Ha! Ha! Hashimoto: The Not So Funny Clown Of Japanese Rhetoric

Some people forfeit their right to life. Toru Hashimoto is one of them. If this twisted reprobate suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, the world would immediately become a much better place. Hopefully, his abrupt departure would be the result of a good ol’ fashion disembowelment with a second ready to lop off his top.

Hashimoto and former Tokyo Mayor, Shintaro Ishihara formed Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), a right-wing group that bases their political spew on hatred of women, foreigners, abject ignorance, and Japan’s deceptive history, instead of addressing real issues, such as the economy, and the necessity of having strong regional ties.

A few years back Ishihara became infamous to westerners that reside in Japan, when the mindless kook met with police, and granted them authority to execute foreigners if there were ever a large-scale disaster to hit the country. During that unconscionable diatribe, Ishihara said foreigners would be raping and pillaging in the streets, and that Japan’s women would be their target. This is the same “leader” that said all women over childbearing age forfeited “their” right to life. The Japanese had voted Ishihara into power several times. What does that reveal about the collective views of the Japanese?

The disaster Ishihara spoke of would later hit Japan on 3.11.11. The only thing foreigners were guilty of was donating hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it never made it to the victims it was intended for. Instead, it went to support programs that the donors vehemently opposed. It’s ironic that foreigners have been so charitable to Japan when the nation doesn’t have a shred of charity in its collective soul.

When the 3.11.11. disaster was all but over, it turned out that the only thing the Japanese had to fear was reckless corporations like TEPCO, and the JAEA who was charged with oversight of the nuclear industry. The JAEA had been assuring the world that Japan was the “safest and most prepared” when it came to nuclear safety. If Japan was the most prepared for such calamity, what is in store for the rest of us?

Hashimoto chastising reporters for exposing his vile and sick perspective of the world.

Cut to approximately one year ago when Hashimoto, as Osaka mayor gave city workers an invasive questionnaire that violated their free speech, privacy rights, and equal protection. That questionnaire asked, Do you have tattoos? What size are they, and where are they located? The questionnaire also included a physical diagram where people were supposed to illustrate their body art. The miscreant mayor also said, those that had tattoos would never be promoted, and should quit their jobs. The majority of the 35,000 that received the questionnaire refused to answer it. Oddly, Hashimoto came into power through direct relationships with the underworld that he associates tattoos with. While Hashimoto clearly doesn’t take into consideration basic human rights of others, he’s constantly whining about his own.

Hashimoto sued Shukan Asahi and Asahi Shimbun, claiming the publications violated his human rights when they ran an article about his family’s criminal background. The magazine ran a cover story noting that Hashimoto’s father had been a yakuza, and that he came from an area in Osaka traditionally associated with burakumin outcasts. The article was supposed to be the first of a series exposing Hashimoto’s controversial rise to power. The magazine’s president was forced to resign, and a panel convened by the Asahi Shimbun agreed the article was discriminatory, and the series was canceled.

Unlike, the city workers of Osaka who are private citizens, those that Hashimoto unjustly attacked, he needs to understand that public figures have very few privacy rights. in fact, once an individual enters public office, their entire existence is subject to scrutiny. It’s quite simple, people who have violent criminal backgrounds should not be allowed to hold a public office, because they would probably abuse that position. Hashimoto abhorrent conduct is a prime example of political abuse. He should be removed from office immediately.

Hashimoto who is married, is also known for cross dressing, and eliciting the services of prostitutes. He’s engaged in ongoing affairs with at least one nightclub hostess who said that Hashimoto asked her to dress up in cosplay outfits, and engage in sadistic sexual acts. Hashimoto admitted that the story was true. He claims to have apologized to his wife and seven children.

The sexually sadistic nature of Hashimoto that has been exposed by this hostess sheds light on the current debacle of distortion and delusion that he’s currently suffering, and deservedly so. Especially when Japanese soldiers committed so many sadistic, and torturous acts of rape and murder upon innocent Chinese, Korean, Indo, and Filipino women who were subjected to abject, unconscionable, and immoral conduct, sanctioned by the Japanese ruling party at the time.

Thankfully, Hashimoto has been greatly condemned by the U.S. government for declaring that sex slaves were a necessity during the Second World War. The U.S. ambassadors have already told Hashimoto to cancel his planned visits to New York, and California in June. The U.S. representatives have stressed that nobody would be interested in meeting with him. Even Hashimoto’s own party members have begun to distance themselves from him. Despite all of this, Hashimoto continues to claim, wrongly, that the Japanese military’s wartime practice of forcing women into sexual slavery was necessary to maintain discipline, and to provide relaxation for soldiers.

Hashimoto’s version of necessity, discipline and relaxation.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto says he doesn’t believe the tens of thousands of women “rounded up” to provide sex for Japanese soldiers during the war did so unwillingly. I’m sure the woman in the photo above, if she was still alive, as it is quite clear that she was already tortured to death by Japanese soldiers, would vehemently disagree with the much maligned malcontent.

The U.S. state department said Hashimoto’s comments were outrageous and offensive. Historians know that up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers in military brothels. Japan is the only country accused of widespread, organized sexual slavery during World War II.

Commenting on Hashimoto’s contention that the system was considered necessary before and during World War II, Jen Psaki told a press briefing, “We have seen those comments. Mayor Hashimoto’s comments were outrageous and offensive.” ”As the United States has stated previously, what happened in that era to these women who were trafficked for sexual purposes is deplorable and clearly a grave human rights violation of enormous proportions.” A senior State Department official said, on condition of anonymity, “We were all broadly offended by the comments.”

Oddly, today Japan won’t allow anyone who has a tattoo to enter a public bathhouse (onsen), yet Japanese soldiers sadistically raped, tortured, and murdered women, and also subjected many of them to brutal and barbaric tattooing, and bondage. Many of the victims became pregnant, often several times. The impregnated and dejected women would then be forced to undergo abortions. Many had several abortions. Survivors of these atrocities witnessed thousands of woman who were tortured to death. Of course, this is all well-documented, but the Japanese continue to pretend that none of this has ever happened. What is most disturbing is that the Japanese Ministry of Education continues to hide the rape, torture, murder, human experimentation, and war crimes that were committed during the “Empire of Great Japan.”

Unit 731. A child that is still alive is having a vivisection performed on it without any anesthesia.

The Japanese have never heard of the secret, and notorious Unit 731 where more than 30,000 innocent Chinese, Korean, and Russian civilians were subjected to unspeakable war crimes that included feeding children Anthrax ladened chocolate, chemical and biological experiments, munitions testing, and vivisection surgeries performed on maruta (wood), conscious civilians who received no anesthesia as they were cut open from neck to groin, and then ripped open under the guise of experimentation.

Unit 731, based at the Pingfang district of Harbin, was the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China). The secretive lab was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese.

In 1932, General Shiro Ishii, chief medical officer of the Japanese Army organized a secret research group that conducted various chemical and biological experiments. Ishii’s main supporters included Colonel Chikahiko Koizumi, who later became Japan’s Health Minister.

Many historians believe Emperor Hirohito, who had studied biology is directly responsible for the atrocities committed by the imperial forces, and feel that he, and several members of the imperial family including his brother Prince Chichibu, cousins Prince Takeda and Fushimi, and uncles Prince Kan’in, Asaka, and Higashikuni, should have also been tried for war crimes.

In 1936, Hirohito authorized, by imperial decree, the expansion of Unit 731 and its integration into the Kwantung Army as the Epidemic Prevention Department. It was then divided into the “Ishii Unit” and “Wakamatsu Unit” with a base in Hsinking. From August 1940, all these units were known collectively as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army, or Unit 731.

Today, Shiro Ishii is enshrined at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and honored as a war hero. The psychopath is anything but a hero. Ishii negotiated a deal with a U.S. military tribunal to hand over his Unit 731 records in exchange for war crimes immunity. If there was anyone in Japan that should have been executed as a war criminal it would have to be Ishii.

The remains of the notorious Unit 731 torture facility located in Harbin, China.

While Japan continues to honor war criminals like Ishii, part of Unit 731 remains as a monument to Japan’s war crimes in Harbin, China. The entire world is aware of the existence of this abominable torture facility, and several feature films and documentaries have been made about it, yet one would have to search the entire country of Japan to find even a handful of people that know it ever existed.

A military symbol that no Japanese should ever be proud of.

On a recent visit to the southern island of Okinawa, Hashimoto suggested to the U.S. commander in charge there that the U.S. troops should make use of the legal sex industry. U.S. officials openly stated that these statements were repugnant and rejected the proposal. “That goes without saying,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said. Mike Honda, a Democrat who has urged Japan to take responsibility for wartime sex slavery, called Hashimoto’s remarks on sex slavery “contemptible and repulsive” and demanded Japan’s government “apologize for this atrocity.”

Hashimoto’s comments came amid continuing criticism of earlier pledges by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to revise past apologies for wartime atrocities. Instead, a photograph was published in Japanese newspapers showing Abe posing in a fighter jet with the number 731. This triggered great outrage in Beijing, Russia, Korea and the rest of the world.

Do the three stooges of stupidity reveal the true psyche of Japan?

One victim of sexual assault and slavery by the Japanese military during WWII was only fifteen years old at the time. She had been abducted from her home along with other girls from her village. They were rounded up, herded, and repeatedly raped by soldiers both day and night. She witnessed many women who were tortured to death, and feared the same would happen to her. This child was impregnated many times and forced to abort each time. Japanese soldiers tattooed her body as part of their sadistic pleasure. This victim passed away only a few years ago. In Korea, there remain only sixty victims left alive. They’re in their 80’s and 90’s, and most of them were permanently disabled because of the torture they have endured.

The Japanese government has always denied these claims, and the victims have never been compensated for what they had endured. They have also never received an apology. Instead, Hashimoto and other racist, women haters continue to call them whores and liars.

It’s not only Chinese, Korean and Filipino woman that resent the ignorant venom spewed by Hashimoto. Twenty-five women’s groups in Okinawa issued a statement claiming the island chain “still sits in the midst of unhealed scars from war and daily violence imposed by the military.” They demanded an apology from Hashimoto who suggested U.S. troops make use of Okinawa’s “thriving” sex industry. “Regardless of whether it is wartime or not, a view to use women as a tool to let out sexual frustration is intolerable,” said Masako Ishimine, a senior member of a local women’s body, quoted by the Okinawa Times.

In the Philippines, Rechilda Extremadura, the executive director of Lila Pilipina, an advocacy group whose 104 members were “comfort women” described Hashimoto as callous. “No country has the right to violate women and make us victims so they can be fodder for war,” she said. “Someone in his position should be more responsible with his remarks.”

Shoko Toguchi, a senior member of a women’s rights group, said, “Hashimoto not only lacked common sense, but he lacked the sense of human rights and was not able to feel the pain of Okinawa’s people”, Jiji Press reported.

Activists criticized Hashimoto’s remarks urging a United Nations human rights panel to take up the issue when it opens its review of Japan next week. The activists, including those from the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace and from Amnesty International, expressed their views at a meeting with experts from the Committee against Torture.

The following are photos of various “whores and liars” as depicted by Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party).

Korean rape and torture victims of Japan’s Imperial Army demand compensation and apology.

More victims of Japan’s war crimes that Hashimoto considers necessities for discipline and moral.

How long must we sing this song?

An example of Hashimoto’s “necessity of desire” for Japanese war criminals.

Necessities of war according to Hashimoto.

Unit 731. Yet another victim of Japanese military rape, torture and murder under the guise of a science experiment.

Maruta! According to Hashimoto’s party of pretense.

This military leader spent his days cutting off as many heads as he could over a bet with another leader to see who could cut off the most. At the end the day he’d turn his attention to torturing women. In Hashimoto’s view those women “were asking for it.” Note: The sick animal met his demise at the end of a war trial noose.

The distorted countenance of an abject, and delusional lunatic.

The following is a statement I received today by a survivor of Japan’s war crimes.

Federico Baldassarre: As far as my own experience with the Japanese military is concerned, I find it impossible to forgive them for what they’ve done to so many of their victims. I don’t want to cease to feel angry.

Should I forgive Japanese soldiers for enslaving human beings in concentration camps, starving them and beating countless men, women, and children to death? Do I really want to forgive them for ruthlessly exploiting the entire Indonesian population, including the millions of Romusha’s they subjected to horrible slave labor?

And what of the hundreds of thousands of women from many nations they forced to into sexual slavery to fill the brothels of the Japanese military? Should I, a survivor of the war in Southeast Asia, ever cease to feel angry with the Japanese guard for viciously beating and kicking my mother while she was trying to protect her child? Absolutely not! Never!

Abe: At It Again

I recently read and article in The Japan Times, that called Abe, a “historical revisionist.” (I’m never too surprised at the deplorable “reporting” in that publication, especially since it’s in financial turmoil, benign, and is desperately trying to do all it can to stay afloat. Well, except become a responsible publication that reports honestly, and accurately.) Nothing could be further from the truth regarding Abe as a revisionist. Historical revisionists are those that rewrite history in a factual and accurate manner, regardless of their affect on interested parties that prosper from their ongoing propaganda campaigns, and the publications that corroborate, nod, and wink in support.

Abe is not a revisionist. Abe has no vision. He’s merely embracing “glories” of the antiquated Imperial Regime, which led Japan into World War II. That regime, which was quashed by allied forces, had committed unspeakable and egregious war crimes. Many committed by the notorious Unit 731. (More on that later.)

Abe needs to accept that the outcome of Japan’s Imperial Army were massive fire bombings, the complete destruction of the entire nation, and the greatest shame any nation has ever face, nuclear bombings, and fallout from radiation. Hiroshima, and Nagasaki stand to bear witness to the lunacy of Japan’s past military aggression against its neighbors.

Abe needs to realize that his right-wing antics are greatly insulting and painful to countries like China, Russia, and Korea. Abe needs to “get it” that Japan remains an occupied nation, and its been occupied for nearly seventy years now.

Abe is not a revisionist. He’s a instigator, a trouble-maker who’s attempting to stir more instability in the region even after the Senkaku dispute lead to massive rioting in China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Japanese mindless Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in a race against Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto to be the most hated Japanese figure since fourteen war criminals were executed after World War II.

Without regard to the tensions that already exist in the region, Abe thoughtlessly posed for a photo in the cockpit of an air force T-4 training jet emblazoned with the number 731 on its side of the plane. The photo was taken at the Air Self-Defense Force base in Miyagi Prefecture.

The number 731 evokes outrage and horror bringing back nightmarish memories of Unit 731, which was a covert Japanese biological and chemical warfare research facility that carried out lethal human experiments during the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese War and World War II. None other than Japan’s Emperor Hirohito sanctioned the secretive facility.

Newspapers throughout the world recently ran a photo of Abe sitting in the cockpit of a fighter plane with the numbers 731 clearly visible in the photo. In fact, there is an arrow that seems to draw ones attention straight at the number. “Abe’s pose resurrects horrors of Unit 731,” read the headline on the English-language Korea Joongang Daily. The Chosun Ilbo’s caption referred to “Abe’s never-ending provocations.”

Shinzo Abe poses for a photo in a T-4 military jet with the numbers 731 on the plane. The number references Japan’s biological facility that tortured, and executed 30,000 Chinese, Korean and Russian civilians under the guise of scientific experiments.

The Japanese biological and chemical warfare research facility was responsible for torturing, and executing more than 30,000 Chinese, Korean, and Russian civilians. There were also U.S. soldiers experimented on, tortured, and executed at the secret facility, which was operated by Shiro Iishi, a war criminal who is enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, along with numerous other war criminals. Unit 731, located in Harbin, China still stands as a testament of Japan’s barbarism to its regional neighbors. All of the atrocities that took place at the facility occurred during the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

Unit 731. Harbin, China.

With the recent disturbing remarks of Hashimoto, claiming that sexual slavery was a necessity for soldier moral, and the extreme right-wing leanings of current political party in power, there can be no doubt that Abe understood that the photo could not be interpreted in any other way. “Leaders” that are this insensitive, and conducting themselves in such an apprehensible manner clearly are not fit for office.

The photo can only be construed as an approval of Japan’s colonial-era war crime atrocities, and a provocation to the countries in the surrounding region. The press in Seoul suggested the Abe picture was an intended affront to countries like China and South Korea, which suffered under Japanese occupation and colonization. “Abe’s endless provocation!” screamed front page of the Korea’s largest daily, the Chosun Ilbo. “Abe’s pose resurrects horrors of Unit 731,” ran the headline in the English-language Korea JoongAng Daily.

The Japanese Defense Ministry suggested the number on the trainer was simply coincidental. “There was no particular meaning in the number of the training airplane the prime minister was in on Sunday. Other than that there is nothing we can say,” a ministry spokesman told AFP in Tokyo. Even if these comments were true, which I don’t believe to be so, they should have never been put on a plane, and Abe should have refused to allow his photo to be taken in the plane. The base officials said there were numerous other planes that he could have had his photo taken in.

War criminal Shiro Ishii: Unit 731′s notorious mass murderer.

South Korean ambassador to Japan Shin Kak-Soo said Japan needed to pay attention to perceptions. “There is a gap between the perception of a victimizer and that of a victim.”

The prominence given to the photo has fueled public anger in South Korea, and China, which has already been aroused by the recent visit of Japanese cabinet ministers and lawmakers to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine. The Yasukuni shrine honors fourteen war criminals.

The shrine is rightfully regarded by South Korea and China as a symbol of wartime aggression, and a continuous insult to countries in the region. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se shelved a proposed trip to Tokyo in protest at the visits, while President Park Geun-Hye warned Japan against shifting to the right and aggravating the “scars of the past.”

A blind deity, Hirohito sanctioned the torture, and execution of thousands of innocent civilians.

Hirohito visiting the happiest place on earth.

Korean newspapers appear to have been alerted to the photos by online commentary from the U.S. and China, as well as a statement from South Korean ruling party politician Chung Mong-joon that said Abe’s photo-op was equivalent to German Chancellor Angela Merkel riding an aircraft with a Nazi swastika.

The Dong-A Ilbo, another large national paper in Korea, ran a photo that showed Abe wearing a baseball jersey with the number 96 on it. According to the Dong-A, is another “numerical provocation” since Article 96 is the section of the Japanese constitution that Abe wants to revise as part of his goal to allow Japan to formally possess a military.

South Koreans are wary of constitutional change in Japan because of a prevailing narrative that it would mark a return to Japan’s militaristic past. Recent provocative comments by Abe about Japan’s occupation of parts of Asia during World War II, visits to a war shrine by Japanese cabinet members, and Hashimoto’s mindless rhetoric are increasing concerns in South Korea, China and even Russia of Japan’s political trajectory.

Coverage of Abe’s remarks on historical issues and Japan’s military is about the only subject that unites the Korean press. Despite huge editorial differences on issues such as domestic politics and North Korea, the South Korean media largely speak with one critical voice about Abe and warn against any changes to Japan’s pacifist constitution.

Oddly, while Japan’s government has been involved recently in a massive amount of hate speech, rhetoric, and clear aggressive symbolism, Abe has expressed concern over the increase of hate speech. In an Upper House Budget Committee session that took place on May 7th, Abe criticized the hate mongering that has become rampant around the nation, adding that the hate these people show is dishonoring Japan. “It is truly regrettable that there are words and actions that target certain countries and races,” Abe was quoted as saying.

Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Kan Suzuki, pointed out that demonstrations in the Korea towns of Tokyo’s Shin-Okubo district and Osaka’s Tsuruhashi district have been marred by vitriol and race-specific hate. Protesters have been shouting, “Kill the Koreans”, or that “Koreans are cockroaches”, and “Koreans go home, you do not belong here!”

Abe himself has been caught in recent issues where his specific words have caused angry reactions from South Korea and China. This is with regards to his views about Japan’s role in World War II, saying that the term “aggressor” can be defined in different ways from different points of view. South Korea has specifically made strong diplomatic reactions, asking Japan to apologize and the international community to exert pressure for Abe to retract his comments. “It’s completely wrong to put others down and feel as if we are superior,” Abe said. “Such acts dishonor ourselves.”

The following are documentaries that expose Japan’s Unit 731 war crimes.

Men Behind The Sun

Japan’s Dirty Secret (In Japanese)

Nightmare In Manchuria

Unit 731: Japan’s Biological Force

Philosophy Of A Knife

Biosolids Controversy Hits The Fan: No Shit!

Something Stinks In The Land Of Plenty

Years ago when I was a child, Sesame Street aired a song about garbage. The lyrics went something like this, “What about garbage, where’s it go. Where’s it go?” I found a link to that song posted on YouTube. The title is, Where The Garbage Goes. http://youtube.com/watch?v=McwbExWVwPM.

Today there are seven billion people in the world, and everyone is dumping a huge amount of toxins down the drain, and into open sewers. The Union of Concerned Scientists (1700 of the world’s top scientists many who are Nobel Prize winners) all agree that what we are putting in the drain, and storm runoff is causing the largest problems to the world’s ecosystem. Those scientists all signed a statement, which was a warning to the world, “Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. If not checked, many of our current practices may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring.”

Waste is huge a problem where trash mountains are often larger than natural ones. Not only is it toxic to the land it’s decomposes on, but the noxious toxins associated with improper storage, and treatment end up leaching into the earth’s water tables contaminating much of the world’s fresh water supplies. Today, only 1.5% of the world’s water can be used for consumption, and even that number is rapidly on the decline.

Back in the 1970s farmers attempted to use human waste as fertilizer. This reckless behavior caused hepatitis epidemics, and breakouts of other serious infectious diseases. Human waste was never meant to be used as a source to fertilize food. Today, China, and the U.S., two of the world’s largest producers of food are using human waste as fertilizer. History lessons teach about European plagues that nearly wiped out Europe because human waste mingled with everything that was tossed in drains. Of course hundreds of tons of human feces that’s supposed to be safely treated, and often is not, is not called shit any longer, it’s called biosolids.

What Are Biosolids

Today, everything no matter how impractical, or even life threatening comes down to corporate profits. Biosolids is a public relations/marketing euphemism so toxic sewage sludge can be sold as fertilizer. The word itself was chosen from a contest, sponsored by the lobbyists for the sewage industry known as the Water Environment Federation (WEF).

The name change was crucial to the image makeover of toxic sewage sludge. This is yet another example of reckless industry, and the governments that they bribe green-washing, and utilizing propaganda in an attempt to change the public’s perception regarding hazardous waste. This ongoing campaign of false representation is intentionally misleading so the industries responsible for the handling, and treatment of waste, can market it, and sell it to unsuspecting consumers for home gardens. It is also being used to fertilize much of America’s farmland.

Anyone today that believes a farmer cares about the quality of their product is far removed from reality. With GMOs covering approximately 90% of U.S. crops, including wheat, corn, and soy, and anything dumped down a drain being used as fertilizer, clearly farmer’s have but one concern. Not safety, or quality, only yield and profits, and that’s all.

About 7 million tons of dry sewage waste (most of it originating at water treatment plants) is applied to farmlands in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The question is why is the EPA allowing this? In 2010, about 58,000 dry tons of biosolids were applied to agricultural lands in Washington State alone, says Daniel Thompson, the state’s “biosolids” regulator for the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Toxic sewage sludge is used as fertilizers that produce the food that you, and your children eat. Yummy! A list of hazardous chemicals and pathogens found in biosolids have been tested to contain lead, mercury, dioxins, arsenic, radiation that originates from medical industry waste, heavy metals, dangerous viruses, pesticides, insecticides, PCBs, various hormones, furans, flame retardants, organochlorine pesticides, 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP), naphthalene, triclosan, nonylphenols, phthalates, nanosilver, and thousands of other toxic chemicals.

The waste treatment industry is actually putting its waste into bags, labeling it as “compost” and then promotes selling it through The U.S. Composting Council. Some organizations are misleading the public by calling it “organic” which it clearly is not.

Beginning in the 1990′s the WEF, with the active encouragement and approval of the EPA, pushed for the disposal of sewage sludge on farmlands after bans were imposed on incinerating it, and dumping it in the ocean. If toxic sewage sludge is banned from incineration processes, and from being dumped in the oceans, then how dumping it on farmlands be a viable alternative?

What Is Sewage Anyway

Sewage is everything that is poured down the drain. Bleaches, scouring compounds, urine, feces, vomit, mucus, viral infections, blood tainted by a variety of infections, medical waste including aborted babies, etc. Sewage is the mixture of water and whatever wastes from domestic and industry are flushed into drainage systems. Prominent scientists from all over the globe agree that the number one problem with pollution, and infectious diseases to humans and to our ecosystem is drain runoff. Yet, today unscrupulous and reckless industries that don’t want to pay for proper treatment of waste that’s piling up on their land, are scheming to distribute it all over the world to be dumped on agricultural lands that produce food.

The aim of sewage treatment is supposed to be to produce clean water; it was never intended to produce clean sludge. The more toxic the sludge, the more complete its concentration of the noxious wastes, and therefore the more the treatment has done its job.

Today literally everything that goes down toilets and drains is now being dumped into plastic bags, and labeled as fertilizer. Toxic waste in any form is not fertilizer. Human waste is not fertilizer. Toxic waste is a lethal brew of a great many variations chemical compounds, and incompatible materials that are unpredictable in themselves, and in the toxicity of their amalgamation, incalculably dangerous to all forms of life, from the earthworms that have it dumped upon them, to the birds that eat them, to the bees that pollinate the plants, to humans that consume the food.

Free Organic Biosolid Giveaways

A major controversy erupted in San Francisco when the Center for Food Safety and the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) called on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to end it’s a free give-away program of toxic sewage sludge. The SFPUC was putting contaminated sludge into bags, giving it away as free “organic biosolids compost” to gardeners. A March 4^th, 2010, demonstration at City Hall by the OCA forced a halt to the program. The intentionally misleading labeled “organic compost,” which the SFPUC had been giving away free to gardeners since 2007, was composed of toxic sewage sludge from San Francisco and eight other counties.

The SFPUC performed very little, if any toxicity testing. Private sources began to test the waste and their discoveries were alarming. Just the sludge from San Francisco alone has tested positive for 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP), Isopropyltoluene (p-cymene or p-isopropyltoluene), doxins and furans. All of these highly toxic chemical compounds are known carcinogens.

According to a website operated by Wealing Brothers, there are many “benefits” of using cancerous agents in your garden. “The application of biosolids to your land offers the following long-term benefits: suppresses disease-causing pest organisms; produces good soil structure; improves water infiltration, oxygen diffusion, and water-holding capacity; retains nitrogen and other nutrients such as calcium, iron, potassium, and phosphorus; makes nutrients available for plant growth at the times and rates plants require; decomposes plant residues rapidly; produces hormones that help plants grow; and consumes pollutants in the soil.”

The only benefit is that people like the Wealing Brothers reap huge profits duping the ill-informed public and dishonest farmers.

Organic Farming

Organic farming is the only alternative for anyone concerned with their own health as well as the health, and sustainability of the environment that produces their food. One of the biggest issues regarding toxic sludge use on a farm is the produce can no longer be considered organic. Anytime a public agency or any other entity proposes spreading human waste, bacteria, viruses and other toxic contaminants over the landscape, regardless of the purpose, is contaminating the land, water table, and especially organic farms.

David L. Lewis, Ph.D., a research microbiologist at the EPA for 32 years, contends the agency based its 1993 regulations on “faked data” in an effort to cover up adverse health effects from heavy metals and other hazardous materials contained in the waste. Today almost all rice grown around the world is contaminated with arsenic that originated from heavy metal fertilizers.

Lewis, now the senior science adviser for the National Whistleblower Center in Washington, D.C., says biosolids are “a serious threat to public health and the environment.” Lewis says he was fired in 2003 after authoring a series of articles in Nature, Environmental Health Perspectives, and other publications that criticized EPA’s science policies and practices, and the agency’s management, and promotion of biosolids.

“Biosolids are one of the most regulated soil amendments out there”, says Sally Brown, a research associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Brown claims to use biosolids to grow her own vegetables. However, the truth is the university that employs her, and pays her salary receives large donations, and research money from interested parties. Brown also serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Composting Council. She says, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Farmers such as Alice Cho Snyder say, “The more we find out, the more we are convinced that this is a critical public health issue that needs to be addressed openly.” Snyder’s worried that if her neighbor’s application for a biosolids use permit is approved by Snohomish County land-use officials, bacteria and toxins will wash over her property when the area floods, which she says it has twice in the last five years.

A Pathological Legacy

The safety of biosolids has been addressed openly, but not conclusively. One question readers might ask is whether the agencies or entities that promote biosolids as safe are themselves competent to know (or say) what safe is (or means).

In 2002 EPA’s own Inspector General determined that the agency “does not have an effective program for ensuring land compliance” of biosolids, and thus “cannot assure the public that current land application practices are protective of human health and the environment.” The report also criticized the EPA for conducting “virtually no inspections of land application sites.”

The Inspector General also castigated the EPA for not collecting data on accumulated pollutants at biosolids application sites despite the fact that federal law requires the agency to collect such data. The EPA also failed to monitor whether producers or appliers actually adhered to federal regulations. The Inspector General concluded that the EPA’s failure to commit resources to the biosolids program constituted an “almost complete absence of a federal presence,” adding that the agency’s conduct “may result in increased risks to the environment.”

In 2006 scientists from Eastern Washington University and the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Laboratory found a total of 87 different human-manufactured compounds in biosolids originating from wastewater treatment plants in seven U.S. states. The researchers described biosolids as a “potentially ubiquitous nonpoint source” of “contaminants” in the environment (Environmental Science and Technology, Sept. 13, 2006). A minimum of 30 and a maximum of 45 wastewater contaminants were detected in any one biosolid sample tested, the scientists noted.

In 2008 scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and Colorado State University found that earthworms in soil plots amended with biosolids had bioaccumulated multiple human-manufactured compounds, including: disinfectants, anti-foaming agents and flame retardants, antibiotics, synthetic fragrances, detergents and pesticides, as well as other chemicals reflecting a wide range of physicochemical properties”(Environmental Science & Technology, Feb. 20, 2008).

The EPA’s 2009 Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey Report found 28 metals in every biosolids sample from 74 randomly selected water treatment plants in 35 states. The samples, collected in 2006 and 2007, also contained 72 pharmaceuticals, 25 steroids and hormones, flame retardants, and a variety of semi-volatile organics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

NBC Philadelphia reported that local residents in Lehigh County, located in eastern Pennsylvania, raised issue with local and state authorities about the use of “granulite,” a type of sewage sludge fertilizer made from human waste, on nearby farm fields. The so-called fertilizer has reportedly contaminated groundwater and left a revolting mess all over the community. “There’s a huge difference between using fertilizer and using human feces that’s been treated with chemicals,” said local resident Bill Schaffhouser. “This stuff will end up in the food and meat they eat, and the milk they drink, this is a real issue.”

Despite The Rhetoric Biosolids Are Hazardous

Sewage sludge regularly tests positive for heavy metals, flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, phthalates, dioxins, and a host of other chemicals and organisms. Of the thousands of contaminants that have been found in sludge, the U.S. government regulates exactly only ten of them (nine heavy metals and fecal coliform).

When industry, hospitals, and households send their waste to wastewater treatment plants, the plants remove as many contaminants as possible from the water and then discharge the water as effluent. The leftover solids are sludge.

There are two types of biosolid classifications. Class B may only be applied to land where crops fed to animals are grown. There are no restrictions to Class A.

Brand names to avoid are Milorganite from Milwaukee, Hou-Actinite from Houston, or GroCo from Seattle. What happens to contaminants once the sludge is applied to soil is anyone’s guess since most of it is not tested. Some chemicals bind to the soil; others do not. Some chemicals leach into groundwater, and onto neighboring lands. Some plants absorb the contaminants into the roots, and leaves, while other contaminants are found all the way up into the fruit. Some chemicals don’t break down at all.

Once a contaminant makes its way from sewage sludge to soil, it them becomes part of the food supply. Animals that eat it end up meat on your table. Others from produce end up directly on your plate. Some of those chemicals store in the human body. Some break down in the digestive system, but many others don’t. No doubt pregnant mothers and infants are most at risk of disease.

The chemical triclosan has been used for decades in antibacterial products like soaps, deodorants and cosmetics. It’s also universally found in sewage sludge. A recently published study found that soybeans planted in soil containing triclosan took the triclosan up into their beans. Triclosan is an endocrine disruptor and recent Center For Disease (CDC) reports show more than 40% increase in triclosan levels in the urine of Americans over the past two-years. Scientists have also discovered that triclosan breaks down into dioxins in the environment. Dioxin is one of the most significant threats to human health.

Andy McElmurray was a Georgia dairy farmer who used sewage sludge to fertilize fields where he grew food for his cows. McElmurray and his father became sick themselves from breathing sewage sludge dusts blowing from their fields. As the years went by, he noticed that his land was becoming more and more acidic. McElmurray applied lime to raise the pH of his soil. Soon after his cows became sick. After many tests, McElmurray traced the cows’ illnesses back to sludge that contained high levels of molybdenum, cadmium, and thallium. When McElmurray applied the lime, the contaminants became more bioavailable to the plants, and the cows ate the plants. His cows suffered from telltale signs of molybdenum poisoning, and their milk was contaminated with thallium, which is toxic to humans in small doses.

The Augusta, Georgia wastewater treatment plant that provided the sludge to McElmurray, and numerous other farmers, had intentionally been providing toxic sludge to the area farmers. The facility knowingly distributed biosolids that contained levels of heavy metals than were illegal. In the end, scientists discovered that if the wastewater treatment plant had followed the law and limited molybdenum to the legal levels, McElmurray’s cows would still have gotten sick.

In England every year for the past 12 years, 800 tonnes of biosolid left over from Newcastle’s sewage-treatment works, have been ploughed into his fields. That’s just one waste plant.

Sludge, PR And Governmental DERegulation

Sewage sludge is already sprayed on conventional farm fields across the U.S. The only sector of agricultural land restricted from using biosolids is certified organic farms. “While nutrient cycling and a closed-loop system are key principles of organic agriculture, lifting the restrictions on sewage sludge for any farm opens the gate for a whole set of new problems, says Mark Smallwood, executive director at the Rodale Institute.

Given the complexity of the endless chemical compounds found in sewage sludge, and considering that each wastewater treatment plant sludge varies greatly over time, how could sewage sludge be properly regulated?

Regulators must consider that humans will be exposed to a vast array of contaminants in sludge in several ways. McElmurray and his father became ill after inhaling sewage sludge dusts. Gardeners who use sewage sludge as fertilizer touch it directly. Finally, it’s absorbed up into the food and ingested.

If you wish to keep sewage sludge from being spread on farm fields near where you live, take action in your community to ensure it remains illegal to use. As a consumer, the only sure way to avoid food grown in sewage sludge is to buy organic food (or grow your own). However, overpriced “organic” food isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

Whole Foods Policy. Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.

Whole Foods And Certified Organic

Whole Foods is an overpriced “organic” scam that in reality has a “Don’t ask, and don’t tell” policy regarding GMOs, and food grown in toxic sewage sludge. The fact is, food sold at Whole Foods contains GMOs, and is grown in toxic waste, but is marketed as “organic.” Actually, this is criminal!

“Natural” foods giant Whole Foods Market (WFM) attacked the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), the nation’s leading watchdog on organic standards, as too hardline for insisting that retailers like WFM stop selling, or at least start labeling, so-called natural foods in their stores that are in reality hazardous, and genetically engineered (GE).

Recently WFM’s attacks on the OCA have backfired. In numerous articles, the OCA has called for an end to “organic infighting” and for the organic industry, farmers, and consumers to join forces to get laws passed that would require mandatory labels on products containing genetically engineered ingredients, as well as to make it illegal to label or market GE-tainted foods as natural.

Many of Whole Foods’ actions are controversial and often illegal, including its labor practices. A recent article in the Texas Observer said, “People shop at Whole Foods not just because it offers organic produce and natural foods, but because it claims to run its business in a way that demonstrates a genuine concern for the community, the environment, and the ‘whole planet,’ in the words of its motto. In reality, Whole Foods has gone on a corporate feeding frenzy in recent years, swallowing rival retailers across the country. The expansion is driven by a simple and lucrative business strategy: high prices and low wages.”

Again, Whole Foods refusal to disclose the truth on its policy of selling GMOs and toxic chemicals in the extremely overpriced products it sells is not unacceptable. The company is not transparent about the use of GMOs in store-brand products, and has even ignored shareholder requests for information on the use of toxic chemicals in its products. Recently, activists protesting WFM’s sale of GM foods outside of one of its stores were arrested. Whole Foods also asked shareholders to vote against an activist resolution asking WFM to report about endocrine disruptors and other toxic chemicals in its products.

Selling food as organic, when it isn’t is a criminal offense. The fact is, much of WF’s privately labeled frozen fruits and vegetables come from China, where agriculture is completely unregulated. This means no government regulates how food is being grown. It’s misleading and illegal to promote food as organic when suppliers on the other side of the world know that there is no government regulation into its farming practices.

Another Whole Foods sham is where the company uses the “USDA Organic” seal even though the USDA isn’t verifying that the food is in fact organic. Whole Foods misleads the public where it uses names like “California Blend”, when in fact California Blend is really produced, and packaged in China. When it comes to domestically grown food, Whole Foods has been caught selling produce as organic that is not. This is theft. Wake up! The overpriced food you’re buying at Whole Foods is no better than any of the food sold at a Wal-Mart chain.

Whole Foods doesn’t test for contaminants in the seafood that it sells. Whole Foods has sold, and continues to sell seafood that has high levels of methyl mercury. One customer’s blood levels had to be reported to the Center for Disease Control. Whole Foods didn’t start identifying potentially mercury-laden fish in its stores until the government forced them to do so. Even so, a quarter of Whole Foods stores fail to display proper signage as required by law.

Five people were hospitalized after eating E.coli contaminated beef they purchased from Whole Foods. The beef was sold even after it was legally supposed to be recalled. Bad milk sold at Whole Foods, resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses. One victim, a twenty-eight year old mother, will require a kidney transplant.

Whole Foods…. Yeah!

Spin And Intentional Deception

What are biosolids used for? Biosolids can be applied as a fertilizer to improve and maintain productive soils and stimulate plant growth. They are also used to fertilize gardens and parks and reclaim mining sites. Biosolids have been used for:

• Co-generation/power production/energy recovery
• Land application in agriculture (vine, cereal, pasture, olive)
• Road base
• Land application in forestry operations
• Land rehabilitation (including landfill capping)
• Landscaping and topsoil
• Composting
• Incineration
• Landfill
• Oil from sludge (experimental).
• Bricks and construction material
• Vitrification (glass manufacture)
• Bio-fuel
• Fuel substitute (cement works)
• Additive to road base
• Jewelry

The latest in human feces fashion.

My personal favorite is the jewelry sham. Imagine going to an extravagant gala with matching accessories, a necklace, earrings, bracelet, and  ring all made out of the latest in human feces fashion. I’d be all over it like flies on shit. Not!

A scientist (now with Colorado State University-Pueblo) preparing samples of biosolids for extraction using accelerated solvent extraction. The samples were analyzed for a broad suite of emerging contaminants. Total summed concentrations ranged from 64 to 1,811 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg or parts-per-million), with many individual contaminants in the hundreds of mg/kg range.

The biosolids were more similar than they were different, even though they were produced by a variety of treatment processes from plants serving vastly different sized cities and towns. The types of contaminants and their relation to each other did not vary greatly between the biosolids tested.

This is the first comprehensive examination of biosolids, and the results indicate that biosolids have high concentrations of these emerging contaminants compared to treated liquid wastewater effluent. What is not known at present is the transport, fate, and potential ecological effects of these contaminants once biosolids are applied to agricultural fields, garden plots, and landscaped plants and shrubs.

Another farmer in Georgia lost 700 of his cows due to toxic sludge. The EPA refused to test his field so he paid to have it done. The fields contained high levels of thallium. It turned out that a nearby factory used the chemical in its production of NutraSweet and flushed the residues down the drain. Thallium was later detected in local supplies of milk at levels more than 11 times above the legal limit for drinking water. When the farmer sued the Federal Government for disaster relief, a judge found that, “senior EPA officials took extraordinary steps to quash scientific dissent and any questioning of the EPA’s biosolids program.

Why would the EPA fight the truth? Because the recycling of sewage sludge is big business. It’s estimated that half the sewage sludge generated in the U.S. ends up on farmland and backyard gardens. In 2007, the Carlyle Group, an investment consortium known for its armaments speculation, bought the sludge recycling company Synagro for 772 million USD. Synagro, object of a recent CBS television broadcast of Undercover Boss, is the largest processor of sewage sludge in the country. Investors see sludge as a guaranteed growth business. Municipalities, saddled with the responsibility of what to do with all that sludge, see composting as an endless profit machine.

Michelle Obama’s celebrated White House “organic” garden used sludge-based compost. This precludes its claims to be organic. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says any food crops grown with sludge-based amendments is not organic. Yet, the EPA does not regulate the labeling of compost so that manufacturers may call it anything, including organic. While the EPA has given the use of sewage sludge its blessing some of its own scientists disagree that it’s safe. And for good reason.

When you spread sludge on farmland or use a bag of compost you bought at a nursery or home-and-garden supply that’s made with sludge, you’re spreading contaminants. It’s that simple. Thousands of contaminants have been identified in sewage sludge. A 2009 nation-wide EPA study found all samples of sludge tested contained contaminants. All!

Since 2003, the EPA has allowed marketers to substitute the word “compost” for sewage sludge (or biosolids) on ingredient lists. Many producers of compost that include human, and medical waste use the word organic in their marketing.

Excuse$ For Dumping Toxic $ludge On Farmland$

A rough calculation of current rates of soil degradation suggests we have about 60 years of topsoil left. Some 40% of soil used for agriculture around the world is classed as either degraded or seriously degraded. The latter means that 70% of the topsoil, the layer allowing plants to grow, is gone.

Farmland has been pushed to its limit. Various destructive farming methods strip the soil of carbon and make it less robust, and weaker in nutrients. Soil is being lost at between 10 and 40 times the rate at which it can be naturally replenished.

Soil is a living substance.  A handful of soil contains more microorganisms in it than the number of people who have ever lived on the planet. These microbes recycle organic material, which underpins the cycle of life on earth, and also engineer the soil to make it more resilient and better at holding onto water.

Microbes need carbon for food, but carbon is being lost from the soil in a number of ways. Simply put, we take too much from the soil and don’t put enough back. Whereas the classic approach would have been to leave stubble in the field after harvest, this is now often being burnt off, which can make it easier to grow the next crop, or it’s being removed and used for animal feed. Second, carbon is lost by too much disturbance of the soil by overploughing and by the misuse of certain fertilizers. And the third problem is overgrazing. If there are too many animals, they eat all the plant growth, and one of the most important ways of getting carbon into the soil is through photosynthesis.

What Happens If This Is Not Stopped

There are two key related issues here. One is the loss of soil productivity. Under a business as usual scenario, degraded soil will mean that we will produce 30% less food over the next 20-50 years. This is against a background of projected demand requiring us to grow 50% more food, as the population continues to grow unabated. Second, water will, and is already reaching a crisis point.

Water rights are already causing conflicts in India, China, Pakistan, the U.S., the EU and the Middle East. This is before climate change and food security issues have even begun to mount. No doubt the next wars are likely to be fought over unsustainable irrigation, agriculture, and water.

Even moderately degraded soil will hold less than half of the water than healthy soil in the same location. Farmers need water to stay in the soil close to the plant roots. However, a staggering research was published recently indicating that nearly half of the rise in sea level since 1960 is due to irrigation water flowing straight past the crops and washing out to sea.

Who Will Be Impacted The Most

Soil erosion is most serious in China, Africa, India and parts of South America. If the food supply goes down, then obviously, the price goes up. The crisis points will hit the poorest countries hardest, in particular those, which rely on imports: Egypt, for example, is almost entirely dependent on imports of wheat. The capacity of the planet to produce food is already causing conflict. A lot of people argue that food price hikes caused the Arab spring uprising.

Given the history of the EPA, and its infiltration by corrupt industry lobbyists, no doubt the information passed off by interested parties is intentionally false. We should all be flushed with concern over the practice of dumping toxins from toilets, and storm drains all over the farmlands of the world. Toxic sludge being sold off as fertilizer gives new meaning to the old adage, a vast wasteland. Never mind the toxic deluge that hit Hungary, the hazardous toxic sludge has already hit your plate.

To find out more please pick up a copy of John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton book Toxic Sludge is Good for You. The book explains the history of the word biosolids and gives examples of how dangerous it really is. There is also a documentary of the same name. The following is an excerpt from that film.
“While advertising is the visible component of the corporate system, perhaps even more important and pervasive is its invisible partner, the public relations industry. This video illuminates this hidden sphere of our culture and examines the way in which the management of “the public mind” has become central to how our democracy is controlled by political and economic elites. Toxic Sludge Is Good For You illustrates how much of what we think of as independent, unbiased news and information has its origins in the boardrooms of the public relations companies.”

Poster for Toxic Sludge Is Good For You.

Remove Me!

First, regarding Facebook, I don’t have a fan page, I don’t have a list of “Likes”, I don’t “Like” anything, I don’t play games, I don’t join Groups, and I don’t share any of my private information. In fact, I don’t even use my real name. I created a fictional name several years ago, and it has worked well for me. I’m anonymous!

Do you use Facebook? If you do, then you immediately notice the myriad of ongoing and persistent nags “requesting” your personal information, such as your phone number, address, geotags, and a myriad of other intrusions into your privacy. Hopefully, you bypass all of these annoyances including those face recognition nags whenever you upload a photo. Face recognition technology is all about “fingerprinting” you, and those that you associate with. Today you can be recognized out of a crowd of thousands with this technology, and Facebook has access to the largest crowd of faces on the face of the earth, and on a daily basis.

Understand that none of this barrage of requests are being performed for your benefit or “security” as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and other companies would like you to believe. In fact, all of these companies are engaging in illegal information sharing with governments, and private entities that collect, and store your personal information for profit, and for spying purposes. Don’t believe that all of this is for your personal protection, or to fight “terrorism.”

Secretly collecting, storing and disseminating personal information under false pretenses is more dangerous than the “dangers” collecting this information is supposed to be protecting us from. The harsh reality is that Facebook has become one of the world’s largest moneymakers, and got there by accessing, and storing private information, and then selling it off to the highest bidder. Well, not just the highest bidder, any taker that’s willing to pay. It’s simple, you’ve done all the work gathering your personal information, like the ill-informed human cattle that you are, and the governments, and commercial entities that support them benefit from it. You receive nothing for your efforts. Well, your consolation prize is a giant magnifying glass examining every orifice on every member of your family, and the unsuspecting people you communicate with.

Have you ever asked yourself why Facebook has so much value?

Do you really believe you have a say in anything?

What is a constitution? Everyone is familiar with the term, but most people don’t really understand what it means. A constitution is merely a set of rules that govern those who are empowered with government responsibilities they are entrusted with through appointment, legislation, or voting powers. A constitution is a set of rules that they must follow. If they don’t they’ve breached their fiduciary duty and are in direction violation of the laws that were intended as checks and balances to protect your rights against them.

A constitution is to ensure that people are not subjected to totalitarianism. Of course, we’ve been programmed to believe that a totalitarian state is a dictator, communism, fascism and even… gasp socialism. Yet, today capitalism has destroyed democratic forms of government. As it is clear that rules that govern don’t apply to any entity that has deep enough pockets to change the rules of the game. Namely, the corporations that infiltrate and corrupt government.

Many people don’t understand that the U.S. Constitution is an ever-changing body of laws that are constantly being subjected to interpretations that benefit only a few.

Below is a list of what the government must do to gain legal access to your personal communications. The U.S. Constitution isn’t dead, as the corrupt politicians in Washington would like to have you believe.

Lawyers that represent Washington, (lobbyists) and multinationals often intentionally distort constitutional interpretations for the sole benefit of the corporations they represent. In reality, these sold out representatives knowingly engage in the destruction of the rule of law. The main problem is that the corporations that prop up the criminal politicians through donation funding, campaign support, and under the table deals have also infiltrated the executive, legislative and judicial branches thereby assuring constitutional interpretation in their favor. The system is broken. It’s corrupt. It’s beyond repair.

Below is a link that shows what the U.S. government may do.

https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt

The much maligned, criminal bankers, who stole all of your tax dollars, for the umpteenth time, and caused a global economic collapse, and who were never prosecuted for those crimes, is a good example of government infiltration, and corruption at the highest level. Those that work in the financial sector of big government are some of the worst offenders of illegality and corruption. That’s what deregulation is all about. Deregulation really means, “I can do whatever I want, and there is no law to prevent me from doing so, even when it causes any level of harm to another.”

Golden Sack recently attempted to purchase some of Facebook’s value so they could then turn around and sell it to their clients, for huge profits. These kinds of dealings are illegal! A securities firm is in the business of trading assets of companies that are registered through trade rules. They cannot sell their own products. The criminals at Golden Sack, knowing the rules of the SEC regarding trade activities had to cease from continuing in this illegal conduct. Any arrests? Of course not. Remember, they’re too big to fail!

The link below exposes Golden Sacks Facebook private placement scam.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/17/goldman-sachs-facebook-private-placement

Facebook will tell you that surrendering all of your personal information helps to secure your account, but the reality is, nothing can be further from the truth. Facebook is spying on you, and selling off your assets, and the company is doing this illegally. Facebook is turning over your private information to governments without a warrant, and to private entities that contract with those governments. In the U.S., the 4th Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant in order to gain access to your personal information. However, Facebook operators don’t seem to understand this basic constitutional premise.

Ironically, Facebook cancels accounts and restricts End User from “friending” or even contacting people they may or may not know. Accounts are suspended, or cancelled when End User attempts to “friend” say… John Public. However, End User isn’t sure it if that is the particular John Public they were in Cub Scouts with. So, End User sends a friend request to three different John Publics. One John Public doesn’t know End User, and instead of just ignoring the request, he contacts Facebook, ratting on the innocent End User, who is then warned to stop contacting people End User doesn’t know. End User is then suspended from contacting anyone for any purpose! Of course Facebook isn’t transparent in these dealings, so  like the inquisition, End Uses doesn’t’ even know what they did wrong to receive account suspension, etc.

Have you ever sent a communication to Facebook and received a response? I think it’s strange that Facebook engages in a scheme to sell off, or give away account information to governments, or private industry, but the end user has no say in it. The end user isn’t even notified as to who is receiving their personal information. Laws should be enacted to expose what third parties are receiving your personal information and for what purposes.  An account holder of any kind should receive notification, and also share in the revenue received from that information. After all, it’s your information that has garnered huge profits for these Internet entities.

They’re also collectively stealing from you.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees certain privacy rights against unlawful searches and seizures.

In order for government to obtain personal information they must have probable cause that you are currently engaged in some form of criminal activity. For a government official to receive a warrant they must prove to a judge that they have received information from credible sources that the target is engaged in a crime. Without this proof, no judge would ever issue a warrant to search, and seize anyone, or their property.

You respond by saying, “I have nothing to hide.” The issue isn’t whether you have something to hide. The issue is that your rights are being ignored, and therefore eroded by a myriad of illegal governmental actions. Further, under the exclusionary rule known as, The Fruits of the Poisonous Tree, if the government illegally obtains information without a warrant, all of that information, and any information that spun off of that illegal search, and/or seizure must be withheld from a legal proceeding. What this means is the jury that has been pooled, and coerced to miss work, and lose their earnings, under the phony legal premise of “duty” may not hear that particular evidence.

Read about the exclusionary rule here.

http://nationalparalegal.edu/conlawcrimproc_public/ProtectionFromSearches&Seizures/ExclusionaryRule.asp

Recent illegal government action includes gaining access to phone records, email records, even everything you post on Facebook, and everything else you do online. Remember, police are not your friends. If a police officer is engaged in a conversation with you, it is to obtain information to convict. Period! Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and the rest of the organizations that are using technology to erode your rights are also not your friends. The government not only looks at what you are doing online, but they store all of that information permanently, and for one purpose. That purpose is so that they can use that information against you in a criminal proceeding at any time in the future if they so desire.

Why is it so important to delete your personal information? Because scores of people are being arrested, and convicted for a myriad of “crimes” that they haven’t committed by overzealous prosecutors that are not interested in justice, but merely desire in a high conviction rate, which converts to a higher salary when they leave public office and move to a private firm.

See the following video titled, How To Fight An Epidemic Of Bad Laws.

http://www.ted.com/talks/shereen_el_feki_how_to_fight_an_epidemic_of_bad_laws.html

The link below reveals that a large amount of your personal information, and communications is being illegally stored in huge online databases.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7955205.stm

What are the U.S. executive, legislative and judiciary branches doing regarding the warrant requirement for GPS devices, such as your cellphone, and car navigation systems? Well, recently warrantless cell phone and navigation tracking has become admissible evidence.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/warrantless-cellphone-tracking-legal-federal-court-rules-944452

http://www.alternet.org/story/155604/warrantless_cell_phone_tapping_how_police_may_be_secretly_tracking_you

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/warrantless-cell-phone-tracking-everywhere

The following link shows a list of words that you should avoid using online if you don’t want your government putting you on a “terrorist” watch list.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150281/REVEALED-Hundreds-words-avoid-using-online-dont-want-government-spying-you.html

Turn off tracking in your cell phone, and on the navigational devices in your cars. Don’t supply any of your personal information to Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, etc. If you have already done so, remove all of it.

Facebook not only violates your rights, but also sells your information for massive profits to any and all third parties that come knocking. And for any reason! New “anti-terror” legislation has companies like Facebook, Google, Micro Soft, Apple, handing over your private information to the government and private entities that work with governments, as well as advertisement firms so they can access all of your personal information, including your files, posts, photos, and even the intimate thoughts, and communications that you share with your family and friends via messaging.

Facebook users must do the following to ensure their information remains private:

1. Remove any unnecessary information you share. Especially, all of your personal information!

2. Remove “Likes” this is nothing more than a ploy to gain access to your personal tastes and exploit you for commercial purposes. This information is being sold off to companies that compile personal data for advertising purposes, and target you for sales of goods.

3. Remove any information about your children. Especially there names, photos, and any other information you post because it’s being used to target them for a myriad of schemes, and that information is being stored in illegal government database centers that operate outside of the law.

4. Remove your school information, job information, work history, the current city you reside in, hometown information, relationships, languages spoken, religious views, political views, contact information, including and especially your email addresses, phone numbers and chat accounts.

5. Go into your Facebook Privacy Setting and remove any information that you don’t want to share.

6. Go into your Activity Log and edit each of the lists on the left hand side, such as your Searches, History, Posts, Comments, Likes, Photos, and remove your entire history, except what you deem utterly important, or simply benign.

7. Always empty your email accounts. Delete sent and received emails regularly, and delete your chat history in programs like Skype, and Microsoft Messenger. Remember, these companies now have access to every word you type, and every communication you utter.

8. If you want to stay off of “terrorist” watch lists, then remove any posts that you’ve made that contain any of the following words as shown in the article provided below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150281/REVEALED-Hundreds-words-avoid-using-online-dont-want-government-spying-you.html

There are some online sites that claim to remove your information from online databases. Some of them are scams. Many are easy to detect, like ones that have Facebook pages. If a company claims they can help remove stored online information about you, and they have a Facebook page, then they are in reality sharing your information. And they know it. If they don’t, then they aren’t the kind of organization that you want to trust when it comes to their claim that they can get your private information removed from online databases.

Finally, below are links to help you understand the removal process and help to get your personal information out of online databases.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kimkomando/2006-10-05-database-info_x.htm

http://www.squidoo.com/personalInformation

The following is a  list of quotes regarding laws, and governments that attempt to restrict your freedom, and right to privacy.

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” Abraham Lincoln

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” Benjamin Franklin

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws” Plato

“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.” Leo Tolstoy

“In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.” Lao Tzu

“Then a lawyer said, But what of our laws, master? And he answered: ‘You delight in laying down laws. Yet you delight more in breaking them.” Kahlil Gibran

“Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” Henry David Thoreau

“Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Laws are unjust when they serve to put the majority of the people at the mercy of an aggressive, hostile minority.” Northern Adams

“Must the citizen resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then?” Henry David Thoreau

TPP: Its Implications On Food, Intellectual Property And Trade

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws, patents, and rewrite international laws to enforce them. If not stopped, the TPP will eventually cover more than 40% of global trade. The TPP is the most aggressive trade plan in the history of the Asia-Pacific region.

Despite the broad scope and far-reaching implications of the TPP, negotiations for the agreement have taken place in secret. Vandana Shiva, one of the world’s most respected authorities on agriculture, and biodiversity said the TPP is nothing more than an extension of the WTO, and deepens its implications in an even more perilous manner. Shiva stated that the impact of globalization, free trade and the deregulation of commerce in her native land resulted in 270,000 Indian farmers committing suicide.

Shiva also said that each country that is currently in negotiations, or considering joining the TPP should understand that the only participants that will benefit from the TPP are U.S. corporations that have infiltrated and corrupted certain U.S. government branches, namely the FDA and the EPA, as well as other multinationals that are interested in privatizing, and exploiting national resources.

As a result of the WTO every fourth Indian is now starving, and ever second child is wasted and stunted. The WTO has done nothing to benefit India, and the TPP will do nothing to benefit the people of Vietnam, Chile, and the other nations currently involved in secret negotiations. Shiva also stated that before the WTO, India went from being the top producers and exporters of oilseeds and pulses (lentils and beans), to the top importer of those products.

Who Would Benefit From The TPP?

Big pharm, Monsanto, Cargill, multinationals, World Banks, entertainment conglomerates, and lobbyists that corrupt congress and the senate of the U.S. legislative branch.

Criticism Of The TPP

The TPP is non-transparent. Like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the TPP is being negotiated rapidly with little transparency. During the TPP negotiation round in Chile in February 2011, negotiators received strong messages from prominent civil society groups demanding an end to the secrecy that has shielded TPP negotiations from the scrutiny of national lawmakers and the public. Letters addressed to government representatives in Australia, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand and the U.S. emphasized that both the process and effect of the proposed TPP agreement is unconscionably undemocratic.

Despite the broad scope and far-reaching implications of the TPP, negotiations for the agreement have taken place behind closed doors and outside of the checks and balances that operate at traditional multilateral treaty-making organizations. The TPP raises significant concerns about freedom of expression, due process, innovation, the future of the Internet’s global infrastructure, and the right of sovereign nations to develop policies and laws that best meet their domestic priorities. In sum, the TPP puts at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens.

The U.S. Trade Representatives (USTR) is pursuing a TPP agreement that will require signatory counties to adopt heightened copyright protection that advances the agenda of the U.S. entertainment and pharmaceutical industries agendas, but omits the flexibilities and exceptions that protect Internet users and technology innovators.

The TPP will affect countries far beyond the eleven that are currently involved in negotiations. Like ACTA, the TPP agenda is to create new heightened global IP enforcement laws. Countries that are not parties to the negotiation will likely be asked to accede to the TPP as a condition of bilateral trade agreements with the U.S. and other TPP members.

What Does The TPP Affect?

Everything from foreign ownership of land, mining licenses, media laws, control of agriculture, trade tariffs, treaty settlements, control of financial speculation, the price of medicines, compulsory labeling of food, plain packaging of cigarettes, privatization contracts for water, power, prisons, schools and hospitals.

The U.S. trade office publishes an annual hit list of ‘trade barriers’ in each country including:

• Restrictions on sale and manufacture of GMOs and labeling of GM foods.
• Strict quarantine and labeling rules.
• The importation of music, movies and computer programs.
• Intellectual property protection in the digital media and pharmaceuticals.
• Pharmaceutical schemes for buying drugs and subsidies.
• Dominance of Telecom over competitors and new entrants.
• Easing restrictions on foreign investments.

Regarding intellectual property the main problems are two-fold:

1. Intellectual Property: Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for end users freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process. This will hinder the public’s ability to innovate.
2. Lack of Transparency: The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy.

Why is the TPP being described as a “trade” agreement?

It’s clever branding. In reality it’s an agreement that guarantees rights to foreign corporations that operates from within any of the TPP countries like entertainment (Warner and Sony), pharmaceuticals (Merck and Pfizer), mining (RTZ and BP), tobacco (Philip Morris), retailers (Wal-Mart and Woolworths), finance sector (Merrill Lynch, Westpac, AIG, Macquarie, JP Morgan), agro-business (Cargill, Monsanto), private water operators (Bechtel, Veolia) and much more.

Special Rights. Foreign investors Can Sue Governments To Change Laws That Benefit the Multinationals

This works on several levels.

1. Laws that allow foreign investment would be locked so they could only be weakened, unless the government reserves the right to strengthen them before it signs the agreement.
2. It would guarantee foreign firms are consulted over proposed new laws and the government would have to show how it had considered their client’s views. Citizens would have no right to change laws that negatively impact the nation.
3. If the government goes ahead with a new law that the foreign investors doesn’t like they could sue the government for billions of dollars for breaching their rights, thereby trumping domestic laws.
4. If the matter did go to court, the case would be heard in a secret international court run by the United Nations or even worse, the World Bank, not a domestic court.

Examples of new laws considered for the TPP include a ban on plain packaging of cigarettes, tighter regulations onshore and offshore mining exploration, banning the sale of the kind of toxic financial products that fuelled the financial meltdown of 2008, restrictions on sale of strategic assets to foreign firms, and a tax on ‘hot’ money flowing into and out of the country.

In New Zealand, the familiar and worn out pitch that the country would benefit where Fonterra’s milk powder would be introduced to the huge U.S. market. As U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz said, “Most of these ‘free trade’ agreements are made for the sole benefit of the U.S., which has the bulk of the negotiating power.” There is no real negotiation for the TPP nations, and “New Zealand would never gain anything that would benefit the nation.”

The TPP Will Rewrite Global Rules on Intellectual Property Enforcement

All signatory countries will be required to conform their domestic laws and policies to the provisions of the Agreement. In the U.S., this is likely to further entrench controversial aspects of U.S. copyright law (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and restrict the ability of Congress to engage in domestic law reform to meet the evolving IP needs of American citizens and the innovative technology sector. The recently leaked U.S. proposed IP chapter also includes provisions that go far beyond current U.S. copyright law.

The eleven nations currently negotiating the TPP are the U.S., Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei Darussalam. The TPP contains a chapter on intellectual property covering copyright, trademarks, patents and even geographical indications. Since the draft text of the agreement has never been officially released to the public, we know from leaked documents, such as the February 2011 draft U.S. TPP IP Rights Chapter, that the U.S. negotiators are pushing for the adoption of copyright measures far more restrictive than currently required by international treaties, including the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

The leaked U.S. IP chapter includes many detailed requirements that are more restrictive than current international standards, and would require significant changes to other countries’ copyright laws. These include obligations for countries to:

1. Place Greater Liability on Internet Intermediaries: 
 The TPP would force the adoption of the U.S. (DMCA) Internet intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety. For example, this would require Chile to rewrite its forward-looking 2010 copyright law that currently establishes a judicial notice-and-takedown regime, which
provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the DMCA.
2. Regulate Temporary Copies: Treat temporary reproductions of copyrighted works without copyright holders’ authorization as copyright infringement. This was discussed but rejected at the intergovernmental diplomatic conference that created two key 1996 international copyright treaties, the WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
3. Expand Copyright Terms: Create copyright terms well beyond the internationally agreed period in the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Here, the owner of a creative work would be the life of the creator, plus seventy years for works created by individuals, and following the U.S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, either 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation for corporate owned works (such as Mickey Mouse).
4. Enact a “Three-Step Test” Language That Puts Restrictions on Fair Use: The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is putting fair use at risk with restrictive language in the TPP’s IP chapter. The U.S. and Australia are both proposing very restrictive text, and Peru is willing to accommodate the bad language.
5. Escalate Protections for Digital Locks: It will also compel signatory nations to enact laws banning circumvention of digital locks (technological protection measures or TPMs) that mirror the DMCA and treat violation of the TPM provisions as a separate offense, even when no copyright infringement is involved. This would require countries like New Zealand to completely rewrite its innovative 2008 copyright law, as well as override Australia’s carefully-crafted 2007 TPM regime exclusions for region-coding on movies on DVDs, videogames, and players, and for embedded software in devices that restrict access to goods and services for the device, a thoughtful effort by Australian policy makers to avoid the pitfalls experienced with the U.S. digital locks provisions. In the U.S., business competitors have used the DMCA to try to block printer cartridge refill services, competing garage door openers, and to lock mobile phones to particular network providers.
6. Ban Parallel Importation: Ban parallel importation of genuine goods acquired from other countries without the authorization of copyright owners.
7. Adopt Criminal Sanctions: Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without a commercial motivation, based on the provisions of the 1997 U.S. No Electronic Theft Act.

In short, countries would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of the U.S. and its experience with the DMCA over the last 12 years, and adopt many of the most controversial aspects of U.S. copyright law in their entirety. At the same time, the U.S. IP chapter does not export the limitations and exceptions in the U.S. copyright regime like fair use, which have enabled freedom of expression and technological innovation to flourish in the U.S. It includes only a placeholder for exceptions and limitations. This raises serious concerns about other countries’ sovereignty and the ability of national governments to set laws and policies to meet their domestic priorities.

According To The BBC

The TPP is one of the most ambitious free trade agreements ever attempted. Its supporters have billed it as a pathway to unlock future growth of the countries involved in the pact. The critics have been equally vociferous, not least because of the secrecy surrounding the negotiations of the agreement. Despite the criticism, the countries involved have been pushing for a deal to be reached soon and they are confident that even more economies will want to join the pact in the coming years.

The pact is aimed at deepening economic ties between these nations. The TPP is expected to substantially reduce tariffs, and even eliminate them completely in some cases, between member countries and help open up trade in goods and services. It is also expected to boost investment flows between the countries and further boost their economic growth. The member countries are also looking to foster a closer relationship on economic policies and regulatory issues.

The eleven countries that are currently part of the negotiations have a combined population of more than 650 million. A free trade agreement could turn this into a potential single market for many businesses.

Criticism of the deal is on various fronts. Like many other free trade agreements, there are fears over the impact TPP may have on certain products and services in member countries. Some campaign groups have raised concerns about the impact such a wide-ranging agreement may have on intellectual property laws and patent enforcement. They fear the deal may extend the scope of patents in sectors such a medicine and prevent the distribution of generic drugs. Meanwhile Japan, which has expressed an interest to join the negotiations, has raised concerns about the agreement impacting its agriculture sector. But the biggest criticism has been of what the campaigners allege to be secretive negotiations.

They say that the delegates have not been forthcoming about details of the issues that they have been discussing, and what the scope of agreement in those areas is likely to be, and how it will impact trade. Last year, a group of lawyers even sent a letter to Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, to express what they called “profound concern and disappointment at the lack of public participation, transparency and open government processes in the negotiation of the intellectual property chapter of the TPP.”

However, those working on behalf of the TPP organizers say the reason why the negotiations have not been made public is because there is no formal agreement as of yet. They also state that free trade agreements attract a lot of criticism from campaign groups, and that in this case the delegates may be wanting to keep the discussions under wraps to avoid any pressure from such groups.

The stated goal of the TPP is to unite the Pacific Rim countries by “harmonizing” tariffs and trade rules between them, but in reality, the “intellectual property” chapter in a massive trade agreement that will force changes to copyright and patent rules in each of the signatory countries. Accepting these new rules will not just rewrite national laws, but will also restrict the possibility for countries to introduce more balanced copyright laws in the future. This strategy may end up harming other countries’ more proportionate laws such as Chile, where a judicial order is required for ISPs to be held liable for copyright infringement and take down content. Such systems better protect users and intermediaries from disproportionate or censorship-driven takedowns. If the final TPP text forces countries to adopt a privatize notice and takedown regime, this could imply the end of the Chilean system. It would also undermine Canada’s notice-notice regime.

The content industry can, has and will continue to pay and distort facts to affect changes in laws that protects their sole interests, and what they want more than anything is for us to remain passive as they tighten the screws. They did it with SOPA, ACTA, and now it’s the TPP. I

The TPP is slated for conclusion this October, but it should be our main objective to get the worst of these copyright provisions removed from it. Demand an open transparent process that allows everyone to analyze, question, and probe any initiatives that will make new regulations to the Internet. The secrecy of this agreement is not acceptable.

TPP And The GMO Horror Show

The TPP would force Japan to accept an unlimited amount of GMO foods and seeds. Additionally, rules dictate that the Japanese government can not require GMO foods to be labeled, or disclose the origin of the foods to ensure that consumers will not be able to even guess whether the food they are about to feed their children are genetically modified or not.

While politicians use tax dollars to pay extravagant subsidies that are designed to gain farmers support for TPP, it would be better for the Japanese people to focus on the quality and safety of the food that will enter the market. Currently, around two-thirds of all crops grown in the U.S. are genetically altered. More than sixty percent of the food consumed in Japan comes from the U.S., and China. Japan should expect that most of the food imported from the U.S. would be genetically modified. Japan’s acceptance into the TPP will result in the U.S. agricultural giants taking over Japan’s farmland, and forcing farmers to pay licensing fees for patented GMO seeds, courtesy of Monsanto, the same company that brought Agent Orange to S.E. Asia, and Okinawa, DDT’s to the world’s farmlands, lawsuits against farmers that didn’t want their crops contaminated by GMO cross-pollination in the first place, and the total destruction of the once booming agricultural industry of India.

Monsanto, or other biotech companies fund nearly all GMO research. This means that truly independent data is not available. Independent scientists claim that people are being used as human guinea pigs. Professor Terje Traavik is in a rare and privileged position in the world of genetically modified research. As scientific director of Norway’s GenØk Centre for Biosafety, he presides over the only research institution in the field of gene ecology, which is completely independent of funding from biotech companies like Monsanto. Professor Traavik has been giving speeches all over the world and for many years stating that 95% of scientists working within genetically modified research areas (genetic engineering, molecular biology and genetics, synthetic biology) are directly, or indirectly, working for the biotech industry.

Despite widespread reports of intimidation, threats and career destruction of scientists who produce negative results, Professor Traavik says, “There is no shortage of techniques, methods and technologies within life sciences, but there is a shortage of critical minds and original hypotheses,” he said.

The most famous incident involving intimidation, and the destruction of an independent researchers career is the case of Dr. Arpad Pusztai, one of the world’s top researchers in his field of lectin proteins and a senior researcher at the prestigious Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. Ironically, Monsanto’s CEO, Hugh Grant is from Scotland as well. Hmmm…

When Dr. Pusztai fed genetically modified potatoes to rats, they developed pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and a damaged immune system. Dr. Pusztai stated during a televised interview, “If I had the choice I would certainly not eat it”, and that” “I find it’s very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs.” Two days later, his 35-year career at the Institute was ended amid persistent phone calls to the director from Downing Street. Dr. Pusztai was silenced with threats of a lawsuit, but eventually, he was invited to speak before Parliament, his gag order lifted, and his research published in the prestigious Lancet.

In Latin America, the research by the embryologist Andrés Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology, at the University of Buenos Aires, had a similar occurrence. In 2010, he showed that Roundup, the Monsanto herbicide sold in conjunction with most genetically modified crops, caused defects in the brain, intestines, and hearts of amphibian fetuses. His research confirmed reports from peasants that they suffered adverse health consequences after using Roundup. Later, a violent gang prevented him from giving a speech on his findings.

In an interview with GM Watch, Professor Carrasco said, “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy. In spite of the evidence, they still tried to run down thirty years of my reputation as a scientist. “They are hypocrites, lackeys of the big corporations, but they are afraid. They know they can’t cover up the sun with one hand. There is scientific proof and, above all, there are hundreds of affected towns, which are living proof of this public health emergency. I have confirmed that glyphosate is devastating for amphibian embryos, even at doses far below those used in agriculture. Roundup causes many, and varied types of malformations.”

Ohio State University plant ecologist Allison Snow was one of many scientists to have their supply of seeds terminated after she discovered problematic side effects in genetically modified sunflowers, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences blocked further research by withholding access to genetically modified seeds and genes.

Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey suffered the same fate after they found significant reductions in cancer-fighting isoflavones in Monsanto’s genetically modified soybeans. After publication, Hartz, the company that supplied the seeds told them they would no longer provide samples.

And when Hungarian Professor Bela Darvas discovered that Monsanto’s GM corn hurt endangered species in his country, Monsanto shut off his supplies. Dr. Darvas later gave a speech on his preliminary findings and discovered that a false and incriminating report about his research was circulating. He traced it to a Monsanto public relations employee, who claimed it mysteriously appeared on her desk, so she faxed it out.

A further problem in the industry is conflict of interest. Many individuals have switched between jobs with responsibility for regulating the biotech industry, and working for Monsanto. The following are some examples:

Dr. Michael A. Friedman, formerly the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deputy commissioner for operations, joined Monsanto in 1999 as a senior vice president. When Linda J. Fisher left her role as an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), she became VP of Monsanto, from 1995 to 2000, she then returned to the EPA as deputy administrator the next year. William D. Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, and Mickey Kantor, former U.S. trade representative, each served on Monsanto’s board after leaving government. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney in Monsanto’s corporate-law department in the 1970s. He wrote the Supreme Court opinion in a crucial G.M-seed patent-rights case in 2001 that benefited Monsanto and other seed companies.

What does all this mean? The U.S. agricultural industry is one of the biggest proponents of the TPP and has the political clout to ensure that any trade pact will pay big benefits. The truth is that no one really knows what the long-term effects of GMO on humans are, mostly because few scientists are looking for those answers, and when those few scientists find results that negatively impact the bottom line of companies like Monsanto, they are discredited, sued, financially ruined, and run out of town. Much like what Monsanto does to farmers that don’t want their crops contaminated with genetically modified cross-pollination.

With all this evidence staring in the face of Japan’s agricultural industry, the TPP advocates are willing to trust Monsanto and other politically connected companies that GMO foods are safe for the Japanese populace. Unfortunately there is no scientific evidence to prove that genetically modified foods are safe.

Monsanto, Obama, and the TPP trade negotiations with Japan

President Obama knows that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the regulatory powers of government. On the campaign trail in 2007, he promised, “We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. Much like Obama’s promise to get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, that campaign rhetoric turned out to be nothing more than lies.

Starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto, Dupont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they’ll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration. President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbyists.

• Michael Taylor former Monsanto Vice President is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods.
• Roger Beachy is the former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center. He’s now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
• Islam Siddiqui. Siddiqui is currently the U.S. Trade Representative’s Chief Agriculture Negotiator, was Vice President of CropLife America, the notorious lobbying group that represents pesticide and genetic engineering companies, including the six multinational corporations that control 75% of the global agrichemical market: Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow and DuPont. CropLife is the group that infamously chided the First Lady for planting a pesticide-free organic garden at the White House. Siddiqui should be of great interest to Japan’s concerns about Monsanto and GMO patents. As part of the U.S. Trade office, Siddiqui would have considerable influence over the terms of the TPP free trade agreement, if not a personal hand in the negotiations. Remember that the U.S. advocates the elimination of food labeling that would allow consumers to avoid genetically engineered food products. Before CropLife, Siddiqui was a chemical farming and biotech booster in Clinton’s USDA. It was his idea in 1997-98, rejected by the organic community to allow GMOs, sewage sludge and irradiation in organic production. (The Organic Consumers Association spearheaded the successful campaign to save organic standards from Siddiqui.) Siddiqui was an Obama campaign donor and fundraiser.
• Rajiv Shah is the former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a Monsanto partner), served as Obama’s USDA Under Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID.
• Elena Kagan who, as President Obama’s Solicitor General, took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case. She now sits on the Supreme Court.
• Ramona Romero corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the USDA.

Click to graphic above to enlarge it.

One of the interesting aspects of Monsanto’s push to sow its genetically engineered seeds across the world is the issue of contamination. Cross-pollination of crops is not something anyone can control. So an organic farmer who sits adjacent or downwind from a field of GMO crops will easily become contaminated. This causes several problems for the organic farmer. For example, genetically engineered seeds do not reproduce viable seeds for the next planting season. So, farmers will discover that their contaminated crops do not yield viable seeds. Monsanto sees this as a feature and not a problem as their intent is to force farmers to purchase licensing agreements to gain access to GMO seeds every year, ensuring a market in perpetuity. Organic farmers would also not be able to sell their contaminated crops as organic.

Worse, however, are patent laws, which protect Monsanto. Of course, these patent laws will be part of the TPP free trade agreement. Over the past decade, Monsanto’s aggressive marketing tactics, political lobbying and promises of increased yields have swept the farming world by storm. Don’t ever believe that farmers care about healthy crops. They care only about healthy profits. Farmers who refuse to switch to Monsanto’s expensive seeds and chemicals are targeted for lawsuits under the guise of patent infringement. In reality, it’s the farmer’s crops that have become contaminated through cross-pollination, often intentionally to force those farmers to join the “club” or be financially ruined. As the wave of GM crops spread, many independent farmers who did not buy into the hype were discovered to have patented genes in their fields, and were then financially ruined by expensive lawsuits brought on by Monsanto’s army of litigious lawyers. An independent farmer cannot stand against a corporate giant that has infiltrated every government agencies, and the courts that are supposed to protect that farmer rights.

Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy. So, the winds, bees, butterflies, and birds, which are part of the pollination process and owe no allegiance to either side, contaminate the organic farmer’s crops, ruin his business and Monsanto sues them for growing crops containing their patented genes. Must I add that bees, which pollinate most of the world’s food are dying in mass numbers, all due to being poisoned by Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides.

No bees, no food. No food, no seeds. No seeds no profits. No profits, no people. No people, no shareholders. No shareholders, no Monsanto. Any questions?

Our anonymous farmer speaks out. “We have a right to be secure on our farms and to be free from Monsanto’s GMO trespass. If Monsanto contaminates us, not only is the value of our organic seed crop extinguished but we could also be sued by Monsanto for patent infringement because their contamination results in our ‘possession’ of their GMO technology. We have farmers who have stopped growing organic corn, organic canola and organic soybeans because they can’t risk being sued by Monsanto. It’s not fair and it’s not right. Family farmers need justice and we deserve the protection of the court.”

It’s a situation only a corrupt government could create. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that president Obama, who is desperately pushing for Japan to join the TPP free trade agreement, is one of the leading proponents of Monsanto’s GMO scheme.

Former Monsanto executive, Michael Taylor, who serves in Obama’s administration as the “food czar.” His duties to the public include ensuring that food labels contain clear and accurate information, overseeing strategy for food safety and planning new food safety legislation. Taylor is the first individual to hold the position and he has failed miserably. Instead, he does all he can to see to it that Monsanto receives everything it desire for domination, ownership and control of the world’s seed supplies.

Mary Christ Massacre from the GMO masters of delusion.

The problem for Japan, and other nations is that the provisions within the TPP eliminate labeling for GMO, meaning that the consumer would have no way of knowing if the food was genetically engineered or even where it was grown.

In Japan, food may be labeled as containing GMO ingredients or as being GMO-free, but this would change if a key clause in the TPP agreement was to be implemented. According to the Sustainability Council of New Zealand, “The U.S. has made clear that a priority for it in the proposed TPP is the abolition of laws requiring the labeling of GMO foods, as well as the acceptance of the import of such products.” This clause would apply to the Japanese market and Japanese consumers as well as any other country that agrees to the terms of the TPP.

Critics of the GMO business claim that many health hazards exist, but that they have been swept under the rug by the companies involved, and by systematically infiltrating key government positions.

Japan is an isolated nation, with little knowledge of what goes on outside of the island chain. Acceptance of the relative terms of the TPP would force Japanese farmers into paying huge royalties, and entering into perpetual patent agreements. Farmers would be told that their crops yield would increase, and as a result receive greater profits. Nothing could be further from the truth. A 2003 study showed that Monsanto’s GMO cotton grown in India produced between five to seven times less net incomes than the indigenous variety according to an official governmental report. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of farmers taking out expensive loans they could not afford, and when their crops did not yield the results they were guaranteed, they could not pay back the debt incurred against those loans. Many lost their lands, and to date more than three quarters of a million farmers have committed suicide.

Are these the prices that unsuspecting small farmers, and the consumer of foods must continually pay in order for a company that is responsible for millions of deaths to continue to report quarterly profits, and for corporate criminals like Hugh Grant to receive multimillion dollar bonuses?

The TPP is about to change life in Japan forever. Yet, there will be no benefit for the Japanese people. The TPP will only result in importing the corruption of the U.S. government into Japan’s agricultural industry. Japan already has enough problems with the corruption within its own government and is a nation still reeling from the affects of TEPCO and the radiation debacle.

There is significant opposition to the introduction of biotechnology outside the U.S., especially in Japan, the EU, and Australasia. According to the UK’s Soil Association 2008 report, GMOs have cost the U.S. farmer 12 billion in lost exports since 1999. Monsanto, has a large stake in this aspect of agribusiness, but suffered a setback in 2003, the British government released the results of three studies on the effects of GMOs, wherein lasting damage to the environment was predicted if GMOs were introduced. In addition, a British poll showed that 93% felt that not enough was known about the long-term effects of the so-called GMO Frankenstein food products, and 86% said they would not eat it. This popular reaction and these findings forced an effective halt to Monsanto’s research operations in the UK, and in other European nations as well.

It would seem imperative for the Japanese TPP negotiators to be aware of the ramifications associated with this aspect of the partnership, and to think carefully before allowing Japanese consumers and the Japanese ecology to be unwittingly exposed to a technology imposed from outside, the effects of which have yet to be objectively and definitively assessed.

Already protests from Sendai to Tokyo have been underway. Recently, 3,000 protesters staged a rally in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park that was organized by agricultural and consumers groups. “If the government announces Japan’s participation in the TPP without building a national consensus, it can only be described as an act of betrayal against its citizens,” their joint statement said.

According to a recent article in the Japan Times, Akira Banzai, who heads the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, accused the government of being high-handed and deliberately only disclosing information that casts Japan’s potential entry into the TPP negotiations in a positive light. “Unless the government gives up on its plan to join the discussions, our fears will persist,” he said.

The Japan Association of Corporate Executives issued a statement the same day urging the government to participate in and advance high-level talks on free-trade agreements, including the TPP.

The renewed momentum among both those in favor of and against the TPP was triggered last week, when Tadashi Okamura, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, appealed to trade minister Yukio Edano for the government to arrive at a swift decision on Japan’s participation in the multilateral TPP discussions.

You may remember that Edano was the chief liar communicating to the world that there was no meltdown concerns at Fukushima’s Daiichi nuclear facility. Since that time we have learned that there were already three meltdowns occurring, he was aware of this, but kept lying to the public. Expect Edano to continue in massive distortion when it comes to the TPP, Monsanto, and free trade.

Japan formally announced the nation’s interest in joining the TPP talks as of November 2012. Officials have since held a number of consultations with countries already involved in the negotiations to win their approval over Tokyo’s participation. Recently, those nations, including Canada, and the U.S. have officially invited Japan to become the 12^th TPP nation.

Dead Oceans 2050

I grew up on the ocean in Miami Beach, Florida. As a kid I traveled the entire eastern seaboard from Key West to Maine numerous times. I’ve slept on boats for months at a time, even surviving a hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic Gulf Stream. I was only thirteen at the time, yet I’m still unable to express that level of fear in mere words. I’ve been hospitalized by Man-O-War, bumped by sharks surfing, and can’t count the number of times I’ve nearly drowned. I’ve even witnessed the town I lived in completely wiped off the maps from the power of the tsunami that occurred on 3.11.11. Despite all that, the ocean continues to mean everything to me.

Prior to Japan’s triple disaster I witnessed the Gulf of Mexico get turned into a massive dead zone due to irresponsible corporate mismanagement on the part of British Petroleum. After that, Tepco’s unconscionable recklessness turned the Pacific Ocean into a toxic dumping ground, and continues to release high levels of radiation into the ocean and atmosphere. I’ve seen corporations treat the oceans of this world like it’s there personal trash bin, capable of taking anything, and everything they can throw in it, and at it. I’ve also seen the collapse of the fisheries, an industry that my entire family treasured for generations.

Multinationals are destroying everything at an alarming rate. They’re doing so in order to report quarterly profits to greedy shareholders that want more, more, more, to satisfy their endless and insatiable gluttony. Sadly, this abhorrent mindset is wreaking havoc to the world’s ecosystem. There is nothing sacred or holy to those cows that hold stakes in globalized schemes for profit. In the not so distant future, those pieces of paper that they hoard will bring no satisfaction whatsoever, as those notes reveal just how valueless they really are, and all of this will be the result of the economic catastrophe they themselves will be directly responsible for. A failed scheme that will finally collapse the entire world’s economic, and environmental ecosystems, simultaneously, which is regrettably already well on its way.

The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (2009) credits this statement as a “Native American saying.” H. Wasserman labeled it an “Osage saying.”

My father, uncles, grandfather, and great grandfather were all fishermen. They earned a hard living off of the ocean. My father was the youngest man to ever receive a captain’s license. He became famous for winning so many sports fishing tournaments that in his prime, nobody came close to his numerous achievements. He also served in the U.S. Coast Guard at seventeen years old, and today still holds several sport fishing world records.

I was there at my father’s side when he received a life-long honorary fishing permit to freshwater fish in the Everglades on Seminole Indian reservation land. I even won a Miami Metropolitan Fishing Tournament for a pickerel that I caught on that land.

Today there are two historical markers located on Miami Beach that honor my family’s contribution to the fishing industry. But, with all this history, fanfare, and hoopla, I wonder what the true impact of that legacy really means, as nearly the entire fish stocks along the Florida coast has been all but wiped out by commercial fisherman, poachers, and sports fishing enthusiasts.

Miami Beach. A historical markers honoring the Stone family as pioneers of the fishing industry.

Grouper, snapper, codfish, and numerous other moratoriums abound along the east coast of the U.S. I can recall a time when all one had to do was drop a line in the water and it wouldn’t be long before dinner was nibbling at the other end. Yet, today the federal government, with all the scientific data available has caved in to commercial fisheries lobbying efforts, and blocked a much needed moratorium on bottom fishing in both the Florida, and Georgia waters. Simply, the once abundant supply of fish doesn’t exist any longer, and politicians who challenge the fisheries would be committing political suicide if they took the necessary action to prevent the inevitable collapse. This, while the insatiable demand for seafood continues to outweigh the fish’s ability to produce offspring as human populations soar.

The oceans are fished out, as commercial fishing, long lines, and trawlers leave nothing in their wake but the total destruction of habitats, and depleted stocks that are on the brink of exhaustion, or near extinction. Everything from Alaska’s king crabs, northeastern cod, southern grouper, billfish, snapper, and Atlantic, and Pacific blue tuna are experiencing dangerously low numbers. Collapse is imminent!

I’ve spent my entire life surfing, swimming, fishing, and diving from Miami to Main, and from Baha, to California, Hawaii and beyond. Today I surf, and dive the waters of Japan, which is a land of people that are not educated about this crisis, and as a result have no regard, empathy or understanding for anything that lives in the vast deep blue. We are running out of ocean life, and we are running out of time. This madness has to end.

Did a “God” really state these bold assertions? Or were they merely self-serving justifications made by a select group who benefitted from them? Religious sects can’t even explain the plurality in these statements, as most religions claim there is only one God. Yet, in this passage, the “God writer” uses the word us, and our two different times! It’s quite apparent that the errors of interpretation in this passage are numerous, both grammatically, and in the steadfast interpretation that there is only one God. If the theologians got this much wrong, in such a short span of text, isn’t it possible that Earth was never meant to be exploited to the point of collapse, while this God being sat in the clouds and idly winked and nodded in approval?

Whatever the “not so good book” said, there is no way Earth was supposed to be used up, abused, exploited and destroyed to the point of total collapse and extinction. The ecosystem is fragile. Simply, if humanity cannot exist in balance with nature, there will be no humanity. One thing is certain, the writers of the Torah got it wrong!

The Christians “new testaments”, and the Catholics “bible” have erred greatly as well. The followers of these various sects believe humans are to “go forth and multiply” without considering that the net result has lead to poverty, great suffering, overpopulation, and the total destruction of resources as a result of this antiquated dogma. I’m certain it was never “God’s” plan for man to recklessly multiply, and ransack the Earth of all it has. Where is the “moderation in all things” in this ill-conceived doctrine?

If ever the world needed Jesus to feed the multitudes with one fish, or turn poisoned water into drinkable wine it would be today. If there were ever to be an amendment to “God’s dubious acts”, it would be the 11th Commandment, “Protect and honor every creature that lives on earth, and ensure their sustainability for without them, there is no you.”

It was apparent to me even as a child that something was wrong with the way mankind managed things. After a long day of fishing in the south Florida sun, the fishing boats would return to the docks. The day’s catch would be displayed in front of each boat. The parties that returned from the fishing trip would take turns posing for photos as they stood near dead fish that had been hooked, gaffed, and then bludgeoned to death, while other tourists roamed the docks to see what the excitement was all about.

Sailfish and Marlin were usually mounted at Al Pflueger Taxidermy. But, the billfish that weren’t mounted would become treasured smoked fish. The other fish such as Wahoo, Kingfish or Mahi Mahi was fileted, and sold off to markets, restaurants, or locals that sought fish for their family’s dinner that evening. While all of this bustling and bartering was going on, the captains were busy booking parties for the next days trip.

Eventually the excitement would wind down, and as the sun set over the western bay, and darkness fell over the city, and the sunburned northerners returned to their hotels, and toddies, the docks transformed in a way that always profound me. It was then, when no one was around to witness it, the city garbage trucks would arrive. The dead carcasses of the fish, with their wide eyes and jaws gaping, would be hooked yet again, and tossed into heaps in the back of the trucks. Hundreds and hundreds of fish every evening were treated in this manner. Creatures that only a few hours earlier, that had been swimming freely in vast blue waters, and had been part of an ancient and well ordered  biosystem were now mere garbage. This occurred day after day, year after year, and continues to this day as commercial fishermen dump an estimated 40% of their kill back into the ocean as unwanted spoils because they don’t have the necessary license for that particular fish, or the market price is so low that it isn’t worth holding them in the boat’s cargo area.

Bonita, barracuda, sunfish, sharks, even perfectly edible fish such as jewfish, grouper, and snapper were hauled off to the landfills in this manner. Is it any wonder that the oceans have become vast desserts today? Between the trawlers, commercial fishermen, poachers, and irresponsible sports fishermen there remains no place in the ocean for sea life to regenerate, so as to sustain itself.

On top of overfishing, the oceans are filled with massive amounts of plastic that swiftly kills seabirds, microorganisms, turtles, reefs, and fish that eat it, believing it to be plankton. Add storm drain runoff, which scientist say is causing more harm to aquatic life than overfishing, and plastic, and throw in the dioxins, methyl mercury, PCBs, arsenic, CO2, and thousands of other chemicals, and know well that the ocean doesn’t have much longer to cope with all this stress.

CO2 is causing ocean acidity as never seen since the last great extinction. This pH imbalance is killing off the world’s reef systems, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reefs at an alarming rate. It’s said that they’ll be dead within 80 years if CO2 continues to be deposited into the world’s oceans. The seas give Earth 70% of its oxygen. Without a living, and viable ocean mankind cannot, and will not survive. With all this writing on the wall, human’s are failing to read it. Ironically, the planet will suffer great damage, but the world will heal itself, and eventually creatures will abound, and life will renew. But, without us!

Above: This is a postcard my father sent me from Mexico when I was only months old. At the time my father was the captain behind the wheel of the Marlin fishing scenes that were shot for the filming adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s, The Old Man Of The Sea.

Around four billion years ago the oceans of this world began to form. Without the oceans Earth would be as lifeless as every other planet in the solar system. The oceans are critical for the survival of many species, even humans. There are billions of people that rely on the oceans for their main protein source. The oceans have never been under a greater threat than the kind that man is responsible for today.

As the human race reaches 7 billion, and continues to grow, the oceans are struggling as a result of our relentless desire to take everything they produce. Regardless of the outcome. As dire as the current situation is, don’t believe for a minute that it can’t get a whole lot worse.

The ocean is 360,000,000 million square kilometers, and covers more than 70% of our planet. What’s living in the ocean is hidden from sight. Equally as astonishing is the fact that the oceans are becoming massive toxic dumping grounds, that, and the results of overfishing are fast turning them into vast toxic wastelands.

The Census of Marine Life is a global network of two thousand researchers from nearly ninety nations that engaged in a ten-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The first comprehensive study was released in 2010. The results were alarming. Without finding a way to sustain life in the oceans, and allow them to replenish, there will be no future for life on land. These studies have found thousands of new species. Yet, as all of these unknown life forms are being discovered, time is already running out for them. The main culprit is commercial fishing.

As the human population continues to increase, the demand for food from the ocean increases as well. Like many coastal communities throughout the world, fishing has been an important part of life. Yet, giant factory ships, sonar technology, and nets as long as 100 kilometers has caused fish numbers to plummet dramatically, and in a short span of time.

Air travel, and Styrofoam containers have made it possible to ship millions of tons of any kind of fish around the globe, from ocean to plate in less than 24 hours. Those kinds of numbers are not sustainable and as a result many species are collapsing. In 2003 researchers from the consensus published a paper in the science journal Nature. The article compared fish numbers with those of the 1950s, and concluded that in a little more than fifty years, top ocean predators such as tuna, sharks and swordfish have declined by 90%. Fish that reproduce slowly are fast becoming extinct. This pattern has consequences for all life. As a result of these declines, the ocean ecosystem itself is in peril.

The Census of Marine Life asked the question, how much longer could the ocean tolerate the present levels of commercial overfishing? If present trends continue unabated, commercial fishing as we know it would collapse by the year 2050. Today, ocean scientists and researchers are at the forefront of attempting to manage the remaining stocks before several species are lost forever. Legislatures must act now, and enact mandatory fishing moratoriums to prevent commercial fishing from causing total collapse. Act now, and we can prevent this from occurring. Do nothing, and the outcome is obvious.

Captain Jack Stone, (far left), and Captain Elsworth Stone (far right) sport fishing pioneers of Miami, Florida.

In Australia there are habitats that are facing threats with implications that scientists are only now beginning to understand. The Great Barrier Reef has had tourists visiting the waters for around eighty years now. Sadly, by the time the next eighty years pass, the reef’s ecosystem will have changed beyond all recognition.

Climate change is impacting the temperature of coral reefs. Rising ocean temperature are causing corals to bleach out, and die off at an alarming rate. When water is too warm, corals expel algae (zooxanthellae) that is living in their tissues causing the coral to turn white. Corals can survive bleaching, but they are under enormous stress. In 2005, in only one year, the U.S. lost half its reefs in the Caribbean Sea. Half!

Ocean acidification is also causing coral to die off at an alarming rate. Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, and is caused by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Approximately 30–40% of the carbon dioxide released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into the oceans, rivers and lakes. By the 1960s carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has risen by roughly 20%, and by 30% since the rise of industrialization. As a result of all this carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean, they are becoming more acidic. Without limiting further increases of CO2, the world’s coral reefs don’t have a chance of surviving into the next century. Even if we stop CO2 contamination today it would take many centuries before they would return to full health.

The sea represents the last major scientific frontier on planet Earth. Scientific expeditions continue to discover not only new species, but also even new phyla. The role of these species in the ecosystem, where they sit in the tree of life, and how they respond to environmental changes really do constitute mysteries of the deep. Despite technological advances that now allow people to access, exploit or affect nearly all parts of the ocean, we understand very little of their biodiversity, and how they are changing under our influence.

My Uncle John Hardwick (far left), fishing with Doris Day. Circa 1962.

The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis analysis published in Science, February 15th, 2008 shows that over 40% of the world’s oceans are heavily affected by human activities and few if any areas remain untouched.

Looming largely is the most catastrophic disaster to face the planet since the last great extinction. No, it’s not an asteroid, or a microorganism that threatens to wipe out mankind. It’s not big brother, or even the threat of nuclear annihilation. It’s the fact that human greed, and the lack of sustainable sensibility is already resulting in the extinction of millions, and millions of creatures. Many that have yet to be discovered.

Approximately 90% of all top predatory fish are gone. Commercially fished species are 80% gone as well. The ocean ecosystems are being destroyed at an alarming rate. According to top marine scientists, if we continue, the oceans will be nearly empty in a mere thirty years. By 2050 there will be no edible fish left.

What are the causes of these dire circumstances?

1. Overfishing.

Dr. Jeremy Jackson is one of the most prominent marine ecologists in the world and he has a message regarding the world’s oceans. Sadly, his message documents the declines in coral reefs, decreasing numbers of large marine fish, and losses of coastal and marine ecosystems. More than just an academic researcher, Dr. Jackson has actively searched for innovative ways to reach the public, applying his skills as a communicator with his scientific knowledge to inspire action. Dr. Jackson desires to reach a broader audience and affect change into the future with tomorrow’s generation on this topic of interest.

Dr. Jackson is the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor and Director of the Geosciences Research Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In addition, he is a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Dr. Jackson was featured in a Scientists at Work article, saying that firm attention must be paid immediately.

Prof. Daniel Pauly of the University of British Colombia, who is one of the world’s top experts on the declining state of the ocean stated that the process of the destruction of the ocean has already been long underway with too little being done, way too late.

Fish Biomass 1900.

Fish Biomass 2000.

The first whaling quota was set in 1946. This was the first international commitment to restricting the catch of a sea animal. The problems that arose from quotas were that shipping fleets were expanded, and equipment such as sonar meant that it was relatively easy to locate schools of fish. It also meant that there was no place on Earth that fish could steer clear of commercial fishing, and no way for their dwindling numbers to recuperate. The harsh fact is that annual fish hauls greatly exceed the oceans ability to reproduce, or even sustain itself.

The EU quotas are nearly 50% higher than most scientists and researchers recommend. The truth is that the ministry of fishing in most countries is acting on behalf of commercial fleet owners of the fisheries. Since the 1950s, global fish catches have quadrupled. There are nearly 100 million tons of fish taken from the ocean each year. Ironically, most fisheries in the world only continue because they are greatly subsidized. Overfishing is so out of control that fisheries are paid to fish because fishing itself is not economically sustainable. Subsidizing commercial fishing only encourages the destruction of ocean biosystems.

For centuries Newfoundland was a haven for cod fishing. In 1992 the Canadian government declared a moratorium on the northern Cod fishery, which had sustained the community for the previous 500 years. In that year the Cod biomass dropped to 1% of earlier levels recorded. Overfishing pushed the Codfish of the northern Cod biomass to near extinction. Considering the importance of the Cod fishery to the livelihood of Canada’s coastal communities, and the northern Cod’s initial abundance in the region, the fishery being mismanaged until it collapsed is inexcusable. To this day the northern Cod has not recovered. Just as then, biologists continue to issue warnings to governments. But, none of them are listening.

Captain Jack Stone and Slim Caroway. Circa 1950s. 

2. Destructive fisheries.

In the 1950s, and 60s fishing began to take place on a huge scale. Bottom trawlers with enormous nets, and steal chains scraped the ocean sea floors. It was an efficient way to catch large amounts of fish in a short time. However, this method of fishing was destroying the entire ecosystem they operated in, and continue to operate in. Trawl fishing destroys the ocean bed, which is where young fish hide, and had always been able to survive, and grow to adulthood. The destruction of the seabeds is analagous to cutting down entire forests. Without a forest, wildlife such as birds and deer have no place to live.

It also took hundreds of years for the sea floors to develop. A trawl can eliminate hundreds of years of natural processes in one single passage. Surprisingly, even trawl fisheries are able to obtain sustainable fishing licenses. How can a trawl fishery, which modifies an ocean ecosystem to the point of collapse be considered a sustainable form of fishing?

The world nation ministries of environment have all agreed to preserve 20% of the oceans by 2020. The target of 10% for 2010 has already passed. That 10% mark doesn’t exist. There is a huge disconnection between what is said, what needs to be done, and what is actually being done.

Of the seven species of ocean turtles, six species are drawing near extinction. This is due to destructive fisheries. There are 22 million kilometers of long line fishing that exist in the oceans today. A long line can be one hundred kilometers long, with thousands and thousand of hooks on that line. These baited hooks attract all kinds of sea life including tuna, sharks, sea turtles and dolphin. Each fish dies a horrible death, as it takes 12-24 hours of fighting before they finally succumb. Shockingly, everything that is not tuna is thrown back overboard. Dead! This is known as by catch, a term used to describe fish that are caught unintentionally by fisheries. Between the long lines, the nets and the trawlers, nearly every kind of animal in the ocean is dragged up from the deep, onto the decks of large ocean vessels, and whatever that particular fleet in not licensed to catch, is thrown back. Forty percent of what is caught using these methods is thrown back overboard due to licensing restraints. Often fisheries discard fish that would bring a low price at the market regardless of licensing requirements.

3. Pollution.

Is fish healthy to eat? Today the oceans fish are contaminated with toxic compounds such as dioxin, and mercury contamination. Large fish contain more toxins than smaller fish. The further you go up the food chain, the more toxic the fish is. Fish that are located near coasts are more contaminated than fish that are caught out at sea.

Mercury pollution is a serious health threat, especially for children and pregnant women. Mercury is emitted into the air by power plants, cement plants, certain chemical manufacturers, and other industrial facilities. In addition, over the years, many companies have used mercury to manufacture a wide range of products including thermometers, thermostats and automotive light switches. These products release mercury, particularly at the end of their life during waste handling and disposal. Mercury pollution released into the environment is a serious threat when it settles into oceans and waterways, where it builds up in the fish that we eat. Children and women of childbearing age are most at risk.

Once mercury enters a waterway, naturally occurring bacteria absorb it, and convert it to a toxin known as methyl mercury. This transition is particularly significant for humans, who absorb methyl mercury easily, and are especially vulnerable to its effects.

Mercury works its way up the food chain as large fish consume contaminated smaller fish. Instead of dissolving or breaking down, mercury accumulates at ever-increasing levels. Predatory fish such as tuna, swordfish, shark and mackerel often have mercury concentrations in their bodies that are 10,000 times higher than those of their surrounding habitat.

Humans risk ingesting dangerous levels of mercury when they eat contaminated fish. Since mercury is odorless, invisible and accumulates in the meat of the fish, it is not easy to detect and can’t be avoided by trimming off the skin or other parts. Once in the human body, mercury acts as a neurotoxin, interfering with the brain, and nervous system.

Exposure to mercury can be particularly hazardous for pregnant women and small children. During the first several years of life, a child’s brain is still developing and rapidly absorbing nutrients. Even in low doses, mercury may affect a child’s development, delaying walking and talking, shortening attention span and causing learning disabilities. High dose prenatal, and infant exposures to mercury can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness.

In adults, mercury poisoning can adversely affect fertility, blood pressure regulation and cause memory loss, tremors, vision loss and numbness of the fingers and toes. A growing body of evidence suggests that exposure to mercury may also lead to heart disease.

A 2009 study of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data concluded that roughly one in forty women of childbearing age have mercury in their blood above 5.8 micrograms per liter of blood, a level that could pose a risk to a developing fetus. Newer science indicates, however, that mercury actually concentrates in the umbilical cord blood that goes to the fetus, so mercury levels as low as 3.4 micrograms per liter of a mother’s blood are now a concern. Nearly one in thirteen women of reproductive age in the U.S. has mercury in her blood at or above this level, according to the latest data.

Dr. Jane Hightower, a doctor of internal medicine at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco also linked fish consumption to elevated mercury levels when she tested her patients. Dr. Hightower’s 2003 study found that 89% of the participating patients, chosen because of their fish-heavy diets had elevated mercury levels. Many had levels as much as four times that which the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.

High mercury levels are reversible when people cut consuming mercury-contaminated fish out of their diet. Blood mercury levels drop, a;though it can take six months or more to do so.

4. Ocean debris.

Everyday a vast amount manmade debris washes up on the shores of every beach in the world. What doesn’t ends up in the ocean, and becomes part of the fishes diet. Hazardous material that is often found includes dioxins, PCBs, mercury and other deadly chemicals. When the fish that consumed these toxins is caught it ends up on the table in someone’s home.

A lot of ocean debris, and I do mean a lot is plastic, and Styrofoam, as well as other material that is hazardous to fish and bird life. These products thought to be convenient for human purposes, break down, and when they do, fish eat them, believing them to be plankton, which is part of their natural diet. Scientists have discovered thousands of toxic chemical compounds in the ocean. The affects on the environment has scarcely been examined, or even discovered. The beaches can be cleared of the debris, but within a short time, the same amount ends up back on the shore. Untold amounts never make it to shore. The five world trash vortexes are so massive they could never be cleaned up. Millions of fish, and birds die as a result of all of this garbage. The oceans today have been turned into huge bowls of toxic plastic soup. These vortex’s are like giant manmade island that exists in all of the world’s oceans. The Atlantic vortex is about half the size of Europe. The Pacific is often said to be as large that the entire U.S.

Fish mistake waste for food. The plastic particles are harmful as toxins attach to those particles. So, the waste we dump into the ocean, or that is carried to the ocean by storm drains end up as part of the human diet. Eel, muscles and tuna should not be eaten because of all of the toxic compounds in their meat. The fish that are most contaminated are the top ocean predators. Especially, the fish that come from polluted areas near storm drains that run off into the oceans. Experts warn that storm drains are wreaking even more havoc on the ocean environmental systems than even overfishing. In fact, storm drains are the number one source of contamination in the world.

During the 1970s and 1980s waste was dumped into the rivers that run to the ocean, and in the ocean itself, at a massive and uncontrolled, or unregulated scale. Rivers and seas brimmed with toxins. Eels have been discovered to have cancerous tumors as a result of ocean pollution. Dioxins, PCBs and other contaminates poison fish meat, and can be discovered everywhere in the entire world’s oceans. If people eat a lot of the wrong kind of fish, like tuna and swordfish the health risks are great. Mercury is especially dangerous to the birth and development of unborn children.

Captain Jack Stone fishing with Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts front line the day before Superbowl III. 1968.

5. Wastefulness.

Globally the ocean is depleted of 100 million tons of fish annually. The majority of that is used for human consumption. One third of that catch is ground into fishmeal. This means that over 30 million tons of fish are caught each year to feed farm fish. It takes about 3 kilos of anchovies to produce 1 kilo of salmon. Chickens and pigs are also fed ground fish. Despite the fact that feeding pulverized animals to other animals has been banned in the EU, this doesn’t apply to fish. Fish are also used to make pills. Fish oil consists of Omega-3 fatty acids. Fish are only made up of 3-5 percent oil. There are approximately 20 kilos of fish to get about 1 kilo of fish oil.

Manufacturers of fish oil claim their products are good for joints, enhanced learning in children, (good for their brain and the development of their nervous systems) as well as many other things. Are these claims accurate? Many scientists state that none of this has ever been proven. The EU has recently rejected all of these as false claims. Now manufacturers have to remove them from their labels.

Captain Jack Stone and unknown holding several sport fishing trophies. Circa 1950s.

6. Carbon dioxide.

Oceans absorb carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide emissions are causing another form of disaster to the oceans, that is the swift destruction of coral reefs. Oceans give the world 70% of the oxygen it needs to survive. Yet, humans are destroying the thing itself that helps sustain mankind.

Fishing is an industry that runs off of government subsidies. Every taxpayer is paying for the destruction of the oceans. Human’s are not blind, but are entirely ignorant to history’s lessons as we continue to fish the world’s oceans until they are empty.

Without life in the ocean there is no life on land. Unfortunately, this is one fish tale that doesn’t keep getting longer every time it’s told. In fact, the more it’s told the fewer fish remain, until one day there will be no more fish tales left to tell.

Jack Stone as a kid on Miami Beach. Circa 1940s.

Mt. Fuji: A World Heritage Site?

UNESCO recently recommended Mount Fuji as a World Heritage site. I’d like to see “Fujisan” receive that honor, but I find it odd that it could even be considered for such a recommendation when the mountain is in reality nothing more than a giant heap of garbage, and it appears to have been treated in that manner for many generations.

The Japanese government officially asked UNESCO in January of 2012 to register Mount Fuji as a World Heritage site for 2013. “Once Mount Fuji is registered as a World Heritage site, we hope it will be known to more people,” said an official of Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture, at the foot of the mountain. Yamanashi Gov. Shomei Yokouchi also welcomed the recommendation for registration. “We would like to cooperate with the central government and Shizuoka Prefecture to make utmost efforts to enable Mount Fuji to be registered as a World Heritage site.”

There is nothing about the way Mount Fuji has, and is maintained for it to receive such a high level of recognition. It’s disturbing that the location has been neglected so terribly, and for so long. It’s even more disturbing that the site is the location of thousands of suicides that take place there every year. Even worse than mass suicides is the fact that historically, Mount Fuji was a dumping ground for elderly people who became financial burdens to their own children, and who were taken to the base of Mount Fuji, and left to fend for themselves, which inevitably meant they died slow deaths from starvation, hypothermia, or from lack of medical care they so desperately needed. The truth is Mount Fuji is an environmental embarrassment, and a colossal monument to the nation’s inability to find a way to deal with those that are emotionally, socially or psychologically disturbed.

Compare Mount Fuji to Yosemite National Park, which is a pristine environment, which is also operated in a commercial manner. The vast site entertains millions of visitors annually, and is much more highly impacted that Mount Fuji, but the national treasure is maintained extremely well. Yosemite’s natural beauty, and the manner in which it’s preserved has earned itself a position as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Mount Fuji and the people responsible for its upkeep have not. The only thing I’d give them is an F for their failed lack of effort!

Some communities respect the environment, and the natural heritage they’ve inherited, thereby assuring its long-term preservation while at the same time enjoying the benefits that come with them. Japan however is a nation of people that live in an unbalanced, and unnatural state. Children receive zero education related to the preservation, nature, aesthetics, and/or animal environs, and the need to retain them for future generations.

Those in authoritative positions have brainwashed parents to enroll their children into useless cram schools that place emphasis on math, and science, “skills” that are easy to grade, easier to forget, and are really there to ensure that young people don’t question anything, especially “authority“, and eventually become good workers that follow the rules of the corporate manual they must adhere to. What do they lose in the process… Autonomy, awareness and self!

One of the requirements for a site to receive World Heritage status is that the country maintains it as a historical treasure, and in a state of pristine preservation. Mount Fuji fails in every category of that test.

Although Japan has a collective reputation as being orderly those that live here, especially those that hike the mountains, and surf the oceans know that the truth is far different. In reality, Japan has some of the filthiest, and toxic ladened beaches anywhere on the planet, and the mountains, and hiking trails are littered with massive amounts of trash. Especially debris related to cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and fireworks. The beaches are by far the most polluted I’ve seen anywhere in my travels around the globe. Simply, the Japanese people treat the rivers, and oceans that surround the island chain as dumping grounds capable of taking anything they can thrown at them and in them. The oceans and rivers around Mount Fuji are no exception.

One of the problems related to garbage was the enactment of the Home Appliances Recycling Law, which led to high fees for disposing of unwanted electronics such as microwaves, refrigerators, and the like. Instead of the recycling law working as it was intended, people began dumping their garbage in parks, rivers and the beaches. Today, Japan’s garbage that is strewn in rivers, lakes, and oceans has increased some 400% from when the law was initially enacted. The massive amount of refuse located on Mount Fuji is testament to the failure of ridiculous regulation, and over the top attempts at recycling waste.

What makes matters worse is that the government has no sanitation programs, educational programs, or initiatives for neighborhood litter removal. Cleaning up polluted rivers, streams, mountains and beaches only occur annually, (once a year) and are usually done by a handful of elderly people that don’t have the physical energy or ability to do a proper job.

Most farmers dump all of their toxic debris, and refuse into local waterways, never giving any thought to the communities downstream from where they’re located. The results? Toxic rivers and streams filled with methyl mercury, CO2, PCBs, dioxin, fertilizer runoff and other volatile contaminants.

One of the cleaner beaches in Japan.

When I arrived in Japan, the first thing I did was grab my surfboard, and head to the beach. That was in Shizuoka, which is where Mount Fuji is located. To my great surprise, the beaches were covered in garbage. I asked a local surfer, who was smoking a cigarette at the time, who was responsible for the mess? He blamed, China and North Korea! However, we were on the Pacific side of Japan, and China and North Korea are on the Japan Sea. The plastic, glass bottles, and metal cans had all originated from corporations such as Kirin, Asahi, Calpis, Kagome, Meiji, Morinaga, Pokka, UCC, etc. I didn’t see any that had Chinese, or Korean labels on them.

I was even more shocked to see surfers leaping over huge piles of plastic bottles that mingled with large amounts of rusted aerosol spray cans, broken glass bottles, broken Styrofoam containers, and other debris that covered the entire beach as well as the river that flowed into the sea.

As far as I could see in every direction, from the riverbeds, to the sandy shoreline, there was nothing but containers of all kinds, massive cigarette related debris, old electronics, bicycles, and anything else one could dispose of. It was all mixed together in a disturbing, and swirling toxic soup. To my horror, I watched a fisherman carry two large bags of garbage to the edge of the ocean and throw them in. These were my very first impressions of the Japanese people, and those impressions have remained very strong in my memory.

It wasn’t long before the June rainy season set in, and during the first rainstorm I watched in disbelief as thousands, and thousands, hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles floated down a river in Shizuoka, not far from Mount Fuji, and into the ocean. There was more plastic covering the surface of the ocean than water itself. I was angered, disgusted and outraged. This was the real Japan that I was witnessing. A broken culture. A secretive reality that’s hidden from the rest of the world.

Japan is a nation of denial, and false history that consistently blames others for the problems that in reality the people have heaped upon themselves. This mindset carries over to the justification of overfishing the oceans to the point of collapse, falsifying corporate accounting for the benefit of insiders, and to the nation’s unfounded hatred for China, and Korea. I won’t mention TEPCO here. Oh, wait! I already did.

In the 1980s, during the nation’s economic “miracle”, Japan wasted billions on turning the entire coastline into massive concrete eyesores that left many of the coastal communities in ruin, both aesthetically, as well as economically.

Mount Fuji, up close and personal.

Instead of rewarding a nation that has no respect for nature, the environment, its neighbors, and Mount Fuji, the subject of registration as a World Heritage site should be rejected by UNESCO. Simply, Japan should clean up Mount Fuji, and the oceans and rivers that surround it, and engage in realistic clean up measures, and engage in those measures for long periods of time. The nation should also engage in environmental awareness programs that are committed to maintaining a high level of integrity and educational standards regarding the not only the region that surrounds Mount Fuji, but the entire country. Only then should Mount Fuji be considered a world treasure.

Japan’s Invisible People

A shirtless woman sits at the top of the stairs at Shimbashi Station during the heart of winter.

Homelessness is on the rise in Japan as never before. Blue tarp communities are springing up all over the country, yet the Japanese go about their daily lives as if these people don’t exist.

Being homeless in Japan has to be much worse than in western nations such as the U.S. The level of despair and hopelessness is far greater because there’s a  social stigma attached to it like none I’ve ever seen. Simply, the Japanese not only don’t but absolutely refuse to help those who are down on their luck. This is a perplexing dichotomy considering Japan’s teaches the importance of the community over that of the individual. Sadly, a great gulf is fixed between reality and philosophy in this seemingly buddhist nation.

In America there are welfare programs implemented by employment departments that are designed to help those who genuinely want to get back on their feet. Those services offer much more than an unemployment check. Those programs also provide educational funding as part of the unemployment benefits package that is available to those that are out of work. Most U.S. citizens aren’t even aware that these programs exist. People who do participate in these programs receive skills necessary to aid them in their search for new employment opportunities.

Giving educational opportunities to the unemployed not only helps to get them off the streets, but it also helps them to become productive members of society. It’s a simple concept actually, when a government program pays for people to obtain necessary skills to be employed, over the lifetime that employed person ends up paying much more in taxes than was laid out in the initial educational investment. The result is obvious, the unemployed ends up with a new skill, and as a result of their employment, they end up living a healthier and better quality life.

Unnatural beauty: The invisible people of the street.

Akihabara. A homeless man tries to simultaneously sleep and avoid the piercing wind.

Asakusa. A homeless man prepares for a night on a bus bench.

Shinjuku. A homeless person tries to sleep in boxes hastily taped together.

Shinjuku. A homeless man sits motionless amidst a bustling city.

Minami Senju. A homeless man sits alone as a cold and dreary rain falls about him.

Minami Senju. A  family put up a tent that is protected on three sides by barbed wire.

Notice to move it or lose it by 2.14.13.

Notice to remove it or lose it by 2.14.13.

How tragic it is to have no place to go, no money to support yourself, and to have calloused officials give notice that the only things that you have left will be destroyed if you don’t find another place to put them.

Asahi Brewery: Sharing The Kando

Asahi brewery Moriya City, Ibaraki Prefecture.

On the 26^th anniversary of the release of Asahi’s Super Dry, Stack Jones took a tour of one of Asahi’s eight breweries, which are located throughout Japan. This particular brewery is located in Moriya City, Ibaraki, and is easy to access via the TX Line from Akihabara station in Tokyo. The tour is free, and the beverages are complimentary, but you need to book a reservation in advance.

Asahi functions as much more than a beverage brewing company these days. While many Japanese corporations have been spiraling downward, and are in dire need of a cash infusion, Asahi has been steadily acquiring new interests in the beverages, food and healthcare sectors, while simultaneously boasting nine consecutive years of steady sales growth.

The Asahi Group has also been expanding their overseas interests. Most recently the company acquired Schweppes Australia, and secured a licensing agreement with Carlsberg in Malaysia. In 2009, Asahi acquired Tsingtao Brewery Co., and became a major investor in Ting Hsin Group, China’s largest packaged food and distribution company.

Interestingly, Asahi also founded a university program to educate its next generation of managers to perform on a global scale, while at the same giving these employees genuine on-the-job management experience.

While waiting for the brewery tour to begin, I browsed a convenient store that’s located near the front entrance of the Asahi facility. This wasn’t your typical convenient store. The products on display are those that are exclusively manufactured by Asahi. I discovered a few pleasures that I hadn’t tried before. They’ve become some of my favorites. Especially, the various kinds of barley snacks. They’re really good!

My name was called and it was time to begin learning about how beer is made. I had brought along two Japanese interpreters, but it turned out the entire tour was in English. This made the event even more enjoyable!

Initially, we were taken into a movie theater, where I would be given a crash course on how yeast converts sugar into wort, which is mashed, liquefied and then goes through a fermentation process that eventually produces the alcohol portion, and specific flavor of the beverage.

After the movie, I was taken down a long corridor, and told from that point on there would be no more photos allowed. The hallways were really long, and the escalators, and corridors seemed endless. I felt like I was in a Stanley Kubrick movie, or was it Cape Canaveral?

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a super clean freak. Everything at the Asahi facility was pristine! I felt at home. Then suddenly… I couldn’t help but notice the shiny, huge, and numerous containers that were looming on the exterior of the brewery, and visible through a wall of large plate glass windows. It was in these containers, I would learn that the filtering process was taking place. Asahi pioneered the brewing, and storage tanks in 1965. These were really big cans of beer!

Ms. Owada told me that it took about one month to go through the entire process from preparing the raw goods, to the cold bottle that would eventually be in my hands. I would also learn that if I drank a bottle of beer a day from those large storage containers that it would take approximately four thousand years to empty them.

So, just how much beer can this particular brewery churn out? The facility is able to sterilize and label six hundred bottles in a single minute. The bottles are also capped instantly to prevent oxidation. If the brewery is running at full capacity, which is during summer months, it takes ten seconds to package, label crate, and load onto trucks 100 bottles, and 285 cans of beer. That’s 4,900,000 cans a day!

The Moriya City facility also employs some 700 workers, even though most of the process, from production to packaging is computerized and automated.

Akiko Owada, who has excellent English skills, was my personal tour guide.

It took about two months to negotiate an exclusive tour with the Asahi Group. During those initial communications, Asahi management answered every question regarding the company’s history, products, and environment policies. The company was clearly proud of their legacy and quality assurance.

How does the brewery maintain such a high level of consistency at such a large volume of output? Sensory tests are performed in a laboratory environment, which is performed by highly trained taste testers who are employed to ensure a uniformity that meets the company’s rigorous standards. No, the taste testers do not drive to work, as their activities are strictly regulated and controlled. What a great job it must be to be a beer taster. Well, my numerous buddies that can’t seem to function without their weekly AA meeting, and “higher power” consultations would probably disagree. But, as far as I’m concerned, who cares? As one of those higher powers is Mr. JC, and according to the back half of the black book, the first miracle he performed was turning water to wine. For those interested in fermented grapes, I’ve provided the tour information below for Asahi’s Sainte Neige Winery as well.
What about the environmental impact of such a large scale operation?

I learned that all materials from manufacturing to packaging are 100% recyclable. This wasn’t just communicated, but a significant part of the tour is dedicated to showing just how far the company goes to maintain such standards. I learned Asahi was stringently committed to the sustainability of the environment that produces their products. It was obvious that Asahi was aware that without taking into consideration such sustainable measures, the future of the company, and the high-level of quality of their products would be in jeopardy. I also learned that Asahi operated their own farms, and staunchly rejected seeds that were altered through “engineered agriculture techniques (GMO’s).”

After Japan’s triple disaster, some beverage and food companies suffered bad publicity by engaging in improper safety procedures that allowed radiation-tainted products to enter the market via their brand. To Asahi’s credit the company avoided such problems by engaging in safety standards that protected both the public, and the company’s well-earned reputation. As a result of this effort, the company suffered no bad publicity.

Here’s a bit of trivia for whisky aficionadas. Black Nikka Clear Blend is Japan’s leading whiskey. One of Asahi’s Nikka Blends won the 2011, World’s Best Blended Malt Whiskey at the World Whisky Awards. Asahi beat all of the world’s most famous brands to earn that top honor.

Personally, I don’t like aluminum cans or plastic containers. I never have. I know they’re convenient for shipping, weigh less, and result in less damage for export. But, there’s nothing quite like a cold bottle of beer on a hot summer day. A bottle is classic. A bottle is cool. A can is neither.

Plastics are produced through petrochemicals, and often contain benzene, which is cancerous, and known to leach into the product itself. It’s also well known that plastic is environmentally unsound, and has been, or is being banned in many regions around the world. Further, plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean vortex is said to be larger than the entire United States, and growing. If there were one thing that I’d like to see Asahi improve upon, it would be to discontinue using plastic containers for food, and beverages. Plastic is simply unsafe, and proven to be unhealthy, and a catalyst for cancer.

In that, Asahi’s annual report addresses activities that are aimed at fulfilling a social responsibility with global implications. I greatly admire that. One of the main points the report addresses is Asahi’s commitment to protecting biodiversity, and the companies respect for the environment, and the animals that live within those ecosystems. Asahi doesn’t just give lip service to these ecological concerns; they put it in practice, and are committed to protect consumers of their product, and as a result the legacy of the company itself.

The Asahi Moriya City brewery is located at 1-1-1 Midori, Moriya, Ibaraki 302-0106. Please phone for tour reservation information at (81) 297.45.7335. At the end of the tour, guests may sample a variety of different Asahi products. All complimentary!

Other suggested Asahi Group tours include:

Sainte Neige Winery
107-1Kamikanogawa Yamanasi-shi Yamanasi
Phone (81) 553.22.1511

Whisky Breweries
7-6 Kurokawa-cho Yoichi-machi Yoichi-gun Hokkaido
(81) 135.23.3131
Nikka1banchi Aoba-ku Sendai-shi Miyagi
Phone (81) 22.395.2865

It’s Sakura Time

Kiyomizu, Kyoto. Photo Stack jones

It’s that time of year again! Winter is behind us, and the warm weather is finally starting to appear. This means picnics in the park, and cherry blossoms that are soon to bloom. With so many places to  view them, and with so little time to enjoy them, where will you go?

I’ve pieced together some of my favorite locations from the Japan Sea, to Tohoku and beyond. Enjoy!

Kiyomizu

Kiyomizu means clear water in Japanese. The temple was founded in 778 during the early Heian period, and built on the site of the Otowa Waterfall in the eastern hills of Kyoto. The temple suffered numerous fires. However, Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu built most of the structures that exist today.  There were no nails used in the construction of the temple. The main hall, Hondo is designated as a national treasure, and as a UNESCO world heritage site. Whether you visit Kiomizu in spring, or autumn you’ll find plenty of breathtaking views. When in Kyoto, this is one place you’ll not want to miss.

Transportation. Take the train from Kyoto Station to Kiyomizu-Jo Station. Avoid the buses! They’re crowded and if  traffic is thick, you could end up spending your time on the bus instead of the city’s landmarks. Spend the extra few yen. It’s well worth it!

Fukui Castle, Fukui City. Photo Stack jones

Fukui Castle

Matsudaira Tadamasa originally built Fukui Castle in 1606. The castle was destroyed by fire in 1669. In 1945, U.S. allied forces firebombed the remaining structures during World War II. The city was rebuilt, and then destroyed again in 1948 when a large earthquake leveled 35,000 buildings. Fukui would suffer yet another tragedy when the Asuwa River flooded. When Fukui was rebuilt the main street was given the name Phoenix Dori, for the mythical bird that rose again from the ashes. Night viewing on the castle grounds, and along the river are something special to experience. At both locations lamps that provide a fantastic atmosphere for an evening strolls illuminate the cherry blossoms.

Transportation. Walking distance from Fukui Station.

Maruoka Castle, Sakai City. Photo Stack jones

Maruoka Castle

Maruoka Castle is Japan’s oldest standing castle. It was built in 1576 and is located in the Sakai District of Fukui. Legend has it the castle becomes shrouded in a thick mist to protect it whenever an enemy approaches. There is a historical museum located at the foot of the castle and the site is designated as an Important Cultural Property.

Transportation. Take the Hokuriku Line to the Awara-onsen Station by train, which runs from Fukui station.

Kenrokuen Gardens,  Ishikawa, Kanazawa. Photo Stack jones

Kenrokuen Gardens

Kenrokuen Gardens is located in Ishikawa, Kanazawa Prefecture. It’s one of Japan’s oldest private gardens, and considered one of Japan’s three most beautiful landscape gardens in the country. The extensive garden used to be part of the Kanazawa Castle, built over two hundred years by the ruling Maeda family. It opened to the public in 1874. The waters that flow through the garden are diverted from a river by a unique system that was designed in 1632. The garden derived its name from the Chronicles of the Famous Luoyang Gardens, a book by the Chinese poet Li Gefei, which stands for the six attributes of a perfect landscape: spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, waterways, and panoramas. According to Chinese landscape theory these six elements are essential to make a perfect garden. Kenrokuen boasts numerous bridges, teahouses, ponds, streams, and waterfalls that are lit up during the evening when the Sakura trees are in full bloom.

Transportation. Kenrokuen is a frequent stop on the Kanazawa Loop Bus, and the Kenrokuen Shuttle bus. It takes about twenty minutes to get there from Kanazawa station.

Kenrokuen Gardens,  Ishikawa, Kanazawa. Photo Stack jones

Yamagata Castle,  Yamagata City. Photo Stack jones

Yamagata Castle

Today Kajo Park stands where Yamagata Castle once stood. Today the site has a restored gate and a statue of Mogami Yoshiaki, one of the feudal lords that once ruled the vicinity. While Yoshiaki fought at the side of Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara, general Naoe Kanetsugu traveled to Yamagata Castle to destroy it. Folklore has it Kanetsugu couldn’t locate it because the castle was covered in a thick fog. Thereafter, Yamagata Castle became known as Kasumigajo, which means the castle in the haze. The high stonewall and moat still exist to this day and is surrounded by beautiful mature cherry trees. It’s one of the best places in Japan to view spring blossoms, or share in a hanami with friends.

Transportation. Walking distance from Yamagata Station.

Fukuoka Zeki,  Tsukubamirai Ibaraki. Photo Stack jones

Fukuoka Zeki

For a great place to avoid the crowds head to Tsukubamirai, Ibaraki Prefecture. There you will find Fukuoka Zeki Sakura Park, which is a long and winding trail filled with cherry trees that are located right on a river. The location also has a festival and more than ample locations for a hanami.

Transportation. From Tokyo, take the TX Line to Miraidaira station.

This article originally ran March 21st, 2013 in the Tokyo Weekender.

http://tokyoweekender.com/2013/03/sakura-season.