Tell Walmart: Don't sell Monsanto's potentially toxic GMO sweet corn
This spring, Monsanto's GMO sweet corn -- their first product for direct human consumption -- will be getting planted for the first time.
Then it will be sold, unlabeled, in a grocery store near you. What would it take to stop it? It would take the largest food retailer in the country rejecting Monsanto's untested, potentially toxic corn. Tell Walmart: Don't carry Monsanto's GMO Sweet Corn!
In response to pressure from more than 250,000 CREDO Activists and others last fall, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and General Mills all committed not to sell Monsanto's sweet corn.1
But not Walmart.
Walmart, wrote to us that "nothing is more important than the safety and satisfaction of our customers." But that's just not consistent with selling this unlabeled GMO sweet corn, which contains three genetic modifications -- including the insecticide Bt -- and hasn't been tested to prove it is safe for humans to eat.2
Walmart could make a powerful statement for consumer safety by rejecting Monsanto's GMO sweet corn, but they won't do it unless we put very public pressure on the company. Tell Walmart: Don't carry Monsanto's GMO Sweet Corn!
This corn is Monsanto's first foray into designing GMO foods that could wind up whole on your plate. If it's successful, we can be sure that it will just be the beginning for Monsanto, who already produces roughly 90% of GMO seeds around the globe.
As the largest food retailer, and even the largest seller of organic foods, Walmart can set an important precedent that could keep Monsanto's GMO sweet corn, and any future GMO foods, from taking root.
If Walmart really means that nothing is more important than their customers safety then they need to take a stand now.
1. "Food companies petitioned to ban new Monsanto GMO corn," Reuters, 10/27/11
2. "Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals," Huffington Post, 3/18/10
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) called the "failed stimulus plan" by the GOP is in my pinion the largest most innovative energy redevelopment effort in history. The successes are too long to list but the question is why hasn't the Obama Administration taken the steps available today to end our dependence on foreign oil and eventually all fossil fuels using the proven technology of advanced waste to fuel bio-refining. I believe that if this nation Declared War on Energy Dependence, we could be free of non-north American oil in 6 to 8 years. Read more at GreenEnergyScaleUp.com
Waste Mitigation is necessary. Bio fuels as a resource are fine as long as it is mitigation and we are not growing crops as a fuel source. Pound for pound bio fuel from waste should equal traditional fossil fuel consumption. I like your page www.greenenergyscaleup.com and i will share it. Let us not forget that the Beacon Energy carbon fiber/mag lev/vaccuum technology replaces batteries in wind and PV solar applications, and that vertical axis wind turbines are more efficient and take less space than bladede wind turbines, and that Molten Salt and Thermal Solar can provide electricity 24 hours per day.
"We are called upon to do more now than just find fault,
even though there is plenty of faults we must fix.
If we want to lead our nation to the next incarnation as a free,
democratic and secure country, we must put forth a positive vision
There are only two things that need to be said about Biofuels: 1. Every last bit of our crops and other plant life are needed to cleanse the air and feed each of the 7 Billion people (and counting) that are already here. 2. Utilizing land fill gas is the only biofuel that is logical. There is also only one thing that needs to be said about combustion for energy (including nuclear) in general, which is that this late in the game, burning anything at all for energy is just plain stupid.
So what shall we all do about it? A few "leaders" in nearly every country in the world profit from fossil fuels, and our planets entire agricultural system is dependent on it. There is tremendous inequity between those who profit from combustion energy and the rest of us who not only depend on it, but can also be exterminated by our dependence. Petroleum is worth much more as a manufacturing ingredient than it is as a dirty fuel. Natural Gas is still a combustion energy system and to make matters worse, the idea of capturing carbon gas underground so it will never ever ever escape while simultaneously keeping chemicals and methane out of our water supply is ludicrous.
Coal is a false economy, worthless when we are all dead and there is nobody there to take your money. No one wants to talk about the vulnerabilities of our existing nuclear plants or their propensity as weapons when they discuss "new nuclear technology." Construction and waste management costs are astronomical. The environmental risks are exhorbanent, and as with all fossil fuel industries their track record is environmentally less than stellar and socially/politically corrupt ... so why take the risks? The unfortunate thing about science is that when we learn that we could, we never ask if we should.
So What Can We All Do About It? Since humankind has made it this far in evolution then we can do anything that we all choose as a group to be done. Most of us don't know how to build a jet plane, unravel DNA, or even refine oil, but we all know it is possible because it exists. Humankind has travelled to the moon and has rebuilt most of Europe and Japan after the nearly complete and total destruction of these civilizations in the wake of World War 2. In the past there have Been
two kinds of revolution: When the average person decides that their leaders are no longer representing them and a scientific or technological revolution.
It is time for all "everyday people" to unite globally for a new kind of revolution. A green technology evolution which is four revolutions in one: a social, political, economical, and a technological evolution.
Because of the obscene amount of money that world leaders pocket with fossil fuels it will take millions of people around the globe marching in the streets to create a green technology change. The more people who show solidarity together at once, the less likely there will be bloodshed when we all demand wind and solar power generation to sustain our global agricultural infrastructure, transportation, and everyday electricity needs.
Solar Farms don't have to cover the acreage of three U.S. States, windmills don't have to be a threat to birds and bats. There are "cylindrical" wind turbines, and tens of thousands of roadways, lamp posts, water towers hi-rise buildings, sprawling warehouses and homes on which to install wind turbines and solar panels worldwide. Construction will employ thousands. When it is all finished transportation and agricultural security and stability will be so efficient that everyone would be more prosperous while each of us working fewer hours each week.
The 99 Percent Plan is a joint Roosevelt Institute-Salon series that explores how progressives can shape a new vision for the economy. This is the third essay in the series.
The fate of the labor movement is the fate of American democracy. Without a strong countervailing force like organized labor, corporations and wealthy elites advancing their own interests are able to exert undue influence over the political system, as we’ve seen in every major policy debate of recent years.
Yet the American labor movement is in crisis and is the weakest it’s been in 100 years. That truism has been a progressive mantra since the Clinton administration. However, union density has continued to decline from roughly 16 percent in 1995 to 11.8 percent of all workers and just 6.9 percent of workers in the private sector. Unionized workers in the public sector now make up the majority of the labor movement for the first time in history, which is precisely why — a la Wisconsin and 14 other states — they have been targeted by the right for all out destruction.
The urgency is striking. Instead of being fundamentally discredited, the oligarchs and plutocrats who crashed our economy are raking in record profits and acting even more aggressively to bury the American labor movement once and for all. Over the last year, several labor leaders have told me that they believe unions have only about five more years left if they don’t figure out some kind of breakthrough strategy.
Over the past 30 years, American employers have become even more aggressive at violating their workers’ rights to organize under a toothless and outdated labor law regime. Contrary to the intent of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which made it national policy to encourage and promote collective bargaining, the NLRA now provides incentives for employers to break the law routinely and ignore any compulsion to negotiate collective agreements. When there is little outrage for the daily violations of workers’ liberty (employers fire workers illegally in 1 in 3 union campaigns for attempting to exercise freedom of association), our democracy is in peril.
As worker power has eroded in the workplace, the labor movement’s political clout has also declined. Measured by both members and money, unions are still the most influential and resourceful left-wing constituency in American politics. Organized labor also remains the most powerful core of the national Democratic Party by several measures, including campaign contributions, grassroots mobilization efforts, lobbying and setting the party’s legislative agenda. Indeed, the labor movement spent a record amount of money to help get a Democrat elected to the White House in 2008.
With a labor-friendly White House and a Democratic Congress, organized labor began strategizing about how and when to push for its No. 1 priority, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Labor law reform would not only help the flagging movement survive but also offer an indirect solution to our growing problems of economic inequality and the catastrophic Great Recession. By leveling the playing field between workers and employers, higher union density decreases wage inequality in the American labor market while increasing purchasing power of consumers.
But the move to pass EFCA failed, revealing just how weak organized labor has become. Now, with no hope for labor law reform in sight, is the time to rethink the role of the labor movement in the 21st century. Progressives need a strong and vibrant labor movement that focuses not just on workers’ rights, but can also act as a democratizing force advancing social justice and expanding worker, citizen and resident power in the workplace and in their communities.
The labor movement is the critical anchor and enabler of democracy grounded on a notion of freedom. Most people have an intuitive understanding of what democracy means: rule by the people (as opposed to rule by the few or an elite). Yet, as Corey Robin so eloquently points out in his book on fear, Americans give up their individual freedom and democratic voice every single day they walk into work. The workplace is an authoritarian dictatorship, and we accept this as legitimate.
Now is the time to challenge that feudal relationship. We need to call into question the assumption that Americans believe democracy stops at the workplace door. If we would not stand for a despot to rule over us with impunity, why do we let the boss do so every day of the workweek? Any progressive advance needs a strong labor movement to achieve a fully free and democratic workplace and society. This vision of freedom and democracy manifests in two domains: the workplace and the southern region of the country.
First, labor’s role must be made much more central at the workplace and in the economy more broadly. Labor can, and should, be a governing co-partner with business and government in the economy. What labor brings to the table is a vision of growth with equity. And there are already examples of this kind of union and worker organizational influence in the economy at the regional level. The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and Working Partnerships USA, both in California, have shown how labor can become a governing partner in economic decision-making at the regional level.
Another aspect of centralizing labor’s role in the economy and advancing workplace democracy is to expand workers’ voice and power at the bargaining table. A 21st century vision of the American labor movement is one that destroys the divide between labor and community that has long governed the politics and practices of unions. What the emergence of new forms of worker organizations have taught us is that workers are also residents in communities, while residents are also workers, and there are organizational models available that take all workers’ identities into account.
While labor law constricts the scope of issues that unions can negotiate at the workplace, it doesn’t prevent worker organizations from bargaining in the political arena for affordable housing, equitable development, local, regional and national economic policy, criminal justice, or the wide range of issues that affect poor and working class people. Stephen Lerner, among others, has outlined what a wider scope of collective bargaining might look like. Imagine, for instance, that the United Auto Workers could negotiate over the environmental standards of the cars they produce instead of just wages and benefits. Such a vision requires a far-reaching campaign to redefine the scope of collective bargaining and workers’ voices at work. This is a 10- or 20-year effort to be sure, but one that will be crucial to any future the labor movement has in the U.S.
Directly related to expanding labor’s role in the economy and expanding the scope of collective bargaining is advancing freedom in the workplace. In short: democracy, over autocracy, at work. This would go beyond the softer slogan of the AFL-CIO’s “voice at work.” This is an admittedly long-term project. But several concrete demands arise out of the broad notion of a workplace democracy. For instance, the Employee Free Choice Act would have allowed workers a modicum of political liberty at the workplace; it aimed to restore workers’ rights to freedom of association. But a deeper and even more controversial demand proposes an end to management prerogative over all workplace decisions. Workplace democracy means truly giving workers a “voice” at work. Whether through work committees or required seats for employee representatives on the company’s board of directors, a deeper vision of workplace democracy enables workers’ voices to have a real impact.
The second domain for a 21st century labor movement is geographic: finally democratizing the South through the building of a Southern labor movement. After the CIO’s Operation Dixie failed to organize Southern workers in the late 1940s, with a few exceptions mostly in the public sector, organized labor gave up on the South. We’ve been suffering the consequences ever since. The Southern, Walmart model of low-wage labor markets is being imported to the North. We only have to look at the attack on public sector workers in Wisconsin and Michigan and the recent passage of Right-to-Work legislation in Indiana to understand that Northern governors and the Republican Party are trying to turn their states into Yankee versions of Southern Right-to-Work (for less) states.
Instead of retreating to a defensive posture, organized labor should launch an ambitious and bold campaign to organize the South. A Southern labor movement would galvanize workers in the region who, contrary to popular belief, would like to become dues-paying union members. Given the dramatic demographic changes occurring in the South involving increased migrations of people of color who tend to be the most pro-union and pro-worker organization (see the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ recent victory over Trader Joe’s), the opportunity for organizing and building a Southern labor movement is greater today than even 60 years ago under Operation Dixie. This effort would not only transform the low-wage economic model of the South, it would prevent the race to the bottom from North to South, and most important, it would transform the politics of the region and fundamentally the country.
What grounds this vision of a 21st century labor movement is the core idea of extending what Americans claim to cherish in politics and civil society to the workplace: democracy, liberty and freedom. The consolidation of income, wealth and political power by the 1 percent over the last several decades is directly related to the decline of workers’ voice and power. Rebuilding a truly countervailing (and democratic) power, as the labor movement did in the 1930s and 1940s, will require a bold and convincing vision of workplace democracy and freedom. Workers and their organizations have historically played this anchoring role for progressive politics throughout American history. Now is the time to reclaim this historic charge for the 21st century.
Dorian T. Warren is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He is also an Assistant Professor of Political Science & Public Affairs at Columbia University. You can follow him on Twitter @dorianwarren.More Dorian Warren
HERE ARE JUST A FEW HISTORIC EXAMPLES OF WHY LABOR UNIONS ARE NEEDED TO PROTECT YOU AND ME FROM GREEDY OLIGARCHS:
While we in 2012 have not yet been shot to death by our employers, or burned to death as well, they simply take our homes and starve us until we are willing to work for next to nothing just to survive. It is if they are saying with disdain, "let them eat cake" as they toast their evil deeds that cause so much suffering while raising a glass of champagne.
Each and everyone of us on this earth chooses our own path, but the road signs are not our own. GreenTecnology is an industrial, scientific, political, economic, and social "revolution" all rolled up into "one". If we don't "pay it forward" then we are all just wasting space. This is the fundamental rule of humanity which began with time itself. As humans we are the ones who "define time" and it is our responsibility to define our future. The most important revolution in history is upon us, a revolution that combines technology with our "civilized values and morality." A choice to focus our amazing science and technology on something sustsainable, or squander it until the end as if we are all aboard the "Titanic" just so a wealthy few can have a better life than the rest of us until we are all dead. Don't deny that our ship is no longer usefull and has begun sinking, do something to save yourself so that your children also may live. Xoxoxo
Life (forms) itself make decisions and learn to adapt even on the cellular level. critters under the microscope bump into things and change direction ( a decision) cells learned to turn energy from the sun into food and more life.
We as a species are living during the most exciting time of human history ever. We are learning, we are making a decision, we are changing direction, we are learning to adapt, we are all learning to continue living as a species.
We have communication. We are changing the minds of the "nit-wits" because after all, we are not nit-wits. We have fallen victim of the psychopaths, charmed into forgetting how to think for ourselves. but the demonstrations, revolutions, and protests in every continent world wide in 2011 prove that we as a species have awaken from our trance.
When I am on-line, at an Occupy Camp or March there is one thing that everyone I speak to says after every social/political/economic issue for change that is discussed, everyone, bar none says (to paraphrase) ... " I thought I was alone with these thoughts. I am so gratefull, and even relieved (some times with tears revealed) that I am not alone. I am so thankful to find others who think as I do !"
I always say, tell the world how you feel. Occupy the internet, identify the desciples of the psychopaths, respect thier opinion, don't hate, but encorage them to see things your way. Talk to your family, talk to your children. The best way to protect them is not with sheltering and denial from the bitter truth, but with tough love, honesty, reality, and the encouragement to become part of the underground resistance that has prevailed over tyranny and oppression time and time again throughout history.
Lead by example. Civizilation is Democracy. Fair Trade is Evolution. Evolution is Life. No spiritual guide in the universe condones the desparity between interests that exist on earth today.
L'Ami du peuple (The Friend of the People) was a newspaper written by Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution. “The most celebrated radical paper of the Revolution”, according to historian Jeremy D. Popkin,[1] L’Ami du peuple was a vocal advocate for the rights of the lower classes against those Marat believed to be enemies of the people.
We are the people. We have a voice. Let our voice be heard. We are all Jean-Paul Marat now.
Dear Sam Allen and John Deere Corporate Officers: Case/IH Corporate Officers: USDA: FSA: The White House: and President Obama,
Hyper inflation of energy prices caused by "peak oil" threaten the survival of the global agriculture system and put billions of people at risk of starvation because they cannot afford food in the crisis economy which results from the demand oif 7Billion people on our over burdened fossil fuel supply. The "peak oil" crisis and resulting lack of affordable food to american citizens is a major threat to national security and american life as we know it.
I believe that a large scale effort to impliment EV (electric vehicle) farming equipment is the best way to protect the national security of our agricultural system, and to protect our food supply from dependence on oil, after all what better place to install wind & solar charging equipment for EV machinery than on a large farm.
The other day I was invited to be part of a panel discussion for a University Sociology Class and speak about the Occupy Movement from my perspective as a participant. I was asked to write "a short bio" about how I got involved with the Occupy Movement. I found that writing a short bio was next to impossible considering the multiple issues and values that motivate myself and others to participate in creating social change and my bio became rather verbose. Upon finishing I thought it was worth sharing with everyone else so here it is:
I was a young boy in the 1970's and watched the Vietnam War Live on TV News every night. My father who was a professor at Seattle University at the time was once mistaken by State Police for Silas Bissel (the heir to the Bissel Vacuum Company) the man who bombed the ROTC building here on the UW campus near the end of the Vietnam War. I came from a loyal Union family, Teamster and UFCW (United Food & Commercial Workers Union) I have fond memories of my parents and their friends discussing and debating all of the issues of the time:
The Vietnam War, The assisination of JKF, Martin Luther, Malcolm X, Civil Rights, Womens Rights, Non Violence, Civil Disobedience, The Weather Underground (the militant faction of the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society) The Black Panthers, and the Cold War. While in grade school they still tested the air raid sirens every Wednesday at noon.
At that time Seattle was one of the first cities to recycle bottles and cans, urban farms complete with chickens were more common. The national environmental movement was born out of outrage over corporate pollution which caused things like:
A Lake Washington that you couldn't swim in at the time, the Hudson River becoming flammable, and the condemning of an entire housing development named Love Canal (which was a neighborhood back East that was built over a toxic waste dump.) These events and others resulted in the nationwide identification of what became known as Superfund Sites, places that required massive cleanups of toxic waste.
Outrage over corporate miss-management of environmental responsibility peaked with america's first major nuclear power accident, the Three Mile Island melt down, which took 14 years to clean up at a cost of $1Billion. The Kerr-McGee/Karen Silkwood Scandal came to light. Kerr-McGee was an oil, gas, and nuclear contractor with an abhorrent environmnetal and safety record. Karen Silkwood, a Kerr-McGee employee who had evidence that x-rays of faulty fuel rods destined for WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply System at Hanford) were altered by Kerr-Mcgee management. She died in a car crash while on her way to Washington D.C. to show the evidence to the NRC and the evidence she had with her was never found. WPPSS was embroiled in it's own financial scandal and along with the Kerr-McGee scandal resulted in only one of the five nuclear power plants in Hanford ever becoming operational.
In 1979 I became a politically active punk rocker, an angry version of my parents generation. I felt sold out. The urban farms had gone away and it seemed the hippies packed their bags and went away once the Vietnam War ended. In those early punk rock days the politics of England: unemployement, corporate control, and government complicancy migrated accross the Atlantic with the Sex Pistols. In america the punk rock political front included Jello Biafra and The Dead Kennedy's who reminded us of the U.S. involvement in Cambodia during the Vietnam War and the child soldiers of the Khmer Rouge , the brutality of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the attempted supression of freedom of speech by Tipper Gore, Anita Bryant and the Moral Majority which due to resistance by artists and fans resulted in the compromise of the "Explicit and Parental Advisory" stickers you see on CD's and I-tunes today rather than the total censorship of music lyrics.
The most important battle of american punk rock politics was in defense of the Sandanista Liberation Front in 1981. The Sandanista's were the ruling socialist party of Nicaragua who instituted a policy of mass literacy, devotion of significant resources to health care, and the promotion of gender equality. The Reagan administration tried to overthrow the Sandanista Government with the CIA backing of the Contra Rebels in a bloody war. The Clash donated every penny of the proceeds of their "Sandanista" album to the Sandanistas. In a supposedly democratic election the CIA backed Contras only garnered 1/3 of the votes and continued fighting.
The Reagan Administration Agenda eventually won. If the Clash and their fans were to back the sandanistas today, the band and everyone who bought a Sandanista Album could be accused of supporting terrorism and arrested without due process, held indefinetly without trial, and perhaps even be executed under the terms of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) which was signed into law by President Obama.
The events of my youth have made me who I am today and the unfortunate elements of all of these events are still with all of us today. Governmental interference of freedom, crimes against the environment, and corporate oligarchy are as entrenched as ever. The only major difference between then and now is within the news media. My parents generation trusted and depended on investigative reporting to find the issues we all have a right to know and report them, such as the Nixon/Watergate Scandal uncovered by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Today the typical news reporter simply relays what they have been told by corporate CEO's and the White House Press Officer and move on to the next assignment. No questions, no raised eyebrows, no investigative reporting.
To make a long story longer, if during my parents generation the news media had learned that:
A presidential candidate had 84 ethics violations in a previous administration, or called another candidate a snob for endorsing higher education to all, or kept millions of personal dollars in a foreign bank account, signed away our rights to a fair trial and due process, or wanted to impose his religious beliefs on the whole;
Or that a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute was named Chief of Staff of the Whitehouse Office of Environmmental Policy, and then edited science reports about climate change caused by human industry to imply that nothing is wrong, or passed a law as Vice President to exempt natural gas fracking from complying with The Clean Water Act, or invested in the oil industry as a senator and then proceeded to promote the Keystone XL Pipeline to exploit the Canadian Tar Sands, or repossed and destroyed every single electric car manufactured by GM in 1989, and gave $12 Billion in subsidies to fossil fuel corporations and only $500 million to Solyndra, and then accused China of being our enemy and blamed them for bankrupting Solyndra because China subsidized their green energy program and we don't subsidize ours;
Or that our government has accused other countries who have oil reserves of being our enemy, and that we must send our troops to their soil to ensure democracy and trade, and that we must do it at gunpoint, and that Israel is a victim in this unholy environment, and out of national guilt for the hardship and injustice endured by the Jews 70 years ago during World War 2 that we must defend them, we must convert their unholy neighbors to our form of democracy and go ahead and import their oil.
If it had become clear on the evening news that our government has accused the leadership of North Korea of being an insane dictator who willingly let his people starve, while we actually prevented the world from trading with them for more than 50 years and counting, as we also have previously done with Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, the Balkans, the Sandanistas in Nicauragua and others;
If the indifference of politicians who had profited from or looked the other way in the mortgage crisis had come to light during my parents generation of news reporting, if it was announced that the poor continue to be denied adequate healthcare;
Or the fact that our government has allowed banks to get away with "usery" (which is excessive interest on a loan, considered a sin by all those who are religious regardless of denomination or affiliation) to be legal for more than 100 years whereas in the 1920's in particular (coinciding with the great stock market crash and the great depression) a legal loan was 36%-42% interest, and illegal loans with the more reasonable interest rates of 10%-20% written by the Mafia were demonized with the term "loansharking" were only succesfully outlawed by the U.S. Government when legal loans lowered their own interest rates to between 10%-20% to be competitive during the 1950's to 1980's.
By the time legal interest rates began to rise again quality investigative reporting, editorials, news AND opinion had all but disappeared from the airwaves, replaced with tabloid style newsmagazine format. Now all american banks, Bank of America being the poster child, all again charge "usery" rates in excess of 32% Todays banks are the new loan sharks. The only difference between them and the mob of days gone by is that todays banks don't break your legs, instead they take your home, ruin your credit, which makes you unable to rent any other place, god forbid you ever lose your current home, hence drive people to homelessness, divorce, depression, and suicide.
25 or 30 years ago any one of these issues would have sparked hours upon hours of telivision media debate, point-counterpoint, one editorial after another, but today, the method of operation of network news is to scroll down the teleprompter and on to the next story. In turn viewers themselves don't have discussions about the news broadcast they just watched. There is no longer debate at the dinner table, amongst friends and co-workers. People pick a favorite channel, accept it as truth, and assume and assume anything broadcast on any other channel is wrong or a lie, and don't give anything much of a second thought.
I have children now so I will never give up although I have felt much of this time that I am fighting a losing battle all alone, that is until I got on the ground at Westlake Center for Occupy Seattle and a common theme of conversation with strangers kept recuring. People said, " I have been waiting for this a very long time, I thought I was all alone in feeling this way, I am so glad this is all finally happening." There is an overwhelming sense brewing of the realization that very few generations in the history of the world have had the opportunity and the obligation to affect change at a critical time, and that time is now.
I began publishing a Global Green Energy Economy Blog in December of 2010. By coincidence my blog coincided with the uprising in Tunisia which touched off the beginning of the Arab Spring. When Occupy Wall Street came to Seattle I was there within the first few days of planning meetings and joined the Treasury & Fundraising Group. In the tried and true police fashion of taking out leaders first, I became the first person arrested at Occupy Seattle.
In Phase Two of the Occupy Movement, The American Spring, I work full time in Social Media in networking and communicating with other Occupiers and Anonymous members around the world. The goal is that by the nature of statistics and tabulation of the internet itself, the most important, most talked about issues of the Occupy Movement world wide perculate to the top in order of importance. In this way the variety of tightly interwoven issues become more clear to all and those not yet active in initiating social change realize that there are issues on the table that also affect them and motivates others to also become active in affecting global change.
I believe that "party affiliation" has become an illusion of choice but I am still a delegate and Chairman of my Precinct Caucus and I am voting for Ron Paul.
When I was invited to join this panel I was asked, "what is one key piece of advice you would offer to others who wish to make social change?" The answer, communicate. Never miss a chance to state your case and explain what it is you are concerned about and why. Offer a solution. Seek out those who are indifferent, lackadaisical, uninformed. Light a fire under their ass and show them how what concerns you also applies to them. Seek out your opponent, try to persuade them to see what you see. Listen. Keep an open mind, remember it is a two way street. Define truth as "the truth as you know it", and reserve the right to change your mind when you discover new information.
JERUSALEM — More than a quarter of a million Israelis poured into the streets of cities across Israel on Saturday to protest rising living costs and social inequalities in a snowballing movement that has posed a serious challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The demonstration was one of the largest in Israel’s history and its biggest ever on social and economic issues. What began three weeks ago as a tent encampment in Tel Aviv to protest rising housing prices has mushroomed into a broader social protest wave demanding redistribution of the country’s resources.
Police said that more than 200,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv and an additional 30,000 in Jerusalem, with several thousands more in 20 other cities and towns. The numbers, which organizers put at more than 300,000 across the country, were significantly higher than nationwide demonstrations last week and showed that the protest movement is gathering momentum.
Throngs marched through the streets chanting “The people demand social justice!” Demonstrators held up signs that said, “People before profits,” and “Return the state to the people.” Banners demanded a “Welfare state now,” and some shouted, “Revolution!”
The demonstrations are driven by discontent among middle-class Israelis who complain that rising costs of housing, food, fuel, education and child care are outstripping their salaries. There is also criticism of widening gaps between rich and poor and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.
Speakers at the protest rallies urged a renewal of the state’s social contract with the people.
Daphni Leef, who began the housing protest by pitching a tent and inviting others to join her, said in Tel Aviv that the movement was driven by “a spirit of equality, sharing and a just distribution of resources,” which “cannot be tamed.”
Organizers in Jerusalem listed demands that included affordable housing, free education, economic rights for women and lifting the tax burden on ordinary Israelis. “We are all brothers,” one speaker said. “We are all responsible for one another. Without solidarity there is no state.”
Israel is another world government involved in the fossil fuels business, this is where all of the corruption stems from. These world governments are Anti-Green Energy Economies. A Green Energy Future is a world wide: Industrial, Environmental, Political, Social and Economic (R)Evolution which requires "everyday people" around the world to make themselves heard. This is a human and moral issue we can all agree on no-matter any of our other differences, opinions, and cultures.
General Motors Abandons Toxic Waste And Gets Away With It With The Help Of The U.S. Government ~cleanelectric
Mohawk Tells Judge He Doesn't Recognize
His Court Or State Law
Story Published: Feb 27, 2012 at 3:29 PM EST
Story Updated: Feb 27, 2012 at 8:51 PM EST
A Mohawk traditionalist charged with digging up a capped toxic landfill near his Akwesasne Reservation home told a St. Lawrence County judge he did not recognize the court or New York state law.
Larry Thompson appeared in court wearing a traditional Mohawk headdress for his arraignment on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.
The 57 year old was accompanied by a number of supporters, including several wearing Mohawk headdresses.
Thompson refused to answer the court's questions over a plea or an attorney.
He told Judge Jerome Richards the court had no legal jurisdiction over "a true sovereign" under the Onkwehonwe Signatory Tribe's constitution.
Thompson says the former General Motors Corporation is the "real criminal" for failing to remove toxic chemicals from the site which are now bringing cancers and other health problems to the Akswesasne Reservation.
"It's a perfect example of who the law protects. It's the big corporations and they got off scot-free. They got bailed out by the United States government and the people are left with the contaminants that are still leaching into the ground, the water and the air," said Thompson.
Thompson allegedly used a backhoe to drive through the fence at the former GM site on August 11, 2011 and then dug into the capped landfill where the toxic chemicals were left buried.
This is a re-post from the Vancouver Observer News (A Canadaian publication)
very close to my own hometown.
The power of this article is the stark truth that earth itself is all of our own true hometown.
In an industrial age that has ruled the planet, our resources, and all of the world governments as well for the past three lifetimes, an age that has ruled uber alles (over all) enough so that governments of each and every design imagineable, no longer fullfill thier obligation to govern the people in the best interests of the people.
In the very same industrial age of three generations of world government and multi-national corporations have degraded the total survivability of our entire beloved planet by at least 80% for all of us.
We are already more than a decade into the 21st Century and it should be clear to everyone that for life on earth to be sustainable and to not go down in history as the generation who threw it all away forever, that we must relegate the fossil fuel age into the history books with the dinosaurs that it came from, and embrace a new millenium powered by a green energy economy.
We must embrace and work together without borders for an age where the power of oil and other fossil fuels that have both improved and ruled our lives to the detrimant of us all in the long run, is no longer of power, benefit, or real value to anyone who wishes thier children to awake to see tomorrow.
We must embrace a future where there is a paradigm shift in the value of resources, where coal is wortheless because of the harm it causes, where oil is more valuable as a manufacturing ingredient than it is as a fuel, where clean water is more valuable than slightly less air polluting natural gas, where corn is more valuable as food than it is as fuel for our cars.
We must embrace and work together for a future where fair trade of our earths natural resources that are required to build a global green energy economy is of the highest value and a (R)Evolution in technology that knows no borders, no color, no theology over another, a future that values clean energy, clean land, clean air, clean water, and clean food by fair trade that enables every community on earth to achieve energy independence and perpetually provide jobs in the maintenance of the next global social/industrial (R)Evolution.
That is my editorial, here is the original article:
Oil refinery in Jamnagar, India
The most moving moment of theEnbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel hearings in Prince Rupert which wrapped up Saturday were spoken by Lee Brain, the 26-year-old son of an oil executive. Here is an excerpt of his speech:
My oral evidence today comes in the form of a story, an experience I had three years ago which directly reflects the impacts this project will have on me, and my community.
The story begins after a lifetime of debating with my father -he thought it was high time for me to finally experience first-hand the magnitude and power of the oil industry.
So in the summer of 2009, I had the opportunity to spend one full month on one of the world’s largest oil refineries, producing 800,000 barrels of oil per day. At the time, it was under an expansion project to produce up to an astonishing 1.2 million barrels per day and for confidentiality reasons, the company and details of the project will remain unnamed.
The catch was that this refinery was in a very rural area in a northern province of India – right on the coast of the Arabian Sea, and bordering Pakistan. So here I am, 23 years old traveling to India, and needless to say, tensions were high upon arrival. Coming through the airport, between the H1N1 virus outbreak and the one year anniversary of the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks of 2008, the military presence was simply overwhelming.
I landed in Mumbai, or Bombay to the locals, and spent a day travelling to the northern province of Gujarat, Ghandi’s home province. Situated outside the small village of Jamnagar, I stayed in a secured complex surrounded by high walls, meant for expatriates – in literally the middle of nowhere. The land in the region was primarily used for agricultural production, but due to the strategic location on the Arabian Sea, naturally there was large military and industrial presence in the area as well.
Each day I would wake up at 6 a.m., and travel roughly an hour to the refinery. Guarded with AK47s, I remember the first day of my arrival I had the whole place in a stir, wondering why I was there. And to tell you the truth, I was thinking the exact same thing. It’s not easy being in a foreign country, being the only young Caucasian male in sight, amongst 50,000 workers constantly staring at me. But my fears quickly subsided as I spent more time there each day, and learned about the gracious, kind and humbled culture of the East – regardless of the portrayals the media would have you believe.
I spent each day with 2-3 different managers from each department, and was able to learn a large portion of each faculty of discipline during my time there. I was very fortunate to have received such an in-depth, bird’s eye view of the entire project -- and not even the most qualified engineering intern would have had this opportunity. The experience itself changed who I am, fundamentally, forever.
I learned about the entire EPCM – that is, the production process from engineering, procurement, construction, and management – I spent many hours and days with managers from piping, documentation control, distributed control systems, civil, biological, chemical and environmental engineering instrumentation, quality control, marine operations, water management -electrical and on-site power production – from construction management, procurement and materials, product creation and commercial supply, safety and security, and loading and unloading via rail, truck, VLCC (very-large crude carriers) and ULCC (ultra-large crude carriers).
I am not exactly sure if the average person could fully appreciate the sheer magnitude of the operation, and the intricate interrelationship dynamics between workers, departments, managers and corporate headquarters. It is nothing Discovery Channel would ever be able to portray.
The experience made me question many of the fundamental assumptions I had been making regarding the industry itself. I was realizing just how tricky of a situation we are in globally. My naïveness of the reality and immensity of this substance was not fully actualized until I had this experience. I can say right now, that I fully respect the power of oil.
One such day on the refinery stood out in particular. It was a hot, sunny and humid day, after monsoon rainfall my entire time there – I think it was most likely the Prince Rupert weather following me overseas – and on that day a hand full of managers thought it would be fun to take me out to the Jetty, where they loaded and unloaded the super tankers. Situated a lengthy route away from the refinery itself, we drove down to towards the coastline.
On our way there, we drove past many different villages. Each one looking extremely impoverished. I learned later that this was not always the case. There was a time in this region where fishing, farming and the local economy truly flourished. But once the refinery project was approved, among other projects in the region, they built a pipeline directly through nine different villages. Over a period of time, there was pipeline breakage which contaminated an underground aquifer, and spoiled the wells and water supply of the majority of the surrounding villages. As industry expanded, and land bought and sold, men were forced into cheap labour at the refineries, after lifetimes of sustainable farming and fishing – now dependent on one or two companies for employment. Women, children and elders went starving after losing access to fresh water, with no accountability for cleanup – just left to fend for themselves. I ask, what would be the case here in our region? Do you see any potential similarities?
Converging onto a thin strip of man-made road spanning about two miles in length, we arrived at the Jetty, greeted by military personnel. After a lengthy process of clearing me for entry, we walked onto couple massive docking stations. To my right, men were conducting repairs on a rather standard sized vessel, no larger than the ones you would see here in our Harbour. In the distance, an ULCC fresh from the Middle East was rolling in from the horizon. The size of the vessel stopped me in my tracks. After 10 minutes, the ship stopped and made a slow bank horizontally out at sea.
I asked one of the managers -- Jitesh was his name -- why the ship stopped so far out. He told me that because of the size of the ship, they had a floating unloading station, and through another piping system they unload and load way out there, and that connects to the main routing station at the Jetty, to be piped a few miles back to the refinery.
I asked him why, and he said ‘even though we have docking stations here, it is for the smaller vessels that are used for domestic purposes. But these larger vessels that come from the Middle East can run aground easily.’
This, in open seas, I thought.
So we all stood there, suspended in what felt like an eternal moment -the heat waves rising above the calmed Arabian Sea, and the ship danced in the horizon as I stood dumbfounded by its sheer mass. One man comments: “I always forget just how large those vessels are.”
A few moments pass as we all stood, just watching.
Out of the silence, Jitesh says to me “Do you see what we are doing here Mr. Lee?”
I asked “What’s that, Jitesh?”
He replied, with an unexpected, sobering tone: “We are destroying future generations for now, and forever.”
And in this kind of slow motion life moment, I felt this kind of tingling feeling on the top of my head– and with sweat dripping down from the inside of my hard hat onto my face, the sun beaming into my eyes – I squint over at six men slowing nodding their heads in silent agreement.
It was such a profound statement, and in that moment, there was silence.
On the way back, I had a lengthy discussion with Jitesh about the ‘whys’ of it all – about life, the human condition, and the challenges we face in the 21st century. Although I will not cover that conversation due to procedural constraints, I will say that I learned some extremely valuable lessons that day.
I learned that it is not because every man and woman who participate in industry are all evil, bad people – being in India, on this refinery, there was this certain kind of ‘rush’ I felt. I felt a kind of new power within myself --being in a productive, hard working, problem solving environment Where there is grit, and dirt, and sweat, and mud and building and pumping and drilling and hammering and huge turbines at massive pressures doing crazy stuff. There is this feeling you get when you’re working with other professionals in a high stake environment -- and on some very obscure and messed up level, I can understand how those who work in industry can get excited about growth and yet subsequently, can turn their eyes off towards any adverse impacts they are creating as a result.
Like I said, on a very obscure and messed up level.
And I just have to be fully honest and mention this, the feeling is addictive – you can literally feel it in your veins. And this coming from just one month of experience, with a totally different ideological perspective.
The major thing I witnessed in my time on the refinery that I feel constitutes as evidence was my observations of the relationship dynamics between corporate headquarters and the managers on the refinery. What I witnessed time and time again, was the technical experts knowing the damage, risk and adverse effects of the project, versus what corporate would portray to the general public after reading their materials.
There was a clear and present dual world operating simultaneously – completely undeniable if you are on site. So what I saw, first hand, was this dynamic between ‘what is really happening’ and what the corporate headquarters will have people believe is happening. And as we have seen in our planet, this situation is not an isolated event.
Based on my experience, what I learned was that the global system of infinite growth attracts men and woman of a certain… level of understanding, a certain type of person who will be attracted to the ideals of the current economic measurement that coordinates the global psychology of things, and a type of person who externalizes themselves and detaches from connection, and so whole-heartedly believes in their reality, their perception of things, that they project their fears out onto everyone else -- and their ego becomes the driver, blindly leading them down a path of self-destruction. And they are people of high intellectual prowess, but unfortunately have yet to develop the deep wisdom that we all possess within us as human beings.
And we call these people CEO, and Prime Minister.
The Enbridge Northern Gateway Project is simply just one of thousands of projects across the globe that are bi-products of a severely flawed global system. Even if this pipeline does not go through, there will be another proposal of the same magnitude appear somewhere else – and this will go on and on, until we either address the fundamental root of the issue – or face the slow decline of our civilization.
We are psychologically stuck. We are good at what we know, but are too scared to try anything else. If we could directly transfer the mobilization power of oil into a new energy economy, into a new economic measurement, into a new level of coordination and cooperation -where the true cost of development is clearly laid out -we may have a chance.
Because you simply cannot infinitely grow, within a finite system of resources – period.
So I do not sit here today, in anger, or in blame, or in judgement. And on behalf of my generation, I forgive these men and women for their lack of awareness, heart and understanding.
They too were born into an established system, conditioned into a certain way of thinking, and as far as they know, they did and are doing their best. But now, it is time to let go of the 20th Century, and enter into a new global direction towards a path of healing and new design.
In closing, it’s time now for a full scale, mass mobilized transition process off the fossil fuel economy. We need to use all of our resources we have left wisely to create a whole new system of operation that is global in scale. This process needs to have the mobilization power comparable to the proportions of the Manhattan project, and then some. It’s time for us to journey into a new dream, a new way, with new design and new fundamental principles. It’s time for us to end a millennia of pain, suffering, shame and unconsciousness. It’s time to create resilient, sustainable and flourishing communities, that have the adaptive capacity to respond to any challenges they may face in their external environment – and be able to effectively respond specifically to the coming age of peak oil, climate change and rampant global economic instability.
It’s time for us to dismantle the institutions that are beginning to imprison us. It’s time for us to un-learn, to remove the power structures, and to decentralize the grid so that individual communities can produce their own food, energy and own internal means of production for hundreds to thousands of years to come.
And ultimately, it’s time for us to become the true masters we are meant to become – true, planetary mastery -- in balance with the emotional, cultural, spiritual and psychological wellbeing of every inhabitant. It’s time for us to embrace the new consciousness that is emerging at this time, where by busting open the hearts and minds of our people, we will propel ourselves forward into a new golden age of humanity that is imminently upon us.
We are those people.
So, if on one hand, you had an unpredictable path, that leads into a new dream, a new way of life for all of mankind and on the other hand, you had a predictable path that leads to the slow, inevitable decline of a civilization.
Wet'suwet'en Chief Darlene Glaim: "We have always held title to our land and have not negotiated it away...Our lands keep us spiritually, physically and emotionally healthy."
Enbridge’s proposed BC pipeline would unleash billion of tonnes of CO2 into our destabilizing climate. Resulting economic damages from the climate pollution could be hundreds of billions of dollars.
Protesters portray Natural Resources Minister Oliver as a puppet for foreign corporations, while voicing their concerns over the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline.
Environmentalists are calling federal government accusations against anti-pipeline activists 'appalling' and a 'hyperbolic rant' - leading to some back-pedalling today.
The government's environmental auditor announced today that Canada could not deal with a major oil spill. Rex Weyler, a local opponent to oil tankers in Vancouver's waters, couldn't agree more. "The...
I am heartened by his words.
I have to ask though, did the reporter/editor lose their CP Style Guide, or what?