K2 from air, West Face (Guilhem Vellut)

… I walked behind the village, and I saw 84 children sitting in the dirt during their school lessons. There were five girls, 79 boys. What really struck me, though, was that there was no teacher there. And I said, where’s your teacher? And they said, Master Hussein is in the next village because we can’t afford his daily one dollar salary. So that day in ’93 I made a promise to try and get a school built there.

After working at it for three years, Mortenson fulfilled his promise. Since then, his Central Asia Institute (CAI) has built 131 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

CAI’s Pigish High School in the Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan (Teru Kuwayama)

Community Buy-In is Key to Success

The school-building process starts when persons of a village ask Mortenson to meet with them.²³+²⁴ Community members then take part in every stage of planning and building. The CAI provides the teacher training, materials and skilled labor, and the community provides the land, resources, and 2000 to 5000 days of manual labor. So with this community buy-in, in these countries where the Taliban has bombed or otherwise shut down hundreds of girls’ schools, only one CAI school has been attacked. Mortenson tells the story of how that school was closed and soon reopened:²⁶

About 14 Taliban came in at night. They beat up the night watchman and the next day they said if anybody comes to school, we’ll kill you. The headmaster got on his bicycle. He pedaled about 23 miles. He went to the local commander. Now, he’s somewhat of a shady guy, but he also has two daughters in school, and so he rounded up about 120 men. He came in with his militia. He killed two Taliban and then, for lack of better words, he extracted information from the other Taliban.

And he found out they had gotten $3,000 to shut the school down from the local mullah. So today, some of those men are in prison and two days later, the school was reopened. He appointed 12 Askari, which are – Askari is like militia men – to guard the school. And they have orders that if anybody tries to hurt or harm the school or the students, that they should just shoot them.

School under construction in Daltir, Thaile Valley, Baltistan, Pakistan (Teru Kuwayama)

Educating Girls is Powerful

Gultori Girls’ School near
Skardu, Baltistan, Pakistan (Teru Kuwayama)

Well, it’s obvious the boys need education also. But as a child in Africa, I learned a proverb. And it says, “If we educate a boy, we educate an individual. But if we can educate a girl, we educate a community.” And what that means is when girls grow up, become a mother, they are the ones who promote the value of education in the community. The education of girls has very powerful impacts in a society. Number one, the infant mortality’s reduced. Number two, the population is reduced. The third thing is the quality of health improves. … And another compelling reason is when women are educated, they’re not as likely to condone or encourage their son to get into violence or into terrorism. In fact, culturally when someone goes on jihad, they should get permission from their mother first. And if they don’t, it’s very shameful or disgraceful. So when women are educated, as I mentioned, they are less likely to encourage their son to get into violence. And I’ve seen that happen … over the last decade in rural areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan. I mean, I could go on all day about this, but educating girls is very powerful.

A Girls’ School in Taliban Country

Mortenson tells the story of how the CAI came to be building a girls’ high school in the heart of Taliban country:²⁴

[O]ne of our goals … was to put a girls’ high school in Urozgan province in Afghanistan, which is in the south. It’s the home of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban — it’s probably one of the last bastions who are completely opposed to girls going to school. And so last year we kind of set a rough goal that would take us … 20 years to set up a girls’ school there. So this spring, a year later, we got contacted by … the elders of Urozgan province. They wanted to visit one of our schools. And we said sure. And so this summer they came to Char Asiab, where we have a girls’ school. And these are about 14 men. When they got to the school, these are, you know, some of them are, you know, kind of shady guys, black turbans. They’re armed to the teeth, have, you know, big, long beards. And when they got there, they saw the giant playground. So they threw down their weapons. For the next hour and a half, they went on the swings and slides and had a glorious time playing. And I finally kind of had to stop them and say, “You know, let’s get serious. We need to — this is the headmaster. We need to talk to the principal.” And he said, “No, no. We’re totally satisfied. We want a girls’ high school in Urozgan Province. But it has to have a playground. And you have to come and have tea with us.” So I got up the nerve in September to visit Urozgan. And this is an area, there’s no U.S. troops there. I mean, there’s no nothing there. There’s a lot of Taliban. We had a giant jirga. And I was pretty, you know, pale faced and kind of fearful. But it was a beautiful meeting. When they got done, they said, “We want to start this school. Of course we want the playground built first.” And so in October 2009 we started breaking ground on the school, and this year, in 2010, the school will be finished this summer.

Greg Mortenson, second from right, with tribal leaders in Tarin Khot, Urozgan Province, Afghanistan (Teru Kuwayama)

Advice for U.S. Officials

From his many years of working with the people of Afghanistan, Mortenson gives two strong points of advice to officials of the United States, which has 100,000 of its soldiers in that country, along with 130,000 persons under contract.²⁵ One point is to talk with the elders:²⁴

Every province has three to five dozen shura. And these are elders. They’re poets. They’re warriors. They’re businessmen, a few women. And they’re not elected, but they’ve kind of risen up through the ranks. And these to me are the real people with integrity and power in Afghanistan. … And it’s not that difficult. You can do it at a district level, or local level, or at a national level. It’s, you know, I think half of diplomacy is just showing up. You know, we’ve got to actually just show up and start to talk and then maybe we could get somewhere.

And the other point is to not bomb people:²⁴

[O]f all things that the elders say is, please, do not bomb and kill civilians. That is the number one way to antagonize people.

Further Information

Video: Bill Moyers interviews Greg Mortenson — video and transcript

Book: Three Cubs of Tea – One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, 2007

Book: Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan By Greg Mortenson and Mike Bryan, 2009

Sources

²⁰ ‘Greg Mortenson – bio’ – gregmortenson.com – pdf

²¹ ‘Three Cups of Tea’ (excerpt) by Greg Mortenson & David O. Relin, 2006, Viking Press

²² ‘K2: The Story of the Savage Mountain’ by Jim Curran (1995). Hodder & Stoughton. p. 25. ISBN 978-0340660072

²³ ‘Teach a Girl, Change the World’ By Judith Stone, Good Housekeeping, May 2009

²⁴ Greg Mortenson interview, video and transcript, Bill Moyers Journal, 2010-01-15

²⁵ ‘DOD: Obama’s Afghan Surge Will Rely Heavily On Private Contractors’ by Justin Elliott, TPM Muckraker, December 15, 2009

²⁶ ‘Greg Mortenson: ‘Ordinary Oprah’ – NPR, March 12, 2009’

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at TheParagraph.com

I hope to work with [Chairman Leahy] and other members of this committee to make further improvements as this bill goes forward. In the end, however, Democrats have to decide if they are going to stand up for the rights of the American people or allow the FBI to write our laws. For me, that’s not a difficult choice.⁸⁸

Feingold: “We’re not the Prosecutor Committee”

JUSTICE Act Senators

The senators sponsoring the JUSTICE Act are:

• Russ Feingold (D-WI)
• Daniel Akaka [D-HI]
• Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]
• Richard Durbin [D-IL]
• Robert Menendez [D-NJ]
• Jeff Merkley [D-OR]
• Bernard Sanders [I-VT]
• Jon Tester [D-MT]
• Tom Udall [D-NM]
• Ron Wyden [D-OR]

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Sources

⁸⁰ ‘WATCH: DoJ Official Blows Cover Off PATRIOT Act’ by Ryan Grim, The Huffington Post, 2009-09-23

⁸¹ ‘Dems Block PATRIOT Act Excesses – Your cousin may breathe easier’ The Paragraph, 2005-12-23

⁸² ‘USA PATRIOT Act of 2001’ U.S. Government Printing Office Short Title: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism

⁸³ ‘Myths and Realities About the Patriot Act’ – ACLU

The government attributes convictions it says are terrorism-related that have nothing to do with the Patriot Act. The “400 convictions” claim overstates actual number of convictions and omits a number of key facts related to these numbers. Only 39 of these individuals were convicted of crimes related to terrorism. The median sentence for these crimes was 11 months, which indicates the crime the government equated with terrorism was not serious.

⁸⁴ ‘Patriot Act – Eight Years Later’ – ACLU

National Security Letters (NSLs). The FBI uses NSLs to compel internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their customers and patrons. Using this data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people. Government reports confirm that upwards of 50,000 of these secret record demands go out each year.

⁸⁵ Sneak-and-Peek Report for 2008 – Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 2009-07-02 – pdf

⁸⁶ JUSTICE Act Overview 2009-09-17

⁸⁷ JUSTICE Act text – pdf See SEC. 201. LIMITATION ON AUTHORITY TO DELAY NOTICE OF SEARCH WARRANTS.

⁸⁸ ‘It’s Not the Prosecutors’ Committee, it’s the Judiciary Committee’ by Senator Russ Feingold, Daily Kos, 2009-10-08

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

For a terse telling of the Flint sit-down strike story, click this link: Flint Workers Sat Down and U.S. Middle Class Rose Up.

Sources

⁶⁰ Flint Workers Sat Down and U.S. Middle Class Rose Up

⁶¹ ‘Union Membership Trends in the U.S. Private Sector’ – Political Calculations, 2006-03-20

Sources: Union Sourcebook 1947-1983; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compiled by Labor Research Association.

⁶² ‘The American Dream died in February 1973’ Realitybase 2009-03-10

The income line since 1973 is roughly flat, but should actually be going down, because the Consumer Price Index has understated inflation since the early 1980’s. (See the next note.) — QH

Update: The Bureau of Labor Statistics answers the claims from the next note that it has understated inflation.

⁶³ ‘Consumer Price Index’ – John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics, 2006-10-01

The CPI was designed to help businesses, individuals and the government adjust their financial planning and considerations for the impact of inflation. The CPI worked reasonably well for those purposes into the early-1980s. In recent decades, however, the reporting system increasingly succumbed to pressures from miscreant politicians, who were and are intent upon stealing income from social security recipients, without ever taking the issue of reduced entitlement payments before the public or Congress for approval.

In particular, changes made in CPI methodology during the Clinton Administration understated inflation significantly, and, through a cumulative effect with earlier changes that began in the late-Carter and early Reagan Administrations have reduced current social security payments by roughly half from where they would have been otherwise. …

…

In the early 1990s, press reports began surfacing as to how the CPI really was significantly overstating inflation. If only the CPI inflation rate could be reduced, it was argued, then entitlements, such as social security, would not increase as much each year, and that would help to bring the budget deficit under control. Behind this movement were financial luminaries Michael Boskin, then chief economist to the first Bush Administration, and Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

…

Up until the Boskin/Greenspan agendum surfaced, the CPI was measured using the costs of a fixed basket of goods, a fairly simple and straightforward concept. The identical basket of goods would be priced at prevailing market costs for each period, and the period-to-period change in the cost of that market basket represented the rate of inflation in terms of maintaining a constant standard of living.

The Boskin/Greenspan argument was that when steak got too expensive, the consumer would substitute hamburger for the steak, and that the inflation measure should reflect the costs tied to buying hamburger versus steak, instead of steak versus steak

…

Aside from the changed weighting, the average person also tends to sense higher inflation than is reported by the BLS, because of hedonics, as in hedonism. Hedonics adjusts the prices of goods for the increased pleasure the consumer derives from them. That new washing machine you bought did not cost you 20% more than it would have cost you last year, because you got an offsetting 20% increase in the pleasure you derive from pushing its new electronic control buttons instead of turning that old noisy dial, according to the BLS.

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

George Washington warned against internal enemies who would try to separate one group of citizens from another, and the people from their government:

The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, … is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. But … it is easy to foresee, that … much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed …x⁸⁵

Thomas Jefferson foresaw fraudulent banking:

[L]iable as [a bank’s] cash would be to be pilfered and robbed, and its paper to be fraudulently re-issued, or issued without deposit, it would require skilful and strict regulation.x⁸⁶

Abraham Lincoln believed that government “for the people” should include protecting workers’ wages:

[I]t has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government. x⁸⁷

Theodore Roosevelt warned of corporate bosses undermining government for the people:

The big trust magnates …, the big politicians of the old boss type …, stand against the people. They object to the government, to government being used primarily in the interest of the people themselves. Naturally, they will do all they can to breakdown the only real enemies that they have and the only real champions, the only real and efficient champions of popular right, and economic, social, and industrial justice.x⁸⁸

Now there is liberal talk — though not nearly on every radio dial. But where it exists, it serves to beat back the right-wing barrage, and to broadcast words like those from the Rushmore wind.

Liberal Talk Radio Links

XM 167 – America Left

Sirius 146 – Sirius Left

Ohio Majority Radio Listen (online only).

WCPT 820AM Chicago Listen.

WDTW 1310AM Detroit Listen.

KPOJ 620AM Portland Listen.

WWRL 1600AM New York City – Listen

KTLK 1150AM Los Angeles Listen.

Air America – Listen

Democracy Now! Listen and watch. (Hard news.)

LTR Has many more liberal talk radio links.

Sources

⁷⁰ ‘The US Media & Democracy in Crisis’ by Robert Parry, February 19, 2009

In the latter part of the 1970s, angry Republicans and right-wing ideologues began to team up under the leadership of Nixon’s former Treasury Secretary Bill Simon, who used his control of the Olin Foundation to pull together like-minded foundations (Smith-Richardson, Scaife, etc.) to inject money into a right-wing media infrastructure and anti-journalism attack groups.

This initiative gained momentum with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, a former actor and ad man who surrounded himself with media savvy advisers. They, in turn, began collaborating with CIA propaganda experts in devising “perception management” tactics that could be directed against the American people as well as at troublesome mainstream journalists.

To get around legal prohibitions on the CIA influencing U.S. politics, CIA Director William Casey transferred Walter Raymond Jr., one of the CIA’s top propagandists, to Reagan’s National Security Council where Raymond headed up a government-wide task force on “public diplomacy.” [For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History.]

The right-wing media infrastructure continued to grow with the influx of mysterious money from the likes of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Korean theocrat who launched the Washington Times in 1982. Later, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch got into the act with purchases of U.S. newspapers and eventually the founding of the neoconservative Weekly Standard and right-wing Fox News.

By the late years of the Reagan-Bush-41 era, right-wing talk radio was taking off with Rush Limbaugh and other angry white men filling the AM dial with venomous attacks on liberals. When Bill Clinton managed to eke out a victory in 1992, he immediately came under sustained attack from this potent right-wing media machine.

Meanwhile, in the mainstream press, generally conservative (or neoconservative) owners began cracking down on independent-minded journalists as early as the mid-1970s. But that trend grew stronger in the 1980s when journalists found it harder and harder to challenge the propaganda and cover-ups of the Reagan administration.

As journalists with integrity were weeded out – and as the American Left largely stayed disengaged and silent – the MSM survivors came to understand that their livelihoods required them to tilt their stories right-ward. By the Clinton years, it made perfect sense to join the Right’s media in piling on regarding the trivial “Clinton scandals.”

After years of getting pounded as “liberal,” the MSM was determined to shed the liberal label by being tougher on a Democrat than on any Republican. That tilt contributed to the Republican Revolution of 1994 and eventually to Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 (though he managed to survive a Senate trial)

⁷¹ ‘Limbaugh wrong on minimum wage — again’ – Media Matters, 2004-08-13

LIMBAUGH: The minimum wage has gotten so high that it’s paying people that are not skilled to do anything. … It’s — whatever it is, six and a quarter, seven bucks an hour, an hour, going to be there soon. … No, thank you. I don’t want to be imprisoned by minimum wage. … Here, take the minimum wage. Vote for us, we’ll raise it in a couple years, as long as the rascally Republicans don’t stand in our way. They hate you. But we love you. Now go ahead, eat your rice.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the value of the $5.15 minimum wage in real dollars was lower in 2003 than in all but three years since 1960 …

… Limbaugh claimed that “75 percent of the people earning minimum wage” are teenagers; in reality, only 32 percent are.

⁷² ‘Obama Plans to Implement FDR’s Socialist Second Bill of Rights’ – Rush Limbaugh Show transcript, October 29, 2008

How many are happy with your Social Security? How many of you think it’s what you thought it was going to be? Where is that second home down in the Bahamas that Social Security and FDR was going to get for you? Where is all this plentiful retirement and security? Where is all this freedom from economic insecurity that FDR promised you with Social Security? Every time I talk to a Social Security recipient and that’s all they’ve got, they don’t have any security about anything. They’re worried to hell it’s going to be cut. (Limbaugh is mocking Social Security, but to me it sounds like an argument for boosting benefits. – QH)

⁷³ ‘McCain Neck-Deep in K Street Sewer’ – The Paragraph 2008-08-23 Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) pushed through the “Enron loophole”, and the “Commodity Futures Modernization Act” creating “the shadow banking system”.

⁷⁴ ‘The 2000 Campaign’ – Consortiumnews.com

⁷⁵ ‘Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Says’ By EDMUND L. ANDREWS, The New York Times, January 8, 2007 “Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional [Budget Office] study.”

⁷⁶ ‘Let’s Have a Hanging Party’ by Jesse Eisinger, Slate.com, March 2, 2009

There were two kinds of governmental failure in the past several decades: One was active financial deregulation; the other was the purposeful malignant neglect of government’s regulatory role in overseeing the markets. Regulators were defanged.

I’ll mention just two examples. The first is when Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Fed, blocked Fed Gov. Ed Gramlich’s efforts to have the chief banking regulatory arm of the country take a more active role in subprime lending. The second is the SEC’s decision, which Obama’s new chairman, Mary Schapiro, is repealing, to require enforcement lawyers to get the OK from commissioners before moving on cases: This was an intentional roadblock to securities enforcement erected by ideologues and cronies in the Bush administration. After all, the first SEC chairman appointed by Bush was Harvey Pitt, a lawyer who had a long career defending companies from accusations by the SEC.

⁷⁷ ‘An Inside Story of Wall Street Bank Crashes’ – The Paragraph, 2008-12-26

⁸⁵ ‘Washington’s Farewell Address’ – George Washington, 1796

⁸⁶ Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813

⁸⁷ ‘Fragments of a Tariff Discussion’ – 1846 or 1847, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

⁸⁸ ‘Why The Trusts And Bosses Oppose The Progressive Party’ – Theodore Roosevelt, Emporia, Kansas, September 22, 1912

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

I saw some protesters walking back and forth outside, and I knew that I wanted to do more than that and that this kind of injustice demanded a higher level of disruption. And so, I just decided that I wanted to go inside and cause a bigger disruption.x⁴⁴

DeChristopher went inside, and when someone asked him if he was there to bid, he said “yes”. He showed his driver’s license, signed a form and got an bidder’s paddle for the auction:

[O]nce I was in there, I realized that any kind of speech or disruption or something like that wasn’t going to be very effective, but I saw pretty quickly that I could have a pretty major impact on the way this worked. And it just took me a little bit of time to build up the courage to do that, knowing what the consequences would be. And so, I started bidding and started driving up the prices for some of the oil companies. And throughout that time, I knew that I could be doing more and could really set aside some acres to really be protected. And so, then I started winning bids and disrupting it as clearly as I could.

Eventually, the authorities caught on to DeChristopher’s game, and ushered him out:

The federal officials who took me into custody said that I cost the oil companies in the room hundreds of thousands of dollars and prevented 22,500 acres of land from being sold for fossil fuel development. I had a very open conversation with the federal agents about my motivations and values. They were friendly, respectful, and somewhat sympathetic.x⁴⁵

The form DeChristopher had signed held a notice of the penalty for fraudulent bidding — up to five years prison.

I knew that as bad as this could possibly turn out, if I ended up going to prison, then I could live with that. But if I saw an opportunity to protect the land of southern Utah and I saw an opportunity to keep some oil in the ground and give us a better chance for a livable future and I passed up that opportunity, then I wouldn’t be able to live with that.

News of DeChristopher’s action brought him much support from across the country. Patrick Shea, the BLM chief under President Clinton, became DeChristopher’s lawyer pro-bono, and via Bidder70.org, people sent in $45,000 for a down payment on the $1.7 million that DeChristopher owes.

I see that, you know, for all the problems that people can talk about in this country and for all the apathy and, you know, the eight years of oppression and the decades of eroding civil liberties, America is still very much the kind of place that when you stand up for what is right, you never stand alone.

Three days ago, the Bush wilderness sale hit another stumbling block in a federal court case brought by several environmental groups.x⁴⁶ The judge ordered the administration not to cash any of the auction checks on the grounds that “development of domestic energy resources … is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment”. Shea commented on that news:

The Temporary Restraining Order will be good evidence for Tim’s case, but he still has a separate criminal process to go through. … We are getting good cooperation from the Federal government in trying to resolve Tim’s case, we expect after Tuesday [inauguration day] the cooperation will increase.x⁴⁶

Sources

⁴⁰ ‘America Puts Brakes on Drive for More War, note 103’ – The Paragraph, 2006-11-30

⁴¹ ‘Papers Detail Industry’s Role in Cheney’s Energy Report’ By Michael Abramowitz and Steven Mufson, The Washington Post, Page A01, July 18, 2007

⁴² ‘What Am I Bid for the American Wild?’ By Michael Winship, ConsortiumNews.com, January 10, 2009

⁴³ ‘Bogus BLM oil bidder: I’ve got the lease money’ by Patty Henetz, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2009-01-10

⁴⁴ ‘Posing as a Bidder, Utah Student Disrupts Government Auction of 150,000 Acres of Wilderness for Oil & Gas Drilling’ – Democracy Now, 2008-12-22

⁴⁵ ‘Why I Disrupted A Fraudulent Auction’ by Tim DeChristopher, Bidder70.org, 2008-12-21

⁴⁶ ‘Court Orders Government to Stop Land Leasing in Utah’ – The National Resources Defense Council, 2009-01-18

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action against a corporate monopoly that led to the birth of the United States. The raiders of the Tea Party pledged silence for 50 years. One of them, George R. T. Hewes, lived that long and got his story published. He tells how the British government tried to give the East India Company, the biggest corporation of the day, a monopoly on tea, the biggest drug of the day:x⁷⁰

The [East India] Company … received permission to transport tea, free of all duty, from Great Britain to America … Hence it was no longer the small vessels of private merchants, who went to vend tea for their own account in the ports of the colonies, but, on the contrary, ships of an enormous burthen, that transported immense quantities of this commodity, which by the aid of the public authority, might, as they supposed, easily be landed, and amassed in suitable magazines.

The East India Company sent big loads of tea to American cities:

Accordingly the Company sent its agents at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, six hundred chests of tea, and a proportionate number to Charleston, and other maritime cities of the American continent. The colonies were now arrived at the decisive moment when they must cast the dye, and determine their course …

Philadelphia and New York sent the tea back:

At Philadelphia, those to whom the teas of the [East India] Company were intended to be consigned, were induced by persuasion, or constrained by menaces, to promise, on no terms, to accept the proffered consignment.

At New-York, Captain Sears and McDougal, daring and enterprising men, effected a concert of will between the smugglers, the merchants, and the sons of liberty. Pamphlets suited to the conjecture, were daily distributed, and nothing was left unattempted by popular leaders, to obtain their purpose.

Among the pamphlets circulating was The Alarm by Rusticus, which warned that the American colonies could meet a fate like that of Bengal, which underwent famine while the East India Company had a monopoly on grain trade:x⁷¹

Are we in like Manner to be given up to the Disposal of the East India Company, who have now the Assurance, to step forth in Aid of the Minister, to execute his Plan, of enslaving America? Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. … Fifteen hundred Thousands, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but [because] this Company and their Servants engulfed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high a Rate that the poor could not purchase them.

The public felt the moment of truth was near:

In Boston the general voice declared the time was come to face the storm. Why do we wait? they exclaimed; soon or late we must engage in conflict with England. Hundreds of years may roll away before the ministers can have perpetrated as many violations of our rights, as they have committed within a few years. The opposition is formed; it is general; it remains for us to seize the occasion. The more we delay the more strength is acquired by the ministers. Now is the time to prove our courage, or be disgraced with our brethren of the other colonies, who have their eyes fixed upon us, and will be prompt in their succor if we show ourselves faithful and firm.

On November 28th, 1773, the first of the tea-bearing ships docked in Boston Harbor, and the morning after, as Hewes recounts, a notice was published:

Friends, Brethren, Countrymen! That worst of plagues, the detested TEA, has arrived in this harbour. The hour of destruction, a manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself, and to posterity, is now called upon to meet in Faneuil Hall, at nine o’clock, this day, at which time the bells will ring, to make a united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration.”

Unlike in Philadelphia and New York, the governor and receiving agents in Boston would not send the tea back. So the Bostonians placed guards to watch the ships, and send an alarm should they start to unload.

The factors who were to be the consignees of the tea, were urged to renounce their agency, but they refused and took refuge in the fortress. A guard was placed on Griffin’s wharf, near where the tea ships were moored. It was agreed that a strict watch should be kept; that if any insult should be offered, the bell should be immediately rung; and some persons always ready to bear intelligence of what might happen, to the neighbouring towns, and to call in the assistance of the country people.”

After some days, the ship commanders declared that on December 17th they would unload the tea by force if needed:x⁷²

The tea … was contained in three ships, lying near each other at what was called at that time Griffin’s wharf, and were surrounded by armed ships of war, the commanders of which had publicly declared that if the rebels, as they were pleased to style the Bostonians, should not withdraw their opposition to the landing of the tea before a certain day, the 17th day of December, 1773, they should on that day force it on shore, under the cover of their cannon’s mouth.

On the day before the threatened day, a throng gathered — riled and ready to dump tea:

Things thus appeared to be hastening to a disastrous issue. The people of the country arrived in great numbers, the inhabitants of the town assembled. This assembly … was the most numerous ever known, there being more than 2000 from the country present.

… the public mind [was] already wrought up to a degree of desperation, and ready to break out into acts of violence, on every trivial occasion of offence….

Finding no measures were likely to be taken, either by the governor, or the commanders, or owners of the ships, to return their cargoes or prevent the landing of them, at 5 o’clock a vote was called for the dissolution of the meeting and obtained.

But cooler members got the crowd to stay and further consider the gravity of such action. One of them, Josiah Quiney, gave this warning:

… Greatly will he deceive himself, who shall think, that with cries, with exclamations, with popular resolutions, we can hope to triumph in the conflict, and vanquish our inveterate foes. Their malignity is implacable, their thirst for vengeance insatiable. They have their allies, their accomplices, even in the midst of us – even in the bosom of this innocent country; and who is ignorant of the power of those who have conspired our ruin? Who knows not their artifices? Imagine not therefore, that you can bring this controversy to a happy conclusion without the most strenuous, the most arduous, the most terrible conflict; consider attentively the difficulty of the enterprise, and the uncertainty of the issue. Reflict [sic] and ponder, even ponder well, before you embrace the measures, which are to involve this country in the most perilous enterprise the world has witnessed.

The crowd gave the governor one more chance, then ended the meeting and headed for the docks:

The question was then immediately put whether the landing of the tea should be opposed and carried in the affirmative unanimously. Rotch [a local tea seller], to whom the cargo of tea had been consigned, was then requested to demand of the governor to permit to pass the castle [return the ships to England]. The latter answered haughtily, that for the honor of the laws, and from duty towards the king, he could not grant the permit, until the vessel was regularly cleared. A violent commotion immediately ensued; and … a person disguised after the manner of the Indians, who was in the gallery, shouted at this juncture, the cry of war; and … the meeting dissolved in the twinkling of an eye, and the multitude rushed in a mass to Griffin’s wharf.

The raiders went in disguise:

It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

The boarding parties acted deliberately, and did no damage except to the cargo:

We were immediately ordered by the respective commanders to board all the ships at the same time, which we promptly obeyed. The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles. I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied, and delivered the articles; but requested me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or rigging.

We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water.

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

The raiders resolved that all of the tea be destroyed, and none be used:

… there were several attempts made by some of the citizens of Boston and its vicinity to carry off small quantities of [tea] for their family use. …

One … came on board for that purpose, and when he supposed he was not noticed, filled his pockets, and also the lining of his coat. But I had detected him and gave information to the captain of what he was doing. We were ordered to take him into custody, and just as he was stepping from the vessel, I seized him by the skirt of his coat, and in attempting to pull him back, I tore it off; but, springing forward, by a rapid effort he made his escape. He had, however, to run a gauntlet through the crowd upon the wharf nine each one, as he passed, giving him a kick or a stroke.

The raiders kept their identities secret, even among themselves:

We then quietly retired to our several places of residence, without having any conversation with each other, or taking any measures to discover who were our associates; nor do I recollect of our having had the knowledge of the name of a single individual concerned in that affair, except … the commander of my division … There appeared to be an understanding that each individual should volunteer his services, keep his own secret, and risk the consequence for himself. No disorder took place during that transaction, and it was observed at that time that the stillest night ensued that Boston had enjoyed for many months.

The Boston Tea Party led to the British blockade of Boston Harbor, the battles of Lexington & Concord, the American Revolutionary War, and the U.S. Constitution.x⁷³ Shortly after the Constitution was adopted in 1787, Thomas Jefferson tried to amend it to add a declaration of rights:x⁷⁴

By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies.

Jefferson got all but two of those into the Bill of Rights. One of the missing rights was the “freedom of commerce against monopolies” — the one that could today dampen the need for further “tea parties”.

(Boston Tea Party Historical Society)

Sources

⁷⁰ ‘America’s First Anti-Globalization Protest – The Boston Tea Party’ excerpt from Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

⁷¹ ‘Bengal famine of 1770’ – Wikipedia

About 10 million people, approximately one third of the population of the affected area, are estimated to have died in the famine. …

Fault for the famine is now often ascribed to the British East India Company policies in Bengal. According to others, however, the famine was not a direct fault of the British regime, but was only exacerbated by its policies. …

As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 5 times what it had been – from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. … As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the “hoarding” of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. …

⁷² ‘Eyewitness Account by George Hewes’ – Boston Tea Party Historical Society

⁷³ ‘Timeline of Events Preceeding the Boston Tea Party’ – Boston Tea Party Historical Society

⁷⁴ ‘Jefferson’s Dream: The Bill of Rights’ – excerpt from Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

Seven former Sequoia workers, with a combined 161 years with the company, appeared on the news show to tell the story.

Sequoia Workers on Dan Rather Reports

Sequoia management switched from their reliable card stock suppliers …

x[Pressman Trainer] Greg Smith: The paper changed. They decided that they wanted to go with a certain brand. And I think that everybody’s opinion was this 2000 election was going to be our demise. Because of the poor quality of what we put out the door.

Dan Rather: For decades Sequoia had ordered its punch card ballot paper from James River or International Paper; the only mills that had traditionally offered voting punch card stock. In 2000, the company switched to a new mill, Boise Cascade, which had virtually no experience making tab card stock.

recycled rejected paper rolls and tried to hide the fact with xeroxed labels …

“… But the workers say the problems they were having with the paper went beyond a mere change in suppliers. They say they were suddenly seeing paper rolls that weren’t clearly even Boise Cascade paper, because these rolls had Xeroxed Boise shipping labels, rather than genuine ones. …”

x[Pressman] E. Washington: One of the pressman … Bob Krause … had a thing if the paper was real bad, that he would write little nasty letters on the side of the roll. Well, we got one of those rolls back, with the same letter that he had written on it. So, then, that’s when it went through our mind that some of that paper was getting rewound and sent back.

Dan Rather: [The roll] presumably leaves the plant or goes somewhere and then it comes back with one of these Xerox Boise labels on it?

E. Washington: Yeah.

Dan Rather: Did you know about this as well?

Greg Smith: Well, I had the same suspicions as everybody else did as far as the paper. Felt that it, it was rejected and it was taken out of the plant and stored somewhere and then relabeled and brought back.

Dan Rather: Well let’s just go down the line — is there any doubt in your mind that the company was aware that the ballots for the 2000 general election … were being made with inferior paper?

Various: No doubt. They were told every day. Yeah. They were told everyday.

and seemingly fraudulent shipping documents.

Dan Rather: Sequoia management insists that all of the paper used to make punch cards ordered for the presidential election of 2000 came from a single shipment of some half a million pounds of Boise paper delivered directly to the Exeter plant.

We asked Sequoia to provide a complete set of shipping documents that would prove its version of events. They didn’t provide all the shipping documents, and what they did give us only raised more questions …

… spell it out for me. What’s missing?

x[Controller] Suzy Keller: The signed documentation that the paper was actually received. There has to be a signature on there, and there is no signature. Did the paper arrive or not? I can’t substantiate that, there is no signature on those packing lists.

Dan Rather: We also asked Tom Ayers the former head of shipping and receiving to review the documents Sequoia produced. Ayers was skeptical of them. He said that he had never stamped invoices as received, the company so far as he knows, didn’t even have such a stamp, all Ayers had ever done he says was sign and date the receiving invoices. … We also turned to … Walter Rantanen … perhaps the country’s leading forensic paper analyst. He works with top government agencies including the secret service and the F.B.I. …

… Rantanen analyzed the fibers in the Florida ballots. He discovered none of the cards had the composition of Boise Cascade tab stock, which contains softwood from the Northwest. He also sent Boise Cascade a Florida ballot sample. Boise confirmed the paper wasn’t theirs.

Management overrode workers’ quality control tries …

x[Pressman] Cy Turner: We took great pride in the quality of ballots we put out; there was no leeway. … A pressman running a press could reject a roll [of paper], kick it back to raw stock, say this roll was no good.

xGreg Smith: We had quite a bit of input, but towards the end, we had no input whatsoever. … After 1999, it was all over. It was like we were all put on the shelf.”

x[Quality Control Inspector] Linda Evans: … there was card bins I wouldn’t sign off. I refused to sign em. They’d sit there overnight and they would say, “you gonna sign em?” and I’d go “no”. Come in the following morning, all the bins had been signed off and moved to the front. … Which means someone else signed em off and said let em go.

ordered the chads of ballots for Palm Beach County to be misaligned …

E. Washington: We were told to run those cards short because they would grow by the time they got to Florida in the humidity.

Dan Rather: Running short didn’t mean the cards were actually shorter. It simply means lowering, on the face of the ballot, the position of the chads. So the orders were for the ballots going to Palm Beach, don’t make them meet the normal specifications?

E. Washington: Right.

…

Dan Rather: Were you surprised by it?

E. Washington: Oh yeah, I questioned it, and I even had the plant manager sign it. Because I was having arguments with quality control about the size. And so I said, ‘The only way I am going to run it is if Brian (the plant manager) comes out here and signs it.’ He came out, he signed the ‘okay’ card to run ‘em.

…

Dan Rather: Had this happened to you before?

E. Washington: No.

Dan Rather: Was there any other area, somebody say “Well these ballots are going to Louisiana Or Texas Or Arizona?”

E. Washington: Never.

…

Dan Rather: … Linda Evans recalls the chad testing of ballots manufactured for the 2000 election.

Linda Evans: Chads were falling out. Chads were hanging up. We’ve got a machine that we call a gang punch, which in a sense punches out all the holes at the same time. … They weren’t punching out. They were hanging up all over the place. They were aware of that. Oh, management was aware of it. We told ‘em.

…

Dan Rather: We asked Evans if she could demonstrate for us the chad testing that had led to her concerns. This became possible when last, Fall Palm Beach County released over 200,000 unvoted ballots left over from the 2000 election. We had a gang punch identical to the one used by Linda Evans at the factory, made by an engineer familiar with Sequoia’s test instruments. Rantanen met with Linda Evans at her home in Exeter and they tested ballots together.

(they test a ballot)

Walter Rantanen: Oh, oh. It’s got something.

Linda Evans: Its got a whole bunch of somethings.

Gang punched ballot – Dan Rather Reports

Dan Rather: While older Sequoia ballots, made earlier, for another county, punched perfectly, The Palm Beach ballots made for the 2000 election showed a troubling pattern: many cards showed clusters of hanging chads, primarily in the column that contained the presidential candidates.

and after the election tried to destroy all evidence.

Dan Rather: When you got to the plant in the days after the election, what was the scene there?

E. Washington: It was chaotic. They were moving stuff, hiding stuff.

Dan Rather: They were hiding stuff?

E. Washington: Yeah, because the news people wanted to come in and talk to people and they wanted to tour the plant.

E. Washington: We were told to get rid of everything, anything that had Florida on it had to disappear.

Dan Rather: And did it disappear?

E. Washington: Yup. Nothing with any kind of Boise Cascade labels was supposed to be left around.

Dan Rather: And that word came from whom?

E. Washington: Brian Lehrman. … The plant manager.

Dan Rather: We repeatedly invited Sequoia to have Brian Lehrman on camera to answer some of the workers allegations. Sequoia declined.

The workers gave their thoughts on the affair:

Greg Smith: My own personal opinion was the touch screen voting system wasn’t getting off the ground like that they, like they would hope. And because they weren’t having any problems with paper ballots. So, I feel like they, deliberately did all this to have problems with the paper ballots so the electronically voting systems would get off the ground, and which it did in a big way.

…

Cy Turner: You hope for the best in people and you hope it was just some bad circumstances that came together all in one place. But it should matter to people and they should check it out, and investigate it more thoroughly, because if something else was going on, and these people profited by intentionally screwing up our elections, they ought to pay. They ought to pay hard.

…

x[Shipping and Receiving Foreman] Tom Ayers: I don’t think any company should profit from something like this, I mean, it is almost to the point where it would be illegal. You are putting out a product that you know isn’t going to work to make a profit.

…

Suzy Keller: For years elections took so much pride, they all took pride in the quality of card we put out, and this card that went into Florida created a lot of problems. A lot of problems. Substandard paper? Are we trying to force something here? Are we trying to change the elections community? I thought those things. I can’t substantiate those things but that’s what I thought.

…

x[Manager] Giles Jensen: It was something that that really influenced the direction of this, this nation. Intentionally or unintentionally. Let’s leave it that way. But, it’s a sad state of affairs that it takes seven years for somebody to actually ask the question to the people that might have the answer.

Sources

¹⁰ ‘Dan Rather Reports: The Trouble with Touch Screens (and more) – transcript

HDNet video – Sequoia punch card story starts around 38:20

¹¹ ‘Election 2000: Our final tally’ – Unknown News – Palm Beach County “certified” results: Bush 152,951 – Gore 269,732

‘The Florida Overvote: Tragic Mistake, or Katharine Harris with Tweezers?’ – Sharman Braff – Palm Beach County Overvote 19,100 (4.2% of ballots cast)

‘Newer machines had more under-votes’ By Marc Caputo, Palm Beach Post – Tuesday, November 28, 2000 – Palm Beach County Undervote: 10,311 (2.3% of ballots cast)

¹² Google News archive search – A search for the words “Florida”, “Sequoia” and “Rather” from the Dan Rather Reports air date of 8/14/2007 to two months later, returned just one mainstream news reference to the bad ballots story — a letter to the editor of the Mobile Press-Register.

But many blogs covered the story – among them Wired and Brad Blog, which also did further reporting.

It adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence is a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to controul.

In the letter, Jefferson wrote of the meaning of July 4th:

… May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

On the day of the celebration, July 4th, 1826, Thomas Jefferson died. His gravestone was chiseled according to the will he wrote out a few months earlier. The political offices he held – Virginia Governor, U.S. Secretary of State, Vice President, and President – found no room there⁴²x⁴³:

Jefferson’s Stone – photo: William M. Morod

Jefferson’s Will – Library of Congress

Sources

⁴¹ ‘Thomas Jefferson to Roger Weightman, Monticello June 24, 1826’

⁴² ‘Epitaph Of Thomas Jefferson’

⁴³ ‘Brief Biography of Thomas Jefferson’ – The Thomas Jefferson Foundation

For ages before, tough grasses had held the soil and fed the buffalo that, in turn, fed the Indians⁶⁹. But Americans whacked down that food chain: the Army vanquished the Comanches, Texans killed the last millions of the southern plains buffalo, and farmers plowed up the grass. The farmers were urged to move to the region by cattle ranch investors and the federal government. Unlike buffalo, cattle did not fare well on the southern High Plains, with its wind-whipped winters and harsh summer heat⁷⁰. So around 1900, when the market price of cattle dropped, owners divided the huge ranches into small sections to sell to farmers. Marketeers lured farmers with claims such as “rain follows the plow”, saying that the very act of farming would bring rain in that arid land⁷¹. The federal government wanted to populate the region. It gave farmers free train rides to No Man’s Land, and stated that the soil “is the one resource that cannot be … used up⁷²x⁷³.” Cowboys also had something to tell the sodbusters: “the best side is up, don’t plow it under⁷⁴.” Farmers used tractors and the disc plow to turn under the grass of 33 million acres, and many did well selling wheat, until the grain market crashed, not long after the stock market crash of 1929⁷⁵. About the same time a dry phase started in the Great Plains, and in 1930 the first dust storm of the period kicked up in western Kansas. The storm – black and rolling and crackling – was a curiosity. The weather bureau wrote it up and filed it away⁷⁶.

“I didn’t know so much costly misinformation could be put into a single brief sentence,” said Hugh Hammond Bennett of the government’s claim that the soil cannot be used up. Bennett knew the country’s soil. He grew up farming in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains using contour plowing and terracing, studied land use in college, went to work as a scientist for the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and took soil surveys in every state in the country⁷⁷. In his field work he discovered sheet erosion, where each heavy rain takes a thin layer of uncovered soil. Few policy makers cared about soil erosion, but more took notice in 1928 when Bennett published a USDA report, “Soil Erosion: A National Menace”, which helped him get funding for a national soil erosion study⁷⁸. In 1933, the energetic, problem-tackling New Deal administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) came in, and Bennett became head of the new Soil Erosion Service. With over 150 Civilian Conservation Corps camps at his command, Bennett set up many large demonstration projects for erosion control, planting trees and cover crops, and building control structures. But Bennett wanted a permanent soil conservation agency, and, a few days after Black Sunday, he went to Capitol Hill to try to sell a Senate committee on creating one. Bennett knew that a dust storm was coming up the Ohio River Valley bound for D.C., so he stretched out his testimony. “Chapter by chapter, he annotated each dismal page with facts and figures from a reconnaissance he had just completed,” wrote a Bennett biographer, William Brink. “Out of one corner of his eye, he noted the polite stifling of a yawn, but Hugh Bennett continued deliberatively. … Presently one of the senators remarked—off the record—‘It is getting dark. Perhaps a rainstorm is brewing.’ Another ventured, ‘Maybe it’s dust.’ ‘I think you are correct,’ Bennett agreed. ‘Senator, it does look like dust.’ The group gathered at a window. The dust storm for which Hugh Bennett had been waiting rolled in like a vast steel-town pall, thick and repulsive. The skies took on a copper color. The sun went into hiding. The air became heavy with grit.” Before the month ended, FDR signed the Soil Conservation Act, creating the Soil Conservation Service. Bennett, as head of the new agency, created Soil Conservation Districts where the farmers in an area contract to use soil holding methods, and get federal guidance, equipment, seeds, supplies and labor for doing so⁷⁹. These Soil Conservation Districts kept another dust bowl from forming during similar droughts in later decades⁸⁰. The government also helped by turning parts of the Dust Bowl area back to its natural state, and today the Forest Service plans to bring buffalo back to the southern plains in these national grasslands⁸¹x⁸².

Black Sunday

Above 3 maps from Report of the Great Plains Drought Area Committee, August 27, 1936

Reseeded prairie, Baca County, Colorado (from series compiled by R.E. Rosiere, Tarleton State University, Texas)

Sources

⁶¹ ‘Ford County Dust Bowl Oral History Project – Interview: Clayton Hall’ July 29, 1998

⁶² ‘Ford County Dust Bowl Oral History Project – Interview: Arthur W. Leonard’ June 23, 1998

⁶³ ‘The Worst Hard Time’ by Timothy Egan © 2006 P.8

⁶⁴ Ibid pp.198-199

⁶⁵ Ibid drifts P.158; mud drops P.264; death pp.5-6,173

… Dr. John H. Blue of Guymon, Oklahoma, said he treated fifty-six patients for dust pneumonia … He was blunt. The doctor had looked inside an otherwise healthy young farm hand, a man in his early twenties, and told him what he saw. “You are filled with dirt,” the doctor said. The young man died within a day. – P.173

⁶⁶ Ibid pp.180,195,236

⁶⁷ Ibid P.223

One hundred million acres had lost most of its topsoil and nearly half had been “essentially destroyed” and could not be farmed again, Bennet said. Think about the size, Bennet said: an area stretching five hundred miles north to south and three hundred miles east to west was drifting and dusted; two thirds of the total area of the Great Plains had been damaged by severe wind erosion – an environmental disaster bigger than anything in American history.

⁶⁸ Ibid pp.150-2

⁶⁹ Ibid pp.16-17

⁷⁰ Ibid P.22

⁷¹ Ibid pp.24-5

⁷² Ibid P.37

⁷³ ‘Hugh Hammond Bennett: the Father of Soil Conservation’ by Maurice G. Cook, Emeritus Professor of Soil Science, North Carolina State University

Also in 1909, as a measure of the Bureau’s view of the perishability of soils, whether by erosion, by chemical or physical degradation, or by these factors in combination, the Bureau of Soils published its Bulletin 55. In this Bulletin, Professor Milton Whitney, Chief of the Bureau of Soils, argued that the soil was of inexhaustible and permanent fertility: “The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the Nation possesses. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted; that cannot be used up.” At a later time, Bennett reacted to Whitneys statement: “I didn’t know so much costly misinformation could be put into a single brief sentence.” While Whitney no longer censored discussions of erosion out of Bennett’s reports, he apparently intended to “cool” Bennett down by sending him on surveys and projects in Alaska and Cuba, and in South and Central America.

⁷⁴ ‘The Worst Hard Time’ by Timothy Egan © 2006 P.25

⁷⁵ Ibid 33 million acres P.101; tractor & plow P.47; did well selling wheat pp.42-43; market crash pp.101-102

⁷⁶ Ibid P.88

⁷⁷ ‘Hugh Hammond Bennett: the Father of Soil Conservation’ by Maurice G. Cook, Emeritus Professor of Soil Science, North Carolina State University

⁷⁸ Ibid

Soon after the publication of this circular, Bennett finally saw some federal funding approved for erosion research. This came about through his connection to A. B. Conner, Director of the Texas Experiment Station. According to a prearranged plan, Conner was to discuss erosion with Congressman Buchanan of Texas. When the congressman maintained, as they expected he would, that federal money was to be spent for defense, Conner would bring up the large expenditure for battleships, and then argue that protecting the soil that supports the citizenship protects the nation. This devious arrangement worked and, as a result, Bennett was soon asked to testify before Buchanan’s subcommittee. An amendment was attached to the 1929 appropriation for the Department of Agriculture authorizing $160,000 over four years for soil erosion research. This money was to be used by the USDA “to investigate the causes of soil erosion and the possibility of increasing the absorption of rainfall by the soil in the United States.”

⁷⁹ ‘Small Farms, Externalities, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s Gary D. Libecap University of Arizona National Bureau of Economic Research and Zeynep K. Hansen Washington University, St. Louis July 26, 2002 – PDF file

The government response was the organization of Soil Conservation Districts to coordinate erosion control efforts and to subsidize investments. Since the federal government did not have authority to regulate private land use via local government units, state legislation was required. 18 states enacted some variant of the law by June 1937 and all had by 1947. Once state legislation was enacted, farmers in a region could form a Soil Conservation District upon petition and favorable vote. In the Great Plains states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and North and South Dakota there were 39 districts by 1938 covering 18,248,000 acres and 568 covering 318,316,000 acres by 1950.39 Within the districts, individual farmers entered into contracts with the SCS to cooperate in reducing soil erosion for five years. The SCS would provide equipment, seeds, fencing, and personnel for erosion control. Erosion control ordinances imposing land use regulations on all farmers could be adopted upon a favorable vote of a majority of the farmers in a district. Under the statute, the district supervisors could occupy parts of farms and begin erosion control with the costs plus 5 percent levied by court order against the farmer. Further, farmers who did not comply were ineligible for SCS assistance.

⁸⁰ Ibid – PDF file

The Dust Bowl was one of the most severe environmental crises in North America in the 20th Century. Severe drought and damaging wind erosion hit in the Great Plains in 1930 and lasted through 1940. Sustained strong winds blew away an average of 480 tons per acre of topsoil. Although there were similarly severe droughts in the Great Plains earlier in the 19th century and later in the 1950s and 1970s, there were no comparable levels of wind erosion.7 Excessive cultivation in the 1930s is the standard explanation for the Dust Bowl. The issue to be explained is why cultivation was more extensive and use of erosion control techniques more limited in the 1930s than later in the twentieth century.

…

Beginning in 1937, the federal government promoted local soil conservation statutes and districts within each state to subsidize and often force adoption of erosion controls. These included use of strip cropping, certain types of
fallow, terracing, and the planting of trees for windbreaks or shelterbelts. Soil Conservation Districts were established throughout the Great Plains so that by December 1956, there were 827 Soil Conservation Districts in the Great Plains states. The Soil Conservation Districts generally encompassed entire counties or more, and hence, were much larger than individual farms and better able to internalize the externalities associated with soil erosion control and to coordinate anti-erosion efforts among the farmers in their districts. Further, by the 1950s, gradual consolidation increased farm size. As a result, by the 1950s use of wind erosion control techniques was much more prevalent in the Great Plains than in the 1930s.

⁸¹ ‘The Worst Hard Time’ by Timothy Egan © 2006 P.309

⁸² ‘The National Grasslands Story’ – USDA Forest Service

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I watched the attack on the World Trade Center with a special horror because the people killed were all civilians without training, arms, or defense. I called my unit that afternoon and begged, “Wherever this came from, send me there.”

But that’s not where they sent me. They sent me to Iraq.

Around a month into my tour, my small unit was ambushed by hundreds of insurgent fighters at a Coalition Provisional Authority base. The local security force (hired by corporate mercenaries) deserted immediately, taking guns and radios with them.

We were besieged for 22 straight hours under a steady stream of small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades. Forces from multiple nations attempted rescues throughout the night. At dawn, when morning prayers created a pause in the attack, we managed to escape with our lives.

I spent the next 11 months doing convoys, writing reports, and getting to know the real Iraq. I talked to hundreds of Iraqis; many became true friends. I saw the rage after Abu Ghraib. And I saw way too many innocent civilians die as the country slipped further and further over the edge.

The troops I served with suffered from limited ammunition, armor, resources, and staff. While we brushed our teeth in dirty water recycled from the showers, Halliburton reps got rich off contracts handed to them by their Republican friends back in Washington.

Reservists like me risk our lives when Congress says we must – and we need citizens like you to hold them accountable when they betray that trust.

This Tuesday is our very last chance to do that. It’s the last chance for Americans to stand up and say we will not forget, we will not excuse, and we will not let this betrayal happen again.

Sources

⁴¹ Letter from ‘Ginmar’ to MoveOn.org members

⁴² MoveOn.org Call for Change program