right now. To start out, I want to begin by answering your question: we can't prevent this process from occurring. It's natural. Some might be acquainted with the second law of thermodynamics: energy movement within an isolated system always increases entropy. Another reference, less scientific and more cosmological, is what sci-fi author Philip K. Dick described as "kipple," and I will allow myself to quote straight from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" to really explain what I mean:

- Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers of yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more.
- I see.
- There's the First Law of Kipple, "Kipple drives out nonkipple." Like Gresham's law about bad money. And in these apartments there's been nobody there to fight the kipple.
- So it has taken over completely. Now I understand.
- Your place, here, this apartment you've picked - it's too kipple-ized to live in. We can roll the kipple-factor back; we can do like I said, raid the other apartments. But -
- But what?
- We can't win.
- Why not?
- No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment I've sort of created a stasis between the pressure of kipple and nonkipple, for the time being. But eventually I'll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It's a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.

Let's use this analogy to answer your question more in detail. The idea here is that kipple/entropy (crime, corruption, decay) is a natural part of an organism (and here we assume that civilizations function like organisms) and naturally increase over time. Think about great civilizations: born from a set of smaller communities, they grow, thrive, develop great art, philosophy and science, and after they've peaked, they slowly turn inward like neurotic teenagers and begin to sob over their own lack of greatness. Morons outbreed geniuses, culture gets hollowed out, life becomes boring, corruption thrives behind closed doors, and religion is reduced to empty symbolism. It's happened everywhere, all throughout time. You can compare it with something as simple as running: you start out slowly, then increase speed, but after about an hour, depending on your fitness and how fast you run, you'll begin to feel more and more tired. Eventually you have to stop. There's no turning back. When you've caught some fresh air and strength, you move on. This is the process of life: always onward (into countless battles).

This idea of entropy, or kipple, being a deterministic force in our world that keeps destroying what we build, may at first seem like an uncomfortable reality. Why? Because it seems like we can't do anything about it. The Western civilization is growing closer and closer to the state of "absolute kippleization," and with that in mind, many people today--especially smart people, feel depressed and angry. They ask themselves a question I think all of us at one time or another have asked ourselves: "What can I do about it?" Philip Dick provides us with a seemingly bleak answer in return: "We can't win." It seems to suggest some form of fatalistic attitude towards the process of entropy. But when we think about it, we come to realize that this is all it really is: an attitude. Even if every single civilization has, and will, go through a state of absolute kippleization, why would this mean that we should give up? We can't "win" in the sense that no one can prevent entropy from occurring. Even in the most brilliant of societies, there will be a small degree of corruption, selfishness and idiocy. That's why the Ancients believed in hierarchy and leadership: let only the brilliant of men rule, and have them control those who are less good at creating brilliance. But we can succeed with change by approaching negativity with a positive outlook. After all, if everything's bad, why spend time on pointing that out, when you can begin rebuilding and participating for a positive change? That possibility is always there, and that's your key out of depression and self-defeatism.

We can't turn back time and turn the West into what ancient Rome or Greece were thousands of years ago. It's impossible. We're already too far down the path of self-destruction. But it doesn't make sense to give up either. We have to fight back. Some people, like Theodore Kaczynski, decide to blow away the key proponents of the decay and inform the public through violence. Finnish school shooter Pekka-Eric Auvinen belongs to this category as well, when he began to shoot innocent people at high school in Jokela, as a cry for help and attention: "Your society is corrupt, please pay attention to the destruction around you." Without glorifying these people as heroes (most of them are not), they provide us with a different approach to decay. They accept it as a reality, but persist in what they believe in. They believe in change. And change, although publicly misused by popular democratic figures, is most certainly real. So while we can't prevent the process of entropy from occurring, we can make sure that we are in control of our own future, when the decay has been exposed and the light is separating from the darkness.

However, the change we believe in is not some kind of utopian master plan to save everyone from chaos and destruction. That's too late. We want to focus on the good-hearted, creative and assertive characters of our society. They must lead us into a better future. We can't save all of our civilization, neither is that wanted, since most of it today is all-decay. You don't save a fruit by spraying it all over with pesticide; you pick out the rotten parts and protect what's healthy. Most intelligent people I've met have been depressed simply because they've taken on the entire burden of our society and spent their free time trying to figure out how to save it all. They usually start to look positively at things when I tell them that they simply can't save it all. We shouldn't save it all. We should focus on what we want to save, which means our change includes selective parts of what we like about our civilization, that we believe can be saved. Think of our civilization as a burning house: if you try to save every single thing from burning up, both you and the things you wanted to save will burn up. Smart people run in, get the few things they really care about, and then run out as quickly as they can, before the whole thing falls apart. After that you can build a new house. You didn't "prevent" entropy; you escaped its self-destruction by actively participating in life.

Corrupt constitutes such a force. We accept entropy--in fact, we embrace it, because it's part of our natural world, but we refuse giving up. Depending on the structure and design of a civilization, it can last 100 or 1000 years. But even more important, I think, we have to look at the products of a civilization. What great art did it produce? How far did it take philosophy? How developed was its science? Did it defy any outside attacks? How noble and coherent was its cultural life? What was the essence of its spirit? Corrupt celebrates the ancient view that time is cyclic and this goes for civilizations as well. We're not trying to reach the ideal civilization that will never die, because such an idea would be a lie. No such civilization will ever exist. However, we do strive toward excellence and brilliance, which is not the same as perfection, because all it implies is that we make most out of the possibilities in life. First now do we understand what this means for us in the modern time. Yes, we live in an insane society. But let us not grieve. Think about the positive things we can contribute with. Entropy doesn't matter. We have to follow our inner voice. No matter if we'd be citizens of Rome during its peak era, or citizens of an America in absolute decline, our attitude and spirit should be no different. This is part of believing in the Tradition: it permeates all of life, and ultimately transcends its entropic limitations. That is the spirit of Corrupt and its answer to how to deal with your kippleized society.

---

Thanks to Alex and Corrupt Inc. for granting this interview conducted by Goluf of P.F.M.G. Publishing.

Read Alex Birch's columns here

The Patagonia, a geographic region in the southernmost part of South America, is one of the most pristine places on Earth. Wild, vast and rich in its unique attributes and biodiversity, it is one of the last unspoiled natural treasures on this planet. The Chilean government, throughout the history of the country, never actually worried to populate a location which was so remote from the physical and administrative centers (1,6% of the total population of the country live in the two southest regions, a territory which comprises nearly 21% of the entire continental part of the country [1], [2]). As it follows, this particular patch of land is virtually untouched by the hand of modern man, not to mention that the people there live a much simpler lifestyle compared with their fellow countrymen in the more industrialized central part of the country.

Part of this rich territory of unlimited value, namely the rivers Pascua and Baker, are now targeted for the construction of an undetermined (as of now) number of major dams, in a project known as "HidroAysen." This will inundate a total of 5910 ha (14597 acres) of land, including other major changes that will be made to the area. For what, you say? To face the ever increasing demand of the country's inhabitants for electrical power in a territory growing in consumption? Not that it would easily justify it, but no...the major recipients of the electrical power generated by this project will be the copper mines located in the central part of the country and run, at least two thirds of them, by transnational corporations. Meaning, not administered, and barely controlled by the local government, digging precious resources for the benefit not of the Chilean people, but for the ever-increasing pockets of foreign lobbies which adhere to no particular nationality. Not to mention, said transnationals don't pay taxes to our government, practically taking the copper out of this country for nothing. If there's ever a more obvious example of how monetary interests hold a tight grip over a society paralized by its incompetence, I'd like to hear about it.

That is not all. The physical distance between the projected dams and the copper mines mean the necessity to build a huge number of high tension towers (five thousand) for a total lenght of 2300 kms (1429 miles aprox.), in order to transport the generated electricity to its destination. The aforementioned construction would mean the cutting of several square miles of trees, impacting protected national parks and indigenous reservoirs for a great length of the country, and damaging the landscape in a way that has never been seen in the history of this country, and still very considerable when comparing to the world at large.

And that is still not all. The irreversible damage made to the wildlife would disturb the natural equilibrium of the zone for generations to come. Additionally, these plans would ruin the local economies of the few people living in the region, who for years have managed to make relatively secure incomes through agriculture, tourism and other activities. The HidroAysen project will give them virtually nothing in return (remember, the electricity is for the northern-central part of the country, not for the people in the area). Among the thousands of animal and plant species that currently inhabit the Patagonia (some of them still unknown) is the Huemul, currently an endangered specie and part of our National Emblem.

Many national and international organizations, as well as people working on their own, have taking conscience of the problem and are hurrying to work out a solution for it. Many of them have correctly pointed out the possibilities our long and climate-varied country offer for alternative sources of energy, including thermic and eolic. And, rightly so, point the government to these solutions as alternatives to the project which currently menaces the Patagonia.

However, as good as their intentions undoubtedly are, they are missing an important point: namely, the real focus of our national authorities. They may know or not about all of these alternative energy sources, what matters is that they will never even consider them. People in the Region of Aysen have been protesting ever since they knew their landscape would be raped by HidroAysen. They are barely listened to by the local and central authorities. This country has the richest production of copper in the world, and we give it away for nothing, practically. Chile hasn't tried to nationalize its copper for more than thirty years, at the relentless push of the international lobbies.

What does this tell you? Well, what everybody with a realist world view knows, and what everyone else tries their best to deny: our democratically elected leaders are completely and utterly unreliable in the face of international economical interests. Not just because of their sheer incompetence, but also because of their open willingness to surrender to said interests. I want each and every activist reading this and who is (rightfully) disgusted at the whole situation, to carefully consider this. Modern society is on the side of the political manipulators and the financial lobby interests--not those of the people and of our ecology.

The solution, therefore, does not lie in surrending to the good will of the authorities. Their public "good will" is completely irrelevant in the face of the tremendous power the transnationals hold and which mercilessly crush the governmental authorities, as well as the people, who are utterly fed up with the current government, but naively think that liberal democracy is still the best choice because is the only one available to the general public.

The chilean people need to realize they've been tricked from day one to believe in both a system and a lifestyle that isn't satisfying in the long run and which threaten to annihilate the fabric of our society for the financial gain of a minority. What to do, then? One effective way to counteract this is spreading awareness of it through the community. Most people get their information from the TV. Watch the local news in the presence of other people, try to offer a different point of view and encourage debate. Don't get pessimistic if things don't change immediately for the better. Remember that most changes start very small and then spread throughout the community until they influence the whole of the local society.

As for you, the people living in the chilean Patagonia, I can only say: keep up the fight and don't let yourselves be beaten, as there's a great number of people in your country and the world that believes in you, supports you and will do what is necessary to keep alive one of the last places really worth living in--your home.

Related links

Patagonia sin represas (In Spanish)

Aisen, Reserva de Vida (In Spanish, with some breathtaking images)

Patagonia Dams - Horseback Protest in Chile (In English - a great article about the subject)

Patagonia News - Chile Govt backs Patagonia Dam Project Again (Another article in English)

Felipe Serra is a Corrupt volunteer living in Chile. Today he is involved with the protection of the Patagonia, one of the world's most beautiful and interesting places left on this planet. Visit his blog here (in Spanish)

Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus at the University of Ulster, graduated in psychology and took his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge and has worked as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter, professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster. His research in intelligence, sex differences, race differences, and eugenics is highly regarded within the academic field, and his books and studies have been mentioned in numerous scientific journals and news publications.

1. Herrnstein and Murray’s “The Bell Curve” (p. 368) makes a statistical analysis showing that raising the average IQ by 3 points would result in radical changes in social behaviour, lowering poverty, health problems, welfare users, imprisonment rates, and children born out of wedlock. What barriers do you think prevent society from reaping the benefits of those attainable changes?

The eugenicists debated this question in the first half of the 20th century but were unable to produce any practical plans. The formidable problems are discussed in my book Eugenics.

2. Your recent book, ”The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ and Inequality Worldwide,” investigates whether the same racial hierarchies in IQ and socioeconomic status found in the Bell Curve, persist outside of America. Your findings suggest that they do. What impact do you think these findings can have on the way we look at social and economic equality between racial groups?

It would totally transform them because western societies base public policies on the myth that all people are equal.

Does the hereditary determinism pose a threat to the Western egalitarian ideals?

Yes.

3. New studies suggest that racial groups have evolved away from each other over the past 10,000 years, leading to more pronounced genetic differences. With greater movement and gene flow between the continents today, is it likely that we’ll see a stop to or even a reverse of this trend?

Probably not because there is not much inter-mating between racial groups.

4. Your study together with Paul Irwing claims that men are on average five points ahead over women on IQ tests, and that this gap increases within the higher intelligence scores. What evolutionary strategy may have evolved these sex differences?

Men have had a greater need for high IQs because they compete more against other men.

Are the genes for intelligence manifesting themselves differently in a woman who has an equivalent genetic potential for high IQ as a man?

No, but there are sex differences in different kinds of intelligence, eg men have higher spatial abilities & (as adults) reasoning abilities.

5. In your book “Eugenics: A Reassessment” you begin with the propositions that intelligence, health, and moral character are valuable and constitute the foundation of civilization. Given the long intellectual history in favour of this idea, beginning with Plato's Republic, why do you think civilization has been permitted to enter a dysgenic state where each generation has progressively diminished these positive traits?

This evolved because with the invention of reliable contraception in the 1870s it was inevitable that this would be used more efficiently by the more intelligent, & hence that fertility would become dysgenic.

What can be done to reverse this?

Only draconian measures such as ratioing the numbers of children people are permitted according to their IQs.

6. With a continued development within the field of genetic engineering, humanity might be able to simulate natural selection in the future via technology, such as embryo selection. Do you see this development as an inevitable product of the development in genetic science, or is it likely to be a conscious choice (on the part of the general public or the government) as a way to reverse the current dysgenic trend?

I argue in my book Eugenics that this will evolve spontaneously in free societies through embryo selection for desirable qualities. It might also be mandated by authoritarian states.

7. What dangers are involved with using technology to simulate natural selection?

None of any significance.

Do you believe ethical concerns are likely to interfere with the development and possible use of genetic engineering, or is the force of science and technology stronger?

Yes but they will not prevent it.

8. Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa was called irresponsible for saying that scientists were only responsible to the truth and bore no responsibility for the consequences of the knowledge they create. As a scientist, what do you think of the ethical issues involved in reporting truths that might offend some people’s beliefs?

I agree with Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa.

9. In what way would people’s everyday lives change for the better, if society would start to implement an eugenic policy to increase the average IQ within the population?

The quality of life would improve in many ways.

10. How does your ideal society look like, in terms of general intelligence, health, lifestyle, and moral character of its population?

Let’s say the whole population would be like physicians – competent and honest.

---

Interview was conducted by Alex Birch the 22th of July 2008.

Corrupt would like to thank Richard Lynn for kindly participating in the interview and sharing his views on general intelligence and genetic science.

Visit Richard Lynn's website

Lynn's books can be purchased from Washington Summit Publishers

Long ago, a kingdom between two others fell upon hard times. The people grumbled, the surly underlings who outnumbered their king and his soldiers, although each soldier could probably slaughter a thousand before he fell. "This king has let us suffer, while he lives well," they snarled. The priest -- who had only one King in some place called Heaven, rumored to be just over the next mountain range -- had to agree. Kings, he felt, caused men to suffer, and wasn't there enough suffering in life, as it is?

The king heard from the ear of kindly merchant, Mosai, who told him of the grumblings. "They're not going to hold much longer!" he said. "My shop, my life, is in danger. You have to do something."

The king faced three options -- he could send in the soldiers and nip this in the bud; he could give the people the palace reserves and the seed wheat; he could do nothing and hope it would pass. Mosai would be happiest with the first, the people happiest with the second, and the soldiers happiest with the third. As debate in the king's chambers reached fever pitch, he left, to the grumbling of even his subordinates. "Doesn't he take this seriously?"

Bareheaded, he went into his garden. This is a role I play, he reminded himself. There is the King, and there is the man. The man might want to hop on a horse and head over the mountains. The King might want to smite the interlopers. There being no gods except in stories -- the King was a pragmatic man, which is how he got to be King -- what higher force is there?

As he wandered lonely, the din of bloviation inside fading into the distance, he stopped by a tree where a starling sang. The tree, old and gnarled, had long ago tipped and now just waited to die. "Entropy," thought the King. "Everything must pass, and maybe it is our time to pass." But he stopped for the starling song.

This was no poetic bird. Missing an eye, several toes, and many of its feathers, it had clearly seen enough of the world to be tired of it, as the King now felt. Still it sang, as the wind rose over the trees and whipped parts of its song out, as it tired, as if daring the darkness to come in. And then it stopped. The King looked up.

A serpent, coils black with obsidian night, coiled down from the branches, above the bird, ready to strike. The King had seen this before, knowing that birds in panic rise, and so a serpent above a bird is guaranteed a strike.

Winking his one good eye at the King, the bird cocked his head, ruffled his wings as if ready to fly -- and then stepped off the branch and fell to the ground. The snake struck empty air; the King clapped his hands; the snake recoiled and the starling flew free, leaving a twitter of notes in a curlicue of north wind.

Walking back, the King made up his mind. He dispatched the debaters; he asked Mosai for the name of the three top agitators; he sent his servants to make a sacrifice of the intestines of pigs to his favorite
donkey, who should wear a crown. In the town, grumbling turned to puzzlement, then sleepiness, and the new day dawned early.

The three agitators and priest woke up to summons from the king, with messengers waiting in fine livery, taking them by the high road in coaches that were left smeared with the dirt of the field, the foundry
and the vestry. "Greetings, good friends," said the King. "You must dine with me!" He drew back his arm and they saw tables laid out with the finest food of the kingdom.

"It's a trap," whispered one of the agitators. "He's trying to buy us out."

"He's trying to make us look stupid," said another. "Does he think we can't see through this trick?"

"What a shame," said the Priest, "to dine on such fine foods as a nation starves."

The agitators talked, and then one, elected leader, came forth and said, "We reject your offer. We can't eat while the nation starves, and you can't make us look false by feeding us finery while others eat cow dung. We can't be bought."

"I know," said the King, and he turned to the food, and picked up a slab of beef, and dropped it on the floor. It shattered into many tiny pieces of plaster.

"This was not my offer. This was my test. But you have passed it, and so here is my offer: I will assume the responsibility of paying for your families from my own pocket. I will feed the people from the storehouse
of the King for this season. I also will demand nothing of what you produce. In exchange, you will assume responsibility for the fields and larders of the town, and you will rule yourselves, and eat only of what you produce."

The agitators were wary, but the Priest thought it was a wonderful idea, so they all signed up right away. When they went back to town, the people were shocked. "The mean old King is giving up," they said. "Hurrah! For our new leaders, who will not treat us like slaves." The agitators conferred, and decided on a great feast in the town, using the King's provisions. In the castle, the King smiled and dispatched his subordinates who flittered like flies. He sent away most of his court, or they now had no use to him.

In the neighboring kingdoms, war was planned for after the next year's snowfall, because they could smell weakness.

As the sun rose over the mountains the next day, the agitators shook hangovers from their heads and began to get the fields in order. "When do we plant?" asked one. "The King's overseer knows," said another, but when they went to his cabin, he was abroad.

"We plant about now," said the second agitator. "Let's do it."

"Which fields?" said another. "All the fields," came the answer. But here was not enough seed for all the fields and besides, people were getting tired. One agitator excused a friend, and an hour later, the people saw the family of another agitator leaving for home. "They're sick," came the reply.

The next day, more people were sick.

The third day, even more, and several others were caught eating the seed wheat.

The agitators conferred. "We can't take this lying down," said one. "We need to make an example."

"But we can't be like that nasty arbitrary king," said another. "We need a court."

The next day, no work was done in the fields; everyone was at the courthouse. An agitator dressed in lawyer's robes made his case. "This peasant has deserted his fields," he said. "He claims he was sick, but his ex-wife saw him drinking."

"That's not true," blurted the poor man. "I got markedly better after sundown!"

"Ass," said the agitator. He turned to the people. "This man should have been working to make you wheat, bacon and potatoes; instead, he was drinking. If you let him get away with it, others will follow. The sentence is 40 lashes."

Among themselves, the people talked. They all knew the man, but the thought of no food kept recurring in their heads. We can't let that happen. This man wanted that to happen. If we punish him, maybe it will not happen -- "Guilty," said the people.

The next day, no work was done, because all had to watch the lashing. "Come one, come all," said the Priest. "We are all equal in the eyes of God, and you will now see God's justice visited upon the selfish."

Generally, the King's warden would allow at most ten lashes, because they were done with a cane pole that cut deep into the skin. Even more, he knew when to check his stroke. The agitator who sentenced people did not know this, so demanded 40 lashes, and the person he appointed to lash did not check his stroke. As the sun went down, the people stood in a circle around the bloody remains of a man.

"That didn't work," said an agitator. "Tomorrow is a state holiday, for a funeral!"

So it went, and the day after, a lawsuit was brought from the family of the dead man, who now were starving.

The day after that, a group petitioned for less labor, because their fields were in the lee of the mountains, and so got less sun. And on and on.

Eventually, the King's overseer returned from vacation. The boy entrusted to watch for him raced to him and asked the question he had been told to memorize. "You haven't planted yet?" the overseer gasped. "It's well past time!"

The agitators sent out their officers to round up the people. "It's dusk, but we have found out that the fields we left half-planted have not prospered. You must work until dawn planting them." But when the people got to the fields, half of the plants were dead -- no one had been appointed to water them, and so they were scraggly, and sick.

"Going to be a starving season," said the crazy old woman who drank her pints from a shoe, and so they hanged her as a witch.

The people worked all night, and the next day, rigorous orders went out to ensure plants were watered. Two more died for not following orders.

"So they want us to water on pain of death," said one woman. "I'll do what they tell me, and nothing more." Heads around her nodded.

So when the agitators forgot to mention a field of peas, it dried up. "No one said to," said the people, and they were right.

"My field's farther away than yours," said one woman. "It's because your family has always had more power here."

"That's because they were the first to settle here," retorted a man. "They let you in out of pity and charity!"

"I don't need charity," said the first. "I want a field closer to the town." The next day was absorbed by her lawsuit.

And so it went, all season.

The agitators met on the eve of harvest day. "What a lot of work that was," said one.

"We'll do better next season," said another.

"You will," said the third. "I had better luck working a farm on my own. I can make my own crops thrive while these others screw it up, and that's what I've been doing all season. Each to his own. I don't need the town to approve."

The next day, all went out to the fields, but it was noticed that one man was slyly putting crops in his clothes and taking them home each time he got water. One woman started to object, and got clubbed with a bucket. Silently, the others began doing the same. "At least feed our kids for a week," grumbled one.

When it came time to count the harvest, the take was so small the agitators blinked. "We got planted late, and half the plants died, and yet we're still short for that amount," said one. Another came in the door, holding a small child. "She says her neighbors are hoarding -- the same neighbors who always get all the cold well-water each morning."

Another burst in the door. "Your third agitator has been worse than hoarding -- he's grown his own crops! The crowd hung him, and they took his food, and now his family is starving."

Lawsuits and persecutions wracked the land. Officers took bribes. The roads fell apart. Education was forgotten, but no one forgot to go each Sunday to the church. However, there was a new priest, formerly a
blacksmith. "No more fire and brimstone," he said. "God's word was misunderstood; he means we should all love and tolerate each other, and worry about nothing! God will feed us!"

In town, the people had looted a costume store, and were now dressed in "finery just like that evil King."

And the evil King? He had, like most practical people, taken action long ago. First, he stopped banquets and celebrations. Next, he ordered that enough fields to feed the castle and staff be cleared, and removed most of his staff, sending them to plant -- and going with them. "This work s beneath us," he said. "But we'll do it because we have to, and because nothing is beneath us when it's a question of survival."

The castle and soldiers and staff had food enough. They settled down each night to simple meals, enjoying them more than the banquets of yore, when they saw fire on the horizon in the town. "Something must have gone wrong," said one soldier.

"They're handling it," said the King. "We aren't needed."

"But they'll come here for us," said the soldier.

"That's right," said the King. "It's easier to defend than attack. Kill a few and the rest will run away, then they'll show up the next day begging for mercy."

Events happened as he said. One agitator died as did several dozen townspeople, which encouraged the rest, because that meant more food. The town was in ruins, burnt by riots and covered in graffiti for each of the two new political parties. The courts churned on, newspapers were sold with the latest drama of instability, and thin children wandered the streets selling their bodies.

The King turned to his people and said:

"You did not believe I served a role. I did. You believed you could rule yourselves. You could not. What I did to you was play a horrible trick on you, but I have saved us from a thousand years of not understanding this relationship. The King is the head, and you are the body. When the head is working, it protects you from things you can't see. When the body is working, it protects you from things that you can see. The two can never exchange places. I hope your chance to be Kings for a year has shown you that and, if the cost was terrible, it will be worth it."

Today is the national day of Québec. We call it national day but the fact is that, politically, Québec isn't a nation. A foreign government is still writing our laws, strengthening its foreign rule every day through immigration and the maintenance of a two official language policy. Because of this, Montréal will soon become an English speaking city. Québec doesn't directly face overpopulation--in fact, population numbers here are going down, like in Europe. Meanwhile, the immigrant/Québécois ratio is steadily going up. It's not hard to realize that multiculturalism currently is destroying our nation.

One might then ask: "So why do you celebrate?"

Like everywhere else, the Québecois don't like to face reality, and suffer from a profound lack of higher values. Add the fact that this is a good pretext to get drunk and have a day off from work, and suddenly there's a good reason to "celebrate." The fact that we as a nation has struggled to survive for 400 years doesn't interest them at all. Yes, 2008 is what we might call a "special" year as it marks the foundation of the oldest city of America. Québec city is 400 years old.

Samuel de Champlain was the founder; a man of courage, bravery and determination. Even at that time he had to fight against mercantilism; against the merchants who didn't want to see him establishing a colony, out of fear of losing a lot of money. With the help of the natives, he fought the merchants, the ocean and the winter--and he won. But, 400 years later, we're still a colony, because we like to think that way. We are afraid of taking the risk, afraid of thinking for ourselves and taking control of our own destiny, like a teenager who refuses to grow up. Unfortunately, de Champlain is no longer a hero, nor are our old patriots like Riel, Chevalier De Lorimier, Bourgault and Papineau. Our hero is a 50 goal scorer from the National Hockey League. People don't care about the past or the future, what they want is avoiding any adversity in the present.

All of this because of our profound lack of values. This lack of meaning in our lives has turned this nation into a place where courage and bravery have no importance. Is independence possible in a situation like this? I don't think so.

But, there's still hope for us. We didn't survive 400 years for nothing. Our ancestors were proud. They chose to live as French even when the money was controlled by the English. Colonized Québecois like to say that we are a bunch of losers because we lost the war against the English on the plains of "Abraham." The patriot's revolt had no result, the FLQ ("Front de libération du Québec") was crushed by the Canadian army, and we've lost two referendums on independence. To me this doesn't mean that we are losers, but that we are proud fighters who fight for our people. Independence will be possible if we remember the courage and the joy of life of our ancestors. 400 years of history is short compared to old Europeans countries, but this is our history and we have to fight for it. Vive la liberté! Vive l'indépendance!

André Audet is Editor and columnist of Société Nihiliste Du Québec, promoting philosophical nihilism and political independence for Québec

Michael Edward Arth, professionally experienced in building design, residential construction, and fine and commecial art, moved to DeLand, Florida in 2001 in order to rebuild a small slum neighborhood, today known as "The Garden District." Together with his daughter Sophie and his wife Maya, this is still where he lives today. Michael Arth is currently active with a new movie, "New Urban Cowboy: Toward a New Pedestrianism," addressing a complete reconstruction of the architectural design of the modern urban society.

1. Your major construction project, which you now call "The Garden District," was a complete remake of a neighborhood, formerly known as "Cracktown." Please explain your motivation and inspiration to take on such a great task and taking it to success?

The motivations were: 1. To find a project where I could try out some of my ideas about urban design in the real world; 2. Create a living laboratory for the book I've been working on for many years: The Labors of Hercules: Modern Solutions to 12 Herculean Problems, and; 3. Rebuild a historic neighborhood where my wife and I could live and raise a child.

Rebuilding an existing neighborhood was a partial fulfilment of a lifelong fantasy to design and build the perfect town. The next big project will probably be built from scratch, which is the best way to make sure that it embodies the principles of what I call New Pedestrianism or NP, for short. New Pedestrianism is a more pedestrian and ecology-oriented version of New Urbanism. NP segregates transportation for motor vehicles and pedestrians into two "separate but equal" networks—where the pedestrians and cyclists get to share a beautiful, tree-lined pedestrian lane in front of the houses and businesses. The cars go on a rear street, which is also tree lined and which has carriage houses with formal garden gates in the residential areas. The businesses also have entrances, front and rear, but the main entrance is on the front side—and front is always the pedestrian side.

2. In The Labors of Hercules you describe the system of corruption, which has polluted the American democracy and turned it into an oligarchy. What is the main reason why private interests have bought up public politics and turned it into a circus charade?

Even by the standards of the world's democracies, the American voting system is not very democratic, with the cards stacked in favor of private business interests, which in turn fuels the military industrial complex. Military-related expenditures are already over $700 billion in 2008, and comprise roughly half of all military expenditures in the world, even though Americans comprise only 4% of the world's population. Meanwhile, our law enforcement agencies, including the prison industrial complex, are bloated by the interminable war on drugs resulting in an incarceration rate 600% to 700% higher than Europe. There are also agricultural and oil related subsidies that are supporting unsustainable policies. These are only a few examples of policies influenced by non-proportional representation. We could improve the democracy and begin to address inequities like this in the system with these important voting rights reforms:

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for single member elections—where the voters rank their candidates in order of preference without fear of having to strategize their vote. Gore, and the liberal majority, lost to Bush in 2000 because Ralph Nader "spoiled" the vote. There would never again be a spoiler under IRV.

Get rid of the Electoral College, which is a relic from another era and gives voters in thinly populated states much greater representation than voters in densely populated states.

For multi-member elections (like the House of Representatives) trade gerrymandered districts in favor of large, semi-permanent districts with a field of representatives elected by Proportional Representation (PR).

Enact real campaign finance reform, where money is taken out of politics as much as possible. There should be very little private campaign financing; the election cycle should be shorter; and the information on candidates should be standardized in an official Internet site that would cost taxpayers a tiny fraction of what they spend now trying to influence a very restricted selection of candidates. Unless we vastly reduce influence buying, we will not have justice.

Having a more representative government has its own dangers. Currently only about 50% of Americans even bother to vote, partly because the field of candidates is only drawn from those politicians that support the status quo, for the reasons outlined above. That is why politicians are so maddeningly non-committal. With voter reform, you could have bright, informed candidates from different walks of life willing to state their real views and take a principled stand that anyone can understand.

If voters really mattered, we would then have to deal with the problem of the American electorate being poorly informed, superstitious, and easily manipulated. Apparently, many Americans suffer from selective exposure (where people listen more to those ideas which confirm their biases). For example, when it was shown that there were not weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (and even after Bush and Cheney admitted the lack of evidence) 50% of Americans in a 2006 Harris poll still believed Saddam had WMDs. Historically, it has served the powers-that-be to leave people in the dark, and it has served politicians to say little of substance.

3. The world population growth is critical in all areas of human expansion, but it is currently most problematic in the Third World. What is the responsibility, if any, of the West to help places like Africa to downsize their population – and which political policies should in that case be applied?

Another example of selective perception is the population explosion. Despite the vast range of problems related to increasing population—pollution, congestion, climate change, resource shortages, and resource wars, to name but a few—most people don't consider it worrisome that the population of our planet goes up by 211,000 people every single day! That is 77 million more people every year, which is roughly like adding the population of England, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand every year. We should be in panic mode about what to do about this, yet it is not even on the political agenda.

It is not just a problem with the developing world, which has the highest birth rate, but with developed countries as well. The U.S. has the highest growth rate of any industrialized country—mostly due to immigrants and their high birth rate. This is a disaster in the making, because when we are talking about the dangers of overpopulation the most critical factor is not sheer numbers, but carrying capacity (carrying capacity = how many people can the Earth sustain at a certain standard of living). A hundred Bangladeshis use as many resources as one American, so more Americans are potentially as bad for the planet as 100 Bangladeshis. However, people are not trees—they move around quite easily. So every Bangladeshi who moves to a developed country multiplies his effect on the planet up to 100 times. This is why immigration from poor countries to rich countries is aggravating the problem. I'm in favor of reversing population growth immediately across the board in all countries. Japan and some European countries are nearing zero population growth and this should be cheered.

An additional factor in the population explosion is the very real possibility of life extension in the near future. Every day 155,000 people die. If the death rate was reduced to near zero, and the birth rate stayed the same, we would add 366,000 people every day, instead of 211,000. Obviously, we need to face the overpopulation issue squarely. There are people, often business interests, who make claims that increasingly the population is a good thing because it grows the economy, brings in fresh, young blood, and that American ingenuity (Terrafarm Mars! rocket to the stars!) will somehow find a place to put all these people. They laugh at Malthusian predictions of global disaster going back to the 19th century. These are the rationalizations of those with an agenda backed by whoever they can fool, similar to those who claim that global warming is not human caused. We are better able to assess the state of planet and its resources today than ever before, and the consensus of unbiased sources is that we may already be exceeding the planet's carrying capacity. It hardly seems prudent to take chances with the only habitable planet we've got.

Who knows? In the long term we might be able to upload our minds into cyberspace, and discard the bodies, but as long as we still inhabit our bodies, Birth credits is the solution. A choice-based, marketable birth license plan would be fair, non-discriminatory in regards the poor, and could stop population growth immediately. People are issued half a credit, which they can combine with a partner, and they get the first child free of charge. Any more than that, they have to buy a license, which costs a tiny fraction of what it actually costs to raise a child. Because we are used to breeding without any regard for the rest of the world, birth credits at first might sound extreme. It is a vast improvement over the one child policy, however, because people who do not have children should be rewarded, and people who are well-suited to having more children should have the option to do so. The poor would benefit the most from such a plan, because they suffer the most from the effects of having too many children. Proof of this is the fact that the average household net worth in the U.S. is in inverse proportion to the number of children in the household.

The problem in most "save the world" discussions, other than the difficulty of establishing the statistical baseline in regards resources, is to get people to agree on the boundaries between individual rights and collective rights. Our collective rights are being eroded every day by the cumulative effects of individual irresponsibility, so we need universal policies that define the boundaries of these rights.

If we could all agree on using birth credits, population growth would end and we might begin to get a handle on a wide range of problems facing our species and the other species that we share the planet with. You can read more about birth credits (which I also call a marketable birth license plan) at http://www.laborsofhercules.org.

4. You take a non-moralizing stance on topics like drugs and prostitution, emphasizing that behavioural patterns persist unless the consequences are brought to light. Do you see a future for alternative communities where drug use and prostitution might be legal under controlled forms, or would ending these prohibitions only serve as temporary examples for all people involved?

Drug prohibition and laws against prostitution constitute what we commonly call "victimless crimes." The irony is that by making these things crimes, we create far more victims. The moralistic approach to drugs and prostitution is ineffective, unethical, dangerous, and costly. It makes no sense to try and control what people do with their bodies, as long as legalization serves the greater good, which is does.

The facts regarding illegal drugs tell the story: Many, if not most, prohibited drugs (marijuana, mescaline, ayahuasca, psilocybin, LSD, DMT, MDMA, and others) are non-addictive, have proven to be effective in therapeutic and spiritual practices, and are generally not dangerous to the health. Meanwhile, the two most prominent legal drugs—alcohol and tobacco—are highly addictive, and kill 450,000 every year in the U.S. alone. Legal prescription drugs kill another 100,000. At the same time, all of the illegal drugs combined only kill about 17,000 in the U.S, with not one single documented overdose death on record attributable to marijuana, mescaline, ayahuasca, psilocybin, LSD, or DMT. If that is not enough reason to move toward legalization, we also know that many of the 17,000 killed by hard drugs would not have died if they had gotten clearly dosed, non-adulterated drugs, purchased legally.

Drug abuse is a medical problem that is compounded by the unregulated trade of criminal enterprises that exact a terrible toll on society in countless ways. The modern, popular "gangsta" culture was born of prohibition and the lure of the forbidden, and almost every town now seems to have a crack slum. We have had 40 years to observe the failed experiment in drug prohibition, which is an echo of the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition from the 1920s. Alcohol prohibition, beginning in 1919, launched the first wave of gangsterism, contempt for the law, and rapid prison expansion. We are doing it all over again, except it is much worse this time. Criminals, and others who stand to gain from the status quo, are making sure we keep pursuing the command and compliance approach. Alternative communities—like Las Vegas and Amsterdam—where prostitution and certain drugs are tolerated, are not enough. We need a universal end to prohibition.

5. With New Urbanism you envision communities where people live interconnected via compact neighbourhoods, and the automobile-oriented concrete jungles are replaced by practical, short-distance neighbourhood centers. "New Pedestrianism" develops the idea of building cities that conform to human nature (e.g. walking/jogging, social relationships, closeness to nature, public safety), instead of like today where we often make people conform to the nature of suburban cities. Explain more about the philosophy behind this vision; how will it affect people's life quality? Why do you think public officials haven't thought of looking at city architecture from this perspective?

New Pedestrianism is a more idealistic form of New Urbanism. Both movements involve reviving and expanding upon traditional street patterns. New Urbanism today is a new and improved version of what looks a lot like just about any American town before WWII. New Urbanism does not go far enough, however, because it still does not adequately deal with the cars. New Pedestrianism expands upon a few experiments in pedestrian-oriented urban design that never took hold—mostly because of the onslaught of the automobile age. Many public officials are beginning to look at New Urbanism, and change the laws accordingly. New Urbanism and New Pedestrianism are still against the law in most places because of zoning laws and street engineering standards that prescribe the width of streets, the radii of turns, setbacks, the segregation of uses, the elimination of trees within a certain distance of the street, and other restrictions that make our cities so unappealing. The New Pedestrianism movement, founded in 1999, is only now beginning to get some serious attention from planners. The city and surrounding rural municipality of Saskatoon, Saskachewan, Canada, for example, is considering five pedestrian villages that could be built on its southeastern edge. The housing bust is slowing things down in the U.S., but when things heat up again, planners may begin to realize that our suburban cities are no longer sustainable for many reasons. Pedestrian villages are compact, pedestrian-oriented, energy efficient, and beautiful. There are no automobile streets in front of any house or business, so the first instinct is to step out your front door and go for a pleasant stroll or bicycle ride on a pleasant, tree-lined, car-free lane. The second, less desirable choice would be to go out the back (where the automobile street is) and fire up the gas-guzzler.

Another era will be upon us when private cars are no longer necessary. This will come when self-driving cars have taken over, and we will have the option of getting rid of almost all the cars. Ninety percent of the time, cars are sitting around parked somewhere, taking up space, consuming precious resources, and losing value. If we can move toward eliminating private cars in favor of driverless public cars, a vehicle can be summoned when you need it. It will cost a fraction as much as owning a private car and you can have any kind of car you need on demand. Almost all of the world's 1.2 million annual deaths and 48 million injuries from motor vehicle accidents are caused by human error. Autonomous cars could vastly reduce the carnage. It is hard to imagine that un-enhanced humans would even be allowed to drive a car in 20 years in the way they do today.

The other factor is the development of fully immersive virtual reality, which could cut down drastically on the need for physical travel. Combine this with autonomous cars, and life in a pedestrian village, and it is easy to see how we could eventually reduce the number of cars to a fraction of the current level.

6. What is the relationship between an established human community and a free, wild area in nature? Is it possible to organize the architecture of our cities to work in harmony with the design of nature?

That is what New Pedestrianism is about. Not only would the villages be beautiful, sustainable, and livable, they would be surrounded by greenbelts and be adjacent to preserves or waterfronts. In almost all cases, within the pedestrian villages there would be no roads between the edge of the village and nature. Only pedestrian lanes are allowed on the periphery, so that the dynamic edge of people and their architecture is not spoiled by traffic. Have you noticed that beaches, riverfronts, lakefronts, and forests are usually bordered by a noisy, car-filled road or blocked by a building? Under NP, all these natural amenities would be bordered by a pedestrian lane, thus providing an accessible boundary and greenbelt to bring the community into balance with nature.

7. While Christianity is losing ground in the secular West, Judaism and particularly Islam continue to thrive in the Middle East. What is the future for traditional religions in an increasingly atheist-oriented world? Is the creeping death of religion and myth an unavoidable product of our time, or is there a possibility of some form of spiritual rebirth in man?

Christianity is losing ground in the West because people are wising up. Even a moderately educated person can see that more than one contradictory idea on the same subject cannot be true. We have thousands of religions with contradictory absolute beliefs about things which are unknowable. The other Abrahamic religions are thriving in the Middle East because many people in those countries are still mired in a vengeful, feudal mentality, which is even more dangerous in a technological world where cooler heads should prevail. Traditional religions have had their time, and we see the dangers involved in dogmatic beliefs and intolerance in a world that is becoming increasingly more like a big village. Faith is not a viable epistemology, just as Creationism is not science. Faith should be replaced with something more like Dale Carnegie's "power of positive thinking" while maintaining the ability to adjust to reality. Humans are quite wonderful beings when they apply the Golden Rule, look on the bright side of life, and adopt a scientific approach to knowledge. Doing those three things alone will change one's life—really. We understand the basis of the old myths now, and they are quaint but not practical. We need a guiding vision for something that really could transform our species and carry us from the mud to the stars. Prayer, superstitious practices, ritual, and absolutist thinking, is not just naïve but potentially dangerous.

8. Transhumanism has recently become a topic of hot debate. With the advancements in technology our computers are developing a more and more subtle artificial intelligence. Mary Shelley once wrote a novel about the scientist Frankenstein, who created a monster he could no longer control and eventually were forced to destroy. Do you see humanity reaching a similar problem in the future?

With change comes fear and clinging to the comfort of the familiar. It is part of our evolutionary survival mechanism, and without a certain degree of caution, balanced with curiosity, our species would not have flourished. Ever since people began building machines and tinkering with nature, and especially since the power of the atom was unleashed, people have feared what might happen if we make a false step. Are we about to open Pandora's box and give birth to a machine that will terminate our species? It is quite possible that we will develop recursively self-improving machines that can in a very short time go from human child level intelligence to god-like intelligence. This makes it imperative to watch our future baby AI very carefully and help it make the transition from a dangerous adolescent to a benevolent overmind. I call this new form of life UNICE, which stands for Universal Network of Intelligent Conscious Entities, and for a year I've been interviewing scientists and thinkers from around the world about the subject for an upcoming feature documentary. Quite simply, it may be the most important juncture that our species will face, and we need to pay close attention. We will continue to balance our curiosity with caution, and that is a wise strategy (http://www.unice.info).

We may compare our past situation to that of a rapacious caterpillar gnawing up resources at a tremendous rate while unaware that it is facing a vastly different future as a butterfly. Now, as we are wrap ourselves in a chrysalis of technology we can begin to contemplate what might lie on the other side of the great transformation. Will we survive to transcend our mortal coil and ascend the heights in a radiant new form? People may argue about whether this guiding myth of our time may happen, or whether we will be destroyed by our creations, but the process is grounded in hard science.

9. Many people in modern society seem to feel existentially bored and unfulfilled. If you agree, what do you think is the reason for this anxiety? Is there a chance for people to regain a sense of playful, adventurous creativity in life?

I can relate to some of that. I was depressed after I rejected the Roman Catholicism of my childhood, and it took me until I was 18 or 19 years old to find my way out of it and become a secular transhumanist. I remember calling myself an existentialist when I was teenager, and I read a lot of Camus, Sartre, and Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death were two of my favorite titles, but I also read Teilhard de Chardin. That was 36 years ago, and I'm still a seeker of knowledge, but it is a lot more fun now. We live in the most interesting time for humans to have been alive, and it will just get more interesting. Personally, I am very rarely bored, feel quite fulfilled, and want to live indefinitely. One lifetime is not nearly enough time to do all that I want to do.

For me, the key is to follow my interests in the service of others. Maybe that will work for others who feel that their lives are meaningless. Each person has to find their own niche that contributes to the whole. For some this means service to other people or organizations, for others it means working alone toward a cause, or on projects. When we reach through the little ego to the collective self beyond, it fills the hole that the rejection of organized religion can leave. Buddhism, a philosophy more than a religion, takes the view that the individual can transcend the misery of the ego by identifying with the whole of the universe. It helps to be passionately, almost fearlessly involved in life, and still be able to sit back and observe the theater of one's life with detachment when things get too serious.

Questions from our readers

From Victoria McMagnus

10. Isn't the real problem with drugs the lack of strong political will to crack down on drug abuse and corporate crime? What do you say to those who fear that legalising drugs would mean they would become as acceptable as alcohol and advertised all over the place?

You could make the whole world a vast penal colony and people would not stop using their drugs of choice. The U.S. already has the highest incarceration rate in the world and it is well known that both legal and illegal drugs are easily obtained in prison. It is futile and unnecessary to stamp it out. Many illegal drugs are quite useful, and, as we see with alcohol and tobacco (which are potentially quite dangerous), they are better controlled through legalization and regulation. The Dutch police told me that the average age of hard drug users in Holland has been increasing because they have eliminated the lure of the forbidden and they tolerate the addicts. We do need a strong political will—not to crack down on drug abuse—but rather to end the futile war on drugs. We also need strong political leaders who will include severe restrictions on advertising drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and other substances that have been proven dangerous to society.

In regards corporate crime: As long as our corrupt voting system allows politicians to be bought, then you'll have special interests getting special privileges.

11. With a drastic reduction in birthrate, an increase in the ratio of old people doesn't take long to materialise. How do you think this issue would affect countries like China and India in the future, should they succeed in reducing their birth rates sufficiently?

I think it is a non-issue—especially in light of future developments in life-extension, helper robots, and the fact that crime and violence will plummet in an aging population. India and China's population has risen by 300 million people in the last 20 years, because of population momentum from young populations, so those two countries are not good examples of your point. Better examples are Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan, which are nearing zero population growth. The fact that the countries with the oldest populations and slowest rate of growth are among the richest countries on Earth should tell you something. It is better to work toward a sustainable model with a stable, or declining population than to count on population growth to power the economy. We are also facing the strong possibility that humans will jump into cyberspace, or something more exotic, and leave the planet to the other species of plants and animals who may flourish in our absence.

12. How do you envisage your vision of a democracy that works being effected in a society in which corporate powers have seized such control over the government and political system? Can the corporate powers be peacefully deposed?

Traditionally, it has been hard to change society, but if UNICE develops, collective decisions governing every aspect of life will be automatic. We would have an individual consciousness at the same time as possessing UNICE consciousness. The president will be a figurehead, at most, and politicians will no longer exist in their present form, if at all. UNICE—the collective self that will comprise the future, self-aware Internet—will make sure that we solve all our various problems in the most efficient, judicious manner possible.

From Mathew Eugene

13. Much of what you suggest in your "12 Herculean Problems" would require some really fundamental changes in the current system, namely towards the growth-based economy. How is it possible to work within this system?

The fundamentals of our republic are sound, but there are institutionalized problems that need to be rooted out. The problems I list in the modern "Labors of Hercules" are generally ignored by politicians. This is why I list politics first. The first labor of Hercules, in the classic Greek myth, was the defeat of the Nemean Lion. This sneaky lion has two entrances to its cave and nothing can cut its hide except its own claws. Hercules has to shut off one of the entrances and then use the lion's own claws to flail it. When I was in Kenya working on the book and the documentary in 1997, I met a Masaai warrior who had killed a lion that was attacking his village and his livestock. He gave me one of the lion's claws from the defeated lion. I kept this claw from a real life, modern day Hercules to remind me of the first, very difficult task ahead of us. The irony is that this particular Masaai warrier was the runt of the litter, so to speak. To look at him, you would not think he had it in him, but he used his brains instead of his brawn. Might also does not make right in our struggle to reform a system where authoritarian attitudes have prevailed for years. The fight in Iraq is a sad example of this misbegotten policy. The Internet and the rise of UNICE might make it possible to work within the system. The mind of the future, self-aware Internet will hopefully become a collective wisdom, unmasking those who seek to hurt others. Or we might all go to hell in a hand basket. We shall see. There are surely at least a few acts left in the play of life.

14. Do we need an economic disaster for changes to really start happening?

No, but the folks talking about the breakdown of society following peak oil, might be onto something. Personally, I think we have a shot at tech-ing our way out of it, but it would involve reorganization along the lines that I propose in the Labors of Hercules, heeding the call to reverse population growth, and the advent of UNICE.

15. You suggest a choice-based, financial incentive strategy for population control, which seems fair enough. However, many will see this as a form of eugenics targeted towards the lower class. How would you deal with these objections?

I already addressed this to some extent above. Birth credits help the poor more than anyone else, since the well off already practice birth control and would not buy more birth credits even if they were free. Birth credits would improve society not only because of ecological issues but also because fewer unwanted children would be born. It would also free up resources to help everyone, regardless of social status. There is an interesting correlation in the U.S. between Roe v Wade decision, which allows legal abortion, and the precipitous drop in violence that followed a generation later. Presumably a lot of young, poor, single women got abortions instead of having unwanted children, who would later make up a disproportionate share of the criminals. Obviously, birth control is better than abortion, but if the correlation was really a cause, it shows that unwanted children, raised in poor circumstances, are not likely to help society advance. The poor would gain the biggest benefit from birth credits because they could be afforded a path out of multi-generational poverty. They could trade a life on welfare with multiple children destined to repeat the pernicious cycle, for education, job training, and integration into society. I don't know whether this would improve the gene stock, but so what if it does? Better eugenics than disgenics.

16. Do you consider long-term collective genetic effects in your reasoning?

Even without considering the taboo subject of eugenics there are more than enough reasons to stop population growth. Some people say that we should let nature take its course and Mother Nature will cull the herd. Well, that is roundabout way of saying we should invite pestilence, famine, climate change, natural disasters, wars, and other calamities to do the job because we do not have the good sense to practice birth control.

17. Overpopulation and immigration obviously go hand in hand. Immigration is also an extremely difficult issue, but probably less so than population control. Should immigration be tackled first?

The more pressing issue is overpopulation. Immigration problems flow from that. If Latin America had ZPG today, the immigration problem would evaporate in a generation.

18. Why would people vote for depopulation, when it would have negative effects on our growth-focused economy? Any way you look at it, aren't these ideas political suicide?

You are correct in that our politicians consider the subject political suicide, so we cannot rely on politicians to do anything about it. That is the tragedy of the commons. When everyone wants to get theirs without consideration of the commons, you get a tragedy. That is what has been unfolding in front of our eyes for the last few generations. The boom/bust cycles of our growth-focused economy are based on near-sighted goals that do not adequately address the long view. We need to do what is practical without always operating in fear of short-term consequences.

19. You just released a new movie, New Urban Cowboy: Toward a New Pedestrianism, how has the reaction been so far, and do you have any plans to distribute online?

We got good reviews, up to four and four and half stars, but for six months we were still looking for ways to improve it. We got audience reactions at four films festivals—San Francisco, Savannah, Orlando, and Daytona Beach—and then it was re-edited by Blake Wiers, my collaborator on the project. Various languages were added as subtitles in an international edition of the DVD, which is now available at http://www.newurbancowboy.com. It is actually the first film in a planned trilogy, to be followed by The Labors of Hercules: Modern Solutions to 12 Herculean Problems, and UNICE: Universal Network of Intelligent Conscious Entities. Visit http://www.goldenapplesmedia.com to find out more. My personal web site is at http://www.michaelearth.com.

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Interview was conducted by Alex Birch the 21th of May 2008.

Corrupt would like to thank Michael Arth for kindly participating in the interview and sharing his creative inspiration and visionary ideas with us.

British royal radicals have been making green news twice within a week. First we had ecofascist Prince Philip highlighting world overpopulation, and right after this, plant rights activist Prince Charles stated his concerns on the clearing of tropical rainforests. We should be rooting for them both!

It surprised me to discover that the plight of the rainforests has been increasingly relegated to a lesser priority in politics and the media than the specific need to cut carbon emissions. These issues cannot be separated! Rainforests and emissions go together like white corpuscles and infections. We need the rainforests to reduce the emissions as well as to stabilize the climate. They absorb CO2, while cutting them down releases large amounts of the gas.

So, how can it be that there are powerful voices seriously arguing that the rainforests can, and indeed must, be entirely cleared? This is exactly what Brazil's "soy king," Blario Maggi, is demanding. While he stands to further enrich himself in the short term should this happen, he says it is a moral imperative to plant crops on this land. The fact that the land will merely become desert is not something he allows to penetrate his skull. Maggi urges that we have to take all opportunities to grow both food and biofuel for the starving masses. An efficient solution would be to convert those masses into green biofuel and turn Maggi into IKEA worker in China.

Prince Charles favors a scheme to offer financial compensation to the various vested interests profiting from the deforestation. That is tantamount to offering to be held to ransom, and a foolish carrot to hang out. Now we are showing willingness to be blackmailed into paying £30 billion a year to halt the tree slaughter. Developing nations are also keen to blackmail us into helping them out with becoming greener in their industry and energy production - even though our economies are crashing and we are in serious debt, while India and China are surging ahead. Globalists are keen to encourage this line of thinking since it means ditching national interests and moving instead towards political interdependence.

Why is it fine to bomb Iran for fear of their nuclear ambitions, yet not okay to militarily occupy the Amazon and stop corporations from destroying our vital rainforests? Failing to prevent the latter threatens a far more catastrophic outcome for all of the world and should be priority number one. In 1950 the rainforests covered 15% of the planet. Now they cover less than half of that. 78 million acres a year are being lost. Almost incredibly, ten million Indians used to live in harmony with the ecosystem of the forests five hundred years ago, with no ecological footprint - but now only 200,000 remain there. Ninety tribes were wiped out since 1900. Various species are going extinct at a rate of three every hour.

Let us have a moment's silence to think of the holocaust.

The people farming on the peripheries of the forest, who are pawns in the game of the corporations, can barely make ends meet. The big businesses exploit them. It has been calculated that we all pay an unacceptable price (understatement alert!) for the disappearing rainforests. The climate change it causes will devastate millions of the poorest people - not that the corporations care about "externalities" like that. Then there are the other money making opportunities that are being ignored. Take the pharmaceutical ingredients solely available from these ancient forests (which contain more than half of all species of plants, animals and insects) and also add the rich harvest of nuts, fruits and so on which can be sustainably reaped. There is no economic justification for deforestation. We should avoid buying tropical wood, soy and palm oil products. Let's make the Soy King a "has-bean"!

You must have seen the kind of newspaper columns telling you the various ways in which you can be greener and save the planet. Well, if you're cutting down on paper consumption, you'll have read all that spiel online at any rate.

Some of this advice is of use: recycling your plastic bags; driving a more fuel-economic car - and some of it is worse than useless. In particular I am thinking of the big push towards eco light bulbs. Those things crack faster than the ice at a Billy Connolly show - particularly the swirly sort. I have had three of the buggers smash in my house in the past year. Environmentally friendly? That's so inaccurate anyone saying so should be prosecuted under the sales descriptions act. They are not environmentally friendly, they are environmentally lethal. They contain mercury, did you know?

And you have a mini biohazard to deal with when the inevitable breakage happens. There are some rules on how to embark on the clean up. I suggest you google about this beforehand. You can't just throw them in the trash either, they have to be specially recycled. I can tell you that very few people indeed will go to the trouble of finding where the hell you're supposed to take these pesky things. We haven't even been told of such a location. They'll be dumped along with all the other household waste and they'll contaminate the land and the water table. Whoever thought of this initiative can't have been too bright!

And what is more, while insisting we have to buy these scourges, the government blithely expands airports, motorways and you name it - immediately canceling out the optimistic projections of how far carbon emissions will be reduced by changing the light bulb. And they're going to ban the old style, standard bulbs. Perhaps people will end up going back to candles in desperation.

Companies know that "green" sells. People will pay more for "green" products and so it is a temptation ill resisted by manufacturers to tinker with their goods just enough to qualify them to seem environmentally responsible. Then people will continue on their consumer binging, buying stuff and dumping stuff while entirely guilt free. Almost no one wants to change their habits unless they can see a personal advantage from doing so

There is even an ethos growing amongst the common man that making or doing things yourself is to be looked down upon - it suggests you are a failure in life. This goes with the idea that "if you don't pay for it then it's worthless." Hence there is a general disregard for nature, which is taken for granted as a worthless "freebie." Certainly a shrewd businessman will see his opportunity to sell bottled water and indeed bottled air to a population who show so little interest in their surroundings and who are not at all outraged by the spreading pollution of both these resources, which should always be clean, pure and free.

Perhaps it is a good thing then, that decadence is becoming ever harder for people to afford. They may be prepared to make all kind of superficial excuses for their wish to buy while they can financially afford to, but the days of plenty are numbered. Food prices and the cost of living generally have led to everyone tightening their belts. It would have happened sooner had they not run up extortionate sums on credit, which they now find they can't pay back. Running out of cash is one way to make people genuinely greener. How's this for a slogan: "Make Poverty the Future"?

There have never been more people on Earth. There have never been more cows on Earth, nor pigs, nor chickens. We are using more pesticides today than at any other time in history and we are losing a greater percentage of the crops. At the same time, there has never been less clean water on Earth. There has never been less available topsoil, nor fewer fish, nor fewer mature trees. There has never been less cause for optimism for the future of the human race. Our natural resources are disappearing at an unbelievable rate, and our so-called leaders offer only cosmetic solutions. The Earth's population calls for more of everything while the Earth demands time to recover from years of abuse.
~ Howard Lyman

Why has the population of the world grown so quickly, why does it continue to grow exponentially, and why is so little being done to stop it?

The first explanation for this is the rise in technology and advances in medical science since the end of the second world war. The twin driving forces of unbridled capitalist greed and misplaced humanitarian concern for the so called "developing" nations led to a globalist push to industrialize. Suddenly people who used to have a sustainable way of life in the Third World were being fed and generally looked after. This led to a birth explosion, as well as greater levels of survival. Longer lives are as important a consideration as higher births as an explanation for overpopulation.

Old habits die hard, and the people of the developing nations have a tradition of large families for reasons of status, attempts to beat the odds of perceived risk of death before adulthood, competition and religion - as well as lack of contraception or interest in it. For many families, children are an investment because there is no state pension and they hope their offspring may take care of them.

Tribal conflicts have an effect of upping the birth rate. We have seen a noticeable drop in births in Ireland coinciding with the advent of peace there. Before this, the Protestants and Catholics rivaled each other to produce more babies. Obviously the Catholics were more successful there with the religious ban (now rarely observed) on contraception. Indeed the Pope is far from helpful in attempts to curb world population because he fervently encourages Catholics to breed and is opposed even to condoms to protect from AIDS. Now that Muslims have overtaken Catholics in number over the world, the Pope is only going to react by further entreaties to Catholics to get breeding. And the Muslims themselves have an expansionist agenda. In Palestine and Israel they make no secret of the design to defeat the Jews by outnumbering them.

People feel power from their numbers and there is an instinct to expand as long as resources allow for it. This is happening in many countries and amongst many ethnicities, although one rarely hears mention of it in the western media. If we understood this principle better we would not have the politically correct attitude required of good sheeple.

For some time now some nations have been trying to curb their birth rates because they are running out of resources and their governments have realized the economic advantages in reining in the expansion. Since 1979 China has had a "one child" policy which has slowed down their growth, although far from stopped it. China is colonizing areas of the world, and those who leave China have full permission to breed to their hearts' content.

India is also making attempts to reduce numbers. And while there was worldwide horror and condemnation of Indira Gandhi's program to offer transistor radios in return for sterilization in the 1970s - so all such attempts in the world were stamped on - India is now offering similar bribes without much murmur of opposition. There is a scheme offering men gun licenses for having vasectomies!

The Indian government has no jurisdiction over their north-eastern Khasi population however - who are so keen on expansion that they offer hundreds of dollars to any woman exceeding fifteen offspring!

And while we are talking of paying women to have babies - this is precisely what European nations are doing. Estonia even offers mothers, from their first child, about $2000 a month for a year. Japan, whose population is aging even more rapidly than Europe's, has a company offering $10,000 for each of its employees' children born after the first one.

India and China face problems in the future with an aging population born during their baby boom, should they succeed in reducing their birth rates. The whole thing is an utter fiasco.

As yet, the official bodies who should be engaged in active solutions to help reduce world population are refusing to acknowledge the problem. This becomes even more shocking when you realize that in the 60s and 70s such organizations and politicians were publicizing the severe danger of overpopulation and seriously formulating strategies to deal with it. Suddenly all this stopped, as if by some greater authority decreeing the whole issue out of bounds. And now we can thank the internet for allowing the many thousands who are fully aware of the situation to speak out publicly, together with the fact that symptoms, such as food prices soaring, point inexorably in the direction of overpopulation as a cause. Soon the politicians and various green parties who have been such traitors to the Earth will turn around and behave as if they were never responsible for suffocating voices of concern on the issue.

In 1974, the US government study - NSSM 200 - called for a drastic world population decrease, and the Carter administration released a document "Global 2000" saying that an immediate reduction to 2 billion was necessary. At the time, environmentalist groups agreed with these concerns, and Oxfam publicly supported zero population growth, while a Greenpeace slogan stated "Stop at Two".

This was suddenly replaced with the present Green policy that overpopulation is not a problem, that immigration to the west is a moral imperative, and that the cause of environmental collapse is down to polluting by western industry. This they say, while calling to end poverty all over the world - ie spreading the same consumerist lifestyle aspired to by our middle class.

Can you smell something rotten? That would be the necrocapitalism. Big business has bought our governments and our environmentalist groups. Evidence for the latter comes from the revelation that the Sierra Club, a leading US environmentalist group, accepted donations from a certain David Gelbaum, of over $100million in return for staying schtum on the impact of immigration on environmental problems.

Cheap labor and spreading globalist capitalism through loss of ethno-nationalist unity are essential for the necrocapitalists.

Corporate greed; religious doctrine; ethnic competitiveness; the wonders of modern medicine and humanitarianism - all are to blame for driving world overpopulation. Only when it becomes uneconomic for the situation to continue will our politicians agree to change things. By then it could be too late for the planet. We must struggle to destroy the farce of democracy and replace it with active solutions now!

Just like the crazy things that people buy these days say a lot about their character and interests, federal spending, that in the U.S. makes up for more than half of the total government spending, reveals the true state of America today. A total of 42 % of the entire Federal Budget goes exclusively to two things: national defense and social security. Paranoia and self-defeatism. The once biggest superpower in the world has now become a confused and hurt animal, and no matter how much it kicks to scare away enemies, it's effectively digging its own grave.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that America is spending lots of money on defense. What we're currently seeing today on the world political arena is a growing Cold War Redux, with increased tensions between the growing powers in the East ("Mother Russia" and Iran being two of them) and a globalist-capitalist alliance in the West (where America is still in the forefront); it's a war about power expansion, natural resources and cultural-ideological conflicts. Given this context, it's no wonder our national defense costs us a fortune -- despite the message of "peace," we're constantly fighting useless wars to track down spooky terrorists across the globe, and under our current regime, the world is apparently full of them. If there aren't any terrorists, we create them, arm them, and then hunt them down (Saddam, anyone?!).

Apart from the endless stream of enemies that force us to sleep with the gun under our pillow, the second economical drain on the budget is the social security. A system overloaded by illegal immigration, baby boomers and parasites, combined with a dysfunctional economy that's debt-based and currently collapsing in on itself thanks to the unstable housing market, will eventually wreck the budget and plunge America into a semi-third world state. The priorities reveal that the economy is bleeding cash and that all our bought up puppet politicians are able to do is to try to cover the wounds with cash already spent. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is not going to work, despite the blessings from God on our dollar bills. Hey, that's why the new presidential candidates have already given up on their tasks and instead ask of you to believe in change -- if God can't fix this, we're screwed anyway, they reason.

The fact that only 1 % of the budget is spent on the environment, tells us that any serious societal reform would have to rearrange the economical priorities in this country. Ron Paul had this right: cut down on social welfare that keeps idiots and bloodsuckers alive. Reform the economy by disallowing the organized oligarchs to issue our money based on nothing, and make the money supply a state-run institution, not a leak hole for corruption. Stop the Iraq war and cease being part of the globalization process (to avoid future wars we're destined to lose anyway). Localize this huge bureaucratic machine and start caring for the environment. All of our social and political problems can be solved by recognizing that our enemy is not in Iraq, Iran or Russia, but within. We're bleeding because we're not operating correctly. Let's get back on track by fixing our internal problems here and now. It can be done, with or without God's blessing, and it will save America from becoming the next Brazil in collapse.

Wild salmon are going extinct at an alarming rate thanks to the practices of a lucrative and unconcerned fish farming industry. The farmed salmon we find in the supermarkets today are naturally gray but usually modified to look pinker. Wild salmon is pink/red in color. To make their fish more attractive, salmon farmers resort to cosmetics and, as well as these chemicals, farmed salmon are loaded with dioxins, PCBs, anti-biotic and other nasties. Unlike the wild variety, the health advisors say you cannot risk eating farmed salmon any more than once every two months, and not a big portion either.Unlike the wild variety, the health advisors say you cannot risk eating farmed salmon any more than once every two months, and not a big portion either.

Now industry is going in for the krill. Described as "pink gold", krill is a very lucrative commodity and there are fears it will soon be mined to hell. This will hit wild salmon, as well as other wildlife such as penguins that rely upon this food source.

Farmed salmon are often raised in crowded underwater pens. Of all the fish to choose, salmon are particularly unsuited to this habitat. Such treatment is both cruel and idiotic. Think of the natural life cycle of the salmon, in which the young swim down rivers to the ocean and, as adults, return to their spawning grounds undergoing the trial of flinging themselves upstream in rapidly flowing water, ensuring only the strongest survive to keep the species healthy. They are a far cry from the degenerate and flabby domesticated salmon.

The toxic soup in which the farmed fish are raised has, unsurprisingly, allowed a deadly virus to emerge, that is quickly wiping out salmon in Chile. Domesticated salmon are also teeming with sea lice. Mother Nature, in all her wisdom, ensured that baby wild salmon were not infected, since adults die before infestation could take hold and be carried back to the ocean. Now, thanks to the wonder of modern food production, the young wild salmon must run a gauntlet of infected farmed fish. This is an explanation for the crashing salmon stocks in Ireland, Scotland, Norway and the Chinook salmon in California, with Canada following close behind.

But the lice and the virus are not the only threats. Millions of farmed salmon have escaped, and their inferior genetic quality is having a horrific effect on wild populations. Perhaps because of the parallels regarding human bad breeding, this is not a story we hear much about.

In Autumn 2006, the estimation was that up to 90% of salmon returning to some rivers in Canada, Scotland, Ireland, the Faero Islands and Norway are in fact of farmed origin. These are not the same strains of salmon as the wild ones, and 70% of the hybrid offspring die in the first few weeks due to genetic incompatibilities. The first hybrid generation seem just fine, and anglers are thrilled with the bigger fish. ("Isn't out breeding wonderful?") but then the population collapse occurs in the next generation. Farmed salmon have a success rate in the wild of 2% that of a pure wild salmon.

Incredibly, some brands of farmed salmon are labeled "organic". Comparing the farmed "organic" with the wild variety, you notice not only the gray shade, but the mesh of creamy fatty veins and the floppy muscle tone similar to a twenty stone couch potato. When fried, it falls apart quicker than a pair of paper underpants, and has been described as tasting watery and bland, compared with the sweet juiciness of the wild version. This makes a mockery of organic standards. Farmed salmon is a completely unsustainable and destructive industry and we should boycott its produce. Also needed is an all out ban on salmon fishing until stocks recover. But don't hold your breath.

Soon it's one year since the Korean-American student Cho Seung Hui went on a rampage at Virginia Tech University that led that 33 deaths, including Cho's suicide shortly after the massacre. Big newspapers construct glamorous, mournful, psychological analyses of why Cho committed the act, and to no one's surprise, we're supposed to believe that 33 people lost their lives "at random" because of a depressed and deranged student. "It just happened." Bullshit.

Cho was before the killings diagnosed as suffering from selective mutism, which means that the person alienates him- or herself because of social anxiety. Coupled with depression, this explains why Cho wasn't very social in the classroom. From here, TV priests and pop psychologists alike draw the conclusion that Cho began to grow feelings of resentment toward people around him, which eventually led to the school shooting. Note the word "eventually." This is where the media constructs a slippery slope-argument that fails to explain what actually happened.

Why was Cho feeling socially anxious and depressed? Just like any other high school student, he was confined within an environment that's defined by money, escapism and popularity. Cho, like his Finnish counterpart Pekka-Eric Auvinen, was probably unusually aware and intelligent. He quickly learned the social mechanisms behind the behaviour of his Western classmates and saw only emptiness and fear. In his suicide notes and the videos he sent to NBC, he crusades against "rich kids," "debauchery," and "deceitful charlatans." It's a reaction, not against his fellow students, but against a behavioural pattern in our society.

Cho chose to deviate from the essence of our society. Driven by commerce and desperate, hedonistic urges, the modern West is an obese monster devouring itself while in denial of its own self-destruction. Cho came from an Asian background and probably experienced a stark contrast between a cultural behaviour of self-control and what he saw in American teenagers as "debauchery;" alcohol, sex and materialism. This conflict led to his eventual downfall, which reached a bloody climax just before his death. His retaliation found an expression no one would be able to ignore.

The Virginia Tech massacre is no random phenomenon. By merely counting the number of school shootings the last 2 years, this is obvious. The public media is trying to cover these shootings up by focusing on the perpetrator alone and depicting him as a lonely, depressed and hateful individual. While this picture might be accurate in many cases, it fails to address where this social alienation comes from. It also hides the motives behind the shootings, effectively writing all suicide notes and manifestos off as "ramblings of hate." These school shooters don't hate people - they hate society, and they make people suffer for it.

We construct a false image of these perpetrators because we want to avoid panic. All people know, deep down inside, that these incidents are not random events. They all point to a breakdown of the social foundation behind our society and it's falling apart faster than ever. We will see more of these shootings in the future, possibly in other forms, as long as we continue to live in denial. Cho's act of vengeance was a violent revenge against our neurotic lifestyles that force us to compete with money and social fashion, until we cannot take it anymore and self-destruct. For Cho, it was a last, desperate cry for help in a society where everyone's too busy to pay attention to its downfall at micro level.

Originally trained as a psychologist in the scientist-practitioner model, John Feeney, Ph.D., is today an environmental writer. His current primary areas of focus are population growth and the media's failure to acknowledge the gravity of the global ecological crisis. Today John lives with his family in Boulder Colorado, USA, where he continues to research and to write and speak about ecological topics.

1. Please tell us about how this all started; what sparked your interest and concern for the environment?

First, I want to thank Alex Birch and Corrupt.org for making this interview possible. The questions are great, and I appreciate the chance to share these thoughts with the readers here.

Now to answer the question, I was mildly concerned even in grade school. I remember the thought occurring to me then that overpopulation was probably the biggest problem the world faced. I was also something of an outdoorsman as a teen, so some concern for the environment was natural.

But I drifted away from that and the population issue was squelched in the media and I pretty much forgot about all of it until about five years ago. That's when I moved with my family to tiny Mount Vernon, Iowa in search of a sort of utopian small-town-America life. In some ways it lived up to our hopes. It's a beautiful little Victorian town. But there was a new development going up that would (and will) just destroy the town's character.

I got involved with a group trying to fight the development but wondered why I was the only one advocating a true "no-growth" policy. Everyone else was pushing for "smart growth." As I researched the topic I came to see how pervasive was the rhetoric of the growth industry, hammering away with the message that growth was "inevitable and good" (hence, the defeatist notion that "if we have to grow we might as well make it 'smart growth.'"). I started reading the few alternative voices out there, such as Eben Fodor and Gabor Zovanyi who exposed the truth of such rhetoric and began to point me toward broader environmental issues. I also started a blog to try to debunk developer propaganda.

As I continued, I began to dig into issues I'd merely glanced at in the news: population, climate change, the whole array of environmental declines, peak oil, etc. I suppose everyone sees these mentioned in the news, but for me it took purposefully tracking down and connecting these things to see that we faced a profound global crisis. The convergence, at this moment of history, of several huge ecological problems, all nearing potential global crisis points, made me quite concerned about the future my kids would be heading into.

I was especially drawn to the population issue because it seemed clear it was a driving force behind the growth and sprawl which had first prompted my activism. And it is!

We moved to Boulder, Colorado where I spent about half a year thinking about how to deal with these issues. I decided to go with another blog, this time reaching out not just to my immediate community but to the world. I've used it as a kind of home base on the Web, and hope now to be able to reach out more to some large publications in an effort to reach more people.

2. Many people today witness how once green, untouched land is being transformed into concrete suburbs and shopping malls at a rapid speed. The effect and impact are overwhelming; how do you think this development is affecting the human mind? Does the lack of free, wild, untouched nature have a negative psychological impact on how we feel, think and behave as individuals throughout our everyday life?

A fascinating question. First let me just underscore what you point out by mentioning that I grew up in the Phoenix, Arizona area. It's been one of the fastest growing cities in the US for many decades. A few years ago I came across the population statistics for Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix. I can't find the link now, but if I recall correctly the population numbers were... 1950: 2000, 1960: 10,000, 1970: 68,000, and on up to something like 225,000 today.

One advantage of being a half century old, is that I've been around long enough to have seen first hand what urban growth and population growth have done. I remember some dirt streets in Scottsdale in the '60s. No one new to the area today would believe that. There was vast, beautiful desert to the North which today is housing developments and car dealerships. And while I can't prove it, I would contend it was a far more liveable place 40 years ago. Today, it could pass for just another suburb in West L.A. There's an amazing video showing the history of sprawl in the Phoenix area, how it's completely transformed such a huge amount of land.

But yes, I think the shrinking amount of untouched land has to have a negative impact on our ways of thinking and behaving. Oddly enough, though, despite my background in psychology this is something I've only recently begun to look into. So I'll just share a quick thought or two.

We've replaced wilderness with concrete and maybe a smattering of trees and grass. We spend most of our time in homes not at all of the earth. This has to affect our ways of perceiving ourselves, our surroundings, and the connectedness of the two.

Some have noted that, compared to us, hunter-gatherers had/have a tremendously heightened awareness of their surroundings. I suspect they'd see us as dulled in our ways of perceiving much of the world.

One has to wonder, as well, how a disconnection from the natural world may impact a person's emotional life or patterns of psychopathology in our culture as a whole. Such disconnection coincides with disconnection from other people as our social organization today is completely different from the smaller, more cohesive groups which were characteristic of hunter-gatherer cultures.

Now I won't argue there was ever a utopian culture. I'm not even sure there was ever a truly ecologically sustainable culture. (Certainly many came much closer than ours today). But this isolation from nature and loss of social connection which was once integral to living has to have had some serious, pervasive impacts. There is a growing field of "ecopsychology" which I have not looked at closely, but which examines those among other issues.

3. Some people have spent their whole life in vast cities and never been in real contact with wild forests. How do you think the ever-increasing urbanization is affecting the interest and understanding for nature in general? Is it true that what we don't see nor hear, we don't think of?

I think so. We are progressively out of touch with the natural world. In the US there are fewer visitors to national parks than there were a few decades ago – which is remarkable considering that the US population is much bigger now. This is of course good for the parks (perhaps outweighed though by the spread of chemical toxins to the parks) but hints, I think, at a troubling loss of interest in the wilderness, in nature. I have to think it makes it more difficult under such conditions to generate concern among people about the state of the environment.

That is, in fact, almost certainly a major reason behind our having let things slide as far as we have. Just to summarize, we see a long list of environmental problems including a mass extinction of species, climate change, extreme overfishing of both the oceans and fresh water environments, deforestation, huge "dead zones" in the oceans, extensive loses of coral reefs, the global spread of chemical toxins (e.g., fire retardant in the bloodstreams of polar bears, who are themselves threatened), the peaking of world oil production, and projections of serious water shortages to come. The real worry is that all of these are converging at once. The big ones, like mass extinction, climate change, and oil depletion are all nearing crisis points, and all have the potential for major societal impacts.

It's difficult to drum up concern, though, when most of us feel separate from nature and have the sense things are just going along as usual in our urban lives. But we're still living within and dependent for out lives on the biosphere even if we've made our immediate surroundings (e.g., a city) quite artificial. Somehow we need to get people to appreciate that they're still dependent on the web of life and are just one of millions of species within it. We also need to come to an understanding that humans have no special privileges among species. Then maybe we'd treat other species more respectfully – which simultaneously means saving ourselves.

4. After global warming became a worldwide phenomenon via public media, there has been a growing interest in turning environmentalism into a "green lifestyle." Do you believe this has had an overall positive effect on environmentalism action in general, or is modern green awareness fading out into just another social trend?

Mainly the latter. It may have had a few positive effects, but on the whole I think it's been a tremendous distraction and to a large extent a waste of time. Look at the more popular environmental sites on the Web or even at most of the major environmental organizations these days. The focus is mostly on how to "go green" in your lifestyle, what kind of products to buy, how to reduce your driving, and sometimes on considerations of things like carbon trading schemes. People get the message that this is what environmentalism is about.

While some of those things do have value, their emphasis is an evasion of fundamental ecological truths. There are far too many people consuming too much. The overconsumption part does get some play (which is why I don't focus on it much), but the "too many people" part is avoided at all costs by most environmentalists and groups. This has the potential to go down as the most tragic instance of intellectual dishonesty in human history.

We also have a corporate driven economy based on a notion of endless growth. This ties into the population issue in complex ways, but suffice it to say an economy cannot grow endlessly on a finite earth any more than can the human population. Yet economists tend to be aghast at the thought of stopping growth. They fail to consider that there will be no economy at all without a viable global ecosystem.

I think the economic growth issue is beginning to get some attention among mainstream environmentalists. The UK magazine, The Ecologist, just did a cover story on it. And George Monbiot wrote about it in a recent article. Unfortunately, he used it to try to dismiss the importance of population, weaving a terribly flawed argument resting on a blatant, basic math error. (For interested readers, I talk about that in a post on my blog.)

I'm afraid Monbiot's stance is, at this point, simply in line with what gets approval from the left. It's beginning to be okay to question economic growth, but talking about population remains politically incorrect. The writers on the right are even worse; they deny environmental problems in the first place, and argue that unending population growth is a good thing.

This is why I'm shifting most of my focus to population. Among these basic ecological issues, that's where there's a real need for more voices.

5. It's become popular among corporations to produce products labelled "green," something that seems to have sparked a recent consumer interest in this field. Is there a danger in equating environmentalism with the consumption of "green products"?

Yes, it gives people the impression that they're being good environmentalists if they simply buy the right products, if they just make sure they buy the non-toxic stuff or the biodegradable stuff. Not only does it blind them to much bigger and more fundamental issues such as population, but it also promotes continued consumption at rates (population size x average per capita consumption) the earth can't sustain.

We're seeing some corn based plastics, for instance, which are supposed to be biodegradable. There's value in that. But as we're seeing with ethanol, as we shift agriculture toward producing other products, be they fuel or plastics, we ultimately take away from food production. One way or the other, there are trade-offs and costs, and as long as we remain at numbers so vastly in excess of what the earth can support sustainably we'll run into them.

We can and should switch to hybrid and then electric cars but they still involve a physical throughput of material "stuff" (such as mined metals which exist in the earth in finite amounts) at rates beyond the earth's absorptive and regenerative capacities.

6. Why is the issue of population growth among many environmentalists, the public media and the world political arena, either not acknowledged or seen as a taboo problem?

The most complete article on this is by Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz. They focus on the issue of US population, but many of their points apply to the global issue as well. Dave Foreman (Earth First! founder) also wrote a good piece on it. (PDF)

There are a number of elements at work. In my experience two stand out especially strongly. First, the environmental movement used to emphasize things like wilderness protection and land conservation. That was when it was represented by people like David Brower. People read and appreciated an author like Edward Abbey. But environmental organizations have since become dominated by folks with a different agenda.

As Beck and Kolankiewicz point out, they began making noise as long ago as the early 1970s. They came from backgrounds focused more on social justice and human rights, and have shifted the focus of environmentalism from conservation to things like the human environment and urban health issues. A part of this has been a shift from population numbers to things like "reproductive justice." Any discussion of population numbers is seen as a violation of a woman's right to control her own fertility. The problem, of course, is how to bring numbers down without talking about numbers. Hmmm...

The political roots of this trend were, to some extent, in socialism, and the tendency is to see all problems as matters of social justice inequities and unfair distribution of resources. That is, there is no real population problem, only political unfairness, and any focus on numbers is seen as a distraction from these, the "real" problems. Advocates of this notion, such as Betsy Hartmann at Hampshire College (You can see her views in this discussion.), believe we cannot effectively attend to such issues as women's rights and poverty as long as we focus on population numbers. They also believe a focus on numbers has to lead to inhumane actions. These are both, rather obviously, logical errors. There is no reason we can't address important issues of human rights and welfare while also addressing population. And humane, successful population programs in countries as varied as Mexico, Thailand, and Iran contradict the notion that attention to numbers has to mean inhumane interventions.

More fundamentally, the trouble with this thinking is that there is, in fact, such a thing as an ecological problem. There is such a thing, on a finite earth, as too many people – pure and simple. We've far overshot carrying capacity and, importantly, no remotely realistic amount of reduction of per capita consumption would, at our current and projected numbers, be enough to bring us back down to within Earth's limits. (More to come on that. I'm trying to interest a major paper or other publication in an article I've written which, IMHO, is a very solid proof of that last statement.) Remember, our total resource consumption is the product of population size times per capita consumption. At this stage, we absolutely have to reduce both. But population is actually a bit more fundamental. Only the lack of a consumer can mean no consumption at all. And had we far fewer people on Earth, we wouldn't be worried about individual consumption levels. But those who protest any focus on numbers or any intervention aimed at reducing fertility rates often go so far as to deny a population-environment link.

For some excellent observations about the tendency to see ecological problems as purely political I'd recommend William Catton's book Overshoot. It's one of the best books for getting at the essence of all these topics, by the way.

At any rate, their position really crystallized at the UN's 1994 conference on population in Cairo. Responding to pressure groups, leaders there decided to go along with the idea of avoiding dealing with population in terms of numbers in favor of a focus solely on social issues, some of which are thought to be linked to population growth. A major report from the UK last year summarized this very well. It solicited the input of scores of scientists and population experts, and concluded that this shift of attention has been a serious setback to the population issue and to environmental matters worldwide.

Those opposing addressing population are, I should also say, extremely anthropocentric or speciesist if you will. Everything is seen as a matter of human rights with no regard whatsoever for the rights of other species which are disappearing at rates 100 to 1000 times normal. Anthropologist Jeffrey McKee at Ohio State University has demonstrated convincingly that this "sixth extinction" (the fifth eliminated the dinosaurs) is due primarily to our sheer, growing numbers.

That's a key point too; the sixth extinction is a breakdown in the very web of life. Even those who can't appreciate the moral issue of extinguishing other species should be able to realize humans are as dependent on the web of life as any other plant or animal. This mass extinction will continue as long as our numbers keep growing. I think it may be the most compelling reason to reverse our population growth.

The second factor has to do with immigration. Among the few environmentalists willing to tackle population, some observe that the US's (and Canada's, and many EU nations') population growth is now largely immigration driven. The US total fertility rate (average number of children born per woman) has, for about three decades, been close to the replacement rate of 2.1. With no immigration or emigration that would mean that in a few more decades the population would stabilize. But with legal immigration levels near 1 million per year, possibly a comparable level of illegal immigration, and far less emigration, population will simply keep growing unless immigration levels are reduced.

The carrying capacity of the US is probably less than 200 million and we're now over 300 million. So, purely for environmental reasons, some population activists urge immigration reduction. It's a valid argument, and I think it should be on the table, open for discussion. But its a magnet for accusations of racism. Even though legal immigration to the US was in the neighborhood of 200,0000 in the 1960s (after which a change in the law allowed it to rise) and there's always been some limit, any call for discussion of limits based on environmental factors draws shouts of racism. Even those who point out that it's purely a matter of numbers, that it would make no difference if all immigrants were coming from Scandinavia, get hit with the same accusations.

The irony is that those on the left making such accusations are playing right into the hands of the corporate uber-capitalists who want unlimited immigration so that they don't have to pay a living wage.

In any case, it's the same kind of intellectual dishonesty which pervades other aspects of the population debate. It's ideology put before rational thought, logic, and intellectual honesty.

In my case, in my heart, I don't like the idea of immigration restrictions, but from an environmental point of view I see no way around the issue.

The immigration issue and consequent fear of being labelled "racist" is a key reason why many environmentalists avoid the population topic. For the NGOs I'm sure it's a fear of a loss of funding. For individual writers it's just plain fear of criticism, I suppose. They put their fear of criticism ahead of their concern for the planet and the potential loss of billions of lives.

I will add that my own politics have historically leaned toward the left. But I've been so disillusioned by the intellectual dishonesty I've witnessed from those on the left in investigating the population issue, including the Green Party, that I've returned to just calling myself an "independent" as I did at an earlier time in my life.

There are other factors as well, such as pressure from the Catholic church, but the two above are the ones I see the most clearly on a day to day basis.

7. Many people logically realize we need to do something about the environmental problems, but inevitably feel helpless as lonely individuals when considering the powerful financial and political interests that seem to control how most of our society works. What is your advice to those who want to help and do something constructive for the environment? Is there hope for action on an individual level or do we need to be a part of the system to change it?

I have no pat answer here. But I have a few thoughts. First, just working within the existing system, I think a large enough number of individual actions can indeed have an impact. I write in the hope of adding to whatever chorus there is on these topics, with the aim of raising awareness. With enough awareness, I think you get a certain critical mass which leads to significant action.

We've seen this to some extent with regard to climate change. True, much more action is needed, but the rising chorus on climate change, mostly from the scientific community, had sparked international meetings, new policies, etc. If it continues to grow, there will be more change. I don't know if it will be enough, but it's significant. If we could generate a similar chorus and increase in awareness concerning population and, more broadly, the whole global ecological crisis (the troubling convergence of things like peak oil, mass extinction, climate change, aquifer depletion...), we might really see some action instead of the complete lack of action we see now.

The more awareness there is, the greater the chance talented people will come up with ideas or organizations that really make a difference. Just imagine what it would be like if people with talents like those of the guys who founded Google were to apply the same ingenuity and creativity to tackling the ecological crisis.

Much of the way I think about trying to have an impact revolves around the idea of getting the most "bang for the buck." I think it goes back to my time as a professional poker player and learning the importance of thinking about those concepts which really made big differences in one's results rather than all the minutia which, while interesting, can bog players down in unimportant stuff.

While it may sound hokey, I actually think letters to the editor have a lot of "bang for the buck." They're quick and easy to write and large numbers of people do read them! Similarly, you can leave comments under posts on the blogs with really large readerships such as this one. (He's been touching on the population issue, though so far hasn't quite grasped the nature of overshoot.) Or start a petition here and get thousands of people to sign it and send it to their government representatives.

My general advice would be to go with your strengths. If you're decent at online research and writing you might take a route similar to mine. If you're a good organizer, you might think about forming an activist group of some sort. If you can teach, then try to reach as many young people as possible with ecological concepts not often taught today prior to college. If you like working on the Web or have site-building skills, build a site and promote it. This site (Corrupt) appears to me to be doing exceptionally well in that regard. It seems to have developed a large readership, and there are short and longer term plans for growth and ideas for how to accomplish specific goals.

But to maximize your impact in relation to the energy and time you expend, think about "bang for the buck."

All of the above are "within the system" actions. As I understand it, Corrupt is of course interested in seriously transforming or perhaps ending the system as we know it. That is a large challenge, to say the least, but I fully agree with going right to the root causes of the problems we see today.

I see a lot of validity to the argument, for instance, that the fundamental structures of civilization are untenable and unsustainable. I may ultimately go more in the direction of a Derrick Jensen. And I feel a definite affinity for the rewilding movement. There is much to be said for acknowledging civilization itself is the problem and taking it from there. But for now I have some things I hope to accomplish in just raising awareness of some basic problems.

So, at this point, the question of how to take the foundations out from under the "system" itself is not my expertise. But I'm sure the readers here need no introduction to those who have thought about and are involved in such things.

Questions from our readers

From Markus Nordman

8. You recently changed focus to writing for "larger venues." What kind of hope do you hold out for the Internet in general to get crucial environmental messages to the general public, or to enable change?

I still believe the Internet is a very powerful tool. If I'd wanted to spend more time promoting it I might have simply stuck with my blog, adding to its readership, ultimately forming a nonprofit organization, hiring some help and competing with the larger environmental sites. There are blogs and sites out there with huge readerships. But I'm not keen on that kind of work, and I see an opportunity to leapfrog all of that and just write for publications which already have huge readerships. The cost is that I have to go around begging people to publish my articles. But with added successes that should become easier.

On the other hand, the Web always holds out that possibility of launching a site based on a new idea which really takes off. That can be very attractive.

9. As a psychologist and poker player tackling major environmental problems, how much do your readings of the motivations of people or groups attacking or denying these issues actively play into your approaches (if at all)?

Well, I think about that some. I do try sometimes to speak to those motives in my arguments. For instance, I try to point out to those on the left who avoid the population issue that addressing population is one of the greatest humanitarian steps we can take. I may do a bit more of that, much as mainstream environmentalists do in convincing corporations that they can profit more from "going green." (I think it might help to nudge corporate heads to think about their children and grandchildren and the world they'll inhabit.) But so far I've mostly just to relied on the power of truth (as I see it), assuming that trying to get the truth in front of enough people will make a difference.

10. How do you feel about the notion of certain peak oil adherents that peak oil will effectively "solve" looming ecological problems?

Well, on a certain level it will help, as long as oil isn't replaced by coal. But on other levels some think it and related problems will trigger terrible humanitarian problems in places like Sub-Saharan Africa and subsequently elsewhere. The ideal course would be to start weaning ourselves off of oil, moving to renewables and helping developing countries do so, while lowering fertility rates enough to allow world population to start shrinking. But our leaders don't usually go along with the ideal course, eh?

11. What role do you see in addressing immigration with regard to world population issues? Clearly this is a major sticking point even among advocates of population reduction.

To what I touched on above I'll just add that one good argument for including immigration in the population discussion is that, as Al Bartlett has written, (PDF) it's hard for the US to tell others to reduce their population growth if we aren't doing so with our own. We can take the moral high ground by setting an example.

And addressing population is only going to happen on a country by country basis. Unless we're happy to let environmental degradation run amok in the countries attracting the most immigration, then it seems those countries with populations growing mostly as a result of immigration need to think about that immigration, no? I see no logical way around it.

12. Hypothetically, assuming a major population reduction on the level necessary for a sustainable future, what dynamics do you see at play that prevent this from occurring again almost as soon as the crisis is "solved?"

If I understand the question, I think you're asking how would we prevent another rapid population increase if we did manage to bring our numbers down sufficiently.

I guess it would me a matter of learning from our mistakes. There needs to be some cultural restructuring to build in processes which would insure against population growth beyond some optimum level. We need also to build in a widespread appreciation for ecological fundamentals. At the moment I see a looming crisis which needs emergency measures just to deal with the symptoms. But from a slightly longer term perspective we need to address the structures of today's civilization which have allowed for so much population growth.

From Sergio Ramirez

13. I've read recently that the average American consumes approximately twenty times as much as the average African. The U.S.A. is also noted for releasing 25% of the world's carbon emissions. If these figures are true (If they are wrong, please do correct), would it be wise to grant foreign countries the same liberties as those here in the States? How would one go about reducing such rapid consumption?

Those figures are probably in the right ballpark. They do highlight a key point. Population growth in the US is especially problematic because each person added here has a much larger ecological footprint than one added in a place like Africa or India or China. On the other hand, India, China, and other countries are growing economically very, very fast. As their populations continue growing (and India is expected to surpass China as the most populous country), so do their per capita consumption levels. That's a road to disaster. (Again, it's that equation, population size x average per capita consumption.)

In addition to further attention to population then, developed countries should aim considerable resources at assisting developing countries to transition to renewable energy as fast as possible.

Economically, the African countries are not at the same stage as, say, India and China. I have seen some writers use that to dismiss the problem of population growth there. That's nonsense. The crisis in Darfur is strongly population-related. And species threatened with extinction include the African lion (numbers down 90% since the1980s), chimpanzees, gorillas, etc. Africa is seeing some of the fastest population growth rates in the world, and the increase in sheer numbers, apart from energy use, has profound environmental impacts not acknowledged by those who dismiss it.

From a slightly different angle we must recognize that if things get much worse in Africa, with more Darfur-like situations and other humanitarian crises, reducing population growth there is one of the few measures which can help soften the blow. Fewer people born means fewer born into suffering, fewer deaths, and fewer competing for the same insufficient resources.

Moreover, those who dismiss the population issue in Africa on the basis of current energy usage seem to be accepting a continuation of abject poverty. If we hope to see Africa come out of poverty, it will mean increased per person consumption, which will mean even more need to attend to population.

I don't think we can begrudge other countries their desire to raise their living standards, but we can help them deal with population growth and begin radically shifting to alternative forms of energy. Our help in these areas is mostly quite welcome. A shift of a small fraction of the ungodly US military budget to these issue would go a long way.

From Milo Weinberg

14. What is the single greatest obstacle (be it social, political, psychological, etc.) faced by radical environmentalists as they attempt to disseminate their ideas throughout the mainstream?

Tough question. I think there are interrelated layers of obstacles. Two big ones come to mind and it's hard to pick just one. There's our whole modern view of ourselves in nature. The ideas I and many radical environmentalists try to convey fit essentially into the "deep ecology" view. To really get it, requires a shift in how we see ourselves as a species. Trying to get through to those who can't look at things that way is one obstacle.

Then there's the media's resistance. The mainstream media are not very open to publishing ideas that depart from, well, the mainstream. The semi-alternative media such as some of the medium sized "progressive" publications resist publishing ideas that run counter to their strongly held ideologies. So the media put up obstacles to reaching large numbers of readers.

Behind the media's resistance are politics and economic issues, and behind those are emotional issues. An editor may be so wed to an ideology that it's a part of his or her self image. To accept an article which contradicts that ideology may thus be a threat to self image. So much of what we see in most any heated debate is just two sides' respective efforts to protect self images in which they are heavily invested emotionally. I think the same goes on in trying to break through media barriers to get more radical (truthful) ideas published.

15. Do you believe that we'll reach the point where a sufficient proportion of the ruling class will "get it" about the population crisis before natural factors (epidemic disease, warfare, serial killers, etc.) begin to work more stridently to reduce human numbers?

Man, I hope so. We're not very close right now. But I do think we're a smidgen closer than we were a couple of years ago. It's a subjective judgement, but I think I've seen a noticeable increase in articles and other media presentations of relevant topics. You never know when progress will reach a point at which it accelerates.

It's an uphill battle though. Just published was a book, now getting a lot of press, offering the nonsensical view that because there have been some past failures and abuses in trying to reduce population growth we should abandon such efforts. Betsy Hartmann often uses the same line of argument. It would imply that those trying to fight, say, poverty should conclude, "Well, we've had some failures and some have abused the process. Let's abandon this because it has some problems."

16. Is democracy an adequate political mechanism for gearing society towards ecological sustainability, or do we need to find an alternative? Is there perhaps an inherent failure in the democratic process that prevents long-term planning from becoming popularized?

First let me just mention that there are some who study cognition and brain functioning who think there may be something inherent in the way our brains have evolved which prevents long terms planning. They argue we evolved to deal with immediate threats and can't easily be roused by long term threats. I would hope we could use our cognition wisely to overcome that.

But back to your question. I don't know. Our current system of democracy is clearly broken. But whether or not democracy per se is the problem is not my area of expertise. I mentioned above though that I do see real merit in grappling with the underlying structures of civilization which have enabled our ecological problems to develop.

17. What are some effective ways of communicating the population issue to consumption-oriented "soft-environmentalists," who'd rather promote a superficial economic reform--and actually enabling them to "get it"?

I think you need to sit them down in a dark room with a spotlight in their faces and force them for hours to try to justify their gutless, unforgivable avoidance of the real issues until they just fall apart and accept that they're wrong and ask to have Ishmael read aloud to them.

But seriously, it's tough. It goes back to the self image problem I mentioned above. I aim some of my efforts at spelling out concepts very simply but accurately, trying to bring a new clarity to some basic arguments. My hope is that a few of those "soft environmentalists" will read and suddenly "get it."

There is also something to be said for approaching such folks individually, diplomatically, and trying to get them to nudge their thinking just a little at a time. But I generally feel I'm not getting a lot of "bang for the buck" that way. Still, I'd love to sit down over coffee with an influential environmentalist such as Monbiot to see if I could make some headway. Typically I do my thing in writing online, but I look forward to a sincere, face to face discussion with someone like that.

From Magus

18. Population growth plays an undeniable role in humanity's impact on the environment. Cities within the developing world spawn people at unprecedented rates. Why is this and what can be done to prevent it?

That's a complex issue. There are a few theories. There is a somewhat questionable but, I think, not completely invalid notion of the "demographic transition." It would suggest that such parts of the world are just at a predictable stage in economic and social development and may proceed to lower rates of population growth as development continues. Presumably, that development would have to involve such things as education and empowerment of women, improved health care and provision of family planning services, a shift in social norms toward later marriage, and improved child survival (so that families don't assume they need to have many children so that a couple survive).

Add to that the idea, outlined by Daniel Quinn in Ishmael and examined in an article by Russ Hopfenberg, that human population growth, like that of any other species, is merely the result of increases in food production. Social variables have finally lowered fertility rates in developed countries, but they remain high in developing countries simply because we keep increasing the global food supply to meet increases in population. People are made of food after all.

The idea is that famine occurs somewhere – an event which would, in any other species, lead to a decline in population until it returned to within the limits of its food supply. But as concerned humans, we go in with food aid, made possible by our continual growing of the food supply, which allows the population instead to continue growing, thereby promoting further famine.

The answer, from this point of view, is to stop growing the global food supply. Of course the first objection is that this would allow starvation to occur. But if you read discussions about this by Quinn and others, it begins to appear this would not be the case. It is, in fact, the growing of the food supply which fosters much more famine than there would be otherwise. But it's a tricky issue. No question.

We have no guarantee that the demographic transition will continue to happen everywhere. And we're so far into overshoot already that we need to do whatever we can humanely to bring about a more rapid reduction and then a reversal of population growth.

We can do that by fostering things like women's education and empowerment and family planning services, using the media to promote new cultural norms concerning family size and family planning and the role of women, and considering such things as tax credits for smaller families. I'm not sure we'll be able to get governments to stop growing the food supply. It seems unlikely they'll embrace that idea.

But we've waited so long that now some believe we'll need some sort of global one-child-per-family policy. It would definitely have the desired ecological effect, but is obviously a tough sell. But they may be right that things have gone too far to expect otherwise to avert catastrophe. Certainly, the longer we put off committed action, the more extreme the actions we'll have to consider.

19. Why is there no talk of nursing traditional tribal-hunter-gatherer lifestyles that in the past have enabled people to live harmoniously with the environment for centuries to counter this trend?

Great question! The more I've thought about that, the more acceptable the idea seems. While there is evidence hunter-gatherers did transform ecosystems and did contribute to some extinctions, they did come far closer to true sustainability than we do today. Note, however, that a world of hunter-gatherers can't occur at a population of 6.6 billion. It necessitates numbers well under 1 billion.

But note as well that humans were hunter gatherers for all but the last nanosecond of our history. It may well be that it's the only lifestyle with a real shot at sustainability, Certainly, out of necessity, hunter-gatherer populations grew much more slowly, if at all. It's too hard to carry more than one infant at a time from place to place. They made use of methods of population control such as late weaning, wider spacing of children, abortion, etc. They were more aware of ecological limits on population.

Rewilding advocates see this as the future, assuming a major societal collapse and population crash is inevitable. They prepare for that by learning primitive living skills that would allow them to thrive under such conditions.

I think the reason so few take seriously the notion of a return to hunting-gathering is simply that we're so removed from it. It sounds like a silly fantasy. It also sounds awfully rough and deprived of creature comforts. But I've found by just sitting with the idea for a year or so, slowly mulling it over, it's become more palatable. Not completely palatable, mind you, but more palatable. And if you agree that collapse is inevitable (I'm on the fence about it.) then it's clearly in your interest to begin learning how to live as a hunter-gatherer. Personally, as a start, I'm beginning to do more hiking and to get my family into it, and soon will start relearning the backpacking/camping skills I once had. It's also a nice way to get a little bit back in touch with the earth.

But what we'll actually come to is a fascinating question. It seems unlikely that we'll throw out all our technical knowledge. How might we integrate something like a hunting-gathering culture with a more technical one? It's not impossible to envision some sort of hybrid.

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Interview was conducted by Alex Birch the 5th of April 2008.

Corrupt would like to thank John Feeney for kindly answering our questions and providing both us and our readers with his extensive knowledge on the topic of environmentalism.

Visit John Feeney's blog at http://growthmadness.org/

Just when everyone thought the outrage over the Danish Muhammed caricatures had settled, Dutch politician Geert Wilders drops the next bomb. This time it's a 17-minute film, "Fitna," consisting of compiled footage of Muslim extremism, religious statements against the West, and accompanying quotes from the Koran. Whatever the stated intention is, this is one complete failure to address the real issues and a pathetic excuse to defend a corrupt modern civilization.

Geert Wilders has joined the secular humanist crusade that began with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. Wilders and Van Gogh draw a line in the sand: the West, they reason, is tolerant; the Muslim world, they say, doesn't tolerate the kind of plurality of opinion that in their view defines the West. Defining Western values as tolerance, of course, makes little sense when campaigning against a religion. Wilders explains himself:

It's true, they don't carry the Koran under their arms. But it's at home. And their fathers go to the mosque. They don't tell their children that beating women or believers of other religions is not allowed. That's why we have to push harder for a kind of Leitkultur, a guiding culture. Not a monoculture but a culture that draws on our Christian, Jewish, humanistic traditions and that poses a challenge to the Islamic problem. This is patriotism, not nationalism, this is pride in our own culture.

- Interview with Geert Wilders about "Fitna"

Wilders' "Leitkultur" is no different than the statements made by the Muslims in his film; the belief that one system of values should apply to all people. What "freedom fighters" like Wilders and Von Gogh miss out on is that anything can become a dogmatic religion. Secular humanism is the most misinformed, ignorant and destructive dogma of all these new religions, because it blindly worships the individual and turns it into a superhero. So much for "progress."

The disease Wilders has caught, seemingly, is American-style patriotism of the post-WWII variety, summed up as "because we are tolerant, we are right and everyone else is wrong." This symbolic unity, based on political convenience, is responsible for the tolerance that allows not only Muslims but any other group with a conflicting idea into Europe. While condemning Muslims practicing their own culture, Wilders seems to want to destroy his own.

Fitna is supposed to be Arabic, meaning "disagreement and division among people." All pluralist societies eventually reach the point where they fall apart from within due to lack of consensus. This is convenient for those who make money, because it removes cultural barriers to massive profit. In blindness, the West is worshipping this disease and denies the truth of many Muslim arguments against the decadence and spiritless materialism they see here.

Islam has a right to exist, in the Middle East. It's not our business to decide whether it's "right" or not for other people, just as they shouldn't expect Europe to submit to Allah anytime soon. The current values of the West are rotten to the core and we don't wish to impose them on any people, including ourselves. It's time for a new world agreement, not to do with free trade or political alliances, but one that asserts the right for all people to create and maintain independence.

Am I the only one to notice how our society is increasingly covering up its failures by hiding them behind a smokescreen of symbols? The latest example of this from Massachusetts, where the officials decided to replace "underperforming schools" with "commonwealth priority," careful not to offend the egos of students and teachers, got me thinking; what else do they hide from us?

As it turns out, our society is literally filled with similar symbols that seem to mislead people by taking the edge of all negativity and turn it into something else. Thus, handicapped people are not disabled; they're "special." Idiots are not dumb; they have "emotional intelligence." The Iraq war was not imperialism; it was about "spreading freedom." Forcing companies to hire minorities over native workers isn't racial discrimination; it's "positive special treatment." Globalism isn't world government; it's "openness." I could go on forever.

Why do we hide our problems behind misleading symbols? Because it keeps people at bay. No one wants to hear about ugly realities like the fact that stupid idiots cost us time and money, that our environment is getting more black than green and that our diversity projects have created more racism and inequalities. So we point our focus to symbols that we attach to each failure and let those replace reality. "What you're seeing is not an economic depression," experts say, "it's a 'Minor Bump On The Road.'" And who doesn't want to believe them?

This is useless; we're just playing word games. Changing language doesn't change reality. Symbols are effective because they're easy to understand, easy to follow and can take any shape and form that suits our needs. Politics is about appeal and therefore it is by definition a game of who's best at catching the attention of the crowd. This is why people cry when they see Obama on TV, and repeat the word "Change" when asked why they're so happy. But in reality nothing has Changed at all. They worship the symbolic world that our society is producing to keep us in check. If you trespass into reality, you're a dangerous dissident, probably a terrorist, and need to taste more of freedom and democracy.

Let's stop the games. Underperforming schools are still underperforming, no matter what we call them. If you're disabled, you might call yourself "special," but only in the sense that you're physically retarded. Symbols don't fool me and they shouldn't fool you either. We don't have time to play charades. Our society is one gigantic symbol that represents failure. We need to fix our problems instead of hiding them, because the more we fail, the more often we will stumble over what we brushed under the carpet yesterday.