Candles for the darkness

For the darkness, candles.

David M. Koch and The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies (NOVA)

The Monarch butterfly migrates northward from high points on the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico in three stages. Three generations, living about two months each, each migrate northward before dying. The third generation reaches southern Canada. The fourth generation of caterpillars migrate southward through the eastern United States, taking about two months, eventually arriving at the species' winter shelter in the Sierra Madre. The first three generations live about two months each; the fourth lives about nine months.

In that area of the Sierra Madre the indigenous people welcome the butterflies' return each year with a festival incorporated into the Day of the Dead. The butterflies are said to be the returning spirits of their ancestors. This has happened for generations, the people, who are small farmers, the forest, and the butterflies co-existing in a balance. This part of the forest has been made a National Sanctuary.

One of the last points in the documentary is that this forest is now being logged to such an extent that it and the butterflies are now both endangered. The World Wildlife Fund pays locals to be informal wardens and prevent the logging. But the trees are cut down in the middle of the night and, as one of the WWF wardens said, "You don't want to meet these people. They will kill you."

On its face this didn't make sense. There had to be a third factor in this situation that NOVA hadn't mentioned.

Why is there so much more logging now? The WWF warden said that it was people "who couldn't meet their needs" who were doing the logging. So – very poor people.

As a result of NAFTA and its own corruption, the Mexican government stopped giving subsidies to Mexico's small farmers some years ago. As corn prices rose because the U.S. government subsidised ethanol for fuel, poor Mexican farmers were priced out of the corn market. The market in white bread and noodles, the cheaper, less nutritious subsitutes, is largely owned by Archer Daniels Midland.

This is missing third factor.

NOVA went nowhere near it – Archer Daniels Midland is a corporate underwriter of PBS, the entity which buys NOVA nature documentaries.

During the opening credits there are thanks to corporate sponsors of NOVA, among them David M. Koch. Who at the moment is doing his best to destroy both the butterflies and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which airs material from PBS).

On its face this doesn't make sense. There must be some third aspect.

In the film there is one very short sequence where a butterfly is caught in a spider's web. The wings are caught and stuck, splayed and beautiful and helpless. The butterfly is effectively paralyzed. And then the spider comes and wraps the butterfly up in its own organic cling-wrap, and hauls it off (up, out of the frame) to be eaten.

That's what David M. Koch was doing, along with many other corporations / billionaires, sponsoring programming for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Paralyzing it, keeping it unable to utter certain truths before moving to defund it entirely (wrapping it up in a complete lack of budget), and hauling off (up, out of our frame of reference) to be dissolved.

Libya

So the military-petroleum complex is getting itself another satrapy. Rapidly-advancing rebels from the east; Gaddafi losing his grip; the MPC saw its chance.

Libyan oil will go on flowing north and west, into the profit-columns of the war machine.

Shadow of the Silk Road

I've been reading Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron, an astonishing work of travel and history, a gritty, informed description of the present and past of Central Asia.

The section dealing with the surrounding of Afghanistan describe the utter destruction of Islamic culture of those regions. They never recovered from the Mongol invasion. When the Mongols had conquered the city / town / village, they would take all the inhabitants outside the walls, and there they would kill them all, even the dogs and cats.

I tried to imagine that. I can get as far as a fence, the colour and shape of weathered Adelaide palings, and the ground, yellow dirt and a few white stones (the colour and composition of my primary school playground). I can imagine the head of a dead dog, one that has been euthanized. And there my imagination stops.

I can't imagine ruthlessness on that scale. The Mongols eventually abandoned their drive west to deal with the succession after the death of Genghis Khan.

I can't take in the pointlessness. I can't accommodate the idea that military genius is the boundary and canopy of human existence, that everything disappears into it and under it, that Aries is the greatest of the gods and will always defeat Hephaestus, Hestia, Hermes, Demeter.

Animals

I hate the way animals are in our power. They have no defence against our intentions.