Politics & Ecology

For over 500 years the regions and peoples of this hemisphere have suffered the onslaught of forced European civilization. The trend continues to this day. The age old problem of who controls the land and what it is used for is as relevant today as it was when the first human being decided land and its riches could be accumulated and that those human and nonhuman species alike who dwelled on that land could be subjugated. As the 21st century unfolds, the problem has been intensified by the onslaught of multinational corporations who operate with the sanction of governments globally. Global environmental destruction has reached epidemic proportions.

Now, even the "remotest" places are becoming alarmingly accessible to multinational corporations to extract "resources" and use human beings as a work force for the corporations' benefit.

The globalization of capital and the interweaving of financial and governmental institutions have opened the flood gates for even greater destruction of ecosystems (ecocide) and the annihilation of traditional peoples, cultures and values (genocide) while waging a war on the poor, woman and workers.

In this position paper we believe that those who read this are disillusioned with the current condition of life on earth: global forest destruction, increased mono-culture timber plantations, ozone layer depletion, militarism, consumerism, extinction of species, utter collapse of life support systems, racism, air, water and food pollution, chemical warfare, genetic engineering, sweatshops, sexism, fascism and nationalism, abhorrent corporate multinationalism, industrialism and breakdown of community. All of these are exacerbated by the newest ideology of capitalism: neoliberalism. The neoliberalist ideology legitimates corporate control, proposing a "free" global market, whose sole concern is profit and whose primary hindrances are social desires and environmental conservation. Evident in the socio-ecological consequences are agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Bank (WB), the current proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Neoliberalism further fuels an elite to control the earth and all of its inhabitants, leading to desperation, degradation and suffering.

Military Powder-Keg, NAFTA Legacy & the FTAA

The strategic importance of the Central American region in the global corporate schemes, for example, is rapidly turning the region into a powder-keg. In addition to Colombia recently receiving aid from the U.S. (and dropping herbicides in the region that will have long term socio-ecological effects), the U.S. Navy has been bombing Vieques, Puerto Rico as a testing site for years (leading to high rates of cancer and ecological destruction). Militarization of the entire region is on the increase with the U.S. looking to open or reopen bases in El Salvador and Honduras and even running Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Nicaragua.

When the Panama Canal reverted back to Panamanian control, the U.S. Southern Command (SouthCom), the Southern branch of its military operations, officially moved to Miami. However, SouthCom's Psychological Operations are based in Puerto Rico, as is their advanced radar or "listening sights." Additionally, the U.S. military has signed agreements with Aruba, Curacao and Ecuador for military bases. Finally, the U.S. has indicated that the only way it will clean up the toxic legacy of its former military bases in Panama is if it can reopen those bases. Panama is the gateway into South America, and directly joins Colombia.

When NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994, the indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico staged an uprising that continues to this day. Presently, not only is the state of Chiapas militarized, but all of southeastern Mexico faces an armed occupation by the Mexican government. Wherever multinationals want to extract "resources" and take over indigenous or campesino land, the military moves in to secure the area. This militarization to enforce control of natural resources is nothing new. However, it should be a warning as to what the Free Trade Area of the Americas will mean for the identified "resource colonies" throughout Latin America.

For the neoliberal agenda to move southward, stabilization of the region must occur. Instability is a risk to the multinational financiers. Therefore, any type of resistance to the neoliberal agenda is being met with massive military occupation. This expansive military presence is key toward the "stabilization" of the region.

The World Bank

Helping set up this new neoliberal model have been the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The World Bank and IMF have used structural adjustment programs (SAPs) to strip the Global South of resources needed to fuel the gluttonous northern economies. These same SAPs have acted as a whip to coerce the "two-thirds world" into complying with corporate globalization.

Already Central America is one such area which has been used by the U.S. as a resource colony with results which have been disastrous to its people and the land. As with other nations in the Global South, the U.S. has had a tremendous ability to influence policies by giving or taking away military aid; blocking or expediting loans from the IMF, World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); and controlling access to U.S. markets and products.

Along with these coercive capabilities, the U.S. exerts influence through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other institutions to manipulate Central American affairs, and trains military personnel through the infamous School of the Americas to strengthen paramilitaries and death squads. In some cases the U.S. has even used military invasion or psychological warfare.

International financial speculation is at the heart of one of the biggest threats to Latin America's environment -- the myriad of proposed development projects for the region. Various dry and wet canals, used to transport goods across the isthmus, Megaprojects, and " Plan Puebla Panama", an industrial corridor stretching from Mexico to Panama, are being planned by governments and multinational corporations, and funded by international lending institutions such as the IDB, to more easily enable free trade. These projects could include high speed rail lines, sweatshops (maquiladoras), new ports, mono-culture plantations (possibly genetically engineered), resource extraction sites, oil refineries and timber mills, new airports, and large scale tourism development. Needless to say, the introduction of these projects will cause wide scale deforestation, construction of oil pipelines (resulting in oil spills and water pollution), the building of dams, roads and artificial waterways, and the exploitation of indigenous communities and workers.

What Next? Revolution or Reform

Does it make sense to devote so much time only to reforming a hierarchical structure, such as an outmoded electoral process, capitalism or any governmental agency, or should we be working for the disbanding of all structures/agencies that "manage" life? It is our belief that a system so inherently flawed cannot be reformed. Revolutionary Ecology is opposed to all management for power or profit. Such management leads to domination and the subsequent loss of biological and cultural diversity and freedom through the manipulation of control and power. The futility of reform and the necessity of revolution is unfortunately hard for many to accept because it challenges their worldview.

Simply defined, revolutionary ecology is the interrelationship of organisms and their environment (or studies thereof) and the term revolutionary means causing a very great change. Revolutionary Ecology calls for the fundamental transformation of all human activities which threaten evolutionary potential. This belief stems from a consciousness about the interconnectedness of all life, and the realization that human beings are not separate from nature.

This stance is also founded in a respect for the intrinsic value of all life forms, regardless of their usefulness to human beings. With this in mind, Revolutionary Ecologists work for an end to all forms of domination--sexism, racism and corporate control of land for profit, to name a key few.

So how can we coalesce and implement our objectives into a powerful movement? We need to make clear the connections between all struggles for liberation. We recognize that ecosystem health is essential to human health and survival and we strive to explain our ecological view to others in the radical social movements while radicalizing the liberals and reformers in both the environmental and social change movements. Symbiotically, activists from all approaches must try to understand the views we are each presenting for a holistic comprehension of how things work on earth. When understanding is achieved, the common enemy -- the antithesis of life -- will be easier to disassemble because more people will be united around the bigger cause, while continuing to work on a variety of issues and levels.

Corporate globalization and capitalism are not long-term prospects for the future. In fact, both are destined for failure. The simple reality is Earth is a finite planet and as such, its resources cannot be viewed as infinite by any rational person.

In this era of meaningless and hollow consumerism driven by the capitalists for the sole purpose of making profits, the Earth and all its inhabitants become raw materials in the accumulation of power and wealth. From the strength and savvy of the social and environmental movements, we see a growing resistance to neoliberalism/capitalism and the creation of globalización desde abajo (grassroots globalization).