Ingmar Lee Online

Today, two grandmothers, two priests and a nun were sentenced in federal court in Tacoma, WA Monday March 28, 2011, for confronting hundreds of US nuclear weapons stockpiled for use by the deadly Trident submarines. In commemoration of their heroic courage, I am reposting an article I wrote a while back in which I have compiled a list of similar heroic citizen acts of non-violent civil-disobedience. In a corporate-dominated world with no due-process options, NVCD has become a regrettable, but necessary tool for effecting change. Cheers,  Ingmar

The Citizen's Metamorphosis

This morning I awoke from unsettling dreams to recognize that my agenda is now construed as a hideous terrorist threat. As a regular non-violent civil-disobedient direct-action treesitter and an activist with Peace and Human Rights proclivities, I expect that I should be terrified about the unsurprising recent revelations about the extent of the Bush domestic espionage programs. I should flatter myself that my seemingly piddling efforts have now put me square on the National Security Agency (NSA) radar screen. While researching for this article, I have been browsing deep into the forbidden territory of direct-action activism, and with every click of the mouse, apparently, I'm lighting up a red-flag on some spy-screen down at N.S.A./F.B.I./Pentagon CentCom. Just by the bookmarks I've collected in my computer, I could well be slated for extraordinary rendition to some nearby dungeon of the Bush torture gulag.

Read more: The Citizens Metamorphosis

I've just read a fantastic piece of historic Canadian literature, The Silence of the North, a memoir by pioneer trappers-wife, Olive A. Fredrickson, as told to writer Ben East. Frederickson reminisces from her experiences in the north of Alberta and British Columbia in the 1920s when all was wild up there. Her travels in the then wilderness took her all through the area around Fort McMurray, now the epicentre of the Alberta Tar Sands planetary blight.

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Read more: The Silence of the North: when the tailings ponds let go....

This morning I went down to the Stephen Harper Canada Post Office here on Salt Spring Island. The X-Mas cabal is in full swing at the Stephen Harper federal public establishment and there were about 20 people ahead of me as I joined the queue. I was getting bored when I spotted the post card rack featuring a large postage-paid postcard of a beautiful healthy wolf, smiling at the camera, busting with health and wild freshness. Certainly, one expects that all merchandise on sale at the Stephen Harper Canada Post Office will have been carefully vetted...How lovely I thought, -I'll send some to my European friends...~but just then I noticed that, "CANADA" was loudly emblazoned in fancy curlicues across the bottom third of the card...

Read more: ....meanwhile, down at the Stephen Harper Canada Post Office...

Dear Gordon Campbell politicians,

We fought you and defeated you over your scheme to plow a giant motorhome parking lot into Cathedral Grove. That's a fight that ended chief parking lot proponent Gillian Trumper's political career, and which indelibly stained the reputation of your government. We fought the grotesque forest-destroying 'Bear Mountain' development that you all facilitated. We put Bear Mountain on the map as the worst example of corrupt and destructive development in the province. We will take some credit for the current bankruptcy of that hideous CDF-destroying project, and for the imminent prosecution of its racist developer, your friend Len Barry.

Now, at Nanoose, we will fight you all again.

Read more: Ready to Fight for Nanoose DL 33

In Canada's federal election, not a single one of the corporate-media-sanctioned, "officially recognized" leadership candidates has mentioned the global ecological catastrophe currently unfolding in Japan.

Meanwhile, at least 4 of Fukushima Daiichi's reactors are in various stages of non-controllable meltdown, spewing ever increasing plumes of the most toxic, long-lived poisons in the universe -yet no international emergency nuclear expert team is mobilized to protect our planet.

Canadians need to know that, -as of 2006- fully 12% of Canada's federal debt has been racked up by the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited corporation. For that investment, the Canadian taxpayer brought the BOMB to both India and Pakistan, amongst other heinous crimes against life on the planet yet to come.

The radiological poisoning of our atmosphere, distorting the very DNA of every living being on the planet into the future, will now put the climate catastrophe into the backseat...and yet, has anyone heard a single federal candidate for the leadership of our country, -with the exception of Elizabeth May- even bother a mention of this disaster?

If our political system were not so horribly stupid, corrupt and violent, it would be a joke. For anyone who gives a shit about life on Earth and wants to dignify that crap by 'exercising their right to vote,' then they damn-well better be voting Green.

Peace Be With You,  Ingmar

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May 27, 2005     by Ingmar Lee

Last year, when it became known that people involved with the
Vancouver Island marmot recovery project had been bait-killing Golden
eagles, Dr. Andrew "Mr. Marmot" Bryant, immediately went on record
expressing shock and outrage that this had happened without his
knowledge. Ostensibly, Doug Janz, then chair of the Marmot Recovery
Team had sneaked around behind his back and destroyed a number of
these magnificent birds, all in the name of 'protecting' Vancouver
Island's marmots. Later Janz took the fall for the killings, which
made front page headlines across Canada and shocked and horrified
people around the world.

Read more: Unanswered Questions about the BC governments Golden Eagle Slaughter