Fracking Radiation

John LaForge

Radioactive waste produced by hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is making headlines all over gas land, particularly in North Dakota’s booming Bakken gas and oil field.

National news coverage of the scandalous illegal dumping of radioactive filter “socks” there  — on Indian Reservations no less — has led North Dakota’s legislature to consider changes to its radioactive waste laws so that fracking’s contaminated wastes can be dumped in ordinary landfills.

One current bill would permit fracking’s radioactive waste in state landfills to be contaminated with 10 times the radioactivity that state law now allows — as long as it’s covered with 10 feet of dirt. Radioactive fracking waste that’s not being illegally discarded — no Victoria, mobster dumping probably hasn’t ended — is supposed to be being trucked out of state.

ND House Bills 1113 and 1114 — reportedly requested by the State Health Department — are being contested by some law makers and journalists who question the right of the department to set its own rules.

The ND Newspaper Association and the ND Broadcasters Association complained that one bill eliminates mandatory public hearings about landfill rule changes and instead permits them “when appropriate.” The bill also cancels public notification of the permitting process for disposition of radioactive materials.

Dave Glatt of the State Health Department told the Bismarck Tribunethat his agency commissioned Argon National Laboratory in Chicago to study the issue and make recommendations. The department wanted to know “radiation limits that would be safe for workers and the public.” Glatt forgets that there are no safe radiation doses, only legally permitted ones.

Locals are Worried

“We don’t want to have, when this oil and coal is gone, nothing left here, a wasteland, and I’m afraid that’s what might happen,” said Underwood farmer Gene Wirtz to KXNET news reporter Ben Smith in January. Wirtz is worried about the increased radioactivity in local landfills. “Any amount of radiation beyond what you’re already getting is not a good thing,” he said.

Radioactive isotopes that contaminate fracking industry waste and its machinery include radon, radium-226, uranium-238, and thorium-232. According to the Health Department’s website, these long-lived radioactive pollutants come in six forms:

* “Produced water” which is injected underground but later brought to the surface as waste;

* “Sulfate scales,” which are hard, insoluble deposits that accumulate on frack sand and inside drilling and processing equipment;

* Contaminated soil and machinery;

* Filter socks, contaminated by  filtering “produced water”;

* Synthetic “proppants” or sand; and

* Sludge and “filter cake” solids of mud, sand, scale and rust that  precipitate or are filtered out of contaminated “produced water. They build up in “filter socks,” and in waste water pipes and storage tanks that can leak.

A case in point came Jan.  6, 2015, when three-million gallons of waste water sprang from a North Dakota pipeline rupture, in Williams County north of Williston, the biggest ever in the current Bakken oil rush. Attempted containment of the leak was underway January 23 as berms were set up across Blacktail Creek to prevent the waste water from flowing into the Missouri River. The New York Times reported that the leaked waste water “may contain residue from hydraulic fracturing.”

Forbes-online Calls Potential for Harm “No Problem”

Writing Jan. 26 in Forbes online, James Conca turned upside-down the results of a recent Pennsylvania study of the risks of radiation exposure from gas fracking wastes. Mr. Conca’s column was headed, “Radiation from Fracking? No Problemo.”

The Penn. Department of Environmental Protection studied so-called “Technologically-Enhanced Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Material” or TENORM, and analyzed the levels of radioactivity associated with oil and gas extraction in the state.

Mr. Conca wrote that the PDEP study found there is “no concern of radiation exposure from fracking wells for oil or gas.

But on the contrary, the PDEP found explicitly warns of increased radiation risk from various aspects of fracking.

In particular, the PDEP report warned of:

* Limited potential for radiation exposure to the public and workers from the development, completion, production, transmission, processing, storage, and end use of natural gas;

* Potential radiological environmental impacts from fluids if spilled; and

* Little potential for radiation exposure to the public and workers from landfills receiving waste from the oil and gas industry.

* The PDEP report said there was a need for further study of the impacts of radiation from the use of “brine” or “saltwater” or so-called “produced water” from the industry since some of it is now being spread around for” dust suppression” and “road stabilization.”

Forbes trivialized and denied Pennsylvania’s formal warning, but it did say this: “With 15 million Americans living within a mile from a fracking well, this is an important result.”

Iraq, Libya…Iran?

Medea Benjamin

March 19 marks two gloomy anniversaries: the 12th anniversary of US invasion of Iraq and the 5th anniversary of the NATO intervention in Libya. Both overthrew Arab dictators; both left the local people in such horrific straits that many of them look back with nostalgia to the days of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi.

I was in Iraq with a dozen of my CODEPINK colleagues a month before the US invasion in 2003. While we found a country wracked by 13 years of draconian Western sanctions and a people scared to openly criticize Saddam Hussein, we also found a middle class country with an extremely well-educated population where women made up the majority of university students and participated in all aspects of public life.

I’ll never forget my first conversation with an Iraqi woman in Baghdad, Eman Khammas. “Oh, you’re from the United States,” she remarked in perfect English. “Who is your favorite black woman poet? Do you like Nikki Giovanni or June Jordan or Alice Walker?” Taken aback, I asked how she knew about these women. “I studied them when I was doing my English degree at the University of Baghdad,” she replied somewhat condescendingly, as if that were common knowledge.

Today Khammas and her family are refugees, as are millions of Iraqis who were forced to flee the violence unleashed by “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” By 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that the number of people fleeing Iraq reached 2 million and that within Iraq there were an estimated 1.7 million internally displaced people. With the civil war raging today, that number has only increased, as have deaths. An academic study published in 2013 found that nearly half a million Iraqis had died from war-related causes since the US-led invasion in 2003.

While military contractors made out like bandits, US taxpayers wasted $1.7 trillion dollars on the Iraq war, money that could have funded healthcare and education here at home. American families lost 4,488 of their loved ones, with tens of thousands of veterans suffering from PTSD and other war-related maladies.

Yes, the US overthrew Saddam Hussein, but it also destroyed the nation’s infrastructure and tore asunder the societal fabric. By disbanding the entire Iraqi military and bureaucracy, and supporting a sectarian Shia government, the US created a power vacuum — a space for ISIS to seize power. ISIS currently controls a huge swath of Iraq, some 13,000 square miles, and wreaks havoc on the predominantly Shia’a population by carrying out ethnic cleansing, taking women as slaves, beheading children, and displacing entire communities.

Libya is a similarly tragic tale. When the peaceful protests against Muammar Gaddafi were met with government violence, an armed rebellion emerged that called for military help from the West. With NATO’s help in this “humanitarian intervention,” Gaddafi was overthrown in October 2011. A summary of the intervention in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs concluded: “By any measure, NATO succeeded in Libya. It saved tens of thousands of lives from almost certain destruction. It conducted an air campaign of unparalleled precision, which, although not perfect, greatly minimized collateral damage. It enabled the Libyan opposition to overthrow one of the world’s longest-ruling dictators. And it accomplished all of this without a single allied casualty and at a cost — $1.1 billion for the United States and several billion dollars overall — that was a fraction of that spent on previous interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”

Today, Libya is considered a “failed state” run by extremist militias and two opposing governments vying for power. Ex-rebel commanders, former exiles, Islamists, tribal leaders are all fighting for control, leaving no authoritative government or legitimate institutions.

Before the “liberation,” Libya was the richest country in Africa. It provided all Libyans with free healthcare and education. Today Libyans have almost no functioning public services, with daily blackouts and water shortages.

On the anniversaries of these two epic failures in Iraq and Libya, anti-war activists are gathering for four days of actions from March 18-21. They will protest the past interventions, the present-day US participation in wars in the Middle East and the possibility of a new war with Iran. “As people are being killed by the Empire every day, billions of dollars that could be used for education, housing, healthcare, and sustainable and clean forms of energy are being poured into these Imperial wars for the profit of a few and the heartache of many,” said Spring Rising organizer Cindy Sheehan, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq.

The activities include a “spring cleaning of Congress,” where activists will march into the offices of the most hawkish members of Congress, dusting off the cobwebs of war and the fingerprints of military contractors. They’ll take a bus tour of warmakers and their enablers, including the Pentagon, the FBI, the lobby group AIPAC and the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. The gathering will culminate at a rally at the White House on Saturday, March 21.

***

In an interview with VICE news, for the first time President Obama admitted that ISIS was a “direct outgrowth of al-Qaida in Iraq that grew out of our invasion.” He called it an example of “unintended consequences.” But his conclusion that we should “aim before we shoot” was off the mark. A more accurate conclusion is that we shouldn’t shoot at all, we shouldn’t invade other people’s countries and try to socially engineer their societies to ally with our economic interests.

On our trip to Iraq under Saddam Hussein in 2003, in hushed voices, a group of women told us that they wanted to be freed from the oppressive regime they were living under. But with the US invasion pending, they pleaded with us, “Go home and tell your government that our liberation will not come on the wings of US bombs or from the barrels of US guns. Go home and tell your government that we will liberate ourselves.” If only our leaders would listen.

Fifty Shades of Fraud

Charles R. Larson

The call finally came, twice actually. The first was in the morning with the recording informing me that I owe the IRS money and—if I don’t pay—court proceedings will begin immediately. And then the phone number I was expected to call. I hung up and noticed that the number on caller ID was a different one, which I dialed within seconds. I listened to a recording, informing me that that phone number was not in service, but I already knew this was a scam. Then, early evening, the call came again—pay up right away or be hauled off to court. This time I dialed the number they provided (twice) in the recording. And another recording said that all lines were busy but I could leave a message, which I did not. Again, the caller ID number was different than the number I dialed, different than the one in the morning and—when I dialed it—once again, I was informed that the number was not in service.

They’ve become pretty good at this, the crooks making these calls—never using the same number so their tracks are almost impossible to trace—frightening enough people into paying millions of dollars they do not owe. And where is the government in all this? No ability to stop them (remember “I’m Rachel, from card member services”?), so thoroughly annoying that you almost want to pay so they’ll stop calling. The State Department admits that it can’t control the hacking on its site, so why should we believe that lowly citizens can be protected? We’re all left in the open these days, which may be the most frightful thing about the current explosion of fraud everywhere around us. One day will we discover that all of our assets have been removed from our accounts—an amount so massive that the banks will no longer reimburse us for our losses?

I’ve had twenty plus calls from a number professing to be the circulation division of New York magazine, always beginning with the innocuous question, “Are you receiving your New York magazine regularly?” Since I subscribe, I am, yes, receiving it regularly, but I never answer their question. I tell them instead that I do not renew subscriptions over the phone. That I have a multi-year subscription that is not up for renewal. That doesn’t matter. They call me a few days later and the entire sequence begins again. I’ve called the editorial office of New York, and they’ve confirmed (as I already realized) that the calls are a scam and they, also, have no way of stopping them in spite of reporting them to the FBI. It’s beginning to appear that fraud can’t be stopped; it can only metastasize so that it infects everything.

Fraud is a growth industry in the United States, but don’t expect that anyone’s going to help you stop it. You’re on your own. It’s increasingly difficult for many people to realize what’s happening to them. At least with the international calls, it’s possible to detect the foreign accent, the semi-articulate speech of some of the scammers, and no number listed for caller ID. Still, this is the sequence I’ve had to put up with for several years:

“Hello?” I say.

The reply: “Your computer.”

“What about my computer?”

“Your Microsoft computer.”

“I don’t have a Microsoft computer.”

“Microsoft windows on your computer.”

“Which computer are you talking about? I have several.”

“It needs fixing, an upgrade.”

“Good-bye.”

The last time I actually said good-bye to one of these jokers was years ago. Instead, I conclude with the obscenity of the day—my obscenity—increasingly foul as the calls persist. That generally works for a few more weeks, and then the entire process begins again. Am I on every sucker list in the United States? Or is every person in the United States on their list? Will they never give up?

Dozens of these fraudsters send me daily emails, many of them from overseas. The Nigeria scam (the millions of dollars in a bank that will be shared with me if, first, I’ll send them a few thousand dollars to pay the service fees) now come from all over Africa, Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe, and the South Pacific. Then the domestic ones, claiming to be the Bank of America or some other American bank where I have never had an account. They want me to respond via the Internet in order to claim funds in my account. I certainly don’t have much faith in American banks in regards to their honesty, but I also know which banks I have never had any dealings with. Then there are the ubiquitous emails with the subject category: Free $50 Target card, $100 Starbucks card, $75 Wal-Mart card and every other blasted chain store in the United States. Often the same email will be resent to me half a dozen times, one right after another. (Forget all the other scams: bigger erections, bigger breasts, bigger feet, bigger tomatoes [no joke]).

So far I’ve been talking about scams that aren’t very complicated to identify. Alarmingly, there is another entire area where I have learned to be even more assiduous and still I get taken advantage of virtually every week. I’m talking about the physical stores (supermarkets, pharmacies, chain stores) where what is rung up is not the shelf price or the advertised price. GIANT, the biggest grocery chain in Washington, D.C., tries to cheat me every time I venture into one of their branches. If I buy half a dozen items, at least one item will be rung up at the wrong price, often a matter of several dollars. Recently, I picked up a large roaster chicken, with a printed label telling me it was nine pounds, but since it didn’t seem that heavy, I asked to have the chicken weighed. Sure enough, it was two pounds less than what the label said, so I said I didn’t want it.

I told the checker that the label would need to be reprinted, with the correct figure after it was weighed again. Yet, after I’d finished paying for my other items, I moved discretely off to a distance and watched as the chicken was put back with the others, waiting for the next sucker to come along. It’s not difficult to conclude that the grocery chain intentionally overcharges for items in order to increase its profits. Although I try to be attentive with every item I purchase in chain stores, such diligence is very difficult—particularly with a line of impatient people behind me—so too often I end up paying more than I should. Every week, in fact.

I’ve come to loathe American capitalism, almost every aspect of it. The subtle and not-too-subtle daily fraud. The frequent errors on billing statements for credit card companies, bank statements, telephone bills and the red tape created so that you give up in your attempt to get that excess charge of, say $15, removed from your bill because you simply don’t have the necessary time (endless phone calls) to get the error corrected. I’ve become pretty good at catching most of these false charges, but what I don’t have is unlimited time to unravel them.

When I read the other day of still another huge fraud that large corporations get by with, I can’t say that I was particularly surprised. My quota for outrage was used up years ago. Still, how about this one? When big corporations are fined billions of dollars for malfeasance, guess what? That huge fine is a tax deduction for them, and since they can deduct it from their income, they end up paying lower taxes (and the whole thing is already rigged so that businesses pay lower taxes than individuals). Thus, if the fines are deducted from the income they would claim, and their taxes are reduced, guess who ends up footing the bill for those taxes? All of us pay the taxes of those corporations for their fraud. Only in America, as Harry Golden used to say.

On a more personal level, I did finally curb my obscenities with the telephone scammers. I politely interrupt them in their spiel, and ask them, “Excuse me, do you have a penis?” (Or the equivalent, if they are women.)

There’s usually a delay, followed by a hesitant response, “Yes.”

“Well, put it in your ear.”

Then I hang up, knowing that that remark is little compensation for the latest harassment, but it does put a smile on my face. An expensive smile at that.

The Bonobo Spring Revolution

Susan Block

Spring has sprung. The grass has riz. Do you know where the party is? Bonoboville!

Having declared 2015 the first “Year of the Bonobo” in the heady, hung-over days of early January, it’s time to spring forward into the quintessential season to go bonobos. Spring! The word itself leaps for joy, strips off sweaters and dives headlong into a spring fling, releasing that “inner bonobo” that’s been hibernating all winter long. Spring is mating time, dating time, time to catch bonobo spring fever, flirt and fly with the birds and bees through the flowers and trees, all buzzing, tweeting (yes, before Twitter, birds did the tweeting), blooming and dripping with lustful, ecosexual fecundity and revolutionary possibilities.

Spring is also a good time to clean house, mind, body and spirit. Like winter, the old great ape paradigm is out of season. It’s time for the Bonobo Spring Cleaning.

For decades, evolutionary psychologists, Hollywood filmmakers and war lobbyists have put forth the “killer ape” paradigm of murderous, male-dominant common chimpanzees and baboons to “explain,” dramatize, support and finance horrific violence among humans, suggesting that we innately love to rape, pillage, bomb and behead each other, and doubtlessly always will. Or will we? The bonobo is just as close to human as the common chimp, the “last ape” to be discovered, offering up a remarkably different great ape paradigm that makes you wonder: What do these great apes know about sex, war and the rest of life that we don’t?

Here are some things we know about bonobos: They have a lot of sex. They never kill each other. They empower the females. They stay youthful longer. They live in what I call “peace through pleasure.” Over 98% genetically similar to humans yet different in key aspects, bonobos may not know how to build houses, churches or Pentagons like we do. But they do know how to use sex to prevent murder and war. How do they do that and can we do it too—in our own way? Bonobo studies are just starting to glean a few answers to that question, as they pull back the curtain to the life-changing, long-hidden “secrets of the bonobos,” activating a sea change in human awareness…

The Bonobo Spring

Can you feel it? Wake up and smell the sex! With many esteemed humans in varied fields, from Ecosexuality Movement leader Dr. SerenaGaia Anderlini-D’Onofrio to DDI Publisher Soma Snakeoil, joining in declaring this the Year of the Bonobo, while sharing The Bonobo Way and a wealth of new information about our remarkable kissing cousins, the change is underway and could reach orgasmic critical mass…

First, there’s just the name “bonobo.” Up until a few years ago, hardly anyone knew a bonobo from a banana, but now the word is flowing through the rivers of human discourse, even if it’s mispronounced and only subtly connected to actual bonobos. There’s “Bonobo” the hypnotic electronic musical artist, “Bonobos” the cool metrosexy pants (CEO Andy Dunn says, “Our motto is to evolve mankind starting with pants”), a Bonobo Winery in Michigan, a Bonobo Hotel in Belgium, Bonobo computers, Bonobo Mountain Films and various Bonobo Cafés from New York to Mumbai. There’s also a wonderful new movie, The Bonobo Connection, which is about actual bonobos, delving into their deep “connection” to us, as well as several other documentaries and an interesting indie fictional film called Bonobo about a collective of British people who try to live their version of the Bonobo Way on a “hippie sex commune.” There’s even a campaign for Spellcheck to recognize “bonobo” as a word, a note from former President Bill Clinton praising The Bonobo Handshake and a clip of current POTUS Barack Obama mispronouncing the word “bonobo” (bo-NO-bo)… at least he tried!

But the most compelling case for the Bonobo Spring is made by the bonobos themselves. More illuminating studies, breathtaking photos, engaging video and impressive strides in bonobo conservation are getting these ultra-empathetic apes out beyond the nature channels and into people’s hearts. Thus bonobo conservation is getting some sorely needed support, though much more is still required. Groups vital to bonobo species survival such as Lola ya Bonobo, Friends of Bonobos and the Bonobo Conservation Initiative are working wonders on shoestring budgets to save and protect bonobos in forests and sanctuaries within their native habitat of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Meanwhile the ecosex movement is embracing bonobos and the Bonobo Way, expanding with Dr. SerenaGaia’s much-anticipated Ecosexuality collection coming out later this Bonobo Spring. And of course, there’s Bonoboville, our new social media site for lovers and friends of bonobos, being reborn in spring.

Meanwhile, many couples, individuals and whole communities are going bonobos without even knowing what a bonobo is. At least they’re not openly referring to bonobos, though they might confess to reading Sex at Dawn. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith are just one of dozens of celebrity couples openly discussing their open relationship, in which “loving someone (does not) mean owning them.” Russell Brand isn’t the only ladies’ man “worshipping” the very bonoboësque “divine female sexual energy” he finds between the thighs of his favorite beauties. Beyoncé and Jay-Z mix marital love with communal ecstasy, singing all the way to the bank as puritanical baboon Mike Huckabee tries to slut-shame them as “pimp” and “sex object.” Miley Cyrus’ #FreeTheNipple campaign is going bonobos across the Internet as the always bonoboësque Madonna shows the world how to “spring” back from a bad fall, Tilda Swinton unabashedly enjoys a ménage à trois and Stephen Hawking openly appreciates the physics of strippers. Around the world, women’s erotica is exploding, as are the Sex-Positive movement(s) and Kinky Salons. A very bonoboësque kind of girl-power is on the rise with zero tolerance for rape or abuse, as the American Presbyterian Church unlocks its sacred doors to same-sex marriage. These are just a few examples of a trend toward greater openness and less shame regarding women’s pleasure, men’s dilemmas and LGBT rights, as well as expressing erotic fantasies and sexual fetishes.

Bonobo Spring is in the air. You can feel it buzzing like a bee (or a vibrator) in the growing—if sometimes grudging—recognition of so-called “feminine,” bonoboësque qualities of empathy, play, reciprocity and compassion as being critical to successful problem-solving. Many socialist policies are being rehabilitated, and some even see the value of making sperm wars, not real wars. As religious abuses are exposed, fewer in the West have faith in jealous gods in the sky. More are looking to the Earth, recognizing the terrible reality of global warming and other ecological disasters, and some are trying to take responsibility for slowing it down. Green is the new black. Ecology is sexy. Drs. Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens call it “Sexecology,” the spirit of the Bonobo Spring…

But then there’s ISIS. Oh no! What about ISIS?

Send Bonobos to the Middle East to Fight ISIS

Get a spring in your step, you sexy sex revolutionary! ISIS IS US.

ISIS or IS is an insidious outgrowth of U.S. and Israeli military policies, an extension of that old “killer ape” paradigm underpinning the international Military Industrial Complex (MIC) that feeds on human conflict like a zombie feeding on fresh brains. One bombs, the other beheads. Either way, the MIC profits, and it’s all very un-bonobo, not to mention could one day blow us all to hell.

So here’s the plan: Send bonobos to the Middle East to fight the Islamic State. Not literally! Real bonobos are highly endangered and far too precious. I do dream of sending them The Bonobo Way. Drop Books (with parachutes, so they don’t hit anybody), Not Bombs! All that bombing doesn’t stop the beheading anyway; quite the contrary. As the Reverend Paul Rauschenbusch writes, “You can’t bomb an ideology. You have to combat it with a better ideology.”

Is the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure “a better ideology”? Who are ISIS’ ripest new recruits? Horny young people so disillusioned with their limited options that they turn to violence to channel their blossoming sex drives. By the way, similar enticements are utilized by any “volunteer” military, including our own.

The Bonobo Way entices them to channel their sex drives into sex (the consensual kind) and compassion for so-called enemies. Let’s wrap it up in crotchless panties and stockings since ISIS militants are reputed to be into lingerie. Let’s “Drop Bras Not Bombs.” Soon we’ll have them using those big scary knives to slice the snaps off of bustiers, instead of chopping the heads off of journalists.

If you think giving ISIS a little bonoboësque love and lingerie is crazy, just consider New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s recent “rhetorical” idea: “Shouldn’t we be arming ISIS?” This after years of cheer-leading for George W. Bush’s doomed Iraq invasion and the lavish arming of Shiites whose exclusionary, anti-Sunni policies are one of the keys to ISIS’ appeal. How about if we just stop “arming” everybody?

ISIS is just the most mediagenic evil of the moment. From the Middle East to Middle America, we need a Bonobo Spring. A wave of cell phone videos show Middle American cities and towns to be riddled with trigger-happy cops suffering from racially-profiled paranoia. They need anger management, bonobo-style, with retraining to reverse racial profiling and activate empathy synapses. They need to learn to release their inner bonobo (it feels good!) and practice peace through pleasure as they “protect and serve.” A definite side benefit is that as they share the Bonobo Way with their wives and lovers, they will get laid more.

Of course, the best laid “plans” may not get you laid the way you planned. A lovely spring can turn into a bad fall. That’s where “swinging” (both ways) comes in. It’s also where RESURRECTION comes in.

From Whence Doth Easter Spring?

One of the most profound spring themes is resurrection. If the Earth can be reborn in spring, so can we! The most famous rebirth is that of Jesus who springs back to life on Easter Sunday, after being officially dead for three days. The miracle of resurrection captures the heart of human desire, and not just because it phonetically contains the word “erection.” Resurrection gives us hope of everlasting bliss. Thus it is one of the cornerstones of Christianity.

But Jesus wasn’t the first human/god to be born again in spring. Long before there was a rebirth of a Holy Son returning to His Heavenly Father, there was the resurrection of the Holy Daughter coming home to her Earth Mama… in spring. According to classical Greco-Roman mythology, the original bonoboësque festival of the year’s “first green” blossoms celebrated the resurgence of the radiant Goddess Persephone (Proserpina to the Romans) from the Bowels of Hell, where her Bad Boy husband Hades (Pluto) keeps her all Winter long. In Eleusis, the divine Daughter is “born again,” leaving the Realm of the Dead and rejoining Mother Demeter (Ceres), fair-haired fertility Goddess of the Earth, who is so ecstatic to embrace the resurrected Fruit of Her Loins that She showers the world in Spring.

Jesus Christ & Dionysus Bacchus

As men took the reins of human power on Earth, they also assumed all the leading roles in Heaven, and the sacred Mother-Daughter reunion metamorphosed into one between Father and Son. Still, the Jesus Spring was a long way off. The ancient Primavera Bacchanaliahonored the resurrection of the great God Bacchus (Dionysus to the Greeks), a “Christlike,” charismatic and bonoboësque God of Spring whose cults evolved centuries before Christ. Interestingly, one of Dionysus’ consorts is Pan, the horned and horny goat God of the Wild who lends his name to Pan paniscus, the scientific classification for bonobos.

In the Spring Dionysia of ancient Athens, playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides presented tragedies and Aristophanes mounted his comedies (featuring Pan), while the private Dionysia of Greece and the Bacchanalia of ancient Rome included ecstatic rituals and bonoboësque orgies celebrating this extremely popular, complex deity who, in a number of intriguing ways, foreshadowed the coming, as well as the second coming, of Jesus Christ.

How could a God of Orgies have anything to do with sweet Jesus?  Check out these eerie but strong similarities:

Both Gods are especially adorable as babies, as are bonobos.
Both Gods never lose their youthful, androgynous good looks, also like bonobos.
Both Gods have human “virgin” mothers and divine heavenly Fathers.
Both Gods are liberators and revolutionaries, overturning the status quo.
Both Gods treat women as equals, as bonobos do, and have passionate, prominent female followers.
Both Gods miraculously heal the sick.
Both Gods are intimately connected with wine.
Both Gods have, in a sense, their “flesh and blood” eaten and drunk by others.
Both Gods are charismatic “rock stars” with long hair, an entourage and adoring groupies.
Both Gods preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.
Both Gods are Masters of Seduction, saying that “Heavenly ecstasy is yours if only you follow Me.”
Both Gods die terrible bloody deaths, suffering for the sake of humanity.
Both Gods are resurrected in spring.

And that’s just the basics. So, if Bacchus/Dionysus is so much like Jesus/Christ, why not have a Christian Bacchanalia?  Why is the idea so ludicrous? There are many reasons, but essentially the Church succeeded with the power elites like the bonoboësque Festivals of Dionysus and Bacchus never did and thus became the upper class, as Barbara Ehrenreich points out in Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, outlawing the old festivals, condemning them as “demonic” and identifying old, mischievous, pleasure-loving Pan as Satan Himself. As a result, the ecstatic, bonoboësque, communal essence of Dionysus/Bacchus/Jesus was repressed, oppressed and then, for the most part, lost.

This is why some of us try to look beyond the Church—not to mention the synagogue and the mosque—back to Bacchus or other sources to find that springy essence that may have once been the power of Jesus before His divine whitewashing. This may also be why, despite the high political profile of the religious right in America, church attendance is way down, especially among the young. More and more of us are checking the box “no religious affiliation” when asked to identify who we are and what we believe in.

And some of us are reaching out to nature, and that includes our kissing cousins, frisky, fun-loving Pan paniscus. Bonobos may not know how to bring each other back to life like Jesus or Dionysus. But they do seem to sip from a Fountain of Youth. Spring can’t last forever, but recent studies show that bonobos (especially the males) manage to make that younger-than-springtime feeling linger when grumpy old common chimps and other ape species (like us) rage into burning summer or freeze over into bitter winter’s hell.

So why not welcome a Bonobo Spring. Let it work its magic, releasing, renewing and, in some cases, res-erecting your lost libido. Party like a bonobo, or a bacchante—or the original Jesus and that hottie he stopped the bastards from throwing stones at. Take it from an oldster who’s been doing it for decades: living the Bonobo Way keeps you young (at heart anyway).

The Bonobo Spring Cleaning

From the earliest seedtime insurgencies to the Springtime of the Peoples in 1848 to the Prague Spring in 1968, the Arab Spring of 2010 to other more obscure uprisings, Springs of various eroto-political parties have sprung up from the “common folk,” blooming with hope, peace and love for humanity before crashing on the rocks of petty rivalries, tyranny and horrific murder and mayhem. Spring always seems to take us for a fall.

Will humans ever live in sustainable peace, equality, ecology and sexual freedom? We haven’t managed it since the advent of farming, at least, so the odds are against us. But as the peonies and pussy willows begin to flower, it always seems like maybe this spring…

And yes, I have high hopes for a Bonobo Spring because it’s inspired by the bonobos who never kill each other. But even if this spring is just a fling and no different than other springs, and we can’t change the world (at least not all at once), we can change ourselves. After all, the Bonobo Spring begins with me, and if you feel its spirit, it can begin with you too, and if you prime its pump, it will spring forth to your friends and lovers, your so-called “enemies” and adversaries, your co-workers and congress people. Mostly, you can’t help what happens to you or to anyone, but sometimes you have a choice. So when you do, choose peace. Choose ecosexuality. Stand up for bonoboësque values. Refuse to fight unless attacked. Refuse to go to war unless invaded. Refuse to support the MIC. Retrain the police. Reject sexual shame. Reject hypocrisy. Choose female-empowerment. Choose sisterhood, especially when you’re not sisters. Choose sex-positivity. Choose orgasms. Choose revolution. Choose the Bonobo Way. Save the bonobos. They will reciprocate and help us save ourselves.

Time for a Bonobo Spring Cleaning. Out with the old killer ape paradigm. In with the new. Time for the resurrection of love.

Racism on Sports Radio

Nathan Collins

Listening to an interview with San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean the other day I was a bit alarmed at his beginning the interview with a few glowing minutes about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because he was addressing the US Congress. Really?!? Maybe the Giants do not see that type of talk as divisive because Pac Bell Park was built for people of the elite, the winners. My ire was a bit raised. My mind raced. Why did they treat Panda, basically one of the few ‘black’ guys on the team like dirt? Then when I heard Aubrey Huff, who did hit 28 bombs in 2010 for the Giants but who went awol the next year as a headcase, savaging his former teammate Pablo Sandoval on the radio, the whole thing reeks of good old boys and their narrow opinions. Kinda pissin me off here. Then of course when listening to sports talk radio I tune in Murph & Mac on KNBR 680am from 5 to 9 am weekdays. All these guys were savaging the Panda too, in kind off a safe kiss ass but nonetheless racist tone. I am reading in to the racism and that is exactly what I am doing.

The Murph & Mac show is a terrible radio show. Literally a common theme on todays show March 16, 2015 was “love it or leave it”. The students at UC Irvine have recently proposed some limitations on the display of the US flag on campus and raised questions about the connection of the flag to violence, colonialism and war. All legitimate questions. My opinion is that I would entertain the query but go with Abe Lincoln on this one and say that he raised the flag and did so on behalf of every person of every race trying to get a fair shake in this country. So let it represent the good things and we can educate to be more aware of the bad things.

What irked me is the juvenile responses of these guys to any such social issues. Their response is basically I am a dopey entitled white guy who can’t fathom any restriction on my right to say whatever stupid shit I want to (over the airwaves) and that’s about the extent of it. These guys are avowedly for the use of the team name Redskins for the NFL football team of our national capitol in Washington DC!?! So basically the response all show was “Love It Or Leave It Man”. Asinine. I will now say that the Murph & Mac show is a terrible radio show. They regularly repeat the lie on this show that American Veterans returning from Vietnam were spat upon.

Aside from the second in command Paul McCafrey, an idiot in his own right, they have added a third, the little weasel Patrick Conner who drops crypto-conservative neocon opinions like little rabbit turds all over the airwaves, adding his shitty opinion at random parts of the show. He gets in a particular tizzy when anyone takes a dislike to cigarette smoking, challenges racism or the use of the term Redskins, or does anything he could remotely classify as politically correct. How about instead of the charged term politically correct we use something like “common decency” or “reading the room” especially for people who broadcast over 50,000 watts. I challenge Patrick Conner to face up an Apache Brave and tell him face to face how Redskin is an appropriate term for the NFL football team from Washington and how dare he challenge or take little Patrick Conners right to use it. Last year in a weekend SF Giants pre game he ranted for hours about some guy in Iran who had not taken a shower in 40 years. The insinuation was that Iranians and Arabs (these morons cannot differentiate) are ALL stinky people who don’t bathe, and should therefore be annihilated. This guy blathers on constantly about being a proud ex marine and all this crap. I finally emailed him and said get on with the friggin baseball talk already, and consider that any honorable soldier honors even his enemy and does not dehumanize him. I am embarassed that these three guys are Irish-American, but like George Carlin said its not like they had to work for it or anything.

In the SF Bay Area which many call the socially progressive capital of the United States the extent of the progressive persona offered by these lug nuts on the Murph & Mac show on KNBR 680am is admiration for the Grateful Dead, Bill Walton oddities, smoking pot (covertly), and a token lesbian lady as a fourth voice who lets her sexual orientation be known in every other commercial segment (which by the way run 39 minutes out of every hour) and at least 16 times during the broadcast. I guess that’s the bogus badge that KNBR uses in order to get away with the rest of the tripe they peddle. Equal rights and justice for all the rich pretty people, right? They are constantly mentioning and lauding, aye, lionizing Reagan, GW Bush, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. in glowing terms. These guys represent the worst aspects of the American idiot male sports persona. Its like a group of emasculated little boys. Interestingly enough the conservative commentary is so
reaching and grandiose but the personal talk is always pathetic insecure small man talk.

What’s the solution? Well a little bird told me that Dave Zirin, the great radical sports writer, might be getting a show on alternative public radio. Sounds good. Let all the constituents of public radio who believe that we need a radical commentary on aspects of popular American culture such as sports come forward with our requests now.

Nasty as the Death of the American Dream

Stephen Martin

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

— Mark 8:36 New American Standard Bible

Never let a serious crisis go to waste

— Rahm Emanuel

Over fifty million Citizens dependant upon supplemental nutrition assistance or ‘food stamps’.

Over one hundred million Americans out of work or ‘underemployed’.

American ‘Houses of Representation’ stuffed with political whores as low as ‘Outer Party’ reptiles serving no more than Corporatist interests –aka no more than small change in the pockets of mere ‘Capitalist’ Gangsters, such the masquerade of illusion as ‘Monopoly’ attained extends Geopolitical?

Almost two and a half million Americans in prison, the highest ‘incarceration rate’ in the World, with over 3000 Americans currently on ‘Death Row’.

Over forty million Americans without ‘health insurance’.

The largest military expenditure in the World as an obscenity.

Currently at war in over 134 Countries (!), and that’s just ‘militarily speaking’ such the elaboration of the ‘concept’, as Victoria Nuland, ideologically speaking , ‘takes it up the ass’ for ‘cookies’? (see footnote below)

Nearly one hundred billion dollars in military aid to Israel since 1962, and that’s just according to official figures as would conceal the ‘racket’ which War is. (Gary Webb RIP).

Does such put the billions spent on ‘The Ukraine’ into perspective?

The Corporatist Mainstream Media as a ‘concentration camp’ (ideologically speaking) still promoting the idea of ‘Democracy’ in the Western World, and America its leading exponent, with its very own written Constitution enshrining the Rights of the People to ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

Cui Bono such ‘camp’ as ‘Incorporates’ the ‘Declaration of Independence’?

As T.S. Eliot put it:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

– When it comes to the ‘Demos‘ they (As Oligarchic Collective per Orwellian prescience) are not so much ‘taking the piss’ as the ‘blood, sweat and tears’ such the parasitology as encompasses unto the death: the ‘necrotrophy’ as Satanism entails?

Such the ‘Wasteland’ indeed.

Which the greater ‘gap’ which should not be minded – the ‘Democracy’ in America or the ‘Democracy’ in ‘Israel’?

Given the foregoing: be thankful you are not a Palestinian, as some synonymy conceptual to the perverse as ‘Untermensch‘ or ‘Goyim‘ ‘living’ in Gaza or the West Bank?

Where the greatest ‘concentration camp’ indeed?

The death of ‘The American Dream’ no product of mere ‘happenstance’ but rather the product of some scheme of evil ‘men’ whom elect to abrogate Humanity towards the worship of Satan, such the Ponerology as enshrined within a Military Industrial (Corporatist) Complex?

(POTUS 34’s best moments being as some ‘swan song’ where ‘he’ sang of his regrets concerning a sad life of sell out to ‘War'; some tragic reiteration of a greater as would be American as in Smedley Butler – yet some realization of what ‘war’ means?)

– For the death of ‘The American Dream’ as much a fiction as ‘The American Dream’ in the first instance; such the ontology as the indigenous could attest unto?

(To say nought of Buffalo carcasses ‘detailing’ progress of the ‘Iron Horse’? – Or indeed Horatio Alger detailing the ‘American Dream by way of similar ‘assassination’ (of truth) by pen as mightier than sword?)

The real Americans are ‘Red’ and their heroes such as ‘Geronimo'; much as the real Israelis; the real Semites, are ‘Arabs’ – and Genocide breeds Genocide much as ‘Ecocide’ the true aspiration of mere Stateless Bastards being Corporatists, such the body alternate to the body which is Humanity?

The concept of ‘ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny‘ said context containing some element of truth?

Because ‘conflation’ – but part of the problem of the illusion as would be?

The greater the truth stated the more likely the nastiness elicited, and this as expression of ‘Zeitgeist‘; some corollary of the Orwellian insight as to the paraphrase of ‘truth being revolutionary in times of universal deceit’?

So the Corporatism goes, ‘Kurt’?

In context of the truth of ‘Israel’ being an Apartheid State as opposed to a Democracy, what would it take to demonstrate?

How bad does it have to get; Dresden (?) before we realize something is wrong – do the Stateless Bastards as constitute the 1% have to ‘sprout’ horns ( and how many weapons their 15% ‘bitches’ have to ‘deploy’); how many People have to die before ‘enough is enough’ ‘arises’ as a truth of sufferance against the ‘corporatist free market hegemony’ which would be enshrined ‘final’ in legal agreements at a Geopolitical level made in secret, thence presented as a ‘fait accompli’ to the death of Sovereign State by free market orthodoxy which abrogates all Humanity in pursuit of the fast buck by way of pathology?

Is it this concept which makes America so interesting at this juncture?

America has always been interesting.

The greatest tragedy: the capacity of a minority to abuse the majority thru control and manipulation; it, the tragedy of an antonymy whereby truth seen as lie, kindness seen as weakness, and the very ‘people’ who would attack and destroy seen as friends?

For ‘antonymy’ read ‘illusion’ and ‘warfare’ an expression of ‘friendship'; because the 21st Century is rapidly conforming to the Orwellian prediction of three Geopolitical power blocks and the revision of history in support of perpetual war, such the boot as stamps down on the face of Humanity?

Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania?

Do ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ have a similar prescience?

The concept of ‘Sovereign State’ made redundant in the Western World courtesy of ‘Globalization’, and the origins of such abomination lying within the Eighteenth Century, and so the rise of the Usurers who would control ‘currency’ as a means of transferring resources by way of ‘International Finance’ and degenerating Politics to Corporatism as an abrogation of morality expressed in the tragedy that war can make Corporations rich; bloated as blood sucking leeches in their feed from the host; and in the denial of circulation (Of Truth) the illusion which expresses the control and manipulation not of ‘Eros‘ but rather of ‘Thanatos‘ , such the death of the finer aspects of consciousness by way of ‘Taboo’ as aspect of the downward spiral which medically abbreviated as ‘CTD’ or ‘Circling the Drain’?

What killed the American Dream was Corporatism as an expression of the ‘naturally nasty’ as oxymoron by the way, of the translation of the transfer of resources effected by Usury as a ‘mentality’ (abominable) in which the pathological degeneration is first: expropriation and then; arrogation – to an accompanying perversity of differentiation as expressed in the concept of ‘Goyim‘ or ‘Untermensch‘ as a stab to the very heart of Democracy, which in its sublime nature recognizes the truth of equality?

Such the cock, Robin, as ‘big’ as ‘fat’ indeed as an Oligarchy in the ‘collective’ as can be jammed, or stuffed, up ‘assholes'; such the death of the meaning of ‘Citizen’ as to Orthodoxy?

Such the stuffing ‘pornographic’ as become political?

Or as such would become a suck, such the conflation?

What killed the American Dream was a ‘Structural Adjustment Program’ which also killed, by way of Orthodoxy as the death of thought, the capacity of ‘Americans’ as a ‘Majority’, as a ‘People’ as a ‘Political Force’, to have any determination upon what done in their name?

As ‘Demos‘ pissed or shit upon, such the waste, such the land, such the distribution of resources as in a ‘transfer’?

What killed the American Dream happened in 1913, December 23, with the ‘lead up’ to same assassination schemed on ‘Jekyll Island’ in 1910?

What killed the American Dream made a geopolitical wanker/tosser/onanist out of ”me” as inhabitant of the ‘Western World’ such the illusion facilitated?

The death of ‘The American Dream’ part of a political ontology; as little good, if any, can come from Genocide, and the summation of such evil ‘Ecocide’ meaning no good as denial; it a matter of the greatest tragedy that the greatest evil can be the summation of individual acts of assassination; when the loyalties of the ‘freeborn’ such the existential gift of that far greater than ‘We’ can understand are sold out but for the benefit of mere orifice stuffed: such the ‘consciousness'; such the ‘life’, such the new ‘Boss’?

Such the 1% corrupt as an ‘ill wind’ indeed?

What matters the ‘juncture’ – there are some who would say that ‘American Democracy’ died on Dealey Plaza in 1963AD; others would quote the debacle of two skull and bones ‘men’ contesting the Presidential election in 2004AD, yet others would quote the ‘Bailout’ which the ‘Troubled Asset Relief Program’ of 2007AD represented (with ‘beneficiaries’ as would be clouded by secrecy evidence of the ‘best laid scheme’ of reptiles degenerate.)?

These small quarters stand in the latter camp.

2007AD represented a ‘coup de grâce’ by way of scheme?

The Economic System poisoned such the ‘antidote’ awaiting; such the ‘consolidation of assets’, such the Board members ‘parachuted’ in to International Finance Corporations as ‘collateral damage’ accepted, such the fucking Satanism as fat bastards Stateless parasitical would feed upon the body (Of Humanity no less!) unto the cause of ‘Ecocide’?

Do you see ‘Satan’, such the pretension these small quarters as to ‘intellegentsia‘, do you have a ‘CounterPunch’ to the Orthodoxy as would lay you down to die; as would ‘Incorporate’ you into a mere farm as a ‘CAFO’ or ‘concentrated animal feeding operation’?

As would have you – and your children – and their children in debt?

Ecocide!

What killed ‘The American Dream’ was an Oligarchic Collective as some covenant entered into whereby illusion is pragmatic; what killed ‘The American Dream’ was a nastiness of expropriation and arrogation which would reiterate itself as some metastasis of tumor across the geopolitical chessboard which would be as to the euphemism of ‘Globalization’ – and ‘Gaza’ the prototype of surplus such the ‘Dystopia’ realized thru so many ‘individual’ acts of assassination to the quiet servitude of silent witness as degeneration'; (Sic transit) what killed the American Dream was the perverse concept that ‘you gotta dance with them as brung ya to the party’ in as much as the debt as stems from usury would be hegemonic- and so it come to be such the filthy pragmatism born of mere cowardice as the Houses of American Representation so full of degenerates, as ‘Money’ can become ‘Incorporated’ in the ‘transcendence’ which ‘Corporatism’ represents as an ‘Ecocide’ to point of ‘hollow men’ in a ‘wasteland’ which the ‘Western World’ become?

T.S. Eliot again:

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Are we to be allowed to say such things, such the panopticon as a noose existing to be tightened to the point of Ecocide?

Or is the future a boot stamping down on a human face with the objective of enforcing a transfer of resources such the synonymy?

Should one embrace the death of thought on grounds pragmatic?

Or, as per Dylan Thomas, should one

‘rage, rage against the dying of the light‘?

The ‘American Dream’ a ‘frail deed’ indeed which might have danced in a green bay, once upon a time?

Footnote.

These small quarters feel obliged to ‘justify’ a remark made this small article concerning ideologically that Victoria Nuland takes it up the ass for cookies. So here it is, from the late, great American George Carlin:

The fact is that Americans will probably remain wilfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.

In the case of Victoria Nuland, ideologically speaking the dick which is being rammed up her asshole everyday omits the color red?

Despite the blood as runs in ‘The Ukraine’ contemporaneous.

Australia: Bipartisan deal to fast-track mass surveillance metadata bill

Mike Head

In the face of wide popular opposition to its metadata retention bill, Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government and the Labor Party opposition finalised a deal today to push mass surveillance legislation through parliament by the end of next week. The Abbott government needs Labor’s votes to get the bill through the Senate.

Labor’s line-up with the government is part of its wider backing for a barrage of laws and other measures by Abbott’s government over the past six months to boost the powers and budgets of the police and intelligence agencies. Labor has been lockstep with the government as it instigated highly dubious “terrorist” scares, such as last December’s Sydney café siege, which involved an individual, deranged hostage-taker, in order to justify the measures, as well as the deployment of troops to the new US-led war in the Middle East.

If the bipartisan drive to enact the data bill succeeds, all Internet and phone companies will be compelled to store their data for two years. The government and its security agencies can run the data through sophisticated pattern-matching computers, compiling “digital fingerprints” of the lives, financial transactions and political associations of the entire population.

So-called metadata supposedly excludes the contents of smartphone use and other on-line communications, but includes the identities of all callers and recipients, the duration, frequency and subject matters of their communications and their locations. According to data experts, this “honey pot” of information is continually expanding with new technology and can already provide a more detailed picture of a target’s activities than the actual contents of their emails or phone calls.

Labor today voted for the bill in the lower house, after party leader Bill Shorten gave a written commitment to Abbott on Monday to fast-track the bill on the basis of a vague proposal to require the police and intelligence agencies to obtain warrants before accessing journalists’ data.

Details of the “journalist information warrant” plan, released today, confirm that it will do nothing to protect journalists’ confidential sources, particularly whistleblowers or government insiders leaking information to the media.

Warrants will be issued to the intelligence services by the attorney-general, or to police by a judge or tribunal member, in secret, making it impossible for journalists or their sources to find out about, let alone challenge, the tracking of their communications and movements. Only government-appointed lawyers will be informed, and permitted to make submissions opposing the access. Even that process can be by-passed via an “emergency” warrant issued by the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

The requirement for a warrant is confined to journalists “working in a professional capacity,” in order to exclude anyone, including blog site operators, using the Internet to reveal or discuss material not reported by the corporate media.

Labor had already agreed to back the bill earlier this month, without even the pretence of any exemption for journalists, after the release of a bipartisan parliamentary committee report recommending a number of purely cosmetic changes to the data retention plan.

That agreement fell apart, however, following demands by Rupert Murdoch and other media proprietors for some protection for journalists. The media barons strongly backed the bill overall, revealing their support for police-state powers. But they objected to the potential for the data retention regime to cut across reporting by their own outlets that might depend on whistleblowers or government leaks.

Requests to access journalists’ metadata are already among the more than half a million data access requests that are made by police and other agencies every year, according to official statistics, under the Telecommunications Interception Act. This legislation, which will continue, permits the security agencies to request access at will, without any kind of warrant.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin admitted this week that requests to access journalists’ data were common. Later, the AFP issued a statement revealing that over the past 18 months alone, the AFP received 13 referrals relating to the alleged unauthorised disclosure of government information. These were alleged breaches of section 70 of the federal Crimes Act, which carries jail terms of up to two years.

The media conglomerates, including News Corp, Fairfax Media and Seven West Media, pushed for a system of “contested warrants” so that any application to search a journalist’s metadata would be argued in court, with journalists and their employers notified in advance so they could argue against the access.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is jointly responsible for the data bill with Attorney-General George Brandis, was centrally involved in the backroom negotiations with the Labor Party over the wording of the resulting amendments.

The special arrangements for journalists further demolish the claims by both the government and Labor that access to metadata does not give the police and surveillance agencies far-reaching capacity to spy on anyone. If journalists’ contacts and sources can be readily identified, so can everyone else’s. The bill is a fundamental assault on basic legal and democratic rights.

The previous Gillard Labor government first brought forward the data retention plan in 2012–13. Then came the revelations of Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower. His leaks to the global media, starting in June 2013, laid bare the operations by the NSA and its “Five Eyes” partner agencies in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand to compile vast amounts of data on millions of people around the world.

Among the files released by Snowden were documents showing that the NSA had been utilising metadata since at least 2010 to generate sophisticated“social network diagrams” of Americans’ personal associations and social interactions.

Snowden’s revelations fuelled the popular opposition in Australia to the data retention bill, so Labor cynically deferred it until after the 2013 federal election. Now, under the phony cover of combatting terrorism, the legislation is being rammed through.

The bill will facilitate the feeding of metadata into the NSA’s global network. As in the US, the buildup of surveillance is not directed against handfuls of alleged terrorists. It is occurring amid rising social discontent and political disaffection with the ruling elite’s agenda of war, austerity, widening inequality and abrogation of basic legal and democratic rights.

Because of the ongoing public outcry against the bill, the Australian Greens, the third main party of the political establishment, has postured as an opponent of aspects of the legislation, while emphasising its support for Australia’s police and intelligence agencies. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam this week claimed it would be “a genuine improvement” if warrants were required for all data access requests, not just those for journalists. In other words, the Greens would vote for the bill, as they have on other so-called anti-terrorism laws, if such a token and essentially meaningless measure were included.