“The biggest 200 corporations now rule the world and are economically greater than the combined economies of nearly 180 countries. They employ just a few million people but they wield power over governments and global bodies and have more economic influence than 80% of humanity. Together, they set the world's technological and economic direction, govern trade and industry, the burning of fossil fuels, and the sale and distribution of much of what we eat and grow”. 

“Together, they must bear most responsibility for the deterioration of nature. They have been directly linked to devastating ecological and financial crimes, they avoid tax, and they mostly have their own way with national governments. Their plastic pollutes the remotest seas, their oil leads to climate change, and their electronic waste continues to mount inexorably. Corporate power must be reined in” (“The Seven Deadly Things We're Doing To Trash The Planet [And Human Life With It]”, John Vidal, 19/12/16, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/19/seven-deadly-things-trash-planet-human-life).

“Human ecological dysfunction is destroying the ecosystems that sustain civilisation and undermining vital life support functions. Consider, e.g., climate change, ocean acidification, fisheries collapses, land/soil degradation, desertification, tropical deforestation, and biodiversity loss. The human enterprise has exceeded the long-term, carrying capacity of Earth; we are in 'overshoot'” (“Carrying Capacity, Globalization And The Unsustainable Entanglement Of Nations”, http://www.af-info.or.jp/blueplanet/doc/slide/2012slide-rees.pdf. “Context: The Anomalous Unsustainable Expansion Of The Human Enterprise”, Professor William E Rees, University of British Columbia).

“In the eager search for the benefits of modern science and technology, we have become enticed into a nearly fatal illusion: that through our machines we have at last escaped from dependence on the natural environment” (Barry Commoner, 1971, quoted at the start of “Greening The Media”, Richard Maxwell & Toby Miller,  Oxford University Press, 25/05/12, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/greening-the-media-9780199914678?cc=nz&lang=en& ).  

“It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing”, Elizabeth Kolbert, author of “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”, Henry Holt, & Co., 2014, quoted in “Evolutionary Dead-Ends: Collapse Of Industrial Civilization”, 19/03/18, https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/113859/evolutionary-dead-ends-mike-longenecker-website-collapse-industrial-civilization).   

“'War in space is going to happen,' said (US) Representative Mike Rogers, the Alabama Republican, who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee” (“Space War Is Coming – And The US Is Not Ready” – Politico, 06/04/18, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/06/outer-space-war-defense-russia-china-463067). “If we had another 50 of him ['entrepreneur' Peter Beck], and another 50 of Rocket Labs [now a US-owned and military-oriented company], we would be sweet!” (TVNZ’s Q & A presenter Corin Dann, 20/5/18).

Corporate Globalisation

Corporate globalisation is promoted by its media ideologues, along with all its business and political advocates worldwide, as an inevitable process to which we all have to conform for future prosperity. The ritually invoked mantras of economic growth, productivity, free trade, and consumption must go unchallenged for capitalism to survive, and prosperity to thrive.

And this is all in the face of unprecedented evidence and warnings about looming environmental catastrophe, especially from climate change. The biology of the human species, and its place in nature is still overwhelmingly denied in favour of self-proclaimed exceptionalism, and a cornucopian vision (Cornucopian: “A view that natural resources are unlimited and perpetual economic growth  is not only possible but essential” , “Oxford Dictionary Of Environment And Conservation”, Chris Park, Oxford University Press [OUP], 2007/8, p102).  

Of course, our evolutionary exuberance in our very own seeming dominance and globalist control may well be a function of the same biological process (“Overshoot: The Ecological Basis Of Revolutionary Change”, William R Catton Jr, University of Illinois Press, 1980). This is most worrying. Further, the import of the Freudian insight into the penchant for human self-destructiveness can, in fact, complement and underlie the technocratic, capitalist expressions of exuberance. I shall expound below on this theme with some graphic examples relating to the latest so-called “Space Race”.   

From this lavishly sponsored new space race, and from China's ecstatically broadcast “Belt and Road” highway to riches, globalism driven by transnational corporations (TNC) is soaring to ever greater hyperbolic heights. In the greatest irony imaginable, the advocates of globalisation are actually cheering on the evolutionary overshoot of the human species! This crazy process is being constantly calibrated to the pursuit of profit and technological innovation. The suicide of capitalism is celebrated as its epiphany!  

Overshooting The Earth!

The latest phase of 21st Century capitalism is in raptures about a renewed space race, involving an international spectrum of governmental, private, and public-private ventures. Humankind is now in over-drive, reaching for the stars out in space, the final frontier.  A newspaper headline proclaimed in February 2018: “Crowds Again On Florida's Space Coast: Privateers Such As Elon Musk And Sir Richard Branson Have Brought Some Much-Needed Pizzazz Back To Space Exploration” (article reprinted from Jeff Bezos' Washington Post, in the Press, 10/2/18).

On 7/2/18, the “eccentric billionaire” Elon Musk's SpaceX company launched his “Falcon Heavy (rocket) from the Kennedy Space Centre” in another milestone “that has revived interest in space…” (ibid.). “Musk's triumph in a test flight that sent a (Tesla Roadster electric) sports car deep into space may have been something of a cross-promotional stunt involving Tesla, one of his other companies.

But it also marked a turning-point for a budding commercial industry that raised the stakes for itself by promising big things” (ibid.; “The Symbolism Of Elon Musk Sending A Car Into Space”, The Atlantic, 6/2/18, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-symbolism-of-elon-musk-sending-a-car-into-space/552479/).  The proclaimed capitalist message is that: “Commercial companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin (Bezos's firm) have taken up the work historically done by nations, and they're doing a good – and cheaper – job of it” (“The Symbolism Of Elon Musk”, ibid.). 

Entrepreneurialism Equals Capitalism Unleashed

Yet this latest trumpeted display of capitalist success symbolises, as I have indicated, something totally the opposite. Moreover, it is certainly symbolic that Elon Musk himself is an Americanised South African-born “entrepreneur” (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk). Musk's personal success stems, at least partly, from the accumulated capital of exploited black labour and mineral extraction by both white South Africans and their foreign collaborators.

Musk describes himself these days as “nauseatingly pro-American” and promotes the US as “the greatest country that ever existed on Earth”, and as “the greatest force for good of any country that's ever been” (ibid.).  Moreover, he is an adviser to President Trump, and a fervent free-marketeer, who also spends freely in lobbying Washington for business favours (ibid.). 

In other words, he is just another cynical corporate welfare operator and egregious hypocrite. The “entrepreneurs” of Silicon Valley are heavily subsidised by the US government anyway. Elon Musk is certainly full of contradictions on a range of issues – e.g., entrepreneurship, the free market, politics, the environment, and climate change (ibid.). I shall explore another fundamental contradiction in Musk's policies later on.  

The Next Big Thing?

“SpaceX's launch comes as the Trump Administration is looking to restructure the role of NASA (i.e. the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), ensuring private enterprise and international partners work closely with the US space agency' (“Crowds Again On Florida's Space Coast”, Press, 10/2/18, op. cit.). Vice-President Mike Pence and the rest of the National Space Council are charting out the role for private enterprise. This Council has been reconstituted under Trump.

Besides SpaceX, companies like Boeing and its Defence and Space Group, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are jostling for governmental contracts and commercial opportunities (ibid.). United Launch Alliance, made up of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, had been the industry leader until it found the competition too hot from SpaceX for civil and commercial spaceflight contracts. 

Except in the sphere of governmental military contracts where it has a primary role, the Alliance had had to significantly phase down its launch programme. Greedy, narcissistic billionaires obviously rule the roost in the space race these days, at least in setting the pace! Such macho posturing and strutting stuff evidently stems back from our hominid roots. It reaches into the modern era with all its diverse and absurd variety. Trumpism, of course, is its most deplorable manifestation.

Besides the obscene conspicuous consumption and exhibitionism of modern rich capitalists, traditional societies like the British Columbian Kwakiutl Indians of Canada, and Melanesian societies have extravagant, and even destructive display ceremonies, e.g., chiefly displays of wealth and power in the Kwakiutl “potlatch” ceremony. Melanesian “Big Men” similarly command tribal and affiliated support through large-scale feasts and networks of gifts/goods exchange.   

Peak Evolutionary Exuberance

In these times, Musk, Branson, Bezos, & co. are indulging themselves in a bizarre exhibitionist splurge, a most ironic display of evolutionary overshoot exuberance! Touted objectives include eventually the prospect of commercial tourist-type trips to the Moon, and possibly Mars. Significantly again, such behaviour can yet be most tellingly contrasted with “Big Man”-type behavioural patterns in traditional societies. A well-articulated anthropological argument posits that there are in fact underlying “materialist explanations” for the seemingly bizarre customs and practices of some traditional societies. 

These “cultural materialist” explanations reveal “a hidden rationality, in terms of ecological adaptation (my emphasis), for a series of cultural practices that on the surface epitomize human irrationality in cultural guise” (“Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective”, Roger M Keesing, 2nd Ed., Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, Inc., 1976/81, p150). This anthropological approach is particularly associated with the name of Marvin Harris, author of the excellent “Cultural Materialism: The Struggle For A Science Of Culture” (Random House, 1979), and other academic texts, as well as popular books like “Cows, Pigs, Wars, And Witches: The Riddles Of Culture” (1974).

As an illustration, take the traditional peoples of Goodenough Island, part of Papua New Guinea. Here is a description and context for one of their major mythological figures, Malaveyovo. He was: “A voracious cannibal . . . [who] used to wander through the interior of the island, enthusiastically consuming anyone he encountered, and thereby causing serious depopulation”. 

“So, the islanders made offerings of garden produce to him in the belief that the more vegetables he ate, the fewer people he would devour. These offerings led to abutu, a competition in which present-day islanders challenge one another to make the largest gifts of vegetables” (“The Hutchinson Dictionary Of World Myth”, ed., Peter Bently, Helicon Pub., 1995, p126).

Local inter-tribal fighting and cannibalism lasted into the early 1920s on Goodenough Island. The legend of Malaveyovo can be interpreted as a cultural way of helping regulate conflict within Goodenough traditional societies. This myth and its related rituals enabled these societies to keep their overall population in an equilibrium balance with the island's resource base, given the existing technology.

Shooting Into “Star Wars”!?

I would both add and emphasise here that, in the case of the space race privateers, what they really symbolise in the expression of evolutionary overshoot is heightened irrationality, and the complete abandonment of any “ecological adaptation”. But wait, there is a darker and deeper madness to all this spaceflight hype and theatre! This stuff is, in actuality, intimately integrated with the continuing US-led, deadly militarisation of space.

To be sure, the commercialisation of space goes hand in hand with the continually recycled scaremongering propaganda about lags in American technology; and so how the Pentagon has to catch up and get ahead in order to keep its vital edge (“Space War Is Coming”, op. cit.). We must always keep in mind that the military-industrial complex is absolutely committed to its own demise, as well as its role as the instrument of doom for everyone else!

The Trump Administration is now brazenly and openly gearing up for war in space, and thus for World War III. Its warmongering rhetoric should be absolutely electrifying and terrifying for Western publics, and indeed the whole world. But the zombie, brain-dead mainstream media and the presiding political Establishment are themselves all pretty well off the planet today, dwelling in a kind of surreal limbo. Most lamentably, most Western publics seem tamely conditioned to their inevitable end – i.e., unless, somehow, sanity can prevail! 

“War is coming to outer space (my emphasis), and the Pentagon warns it is not yet ready, following years of under-investing, while the military focused on a host of threats on Earth. Russia and China are years ahead of the US in developing the means to destroy or disable satellites that the US military depends on for everything - from gathering intelligence to guiding precision bombs, missiles, and drones” (ibid.).

So goes the latest propaganda line. With regard to alleged killer satellite superiority by Russia and China, even certain academics striving for as much peaceful regulation of space as they can, also echo this claim. For instance, Michael Schmitt, professor of international law and a space war expert at the University of Exeter in the UK, contends that: “The real experts in developing small, manoeuvrable satellites that change orbits, and make multiple interceptions, are the Chinese in their Shijian series” (“‘It's Going To Happen’: Is The World Ready For War In Space?”, Guardian, 15/4/18, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/15/its-going-to-happen-is-world-ready-for-war-in-space).

Steve Isakowitz is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the “American Aerospace Corporation, a government-funded think tank, which is the military's leading adviser on space” (“Space War Is Coming”, op. cit.). He declaims that: “We are now approaching a point where 'Star Wars' is not just a movie”! (ibid.). 

Spaced Out Surreality

“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea”, Trump declared in April 2018 (ibid.). He added: “We have the Air Force, we'll have the space force” (ibid.). “It's not only our destiny – it's what the nation demands” (my emphasis), proclaims the US Air Force chief, General David Goldfein (“Star Wars-Style Space War Will Begin Within A Few Years.  US Air Force Chief Claims As He Urges Trump To Do Everything Possible To 'Dominate' Space”, Sun, 28/2/18, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5689126/us-air-force-chief-claims-space-war-imminent/). 

Rupert Murdoch's malevolent media empire and the Pentagon are in typical cahoots as they work together (via the Sun, Fox News, etc.) to deliver us Hell on Earth. The evil madness of the American power elite, if unchecked, is certainly guaranteed to bring on the destiny of catastrophic human die-off in the form of WWIII as overshoot implodes. Can enough people rebel in time to turn the tide of destruction?!  

The first thing we need to do in Aotearoa/NZ is to get out of the “Five Eyes” intelligence/covert action agreement. As Peace Researcher (PR) Co-Editor Murray Horton so aptly says, we must: “Finish the business started in the 1980s when NZ became nuclear free and break the remaining military and intelligence ties to the US” (“Not Very Great Expectations At All”, PR 54, November 2017, “New Government But Same Old Business As Usual: NZ Still Loyal Pawn In US Empire”, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/pr-backissues/pr54.pdf). 

Murray further very ably expounds on this theme and related issues in several articles in the latest PR now online, e.g., “Jacinda Says NZ Has 'Independent Foreign Policy': If Only That Was True”  (PR 55, June 2018, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/pr-backissues/pr55.pdf). 

Turning The American Dream Into Nightmare

As a consequence of the new space race, publics enthused by the “Star Wars” film series are now on the threshold of a Hollywood horror scenario, but one triggered in real space, and with real fallout on Earth. Weapon detonation in space with its atmospheric fallout would indeed be catastrophic for Earth. To be sure, of course, there is a multitude of possible ways that WWIII could start. 

But the new Space Race, and the compounding complexity of all the surveillance and armed technology involved, greatly increases the risks. US military leaders are actually saying now that it is inevitable! The American military-industrial complex and its billionaire freebooters are boosting an already enveloping planetary dimension into further highly dangerous levels of risk and hair-trigger potential conflict.       

Private enterprise is indeed serving a number of functions here for the military-industrial complex and the “Pentagon of Power”. I shall simply note the more important of these as I see them at this particular stage.  Firstly, the billionaire entrepreneur brigade is providing a great camouflage for military operations. In announcing the renewed surge by the Pentagon to dominate space and thus counter rivals Russia and China, President Trump talked about going to the Moon again, and then on to Mars (1 News At Midday, TV1, 19/6/18).  Naturally, there was nothing reported by our zombie, propagandistic, US-aligned TVNZ about the imminence of space war, as also proclaimed by the Trump Administration. Let's not frighten the colonial natives!

Zombie Suicidal Stupidity

In this particular case, TV3 was much worse than TV1 in the presentation of news about Trump's launch of his space military programme. Whereas TV1 was relatively cursory in its coverage that day, TV3 gave the news a bit more illuminating attention. A young reporter, Mitch McCann, presented the item in the most propagandistic, superficial style that the Trump Administration could have wished for (NewsHub Live At 6pm, 19/6/18). McCann even gave the item a comic fun spin with a “Star Wars” shot of stormtroopers, saying that such stuff would not be part of the new US military space programme!

TV3's news readers had introduced this particular item on Trump's new “space force”, with the added comment that it might well sound “out of this world” (ibid.). Mitch McCann then helpfully went on to explain how President Trump wants to dominate space in order to protect American interests. China had practised attacking satellites but the Trump Administration won't take any chances. It won't risk any such attacks from China, Russia, or some other emerging adversary.  No, you see, thankfully, Trump's programme is all about “preventing a space war” (ibid.). It is creating a “space police”, apparently just like it polices the Earth in the interests of humankind (ibid.). Such then is the malign garbage that passes for mainstream news on military matters today in Aotearoa/NZ!  

Deadly Media Spin

The war-mongering proclamations of the Trump Administration and its military leaders are thus given the completely opposite spin by Newshub and its TV3 channel, and even a glowing, peaceful gloss. American interests, furthermore, are identified with all of humankind!  It is surely very significant that Newshub is a service branch of MediaWorks, which is in turn entirely owned by the American TNC Oaktree Capital Management. The Americanisation of our culture, including our news and public discourse, goes on relentlessly to our ever-increasing detriment, let alone ultimate demise!  

Trump may be a widely recognised horrible “bastard” but when it comes to Establishment-defined “national security”, the media mostly switch into full zombie, brain-dead, propagandistic mode. Locking refugee children up in cages has for the moment proved a step too far on immigration but Trump continues to push his hardline policies as “national security”. This programme is just part of shifting the standards of what is acceptable in an ever deteriorating “new normal”.

President Trump is even now openly denouncing the due process of law on immigration. The trend to neo-fascism is mounting on a range of fronts at the frontiers of Western capitalism – from plundering the Middle East for oil and gas to repelling “boat-people”; from the “War on Terror” to aggressive competition with Russia and China; and from trade wars to militarising space. Trump & co. are even threatening Iran with regime change, intent on blowing up the Middle East, and the rest of the world!

Is There Any Intelligent Life On Earth?!

To pick up again on the points I want to make about the latest phase of private industry's interaction with the military in the realm of space, I consider a couple of other things worthy of note at this juncture. My second point is that the systematic integration of the space privateers in various ways with the militarisation of space serves to substantially enhance governmental outlays, binding American capital even more tightly into the militarist market and related technocratic production. 

Thirdly, these spaceflight “entrepreneurs” help legitimate with their “pizzazz” - both directly and indirectly - the State war-mongering adventurism of the US. Increasingly, too - and most ironically! - the American private space industry helps to legitimate the similar activities of other countries as competition hots up. This is so in both the civil and military spheres, as well as all the corporate/governmental-interconnections. Even in the most civilian of spheres, systems of space satellites now comprise the foundation of the digital age. Communications and information flows depend on them for the multitudinous transactions and exchanges of the so-called global “data economy”, and the various sectors it oversees and weaves together. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its endless innovations, including substantive robotic applications, along with multiple ramifications for the militarisation of space, mean new uncertainties and new perils. Given the plethora of possibilities for human error, machine failure, random “acts of God”, and so on, the crazy aggression of the American military-industrial complex and its power elite with their talk of imminently pending space war is surely and rapidly propelling humankind to the very edge of disaster.  

We ever so desperately need concerted international action for pre-emptive peace-making in order to forestall the horrific future yawning in front of us, and the coming generation. As we have seen so starkly demonstrated by the US Air Force chief, General David Goldfein, the mad, evil message is that we should actually embrace WWIII as our destiny! Nothing could better illustrate the wisdom of the ancient Greek saying that those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad!! 

“Cloud Cuckoo Land”

Globalisation has literally overshot our planetary limits with the new space race. Capitalism is in turmoil as economic growth tries to reach out into the heavens. In a sense, this new space race evokes the traditional cargo cults with wondrous material goods being delivered from the skies (“Overshoot”, op. cit.; “Beyond Global Cargo Cultism: Political Economy At Issue”, Dennis Small, Watchdog 146, December 2017, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/46/06.html).  

Indeed, there are pundits, on a spaced-out cerebral trip, that even actually dream and advocate about mining asteroids! The glamour boy of astronomers and astrophysicists, Professor Brian Cox, is a leading enthusiast for this prospect. Professor Cox is indeed quite an “off-the-planet” public relations agent (PR) for technocratic capitalism. He might well be a very good communicator about a lot of the science with which he is familiar, but his wider vision is deeply flawed. He is certainly no environmentalist, whatever his pretensions in that regard. Far from it!

Cox sees the application of science to technology in space as the way to improve our civilisation in the future, a civilisation moreover in which he is very happily embedded (“Science The Last Hope For Humanity”, Dani McDonald, Press, 28/5/18). Cox covered “the commercial exploitation of space… in his BBC series The 21st Century Race For Space” (ibid.). He obviously presents so much of the British Establishment view in the exposition of his own opinions on such documentary programmes.

Globalising The Heavens In The “Human Universe”

For sure, Professor Cox lets loose in mad scientist mode, saying that: “The commercial exploitation of space is just beginning” (ibid.). He actually declares that: “One of the worst ideas we've ever had as a civilisation is that we have access to limited resources” (ibid.). Instead, he wants to escape the limits of the Earth altogether. But he tries to put his own seemingly benign, Earth-friendly, and enlightened spin on this take-off into space.

The idea of limits is wrong, according to Cox: “Because that leads to the idea that we should compete for the resources, and fight among ourselves for resources, and exploit the planet; when, in fact, we have access to unlimited resources the moment we start to think beyond the face of the Earth” (ibid.). This is surely out-of-this-world stuff, but typical futurist spiel. Professor Cox thus turns accepted environmental wisdom neatly on its head in aid of the predatory, self-destructive system of which he is such a shining exemplar celebrity.

There is nothing here about the need to address the roots of our human nature and try to come to live within the Earth's planetary boundaries. His grasp of so many of the realities on planet Earth, the politics and practical circumstances of development issues, etc., are all enormously lacking in such surreal projections. It is pure “sci-fi” escapism! In Cox's opinion then, we can supposedly save ourselves and our planet by devoting our energies to the newly fired up project of space exploration and exploitation. And this from a scientist, who at the very same time, talks about the need to tackle the challenges of global warming and climate change! 

What Professor Cox and his confreres are doing actually amounts to trashing the Earth – indulging in the exuberant exultation of power during the peak human period of dominance and habitat transformation/destruction. Much of this hubristic attitude is aptly expressed in both title and text of his book, “The Human Universe” (by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen, William Collins/Harper Collins, 2014).  Another huge irony and contradiction is that apparently Sir David Attenborough has given Cox his blessing as his “natural successor” (“Science The Last Hope For Humanity”, op. cit.). You would have to delve into the labyrinthine intricacies and tangled rationalisations of the British Establishment to make any sense of this!

Capitalist Contradictions Galore!

Of course, it is certainly sobering that human competition is being seen by such commentators as Professor Cox as impossible to regulate, i.e., other than by having access to unlimited resources, even if such touted resources are just “pie in the sky”. Cargo cultism is a certain dead end.  It is especially the height of irony, too, that the space race is now entering a new militarised phase. A fundamental problem looms over the very premise of those calling for the mining of space. If humans ever got as far as trying to mine asteroids, or whatever rock forms in space might take their fancy, there would be fierce and mounting conflict for access anyway!

For certain, there are all sorts of bizarre contradictions tied up with Cox's ideology and his role in the British Establishment. The central one is his belief that we can “expand our civilisation without further damaging the planet” (ibid.). Most bizarrely again, he “suggests the values of science are the key to creating a balanced society that can cultivate civilisation without putting the Earth at risk” (ibid.). But what values of science does he mean here?

Professor Cox certainly does not look to the values expressed by the potentially revolutionary environmental movement, as articulated by its leading scientific thinkers in the late 1960s and early 70s (“Philosophers Of The Earth: Conversations With Ecologists”, Anne Chisholm, The Scientific Book Club, 1972/74). Instead, Cox looks to another physicist. His choice is portentously ominous and symbolic.

“Cox looks to Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist and professor of physics most famous for being in charge of the Manhattan Project (the project that developed the atom bomb in the 1940s and 50s) for inspiration” (“Science The Last Hope For Humanity”, op. cit.). According to Professor Cox, Oppenheimer got “us to look at the universe in different ways, to look at nature in different ways simultaneously” (ibid.). What this exactly means in terms of practical policies is left very vague except Professor Cox supposedly condemns “absolutism” (ibid.). Remarkably, he calls for the application of the approach of scientific scepticism and doubt to modern society and its future.  

“Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds”

Professor J Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in WWII – famously, or rather infamously! - cited the Hindu scripture quote just above. “The father of the atomic bomb” was contemplating the horrific destructive power unleashed by nuclear weapons, which he had done so much to help create. The line quoted comes from the Hindu mythological saga, the “Bhagavad Gita” (“Song Of God”), part of the Mahabharata, which in turn is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of India (the Ramayana being the other one).

But Oppenheimer, whose life and career were characterised by a whole complex of intellectual and emotional tensions and contradictions, never resiled from his responsibility in the creation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD; J Robert Oppenheimer, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer). It is very chilling to remember that when the news came of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the people at Los Alamos were overjoyed and partied up!

In light of the admiration expressed by Professor Cox for Robert Oppenheimer's insights, it is worth taking note of the considered evaluation on Oppenheimer's legacy.in the relevant Wikipedia entry (ibid.). Professor Oppenheimer is seen “as symbolising the dilemmas involving the moral responsibility of the scientists in the nuclear world” (ibid.). Ironically, the conclusion of the Wikipedia entry gives a positive spin about the involvement of scientists in the real world, away from their ivory towers. Wow!

“As a military and public policy advisor, Oppenheimer was a technocratic leader in a shift in the interactions between science and the military, and the emergence of ‘Big Science’” (ibid.). While it is true that the threat of fascism motivated many scientists to commit their expertise during WWII, the rise of the military-industrial complex drew so much of scientific research into the enterprise of tribalist militarism, and the goal of ultimate self-destruction. Ironically, again, the Wikipedia entry sees the scientists rallying in WWII wanting to save “Western civilisation” (ibid.). Now we have unleashed American neo-fascism. Time marches on!

Spiritualised Warfare And Civilised Barbarism

“As a cultured, intellectual, theoretical physicist, who became a disciplined military organiser, Oppenheimer represented the shift away from the idea that scientists had their 'head in the clouds', and that knowledge on such previously esoteric subjects as the composition of the atomic nucleus had no 'real-world' applications” (ibid.). In quoting the line earlier cited from the “Bhagavad Gita”, Robert Oppenheimer was going to the heart of the moral and spiritual questions central to this religious tract. 

The “Bhagavad Gita is written in the form of a dialogue between the warrior Prince Arjuna and the charioteer Krishna, an incarnation (or avatar of the god) Vishnu…  Concerned over the suffering the impending battle will cause, Arjuna hesitates, but Krishna explains that the higher way is the dispassionate discharge of duty without concern for personal triumph” (“Bhagavad Gita” in the Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia, 2003, pp207/8).

“The ‘Bhagavad Gita’ considers the nature of God and ultimate reality and offers three disciplines for transcending the limitations of this world: jnana (knowledge or wisdom); karma (dispassionate action); and bhakti (love of God) (ibid.). “Dispassionate action”, as the code of the dedicated, dutiful warrior, is surely the value enshrined in the Pentagon and other military institutions across the world. 

“Karma”, in the traditional religious sense of moral responsibility and the resultant accumulated consequences of one's actions, now hangs over us all more ever than before – like the sword of Damocles! Our due punishment and retribution threatens to be terrible; and multitudes of innocents, both people and animals, would also suffer along with the warmongers. 

Professors Oppenheimer and Cox are pointing us towards a dead end. But, no doubt, our egregiously superficial mainstream media will give Professor Cox's political opinions the usual fawningly uncritical coverage when he visits Aotearoa/NZ on his celebrity scientist and “'very ambitious' first world tour, touching down in Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland in June 2019” (“Science The Last Hope For Humanity”, op. cit.).

Reactionary Tribalism

In the modern era, American capitalism has been the cutting edge of corporate expansion and assault on the Earth's ecosystems. Greg Grandin, a New York University historian, ably sketches both the background and implications of its latest virulent form with the rise of Trumpism; and how Donald Trump has played on the theme of white victimhood, turning the historical record on its head (“The Death Cult Of Trumpism”,  Nation, 11/1/18, https://www.thenation.com/article/the-death-cult-of-trumpism/).

Trump portrays the victims of corporate globalisation as whites suffering from the inroads of African Americans, “Latino migrants (themselves the victims of decades of trade deregulation…), and refugees from regions devastated by US militarism”, along with other unfortunate peoples, the human flotsam and jetsam spat out by globalisation (ibid., see also, e.g., “Ripped & Torn: Levi's, Latin America, & The Blue Jean Dream”, Amaranta Wright, Ebury Press, 2005/6; “Seven Days In Dhaka: Dying For Fast Fashion”, Daily Blog, 30/6/18, https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/06/30/seven-days-in-dhaka-dying-for-fast-fashion/).

President Trump is now elaborating and amplifying this theme - and moreover, taking drastic action in accordance with it! - by contending that the US itself and its workers have been victims of “free trade”. Yet this is the very economic philosophy and practice that America has long pushed on to the rest of the world. 

The Tightening Noose Of Capitalist Contortions

In another great irony then, the pursuit of free trade has come to rebound, to a degree, on the US itself, in the wake of its TNCs setting up shop in China, following its habitual practices in other countries with very low labour and environmental standards. Yet even before the rise of China, the determining factors were clearly and historically demarcated. The processes involved were evident enough on examination.

It has been well argued, for sure, that: “the place-bound mastery of technology, the territorial construction of production systems and politics, and the territorial bounding and differentiation of class relations are key to the dynamics of those processes, and hence to the shape of particular capitalisms” (“The Capitalist Imperative: Territory, Technology, And Industrial Growth”, Michael Storper & Richard Walker, Basil Blackwell, 1989, p227). 

Capitalist growth constantly reaches out into new territories in a very uneven fashion. “But this is not all, for capitalism fundamentally operates via strong competition, and [therefore] inter-place competition – in a variety of political, economic, and social dimensions – is a vital part of that struggle between new and old, in which whole epochs are born, fight for supremacy, and pass from the scene” (ibid.). The changing and “inconstant geography of capitalism” can generate instability and conflict.

Much American manufacturing has suffered from a flood of imports, especially from China - hence the so-called “Rust Belt” - although sectors like finance, the arms industry, “high-tech”, and information and communications services have boomed. Trump has now pitched the world into trade wars, dramatically slapping punitive tariffs on steel and aluminium, even citing national security concerns. Indeed, there is currently a range of trade disputes instigated by the US with countries from France to China.  Even loyal client “Five Eyes” partners like Canada and NZ are being shafted! Within the US itself, Trump's trade policies are proving divisive, along with his immigration policies, etc.

Exceptionalism, Exemptionism, And The Libertarian Licence For Exploitation  

Historian Greg Grandin incisively dissects the very self-serving ideology of American liberty. He says that: “In a modern nation like the US, founded on a mythical belief in a kind of species immunity – less an American exceptionalism than exemptionism (my emphasis), an insistence that the nation was exempt from nature, society, history, even death – the realisation that it can't go on forever is traumatic“ (“The Death Cult Of Trumpism”, op. cit.).

Grandin's emphasis on the creed of American hubristic exemptionism is very perceptive and certainly cuts to the bone.  But he does not, however, really give any specific evidence in support of his assertion that Americans in general have woken up to their limitations.  He simply quotes in his conclusion a Trump voter acknowledging that an awful day of reckoning will be coming.

I suspect, in fact, that most Americans do not really acknowledge these limitations at all. They are reacting to perceived frustrating restrictions and handicaps that surely inspired leadership can remove. In most cases, any recognition of real limits is probably more subconscious, if anything. There is still widespread denial of any constraints, despite - for instance - a significant number of states and cities, and many Americans overall, taking action to combat climate change. 

After all, there are still plenty of capitalist ideologues like Professor Brian Cox promoting unlimited growth, especially in the US. Trump's appeal to voters, too, was to “make America great again”! He posed as an outsider who would clean up Washington, and reset the nation on the right track, restoring its former glory in even more grandiose style. 

Another American historian, Professor Nancy MacLean of Duke University, sees Donald Trump as a maverick, who does not conform to the strategy charted by the far Right “libertarian” clique that developed around the ideas of Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan. This clique has had, until very recently, soaring success. It was funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers and other wealthy donors (“Democracy In Chains: The Deep History Of The Radical Right's Stealth Plan For America”, Scribe Publications, 2017).

The Myth Of Freedom

While President Trump regularly invokes the magic mantra of “freedom”, he actually succeeded in getting to the White House by mocking other radical Rightwing candidates for Presidency, and then, later, various rivals, and even erstwhile cronies, in the role of President.  In Professor MacLean's words, Trump is a “real estate mogul and TV celebrity, who did not need the Koch donor network's money to run . . .” (ibid., p.xxix). 

Furthermore: “He loved capitalism, to be sure, but he was not a libertarian by any stretch”, and so “no more free trade deals that shuttered American factories” (ibid.). At this point, Professor MacLean herself seems to also take Trump's con job pledges about “no cuts to Social Security and Medicare” far too seriously, as time has quickly proven. 

Professor MacLean, on the other hand, identifies the current US Vice President Mike Pence as a person who has worked closely with many far Right organisations over the years, and shares their agenda in accordance with the standard agenda (ibid., p.xx). But, on the issue of free trade and imports, President Trump has had to make some effort to keep a substantial part of his constituency on side. He does have, anyway, a strong ideological commitment and readiness for belligerent bullying on trade matters, and even openly against allies.

On so-called “free trade”, President Trump and his Vice President, according to their respective stances before the general election, would appear to have had real differences, at least on the surface. Mike Pence had portrayed himself as a fervent free trader. But “America First”, as the Presidential paleo-conservative clique sees things, is clearly the guiding maxim in office today.  The political Right is still in control in the US as ever, but a somewhat different capitalist fraction and faction has taken over. The shift towards open fascism continues…

The old saying that he who has the gold writes the rules has most assuredly proven true again. With the decline of American hegemony, the appeal to freedom has got pretty ragged!  As the imprisonment of children in cages on the US/Mexican border recently demonstrated, with all the echoes of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the “Stars and Stripes” and the banner of liberty are now increasingly in tatters.

Fall-Out From The Progress Of Globalist Capitalism

For the pundits of corporate globalism, never mind if industrialisation is destroying a liveable habitat for humankind, wiping out an increasing multitude of other species, and warming up the planet. Never mind the increasing inequities across the globe, and the growing mass of “un-people” in what are now designated as “fragile states” (i.e. “failed”, or “failing” states) from Libya to Iraq, and from Nigeria to Afghanistan. 

To be sure, if you look at the top 12 “fragile states” according to ranking by one widely disseminated assessment, i.e., the “Fragile States Index” - South Sudan; Somalia; Central Africa Republic; Yemen; Sudan; Syria; Democratic Republic of Congo; Chad; Afghanistan; Iraq; Haiti; and Guinea - a prime reason for their fragile statehood is victimisation at the predatory hands of powerful external players (“List Of Countries By Fragile States Index”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index). 

Against the background of traditional colonialism, take the recent histories of the Sudan, and its breakaway state of South Sudan, the world's newest country (in July 2011). China has, of late, muscled into what had become yet another Western fossil fuel playground, along with its (1899-1956) British colonial legacy of commodity crops, especially cotton. Geopolitical competition in Africa, as elsewhere, has been ramping up.

The Growing Humanitarian Crisis

Consequently, the US Clinton Administration (1993-2001) wanted to overthrow Sudan's government to ensure American control, and then later the George W Bush Administration (2001-2009) worked to back the secessionist independence movement in South Sudan, where most of the oil is located. Now, tragically, in the wake of its declared independence, South Sudan is torn by bitter inter-tribal warfare. 

It is where the former NZ Labour Party Leader, David Shearer, is currently involved for the United Nations (UN) in sterling relief and peace-making efforts (South Sudan, ReliefWeb, 16/5/18, https://reliefweb.int/country/ssd;  Near verbatim full transcript of Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General – David Shearer, Press Conference, 10/5/18, https://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/near-verbatim-full-transcript-special-representative-un-secretary-general-david).   

“The humanitarian crisis in South Sudan continues to intensify. As a result of the compounding effects of widespread violence and insecurity, and a deteriorating economy, seven million people – more than one in two across the country – will need humanitarian assistance in 2018” (South Sudan, ReliefWeb, op. cit.). Many people have been displaced from their homes within the country (ibid.). 

African refugees are still dying in desperate efforts to cross the Mediterranean, while Muslim Rohingya refugees are cramped in dire conditions just inside the border of Bangladesh, having fled persecution and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar (Burma). But I've read, heard, and seen very little about the plight of these two peoples in the mainstream news so far this year.  And these are only two examples, although especially serious and urgent, out of a large number of such instances. But, then, these are the “un-people” that the West mostly disdains and ignores! (“On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima To Drone Warfare”, Noam Chomsky & Andre Vltchek, Pluto Press, 2013). 

All the listed “fragile” countries above, with their multitudinous refugees and internally displaced peoples, have been victims of Western colonialism and neo-imperialism in one way or another; and, all of them still suffer from ongoing abuse. Indeed, the misery of South Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc. seems to be endless. We need to help rally far greater support for the alleviation and remediation of such suffering in lands like South Sudan, and other states defined as “fragile” and “vulnerable”.

Googling Catastrophic Globalist Consumption

Meanwhile, the political struggle goes on as always within Western society itself. NZ social commentator and satirist Joe Bennett brilliantly encapsulates the contradictions of corporate globalisation in one of his pithily clever nutshells of commentary: “I read that Elon Musk, tomorrow's darling, is stressing the urgency of shipping people to Mars. For then, says he, when we reduce this planet to a smoking wasteland, whether on purpose or by accident, there's gene stock available to start again elsewhere. So that's all right then. Whoo hoo” (Stuff, Joe Bennett, “High On Musky Aroma Of Innovation” 21/3/18, https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/102394899/joe-bennett-high-on-musky-aroma-of-innovation). 

Bennett most aptly sends up the local rapture exhibited here - by Big Business and development pundits in both Canterbury and wider NZ - for “Tomorrow's transport of delight. The caroplane. Or aerocar”, i.e. a flying-car (ibid.; “Secret Flying Car Tested In Canterbury”, front page story in the Press, 14/3/18). If we have the cargo cultist fantasies of bringing back rocks mined from asteroids to help save our civilisation, then closer to terra firma the celebrants of technocratic globalism are also currently transported with the prospect of flying taxis, hovering clear of traffic jams.

Ironically, again, in the very same edition of the Press (21/3/18) containing Joe Bennett's excoriating article, there were two commercially oriented pieces promoting the “caroplane” (“Kiwis Sought For Electric Air Taxis”; & “Open Our Arms To Tech Incubators”, Press, ibid.). Just like all the preparations and momentum for WWIII, the surreal absurdity of so much of the attitudes and behaviour of the global technocratic elite and their media cheerleaders fails to register in their own minds. They take themselves and their utopian visions so seriously, although the odd celebrity “entrepreneur” like Elon Musk can seem somewhat off the rails, even within their own esoteric circle! (see more below).

The flying beast so extolled in corporate circles is the “brain-child” prototype of “California-based Kitty Hawk Corporation”, with a NZ branch called Zephyr Airworks. Larry Page, Google co-founder, is a backer of Kitty Hawk, while the Corporation's Chief Executive once led “Google's self-driving car project” (“Secret Flying Car”, op. cit.).  

“Zephyr and its flying taxi named Cora hit headlines… when the company announced it had been testing its unmanned aircraft at a private airport in Canterbury [near Timaru] since October 2017” (“Kiwis Sought For Electric Air Taxis”, op. cit.).  The new vehicle, which is designed to operate much like a helicopter, “is electric-powered and will be flown by self-piloting software – with human oversight from the ground” (“Secret Flying Car”, op. cit.).

Capitalist Cheerleading For “Sci-Fi” Fantasy

The prototype currently being trialled “can hit speeds of 150kmh” and carry two passengers (ibid.). Most bizarrely, on our increasingly overcrowded planet, this high-tech caroplane is seriously being touted as having “potential in an unmanned air taxi” to help cope with “incredibly congested” road traffic (ibid.). It has the blessing of the NZ government, which is promoting it as an example of joint, collaborative technological innovation intended for commercialisation. PM Jacinda Ardern pushed the project as part of the Government's programme of trying to establish NZ “as a hotbed for the research and development of cutting edge technology, which the Government sees as a key area for growth” (ibid.).     

Research, Science, and Innovation Minister Dr Megan Woods has “launched an innovative partnership programme aiming to attract international companies working in future-focused technologies to develop their products in New Zealand” (ibid.). Both the Government and the ChristchurchNZ development agency are pushing this programme for the touted benefits, regionally and nationally.

Cora the flying car, or taxi, is a project billed by Christchurch Mayor, Lianne Dalziel, as “a great example of our commitment to be prepared for the future” (ibid.).  Zephyr Airworks boss, Fred Reid, said that the “absolute goal” was to make it accessible for everyone”, and that “this isn't designed for billionaires” (ibid.). Self-delusion, or commercial hype, this is just so much crap! But this is par for the course these days. Neo-liberalism and its triumphant, technocratic subjugation of the environment are still riding high for the moment.

In terms of the Earth's vital eco-systems - as highlighted by the introductory quotes to my article - all this short-term, blindly self-interested hoopla and promotion could not be more foolish and absurd.  It ultimately amounts to fervid cheer-leading for self-immolation (e.g., “Buckle Up For The Future Of Transport: Hyperloops, flying cars, and self-driving vehicles are moving from the drawing board to reality, writes Tom Pullar-Strecker”, Press, 18/6/18). Joe Bennett so very cleverly demonstrates the sheer vacuity of such technocratic globalist fantasies, which are now running amok again today with the current splurge of high-tech futurism. Capitalism is celebrating its stupidity again!

Pricking The Balloon Of High-Tech Puffery!

Bennett goes on to shoot down the caroplane and skewer the thing's builders, “the boffins of Silicon Valley, the bright young optimists, tomorrow's champions, the baby priests of technologism” (“High On Musky Aroma Of Innovation”, op. cit.). Bennett screwed the cutting of his witty insight into the bowels of the American-led Western assault on planetary ecosystems, and its faith in the relentless anthropogenic domination of Mother Nature. As Bennett expounded on the theme of the technocratic futurists: “And they in turn are backed by its archbishops, the very reverends of the internet, the Google Money Monsters, the Appleocrats. Because the caroplane may just be the next big thing” (ibid.).

Bennett indeed goes back deep into our “apeman” tool-making roots, with a repeated, hooting, chimpanzee-like “whoo hoo” just for fun, and good affirmative measure! (ibid.). Wow! After all, Bennett notes that the ongoing industrial revolution has thrived on the fossil fuels of coal, oil and oil, resulting in the ballooning fallout of global warming.  And then there is now all the multiplying damaging impacts of plastic pollution. 

Sorry, all you enthusiasts for the caroplane, and similar high-tech ventures, but this touted wave of the future is already proving dystopian rather than utopian. That is, of course, if you start accounting for the real underlying environmental and human costs.  Extremist American capitalism naturally denies and ignores these “externalities” (e.g., “Democracy in Chains”, op. cit.).

High-Tech Tripping

But, surely, the future ten billion of us humans can look forward to congesting the skies with caroplanes?! The technocratic fantasies of the super-rich of Silicon Valley and their globalist confreres are fixated - whatever their eminently self-serving rationales - on exploiting the Earth and its inhabitants, human and animal, for their own greedy, short-term, class interests (“Chaos Monkeys: Mayhem & Mania Inside The Silicon Valley Money Machine”, Antonio Garcia Martinez, Ebury Press, 2016).  

Neo-liberal media ballyhoo on the futurist celebration of AI and its utopian vision reigns supreme. For example, TV1's Seven Sharp mindlessly promotes the latest technological innovations. Presenters Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells waxed lyrical about the touted imminent arrival of an Uber Cora-type flying taxi on one of their shows (18/6/18). Soaring to new heights of irony, they even called the concept “mind-blowing” and “too crazy to be true”, but then went on to enthusiastically embrace it (ibid.). They extolled it as “amazing, can't wait”! (ibid.). 

Meantime, in another item on the same episode, drones have apparently come to the rescue of a ban on fireworks in China! (ibid.). Automated and lighted drone swarms have replaced fireworks, widely banned because of pollution. Drones are also taking off on another front. The US Navy is going to provide Australia with a fleet of surveillance drones to monitor China's militarisation of the South China Sea (1 News At 6pm, TV1).

Oh, what a wonderful world it is that humans are creating! In the conclusion to his article on the caroplane, Joe Bennett refers to “wonderkid” Elon Musk's urgent ambition to get to Mars in time before WWIII and preserve the gene stock in order “to start again elsewhere. So that's all right then. Whoo hoo” [my emphasis](“High On Musky Aroma Of Innovation”, op. cit.).

Extricating Ourselves From The Militarist Mire

Social Darwinist competition with its compounding geopolitical confrontations deeply concern the UN Secretary-General, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), and other international monitors/advocates for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. The BAS has put its Doomsday Clock now only a mere two minutes to midnight (and this before US President Donald Trump's violation of the Iran nuclear deal). For a review of the dangerous trends, see: “Compounding Geopolitical Confrontation, Insurgency & Counter-insurgency: Growing Challenges for Peace”, Dennis Small, Peace Researcher (PR), 54, November 2017, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/pr-backissues/pr54.pdf).

In that same issue of PR Co-Editor Murray Horton explains how Aotearoa/NZ is stuck back again in the militarist mire (“New Zealand: A Reality Check. But Isn't It Nuclear-Free and Out Of ANZUS?”, ibid.). His article was originally a speech delivered in September 2017 at the national conference in Melbourne of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN, https://ipan.org.au/#/).

Ironically, Dr Helen Caldicott, a leading international anti-nuclear and peace activist, points to the NZ example of declaring ourselves “nuclear free” under the fourth Labour Government as a source of inspiration for Australia and other countries to follow (interviewed in “The End Of Life On Earth”, New Philosopher, February, 2018, pp71-77). In appealing to the NZ example, she declares: “We need to have some courage and say to America: Stop. That's enough. No more. You need to get rid of those blasted bombs”. [my emphasis] (ibid., p77).

There is almost something like a sad Freudian slip in Caldicott's remarks. “Blasted bombs” could be detonated bombs!? It certainly reflects the underlying knife edge on which we are all standing today as the evil megalomaniac madman Trump has another one of his “killer ape” twittering, tweeting fits, fulminating “fire and fury” for his “beautiful” weapons.  Helen Caldicott, of course, has spent a most worthy and admirable lifetime trying to help prevent nuclear war from breaking out.   

Rocketing On!

A phalanx of major objectives, meanwhile, characterises the accelerated space race and its various participants, which includes Rocket Lab, the much-publicised satellite launch company operating in Aotearoa/NZ. The company is headquartered these days in Los Angeles, California.  As highlighted, the objectives of the new space race primarily pertain in reality to the increasing militarisation of space. This syndrome draws on a long history (“Defending Space: US Anti-Satellite Warfare And Space Weaponry”, Clayton KS Chun, Osprey Publishing, 2006). Overall, the underlying momentum has certainly been propelled by the American military-industrial complex.

Firmly back on terra firma, Elon Musk promotes himself as a path-charting symbol of the latest wave of supposedly Earth-friendly and ground-breaking new technology with his Tesla company’s electric cars.  Unfortunately, in this particular case, costs have so far been outrunning profits and production lines have been unable to meet demand.

Getting Your Rocks Off On Mars!?

So, on the one hand, Musk cultivates the positive image of futurist life-styles on Earth. On the other hand, he warns about the dangers of rampant, unleashed artificial intelligence (AI), and is a leader in the new commercialised space race, with the idea of escaping to the dead, red planet. The crazy contradictions of global capitalism could not be more clearly expressed. But, mind you, Musk has his cheerleaders. For example, NZ's Dr Bob Brockie, a newspaper columnist and biological scientist, who is also a fervent, anti-green, technocratic capitalist, is one of Musk's local cheer-leaders here. 

Since Elon Musk warns of imminent “Doomsday”, it must be rather confusing for the likes of anti-environmentalists like Brockie, who believe in the benign hand of the divine market. But then Musk's “peculiar” behaviour about Tesla's prospects is even rattling Wall Street these days!  Meantime, the corporate media spin a benign tale about how the new space race and its commercialisation will all be for the greater good of Aotearoa/NZ (e.g., “Space: NZ's New Frontier” Ged Cann, Press, 9/5/18). We even these days have a NZ Space Agency (NZSA), which works with “likes of NASA and the European Space Agency” (ibid.). NASA, incidentally, has a big Mars project underway.

The Crunching Contradictions Of Commercialised Militarism

The Centre for Space Science Technology (CSST), a regional research institute, proclaims its “modus operandi” as utilising the “growing satellite coverage for the benefit of traditional Kiwi industries”, e.g., winemakers monitoring their grapes (ibid.). Great benefits are touted for biosecurity and the environment in general. Certainly, there are obviously a lot of potential gains for humankind in dealing with climate change, crop production, and a host of ecologically related topics, from improved satellite monitoring.

“For example, satellite monitoring of the Earth's radiation balance, atmospheric dynamics, the oceans and ocean/atmosphere interactions, land resources, glaciers, and ice caps is (already) proving to be particularly useful in building up a detailed picture of how the environment works, and how it is being affected by human activities. Satellites are also being increasingly used in monitoring natural hazards and natural disasters” (“Oxford Dictionary Of Environment And Conservation”, Remote Sensing, op. cit., p378).

But weighing up against the environmental, safety, etc, benefits from satellite monitoring is the dark side of increasing militarisation. The Janus-faced nature of modern technology in its potential efficacy for good or bad ends is often enormous today (“The Routledge Companion To The Environmental Humanities”, https://books.google.co.nz/books?isbn=1317660188).

Cheering On Satellite-Engendered Genocide

In this regard, the concerns about rampant and poorly regulated satellite production and use are huge. Moreover, of course, the great irony here is that militarisation, including dual civilian and military applications, is extensively funded and sponsored by governments anyway. The US, of course, is the prime mover. Writing in 2006, Clayton Chun, of the US Army War College, makes clear the Social Darwinist assumptions and ultimately self-destructive aims of the “space race” (“Defending Space”, op. cit., p4). The opening paragraph of his “Introduction” spells it out explicitly, if so very ironically, since Chun is obviously personally committed to species suicide – in practice, if not consciously intended!

“In the past, most national and military leaders believed space systems and satellites were exotic or in the realm of science fiction. Today, the US chain of command from the President to the newest recruit relies on military space systems to conduct operations. The belief that military satellites are vital to national security and interests is not restricted to the US.  China, Russia, and other nations realise that the opening of space for military, commercial and civil purposes is a key to the future (!? - my emphasis). Competition to maintain and control space has increased in the past decade and will continue to do so as nations develop and integrate space-based systems into their arsenals” (ibid.).  

Suppose there was a competition in the best capitalist gambling style for a wager on the outcome of this space race! The underlying surrealistic horror of it all is yet just routinised, organisational behaviour for the major, tribally-oriented military powers on planet Earth. For the most part, their publics are docilely conditioned to the passive acceptance of this pervasive syndrome.

Stars In Their Eyes

The burgeoning global space industry, both governmental and private, is indeed interlaced with a multitude of “defence” projects and interconnections. The Western space industry, like many other human technologically oriented enterprises, had its roots both in the military and its ties to geopolitical competition. This applies to both the governmental dimension, and the more recent private dimension, and their long, historical interconnections. CSST is promoting a new satellite tracking system using visual feeds that keep the tabs on ships and other sea vessels (ibid.). The satellite imagery can be teamed up “with the NZ Defence Force's ability to act” and be more diligent in protecting our maritime waters (ibid.). 

Again, this can help better protect NZ fisheries and biosecurity. But it also demonstrates the pervasive integration of new technology, military reach, and the constant “dual use” of innovations for civilian and military employment. Most worryingly, Rocket Lab which both originated and operates in Aotearoa/NZ, has been deeply implicated in military projects. This company is now, furthermore, very much an American-owned TNC, plugged into the military-industrial complex, in conjunction with Silicon Valley.

Capitalising On The New Frontier To Oblivion?!

Peter Beck was instrumental in founding Rocket Lab in 2006 (“10 Things About Rocket Lab”, NBR, 27/5/17, https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/10-things-about-rocket-lab-ck-203485). It did not take long before Rocket Lab got involved in the American military-industrial complex.  “In 2010, Rocket Lab worked on a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA – the US Department of Defense agency that gave the world the Internet. The DARPA contract involved “a viscous liquid monopropellant (VLM) fuel that was thixotropic – neither a solid or a liquid… ‘the result of this work was demonstrated to US military clients in 2012’” (ibid.).

So, a key project in Rocket Lab's early development was for DARPA, an outfit central to the structure and functioning of the US military-industrial complex, an outfit paving the way to Armageddon. Rocket Lab cultivated further links with American capital, its military, and space industry. In 2013, it got backing from Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Khosla Ventures' investment level, along with others, has never been disclosed (ibid.).

Rocket Lab has come to specialise in firing off Electron rockets to launch small satellites relatively cheaply, and so able to compete in the emerging market for such launches. After Khosla & co., it went on to hook up with the world's biggest armaments firm.  “In 2014, another funding round saw US military and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin invest in Rocket Lab, along with Bessemer Ventures, and more money from Khosla and [Sir Stephen] Tindall” (ibid.).

Rocket Lab, heartily cheered on  by the NZ political Establishment and the media, was due to make its first commercial launch in July 2018 from Mahia Peninsula, Hawke's Bay (for background see my “Corporate Conditioning Neo-Liberal Conformity: Mainstream Media Inc and Co”, Watchdog 145, August 2017, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/45/07.html; “Today Is A Huge Win: The World Responds To Rocket Lab Launch”, NZ Herald,22/1/18, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11979604).  

From Stardust To Ashes

While a specialist capitalist publication like NBR (formerly, and better known as the National Business Review) can freely disclose the militarist connections of Rocket Lab, this aspect of its history and current ties are almost entirely hidden from the public in mainstream media reportage. The general coverage is overwhelmingly positive and gung-ho, as exemplified by the over-the-top praise for Rocket Lab expressed by TV1's Q & A Corin Dann at the end of the set of quotes in the introduction of my article (NZ State TVNZ, op. cit.). It matters little to the foreign owned/controlled media whether or not such a company is NZ-owned anyway.

American satellite warfare has long been a priority for the Pentagon. As former military rocket scientist/researcher Robert Aldridge, writing back in 1978, observed, the US has “been interested in satellite warfare for almost two decades; as early as 1959, DARPA investigated manned, manoeuvrable anti-satellite satellites” (“The Counterforce Syndrome: A Guide To US Nuclear Weapons And Strategic Doctrine”, Transnational Institute, 1978, p53). A “news blackout on military satellites” was imposed by the Pentagon from 1962 (ibid.).  

We need to note here that the term “counterforce”, as used in the title of Robert Aldridge's ground-breaking, mind-blowing tract just referenced, was the Orwellian star term in the “Pentagonese” lexicon. It actually meant “first strike!”. The crazy, evil madmen at the Pentagon have long been planning a sudden, surprise attack to try and supposedly wipe out all, or at least nearly all, of Russia's nuclear weaponry before the enemy could launch its own fleets of nuclear missiles and bombers. As a consequence of a successful first strike, the US would then emerge the winner of a nuclear war and supreme ruler of the world!

Aldridge himself went on to document in damning detail the US nuclear first strike, war-fighting strategy in one of the most important books of the 20th Century: “First Strike! The Pentagon's Strategy For Nuclear War”, South End Press, 1983). This first strike strategy has - ever since it was devised so systematically by the Pentagon and its military-industrial complex - threatened to undermine the established doctrine of mutually assured destruction, or MAD. For certain, the American military has steadily got madder. Its “Star Wars”-type programme of anti-missile defence, and the gathering impetus to automated, robotic systems, as exemplified by drone warfare, are now raising red flags everywhere.

Profiting From Doomsday

Recently, the Economist reviewed the state of play on disarmament in a surprisingly sober article for such a clarion voice of the free market/trade ideology (“Disarmageddon: North Korea, Iran & The Real Nuclear Threat”, May 5-11, 2018, p9). This leading article makes the key point that: “Even as America tries to strike a deal with North Korea, arms control elsewhere is unravelling” (ibid.). International relations are fraught with instability and uncertainty.

Among the problems the Economist cites is that of technology. It most pertinently says that: “Better missile defence could undermine mutually assured destruction, which creates deterrence by guaranteeing that a first strike triggers a devastating response” (ibid.). Russia's President Putin is now boasting of new weapons he is deploying “to counter future American missile defences. A new nuclear arms race with all its destabilising consequences is thus likely” (ibid.; see also in the same magazine issue: “Briefing Global Security: A Farewell To Arms Control”, pp17-19).

Dr Helen Caldicott observes that the American nuclear weapon makers “now have the bill, which Obama instigated, to spend 1.7 trillion dollars in the next 30 years to replace every single hydrogen bomb, plane, missile, submarine, aircraft carrier, which will keep the military-industrial complex in business using the American taxpayers' dollars. It's a killing industry. It's a murdering industry. And, simultaneously, the Americans don't even have a free healthcare system” (“The End Of Life On Earth”, op. cit.).

On top of all this, the Trump Administration has added the new space war programme. The private US space industry is deeply embedded in this programme. Elon Musk's bizarre posturing graphically points up and highlights the contradictions at work. On the one hand, he is part of this space race militarisation; and, on the other, he wants to use spaceflight to eject from Earth before it goes up in flames!

Off Their Rockers!

By mid-year 2018, a big new boost to the American-led militarisation of space was shaping up (“DARPA To Begin New Effort To Build Military Constellations In Low Earth Orbit”, Space News.com, 31/5/18, http://spacenews.com/darpa-to-begin-new-effort-to-build-military-constellations-in-low-earth-orbit/). “Laying a path for the military to transition from huge satellites in geostationary earth orbit to constellations of smaller platforms in LEO (low Earth orbit) has been a long-time pursuit at DARPA” (ibid.)

“It is reviewing bids from space industry vendors as it sets out to prove that there are cheaper, nimbler alternatives to traditional military satellites” (ibid.). Smaller satellites are more elusive to electronic or kinetic attack. The converse is also true, i.e. they are more deadly as anti-satellite weapons (ASWs).  “The basic formula (for DARPA) will be attach military-unique sensors and payloads to commercial satellite buses” (ibid.).

Enter Rocket Lab and other private spaceflight companies, jostling for contracts. A San Francisco-based firm called Spire Global, started in 2012, partners with Rocket Lab in California. Meanwhile, this is all cheered on here by the likes of TV1's Corin Dann, and the NZ Herald's business writer Holly Ryan (TV1, op. cit.; “Today Is A Huge Win”, op. cit.). It's surely a mad, mad, mad world!

Rocket Lab is one of the American companies pushing us all to the edge of doom. But here in Aotearoa/NZ, as noted, the political class and the media want to help enable, and even boost, the race to human destruction as much as possible. This is the reality in practice, whatever their blindness and crazy rationalisations.  TV1's Corin Dann is the very epitome of this sort of neo-liberal cheerleader.  Over the years, including his role as TV1's Political Editor, Dann has demonstrated a narrowly focused business orientation, showing little awareness or concern about our impact on the natural environment, and its increasingly detrimental blowback.

Stardust, Or Bulldust In Their Eyes?!

But never mind, the political and corporate Establishment here in Aotearoa/NZ is rapt with commercialised rocket science, and with its fast-developing array of space probes, satellites, etc., a la Rocket Lab. For sure, new technology in all its forms is the buzz phrase today, but not a word please about the vast and diverse array of environmental costs involved. 

And, not a word, too, about all the human costs levied by the West's ongoing predatory plunder of the mineral and other raw materials extracted from poorer countries. After all, this so often requires the bloody use of deadly force, whether directly or indirectly administered (e.g., see “Days Of Revolt: America's Death Squads”, YouTube, 5/1/16, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN6InTMWt7Q, interview by Chris Hedges of the intrepid investigative journalist Allan Nairn; see also PR, op. cit.). 

As the intrepid Nairn remarks, while the US has been, by far, the worst perpetrator of human right abuses, any major power is prepared to be ruthless (“Days Of Revolt”, ibid.). As China and other rising powers step up their competition with an increasingly aggressive US, they, in turn, will be similarly brutal in approach. China has already cosied up to repressive regimes like Sudan and Zimbabwe, while Russia has backed Assad's rule in Syria to the hilt.

Another crucial insight put forward by Nairn is how big powers, and also lesser, but significant, militarist players like Israel, need to thrive constantly on dramatic tension, however artificially contrived. Their leadership is dependent for control on the cultivation of such tension.  In the case of the Trump Administration, we have an extreme situation of endemic volatility, as well the need to constantly distract the public with deliberately manufactured external threats and crises, viz. from North Korea to Iran, from Syria to Palestine, and from Iraq to Venezuela. US foreign policy continuously engenders increasing blowback!.

We Must Seize The Time!

Dr Helen Caldicott enjoins her fellow Australians to be “as gutsy as the NZers” (“The End Of Life On Earth”, op. cit.). Well, we surely have to pick up the gauntlet of our nuclear free stand for peace once more. A generation of American-orchestrated neo-liberalism, and the State terroristic “War on Terror” have eroded our independence, let alone all the media-induced enculturation. 

Dr Caldicott herself has done sterling work for peace over many years and remains a source of inspiration. Her appeal to her fellow Australians should also help revive us in our bid to take back our country from the gathering clutches of the American military-industrial complex, and the rising tides of globalist Social Darwinist competition.

As Murray Horton comments - in regard to the ties like the so-called “Five Eyes” spy/covert action network that bind us to the US Doomsday Machine – we see the Labour-led Coalition government as still a loyal pawn in the American Empire (“Not Very Great Expectations At All”, Peace Researcher, op. cit.). The Labour government under PM Helen Clark quietly did its best to get us back into the “Five Eyes” camp. 

We will have to work much harder within Aotearoa/NZ, with our fellow Aussie mates, and with like-minded American activists, etc., to escape these ties. The wider aim, of course, is preventing the momentum towards WWIII, and creating a viable, alternative future. This programme entails far greater cooperation to combat climate change and environmental decline. 

Confronting, Confessing, And Addressing Our “Sins”

Veteran environmental journalist John Vidal has aptly portrayed seven globalist “deadly sins” of humankind. He ironically pictures them as wild beasts in the jungle – a herd of enormous elephants trashing the forest in his imagery - that need to be culled in order to maintain habitat health (“The Seven Deadly Things We're Doing To Trash The Planet (And Human Life With It)”, op. cit.). Vidal lists them as follows:

• “Embracing hyper-consumerism”;
•  “Letting corporate power off the leash” (see quote at top of this article);
•  “Driving dangerously” - spreading more cars and roads everywhere we can;
•  Growing the “human population”;
•  “Losing soil … According to some studies, its accelerating loss is now second only to population growth as the biggest environmental problem the world faces”.  This problem is particularly endemic to NZ's landscapes and farming practices;
• Fostering inequality;
• “Poverty” - desperate living conditions feed such dire environmental and social problems as the illegal wildlife trade, and the drug trade (op. cit.).

John Vidal summarises these seven environmental “sins”, while taking the overall increasing impact of climate change for granted. If PM Jacinda Ardern has labelled action to deal with climate change her generation's “nuclear free” moment, we can point with scepticism, at the same time, to our virtual reintegration into an ANZUS-type nuclear military agreement controlled by the US (“Not Very Great Expectations At All”, op. cit.).  Our purported “nuclear free” policy is only a fig leaf!          

Moreover, mindlessly embracing high-tech ventures from US-owned Rocket Lab to US-owned Zephyr Air Works only puts us all even more firmly in the grip of the American military-industrial complex. Silicon Valley wants to deal with all the environmental problems caused by mounting car numbers by starting up flying taxi services around the planet! It is an eminently dumb and quite absurd solution for a host of reasons but totally in line with our technocratic neo-liberal culture. 

Coming Back Down To Earth

A positive and enlightening counterpoint to the image of giant elephants on the rampage in the jungle is neatly provided in the book “Rainforest: Dispatches From Earth's Most Vital Frontlines” (Profile Books, 2018) by Tony Juniper, long-time environmental campaigner and currently Campaigns Director for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Juniper deftly illustrates the crucial role of animal-plant interactions in maintaining healthy ecosystems. He gives a most relevant example in the role of the African forest elephant, the smallest of the three extant species of elephant. Its conservation status is classed as “endangered”. Human conflict in the Congo and the illegal trade in ivory are obvious threats to its long-term survival.

“Elephants have been described as 'mega-gardeners', due to the way they move tree seeds through the forests, not only taking them long distances but also depositing them in a generous package of manure. African rainforest elephants are especially important ecosystem engineers, with many of the species of tree whose seeds they disperse having evolved together with the animals. In the Tai Forest National Park in Ivory Coast, forest elephants are the major (and perhaps even the sole) dispersers of seeds from up to 30 kinds of trees” (ibid., p68).

Incidentally, Tony Juniper's “Rainforest” book is a highly informative, very readable, and hugely urgent wake-up call to the world to save the last rainforests, so vital for humankind's survival. As the book's cover blurb declares: “Rainforests are key to the health of our world – they maintain the Earth's water and atmospheric cycles, store and absorb carbon”, and provide sanctuaries of essential biodiversity (ibid.). 

Promoting Planetary Resilience?

Yet, as I have observed time and again, Aotearoa/NZ is firmly hooked into the neo-liberal, technocratic culture, and conditioned into conformity by the mainstream media. We so very urgently need to chart a whole new direction as much as possible for the future. As previously outlined, environmental journalist John Vidal lists seven deadly things we're doing to trash the planet. There are indeed a multitude of compounding and interconnected deleterious causes and effects, with reference to planetary ecosystems. A major problem that has actually been getting a lot of attention lately is that of plastic pollution around terra firma, and especially the increasing damage from micro-plastics in the marine food chain.

Gung-ho capitalism, as I have continually emphasised, is yet rife as ever. There were some famously and eerily prophetic lines in the iconic 1967 film “The Graduate”: lines that later proved so very ominous in meaning. A businessman tells star actor Dustin Hoffman at a family party that he has just one word to say - “plastics”!  He explains that: “There's a great future in plastics”. 

The contradictions could not be clearer between capitalism and the environment. On the one hand, capitalist pundits can celebrate the plastic billionaires, while on the other hand, plastic pollution is destroying our marine environment, and choking land areas with mounting harmful waste (contrast: “Plastics”, New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/plastics, with: “There's A Great Future In Plastics”, http://seaturtlestatus.org/pdf/r3_plastic.pdf).

In 2018, the latest research findings show that: “Microplastic and chemicals used in a range of household goods have found their way into Antarctica's pristine waters and ice caps” (“‘Pristine' Continent Not Immune From Plastic Pollution”, Press, 8/6/18). NZ has recently taken action by banning microbeads. In addition, the NZ Plastic Packaging Declaration has signalled initiatives to deal with plastic bags and other such waste (“Action On Plastic Announced On World Environment Day”, Beehive.govt.nz, 5/6/18, https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/action-plastic-announced-world-environment-day ). 

Humankind In Deep Water

Humankind has been floundering around for years on environmental issues since the early 1970s, when the movers and shakers of Western capitalism did their very best to try and bury and erase the warnings posted by the environmental movement of the time, along with its leading advocates and thinkers. Yet even some cutting-edge environmentalists can miss the boat on the turn of the tide. 

Robin Clarke in 1984 pictured the oceans as our “last unhurt resource” (“Ecology 2000: The Changing Face Of Earth”, edited by Sir Edmund Hillary, Michael Joseph, 1984, p129). He said that: “By a miracle, centuries of pouring waste materials into the oceans do not seem to have done serious damage” (ibid.). He fondly hoped that: “Perhaps mankind's increasing environmental awareness will permit the seas to escape the fate that has befallen some of the lands of the Earth” (ibid.).

Clarke's hope sounds so poignantly painful today with our oceans in crisis from overfishing, acidification, deteriorating coral reefs, plastic pollution, etc. But the environmentalist idea of a “circular economy” is at least being bruited publicly in Aotearoa/NZ for the first time under the auspices of the current Coalition government.  While the term has just been mostly cited so far in official press releases and speeches, certain civic and business groups have also been advocating its adoption. 

With China refusing to take our rubbish (or anyone else’s, for that matter) any more for recycling, the waste piling up in our own country flags the mounting problems of the global economy for us on a very embarrassingly personal basis. Some more of the costs of our current way of life are now impacting close to home, instead of being treated as economically defined “externalities”! Even the neo-liberal culture and its corporate media might start to give ground a bit to a new sort of conversation.

Countering Crony Capitalism Close to Home

It must be said that the Labour-led Coalition government is a vast improvement over the previous National Party lot. There is finally some real potential for positive change but we have to both support this Government and encourage it to do much more. We must keep the National Party, along with its pernicious “Dirty Politics” and online troll brigade out of power, as long as we possibly can (for two excellent Websites which work to counter National and its crony, neo-liberal media see: the Standard, https://thestandard.org.nz; and the Daily Blog, www.thedailyblog.co.nz).

An ongoing egregious example of NZ's neo-liberalism pertains to the hugely inordinate attention paid by the mainstream media to the lone far Right ACT MP, David Seymour (aka “The Weasel”), whose tiny, tinpot Party remains so vital a partner for National, and its chances of getting back into power. As the international scene gets increasingly wracked by trade wars and other forms of conflict, underlain by mounting pressures on Earth's resources, Aotearoa/NZ can be a leader in charting an alternative route. The critical term and idea of a “circular economy” is vital. Let's do all we can to take up the challenge.

It is easy - if yet still absolutely vital and necessary! - to be critical of governmental action as currently mooted – as in the case of climate change. Such action can seem far too little and far too late (Martyn Bradbury gives a succinct overview of the challenge: “Why Being Carbon Neutral In 2050 Is Meaningless Sophistry And The Greens Go A Lighter Shade Of Lime”, Daily Blog, 8/6/18, https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/06/08/why-being-carbon-neutral-in-2050-is-meaningless-sophistry-and-the-greens-go-a-lighter-shade-of-lime/).

Confronting Cultural Hegemony And Vested Class Interest

But most of the blame should be directed at the previous National government, which was in power for almost a decade. This neo-liberal Party and its crony media created a pernicious and debilitating climate of denial and inaction, as well as the culture of “Dirty Politics” and its “Gotcha!” line of personal attacks. For instance, PM Jacinda Ardern's partner Clarke Gayford was the victim of a nasty, lying smear campaign (“Police Scotches Dirty Politics Rumours About Clarke Gayford”, Standard, 2/5/18, https://thestandard.org.nz/police-scotches-dirty-politics-rumours-about-clarke-gayford/).

This very ugly type of stuff is still being ardently peddled by the National Party in Opposition, hand in glove with its crony media. In general, as well, the neo-liberal media regularly exploit up any negative angle they can find, or conjure up, on the Labour-led Coalition government. The NZ Herald (NZH) in particular specialises in Rightwing “news” and opinion with a well-known bunch of very like-minded journalists/commentators. These include Fran O'Sullivan; Mike Hosking & Kate Hawkesby (partners); Barry Soper & Heather du Plessis-Allan (partners), and Audrey Young, NZH Political Editor (& sister of National MP, Jonathan Young). All in all, quite a politically incestuous network!   

The NZH is part of NZ Media & Entertainment company, NZME, which, in turn, is an arm of the Australian-owned Orwellian-sounding Here, There & Everywhere [HT&E] (Here, There & Everywhere [company] – Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here,_There_%26_Everywhere_(company)). Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Australia is one of the largest investors in HT&E. NZME owns other papers in Aotearoa/NZ, as well as radio networks like Newstalk ZB, providing yet another platform for its Rightwing media disseminators. We need to grow the resistance and alternatives movement!

For A Future Worth Living

There is a desperate need for the non-government organisations (NGO) movement agitating for far more sustainability and fairness, to lift its game. We need to provide both a strong, incentive-packed platform for more radical Leftish action, and plenty of back-up support. We need to break free of ties that bind us to the US military-industrial complex and help grow the international peace and anti-nuclear movement. As a long-time participant, I certainly know how hard this programme will be in the prevailing circumstances. But there are finally some heartening signs of change, and we have to build on them.