Commons

The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from o the common But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose. – TRADITIONAL, 17th CENTURY

“The first sign of tyranny is government's complicity in privatizing the commons for private gain.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr

No financial alchemy will ever get the private sector to build or rebuild common goods that by definition cannot be profit makers -- water and sewage systems serving the poor, public school buildings, rural broadband networks and highways, or mass transit that the poor and middle class can afford. These need government money. That is what government is for. Tailspin by Steven Brill.

"Don't trust someone who wants to take something that we all share and profit from equally and give it to someone else to profit from exclusively." Mike Bergan (quoted in Jeremy Rifkin's 'Zero Marginal Cost Society' pg 190.

Collective Intelligence and the Common Good (8/5/2024)

Judges Tell Trump His Officials Are Serving Illegally. He Does Nothing. (10/5/2020)

Trump wants to put a rightwing zealot in charge of public land. Here's why it matters (7/6/2020)

What’s an Essential Service in a Pandemic? The Post Office (4/14/2020)

The result of Republican policy, privatization, deregulation, is the destruction of the commons. That includes the air, water, forests, and in an estimated 12 years the risk or the point of no return for the habitability of the planet.

Threatened Resources: (some alluded to by Hardin) of potential and actual tragedies include:

• Uncontrolled human population growth leading to overpopulation.
• Food – Uneven distribution of food leading to world hunger. Overconsumption of plant based foods leading to shortages (e.g. coffea for coffee, cocoa for chocolate).
• Atmosphere, through the release of pollution that leads to ozone depletion, global warming, ocean acidification (by way of increased atmospheric CO2 being absorbed by the sea), and particulate pollution
• Water – Water pollution, water crisis of over-extraction of groundwater and wasting water due to overirrigation
• Forests – Frontier logging of old growth forest and slash and burn Clearing rainforest for agriculture in the Amazon or southern Mexico.
• Energy resources
• Pollution - Environmental residue of mining and drilling, burning of fossil fuels and consequential global warming
• Biodiversity -Animals – Habitat destruction and poaching leading to the Holocene mass extinction
• Oceans – Acidification, Overfishing, Coral dieoff.
• Light pollution – with the loss of the night sky for research and cultural significance, affected human, flora and fauna health, nuisance, trespass and the loss of enjoyment or function of private property.[70]
• Space debris in Earth's surrounding space leading to limited locations for new satellites and the obstruction of universal observations.[77]
• climate –

The red line on the next image is the best estimate for business as usual.

TRUMP SCAM ALERT: @realdonaldtrump just leased public lands in the Arctic Nat’l Wildlife Refuge to oil & gas companies for just $11 an acre! This is an outlandish and unacceptable giveaway that threatens one of America’s greatest natural treasures.

— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) December 12, 2019

Trump to Miners, Loggers and Drillers: This Land Is Your Land (8/31/2019)

U.S. Sees Largest Reduction of Protected Lands in History Under Trump (6/3/2019)

So exited to visit with folks at #SEJ2019! Here's a snapshot of what we're working on at The @Wilderness Society and how the Trump Administration has repeatedly moved to sell out our #PublicLands to the fossil fuel industry. 1/14

— Jim Ramey (@RameyJim) October 10, 2019

Activists Declare #FireZinke and State AGs File Suit After Interior Dept Guts Methane Rules for Public Lands (9/19/2018)

The Trump Administration Takes on the Endangered Species Act (7/26/2018)

Interior’s Plan For Softening Wildlife Shield (7/20/2018)

Trump’s Infrastructure Plan: The Wrong Road for America (4/11/2018)

Trumpfrastructure Is a Scam (1/18/2018)

How Do You Screw Up the National Parks? Ryan Zinke Is on the Case. (1/18/2018)

The President Stole Your Land (12/4/2017))

The Endangered Species Act ensures animals, #publiclands, and our outdoor heritage is protected for generations to come. The Trump administration and conflict-ridden @SecBernhardt don't seem to care. https://t.co/8lgZQ1ro6l

— Western Values Project (@Western_Values) August 24, 2019

The United States' natural resource policy - which gives away mineral rights and is controlled by special interests - is a model for how things should not be done. The secrecy with which the Bush administration formulated its energy policy - even refusing to disclose the names of the industry representatives who participated - also makes for a dismal role model. Bush's arguments for executive privilege are loved by those trying to keep secret what they are doing - whether to benefit themselves, their cronies, or a wider circle of friends who have helped them stay in power. pg 151 Making Globalization Work. Joseph E. Stiglitz. www.wwnorton.com

Trump and Bernhardt's plan for @BLMNational:

✅Abruptly relocate bureau employees in an attempt to dismantle it
✅Appoint someone who hates public lands to lead it

❓❓❓

This plan is bad for our lands and bad for the American people. https://t.co/OqpsnWB4O2

— Western Values Project (@Western_Values) August 3, 2019

“In one of the greatest ongoing surrenders of any country's history, our nation's natural resources have either been given away freely or leased at bargain-basement prices. Unlike any other country in the world, the United States has a law on the books - the 1872 Mining Act - that requires the federal government to give away mining rights, without any royalties in return, to mining companies, domestic, or foreign, that discover precious "hard rock" minerals, such as gold, silver...” Ralph Nader, Breaking Through Power pg 62 -

the federal government is now giving away public assets worth tens of billions of dollars to these holdouts, which include a relatively small number of billionaires who own media conglomerates. The American Prospect 10/2016

"The west has pursued an industrialization path that allows for the privatisation of wealth from the commons, along with the criminalisation of commons rights of the public, as well as the externalisation of all true costs. Never mind that fracking produces earthquakes and poisons aquifers - corrupt politicians at local, state or province, and national levels are all too happy to take money for looking the other way. Our entire commercial, diplomatic, and informational systems are now cancerous. When trade treaties have secret sections - or are entirely secret - one can be certain the public is being screwed and the secrecy is an attempt to avoid accountability. Secrecy enables corruption. So also does an inattentive public enable corruption." Robert Steele

Economic inequality is largely driven by the unequal ownership of capital, which can be either privately or public owned. We show that since 1980, very large transfers of public to private wealth occurred in nearly all countries, whether rich or emerging. While national wealth has substantially increased, public wealth is now negative or close to zero in rich countries. Arguably this limits the ability of governments to tackle inequality; certainly, it has important implications for wealth inequality among individuals. World Inequality Report 2018

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” - FDR

The cruelness of this administration is what America has becomehttps://t.co/oaQRagvwPh

— Blaine Bershad 🌈🌊🎵🐝 (@BlaineBershad) August 13, 2019

A Running List of How Trump Is Changing the Environment (4/3/2017)

National Parks Are Vulnerable to Privatization and Corporate Giveaways in the Trump Administration (2/10/2017)

Battle Lines Over Trump’s Lands Policy Stretch Across 640 Million Acres(11/18/2016)

The GOP's Shocking Attack on America's National Forests (8/27/2015)

Why Do Republicans Really Oppose Infrastructure Spending ? (5/15/2015)

Republican Senators Just Voted to Sell Off Your National Forests (4/15/2015)

Republicans Want to Sell off All Public Lands (3/27/2015)

The Great Republican Land Heist (2/2015)

A Grand Alliance To Save Our Postal System

Happy Public Domain Day: here are the works that copyright extension stole from you in 2015

Violence ahead as tragedies of the commons spread (11/24/2014)

Our Climate is Everyone's Property (10/20/2014)

The 15 Members of Congress Who Share Cliven Bundy’s Desire to Seize or Sell Off America’s Public Lands (5/22/2014)

Copyright for People, Not For Publishers (1/17/2013)

Darrell Issa's Got a Plan to Put the Postal Service in a Death Spiral

Ralph Nader on the Occupy Movement

Privatization is the enemy of the commons.

It is clear that Republicans have little or no regard for the environment, and their corruption is rapidly destroying it.

See pollution

Our crumbling infrastructure.

Who Owns Nature ? (pdf)

See the Free Software page.

Our Western heritage is sacred and critical to our country.

Why would Trump and @SecBernhardt want to rob America's of their #publiclands? #KeepItPublic https://t.co/08KviesYkq

— Western Values Project (@Western_Values) August 18, 2019

Bibliography

The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More by Stephen Fishman, J.D.

Half Earth, Our Planet's Fight for Life: Edward O. Wilson

Copyright Free by Stephen Fishman

The Starfish and the Spider, the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations: Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

Finding the Common Good in an Era of Dysfunctional Government: Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein: Daedalus 142, no 2 (Spring 2013)

RONALD COLMAN: Shrunken Halifax Common mirrors global assault on green spaces (6/21/2021)

Information Doesn't Want to be Free: Cory Doctorow

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commmons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism: Jeremy Rifkin

The Tragedy of the Commons: Garrett Hardin

Open Source Everything: Robert David Steele (See this.)