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A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia
Mountaintop removal coal mining is the worst environmental tragedy in American history. When will the Obama administration finally stop this Appalachian apocalypse?
If ever an issue deserved President Obama's promise of change, this is it. Mining syndicates are detonating 2,500 tons of explosives each day -- the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb weekly -- to blow up Appalachia's mountains and extract sub-surface coal seams. They have demolished 500 mountains -- encompassing about a million acres -- buried hundreds of valley streams under tons of rubble, poisoned and uprooted countless communities, and caused widespread contamination to the region's air and water. On this continent, only Appalachia's rich woodlands survived the Pleistocene ice ages that turned the rest of North America into a treeless tundra. King Coal is now accomplishing what the glaciers could not -- obliterating the hemisphere's oldest, most biologically dense and diverse forests. Highly mechanized processes allow giant machines to flatten in months mountains older than the Himalayas -- while employing fewer workers for far less time than other types of mining. The coal industry's promise to restore the desolate wastelands is a cruel joke, and the industry's fallback position, that the flattened landscapes will provide space for economic development, is the weak punchline. America adores its Adirondacks and reveres the Rockies, while the Appalachian Mountains -- with their impoverished and alienated population -- are dismantled by coal moguls who dominate state politics and have little to prevent them from blasting the physical landscape to smithereens.
Obama promised science-based policies that would save what remains of Appalachia, but last month senior administration officials finally weighed in with a mixture of strong words and weak action that broke hearts across the region. The modest measures federal bureaucrats promised amount to little more than a tepid pledge of better enforcement of existing laws.
And government claims of doing everything possible to halt the holocaust are simply not true. George Bush gutted Clean Water Act protections. Obama must restore them.
First, the White House should fix the "fill" rule the Bush administration adopted in 2002 to allow coal companies to use streams as waste dumps. Under this perverse interpretation of the Clean Water Act, 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been interred under mining waste. Obama could reverse the "fill" rule to reflect its original meaning, which forbids waste matter from being dumped into waterways.
Second, the Interior Department should strictly enforce the widely ignored "buffer zone" rule that forbids dumping waste within 100 feet of intermittent or perennial streams.
Third, our laws require companies to restore mined areas to their original condition. The administration should end the absurd fiction that extraction pits filled with unconsolidated rocks and rubble where trees will never grow and streams will never flow are "reclaimed."
Fourth, current law forbids the issuance of "fill" permits that will cause "significant degradation" to waterways. It is absurd for the Army Corps of Engineers to endorse the canard that filling miles of streams is not causing significant degradation. The president should require the Corps to deny and rescind permits where operations will cause downstream damage.
Fifth, the Clean Water Act requires mining operators to prove that they can restore the "function and structure" of affected streams. Operators have never been compelled to make the functional or structural analyses of the aquatic ecosystem required by the act. Obama should order his officials to stop ignoring this requirement.
Sixth, the administration should enforce the law requiring an environmental impact study for each permit when a mine "may have significant environmental impacts," individually or cumulatively. The Corps of Engineers routinely allows coal operators to escape this mandate -- an illegal practice that should stop.
Instead of acting to enforce these laws, administration officials indicated last month that they will allow more than 100 permits to go forward while they carefully review their regulatory options. If they act accordingly, the ruined landscapes of Appalachia will be Obama's legacy.
President Obama should go to Appalachia and see mountaintop removal. My father visited Appalachia in 1966 and was so horrified by strip mining -- then in its infancy -- that he made it a key priority of his political agenda. He complained that Appalachia, with our nation's richest natural resources, was home to America's poorest populations, its worst education system, and its highest illiteracy and unemployment rates. These statistics are even grimmer today as mining saps state wealth. In 1966, 46,000 West Virginia miners were collecting salaries and pensions and reinvesting in their communities. Mechanization has shrunk that number to fewer than 11,000. They extract more coal annually, but virtually all the profits leave the state for Wall Street.
The coal industry provides only 2 percent of the jobs in Central Appalachia. Wal-Mart employs more people than the coal companies in West Virginia. Last week a major study documented how coal imposes a net cost to Kentucky of more than $100 million per year. Coal is not an economic engine in the coalfields. It is an extraction engine.
Obama has the authority to end mountaintop removal, without further action from Congress and without formal rulemaking. He just needs to make the coal barons obey the law.
- Posted in
124 Comments so far
Show AllWall Street wants its clean energy so Obama grabs his ankles.
I detest the idea of word "hatred" as much as the word itself but I can feel nothing else for the quivering, obsequious, lying coward sitting in the White House and the clueless moron who sat there before him.
q
drop the hatred - it will eat you.
contempt is so much more satisfying.
Sioux Rose
Thank you Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for all that you do. And God bless you for standing up, like David to Goliath, against forces that would break a lesser man's heart.
The nation's ecological holocaust drives me to despair. I can't say I have the remotest faith that Obama will hear your words. Apparently his ego is ablaze with being the first Black U.S. president, and from there, he just does the bidding of those that groomed him for the role. He has stood firm on absolutely nothing, but is useful in putting on a nice show of words which has managed to fool too many intelligent persons. We are way past tragic now, as for all our jokes about politics and lies, after the hit-job the Bush team executed not only on our nation, but with serious reverberations around the world, something else--or should I say someone else--was desperately needed to shift the agenda driving the nation to ruin.
As state after state falls like drunk dominoes, the woefully bankrupt priorities that set this calamity into motion show. What is particularly egregious is that just as the failed banking system became the excuse to allot more power to its criminally-minded engineers, it is likely that those sell-outs that helped forge legislation to bankrupt the states will be first on board to "fire sale" precious assets claiming this is the path to remedial action. We can't say Naomi didn't warn us!
There needs to be a revolution, but with so many armed forces (police, sheriff departments, DEA, marine patrol, Homeland Security, FBI, private armies, etc) the capacity to stand up to an utterly corrupt government seems impossible. As the money runs out, the pattern right now is for more claims to be made (forced insurance!!!!) against the few who still CAN make their bills/payments.
It is a terrible set of circumstances the full impacts of which have hardly been felt. The U.S. is in for at least 5-7 years of tribulation, and it has in part been brought on by the population going willfully to sleep, when not being aided and abetted into that state by anti-depressant medications, or the hypnotic drug of T.V. where all the talking heads do the thinking for them. And what a result!
I really hope Divine intervention ameliorates the otherwise inevitable ramifications of the warped priorities of the beast turning inward (onto the homeland.)
And consider the irony: for all the billions wasted on war and so-called defense, the nation can't even repair its own schools or provide cursory medical treatment to those in need. Talk about failed priorities and the absolutely narrow-minded ego-driven blindness of the Mars-ruled state! SICKENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sioux Rose,........always a pleasure reading the truths of your numerous beautiful postings. I find things so bad that I can hardly write anymore. I admire your tenacity.
Yes, there needs to be a revolution! .........But to me, the revolution will reveal to the vast majority of American people just how our once great nation has been taken over by the Corporate Capitalistic Military State.....all to enforce the diabolical nature of Capitalism that is destroying our Mother Earth and turning its people against one another.
It will be the brutal oppression from the black booted goon squads from our local police departments and National Guard, former friends and relatives in H.S. and in church, that will eventually wake Americans up, and to motivate millions more to join us in the streets. We must lie face down in the streets if necessary. At age 75, this would be my ultimate pleasure, revealing to the American public the intrinsic evil of militant capitalism.
You are wrong. All of you who scream for revolution are dead wrong. We don't need to lie face down in the streets. That's not productive, nor is it comfortable. Wouldn't you rather lie in a hammock between a couple of fruit-laden trees? Of course you would!
We don't need to do anything in the streets, but in our lawns and yards. We need to transform them into edible food forests. We don't need a revolution, we need an evolution. An evolution in consciousness to get us to think productive thoughts, not destructive ones.
Screaming at politicians for revolution won't change anything, except create a lot of pain and suffering. We need need to turn our attention away from the streets and to the soil. Permaculture is THE way out of the madness. It is how we can create real wealth and lasting health.
Permaculture the evolution revolution.
To learn more, watch the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3u8oqsxW4&NR=1
"Permaculture the evolution revolution."
Chop n' Drop baby! Teach it up, spread the word! Practice it everywhere!
~Thanks for that!
Yes. and if you aren't a landowner?
Whatever this "permaculture" is, it sounds pretty bourgeois to me. Will you offer any of the fruits of your permaculture to the poor?
Moondoggy.........lol, you rock. :)
Thanks Leea! Good to see you back!
Moondoggy,
Right on!
And there's more. Providing various types of flowers makes the bees happy, the butterflies and other insects thrive so the birds can have lots to eat and keeps the air pure.
I've got hostas, day lillies, aisan lillies, coriopsis, flox, foxglove, lilly of the valley, delphinium, impatiense, shasta daisies, lemon catnip, basil, etc. but I've got some great tomatoes coming in too.
And Soux Rose,
I agree that it is bad and horrific, but remember those cops read this stuff here too. They are human and are becoming aware of how they are being used by the elite. Pretty soon the elite won't be able to buy them. Sure it's going to get worse for a while. But things will get better later. Hang in there.
Sioux Rose
AGG: Don't worry. I'm hanging in there... I just don't want us to all be "Californians now" in presuming it's all gonna JUST get better. Many women go through incredible pain for hours before the new baby manages to find its way into this world. What is being born out of the ashes of so much misuse of space, time, and resources could be quite THE LABOR process!
I hear you. I could mention the old cliche about the darkest hour before dawn and that sort of thing but we've all heard it before and we are all tired of PR and we are all ready to go ape shit with the way things stand. But like I told Jennifer the other day, I look at what I can do and I do it. What I don't have the power to do is not my fault. The fact is, most of us who comment at this and other sites with a desire to shed light on the truth are the exception to the rule. Consider your situation, for example. If your net worth was negative and you had no assets and were renting, could not plant what you wanted, could not even advise people spiritually because of some ridiculous rent contract, how would that affect you? Pretty different from your present situation, right? You have recently had dental work. That alone is enough to ruin, not a day, but a month! The reality is this. We get it. We know this is not new stuff; it's just brutality with more gadgets and stronger weapons. The elite want a return of feudalism. However, the good part is that we the people would rather die than return to that, no matter how mezmerised we are by all the crappy entertainment we've got to distract us. The elite have overreached and they will suffer mightily for their fuck ups. It will be fun to watch.
"I agree that it is bad and horrific, but remember those cops read this stuff here too. They are human and are becoming aware of how they are being used by the elite."
Human and becoming aware of ANYTHING? The hell they are. They would not have become cops if they were. Screw those bastards, committing perjury in courtrooms all over the United States daily.
Biodiversity sho am wonderful, ain't it? Veggies always do better with lots of flowers around. So do peoples!
Oregoncharles
Well, it so happens that I have a permaculture farm, small but productive enough. However, I realize that the evolution you're talking about will take decades, possibly longer. In the meantime, mountaintop removal goes on, Palestinians are being destroyed by Israel, people of Afghanistan are killed by drones, the list goes on and on.
We need to be politically active, push for revolution, AND practice permaculture. They are not mutually exclusive.
Another idea if you want to get serious about health care reform: Refuse to buy insurance from a corporation! Just say no!
Charles,
You and I our on the same page in every way. Think global, act local.
Moondoggy, You are absolutely right! I've been saying this as well. Leave the system! Of course, the Capitalist criminals will find a way to thwart any new movement.....no success accepted! Perhaps we are really in the last days and what will save us is a Divine intervention?! Who knows? One thing is certain, I can barely stand to think about all the obscene destruction of our planet by these Mammon worshippers! Time to turn our faces away from them. Leave them to their hellish games and attempt to actually live our lives within small pockets of "community."
Sioux Rose, you are, as usual, speaking truth. The new Revolution will have to be one by action away from, rather than against.
Remember: "No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from."............Jewel
Innana, for most of human history humans have lived in small communities. Indeed, even today, the vast majority of humans live this way. So the evidence suggests that this is a sustainable arrangement.
The revolution, as you mention in your response to Sioux Rose "will have to be one by action away from, rather than against" the corporate establishment, or as a friend describes, "the death culture", or as you describe, "these Mammon worshippers".
This is why I have been pushing for a new system of food production called Permaculture. It's a system that builds fertility and produces a lot of food in a small area. It offers us freedom and a way out of the madness. It gets us back into the garden of Eden. Full circle, our destiny.
The divine lives in all of us, so divine intervention comes when we take positive action toward creating a peaceful working community. We can heal this broken world one community at a time. It's up to you and me as we are one. Namaste.
Sioux Rose
INANNA: I don't see Moon Doggy's point as mutually exclusive from my own. Yes, it's great if persons one by one can turn away from a system of rabid abuse of not only nature, but all the things WE as sentient beings hold to be sacred. However, even if a few thousand of us manage to do this, there are MILLIONS left to suffer; and most of these persons do not KNOW they have an alternative. It's been years, or should I say generations, since the vast majority has learned how to till the land, raise sheep, plant gardens. My point is there is an urgency to the NOW, but most are waiting on a Deliverer. Most have lost the knowledge and capacity to do for themselves, and some are old or handicapped and truly CANNOT take on this dream of self-reliance. This whole "individualism" thing has gotten out of hand. We are our brothers/sisters keepers IF we are a humane society.
I do not advocate for violence. I HATE violence! But I don't think any transition at this point will be smooth. Law has UTTERLY broken down. The recent administrations have gotten away with eviscerating significant parts of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Habeas Corpus. There has been no onus, no one held accountable, and no measures to resurrect those important protections bravely erected to prevent the known trespasses of tyranny, all part of an extensive historical record.
That the peoples' money has been given to banks & war planners, while EPA and other regulatory agencies have been de-fanged and persons exposed to dangerous chemicals increasingly made ill, these same ones who must gamble to get insurance for these exposures, and HOPE it will cover them. ALL of the chips are in the hands of those positioned to exploit their corrupt power(s), and let's not forget, as the weaspons' capital of the world, this land is HEAVILY armed. Recent use of Tasers on innocent persons, all the spying on peaceful groups like the Quakers, the lack of respect for the public's interests... everything is in a state of disaster and the leaders' priorities could not be more unjust or unwise. The ship of state has hit a reef and refuses to change course. That is all happening NOW. How long does it take for a tree to produce fruit? For a family to learn the skills of self-reliance? This is my point, MOON DOGGY. Yes, the benign spirit of the Universe will aid and assist the genuine in changing their lives; but for this to happen en masse will exacerbate the current collapse, and out of the frenzied lack of order, MUCH violence is apt to erupt. I think your Woodstock dream is a bit lofty if not premature.
There's so much you and Moondoggy have in common. If I understand you two, you speak the truth while MD tries to help us on a positive path. The truth is both of you are correct together. We cannot run away from the truth but at the same time we cannot allow it to hurt us and keep us feeling powerless. The latter part of that lesson is what I'm still working on. Happy 4th of July btw.
P.S.: I wished I could say Happy Independence Day but this nation isn't as independent when we look at the wars and "free" trade policies of "cheap" foreign slave labor that the country desperately depends on to keep everything artificially "cheap". People will learn things the hard way but at the same time those who had great positive ideas but were cast aside may get their chance to show their worth.
SiouxRose.....ok, yes, you are right in all your statements. But......what does this mean? Do we start fighting in the streets? Do we march on Washington and the Pentagon? Do we crush all local government? Do we start shooting police? How many need be slaughtered in riots and violence? You know THEY are preparing for this revolt of the people by building more prisons, creating really scary new weapons to zap us en masse. They have all the power and money on their side to wreak havoc upon us. We need to abstain from allowing ourselves to be martyred in this way if we are to survive to start a new way of life. And, I have a warrior spirit! I have always thought a peoples revolution was the answer. But now I am not so sure.
Do you remember that movie, "The Fight Club?" Yes indeed, that would be a good thing...to watch all those establishment buildings crumble to the ground. Yet, innocent people are in those buildings...just like the Twin Towers. A solution I have fantasized about.......watch the movie "Elizabeth," the older one of 1998 with Cate Blanchett, to see what her solution was! I am serious here......this solution is something to consider!!! All this aside, MOONDOGGIE'S solution is also right! It's not a Woodstock dream, it is the future. Just finished reading Bill McKibben's book: "Deep Economy." It was very positive and eye opening. It builds a case for localism and community. We need to do both revolution and evolution at the same time! So yours and MOONDOGGIES comments and solutions are, as you said, not mutually exclusive. Start with oneself, then work outward. We cannot account for ALL the people. There are always those asleep. They will come along or not. This cannot be helped. There are always traitors. There are always those bought off or brainwashed ....like the military and the police. So many work against their own best self interests.
My frustration, sadness, anger, feeling of ineffectiveness, are at their peak! I agree, SOMETHING must be done. We have awakened for a reason. We are seeing thru the lies and deceit and betrayal of our government. We know it has always been this way! We have never been a really "good" nation. We have all been lied to from the start......called PROPAGANDA (and we thought Russia during the Cold War was dealing in propaganda....ha). We need to carefully identify the real enemy.
Of course, The Great Mother may have this all worked out already! Perhaps we really just need to sit back and watch this end game? If we secure ourselves by having food, water, a place to live safely, some form of communication.....and if we project very positive energy outward into the world.....raising our consciousness and "vibrating" in tune with the life force.....perhaps we will survive to tell our story to future generations!? I don't know the answer either! I do know, I am "liquidating" from the system. How far I go depends on a day to day evaluation. We can only start where we are. Oh, and I hate to sound pessimistic, but it seems that the Constitution and Bill of Rights was really written to benefit the elites and to protect them, not the poor, nor even the middle-class in the end. They tolerate a middle-class only so that they can divide us against the poor. But we tend to get too bold after a few years, and start things like unions and protests....then they have to cut us down to size once again. We threaten the powers that be....the elite and multi-national corporations....the oligarchs.
The thought occurs to me.....if they prevent or subvert the ability to form Permacultures or disengage from the system....then we must turn and fight and become martyrs or else run and hide and become aliens in our own world. Our choices are becoming very narrowed.
Thanks Inanna! That was beautiful. Yes, permaculture is the future. And the sooner we get planting the sooner we can eat the landscape.
Ditto.
Rose demonstrates time again, that inner beauty is more powerful than outer beauty.
Sioux Rose
ELOHIM: Thanks for the compliment, but it just so happens that I'm not too hard on the eyes, either.
Then you are doubly blessed, my friend. Keep the fires burning!
Same goes for the rest of you beautiful Cats.
Speaking truth to power is necessary, even if they turn a blind eye, and deaf ear to our collective efforts.
It is my hope someone is reading these voices of dissent in the White House, but even if they are not, what choice do we have other than to express our deeply held views on behalf of our Earth Mother: who else is going to do it, except for those who care?
Sioux Rose
STEPHEN: A compliment is always precious coming from you. We share that Leo heart, and it's beyond sad that Obama does, too; but he apparently sold out like some winner on a TV game show. He's too enamored with all the prizes at his disposal to look into America's "eyes," and do the right thing. Perhaps the cancer that has eroded our government, rendered it a subsidiary of bankers, inc. (added to big pharma, inc., and big agri, inc. and big prison, inc., and worst of all, big military unlimited) is not longer treatable.
Go easy on yourself, friend. It's always a low point the weeks that precede one's month of birth, and the coming full moon is a heavy one. I generally feel optimistic in the face of the worst of times, but the heaviness, what Kurt Vonnegut termed, "heavy gravity," is so dense in the nation's atmosphere, that I think it's impossible at times to rise above. Thus we must EMBRACE the pain, for in having the courage to feel it, we feel for our brothers and sisters who are everywhere being made to suffer so unnecessarily. I know matters right themselves in the fullness of time, and I believe ours to be a cycle of intensified and highly destabilizing transition. Even with this understanding, the feelings must be navigated! (And therein lies the rub.) There happens to currently be an astrological factor that's made it possible for lawyers, who best understand how to turn the law upside down, to lead the nation to ruin. I hold them MOST accountable, for they should have been the guardians of law; and instead from the pass on torture to the heist on the treasury to the very workings of government (in cahoots with those big businesses that boast resumes filled with disatrous undertakings) they have aided and abetted these behaviors. (Obviously there are exceptions like Nadir, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., John Dean, Marjorie Cohn, etc.) But the Clintons, Obama, Gonzales, and others have brought shame on our houses of governance. What greater hubris then to be christened by "the law" only to use it against all of its intended purposes? And we know how Christ spoke on this very theme.
"I also think we need to laugh a little."
I repeat:
Funny will get you through times of no hope better than hope will get you through times of no funny.
Laugh a lot!
Sioux Rose, to borrow from Swami Beyondananda, "America doesn't need a revolution, America needs an evolution. And this evolution is what is going to bring sanity back into our lives. Sanity, and abundance. And out of that naturally will grow world peace.
It's a new game. The old game of revolution won't work any more. Why? Because revolutions turn violent. And in these days of ever more sophisticated and deadly weaponry, we need to look for a different game.
We can't win a revolution, no matter how much we scream and cry. Violence is their game. We have a different game. So rather than screaming about the problems, we're getting to work on the solutions.
At risk of sounding like a broken record, the solution is to eliminate agriculture. We need to quit farming. We need to get involved with a new system, which is completely based in and in concert with nature. What we need instead is agroforestry, food-forest gardening, permaculture.
We can't go back to the way we've done things in the past, because it's not working. We need a new way of doing virtually everything. We don't need a revolution at all. We need something more sustainable. We need an evolution. It's the only way out of the madness.
Forget nationalism. Localism is where we need to shift our focus. Peace through permaculture. It's very grounding. It's the way forward. Dig it.
Need more inspiration? Watch this 5 minute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShJheNIXiDA&NR=1
Sioux Rose
MOONDOGGY: It took how many centuries for the chimp to get up and walk? Do we have the luxury of the time required for evolution? I mean I am PRAYING for Divine intervention, and who knows, perhaps a spaceship will land and arrest present and recent leaders and have them tried before some Universal Federation. I just know "something's gotta give," and if it's Jack Nicholson playing a viable part as Messiah II, so be it.
I seldom advocate for revolution but seeing so much laid to waste, seeing so many lives brutalized, so much of nature chomped up like mulch... destroying millions of years of evolutionary beauty that's resulted in a world of marvels, well, I suppose I feel like one of the Ancient Israelites asking "Let my people go." The Palestinians pray for deliverance, as do the people of Iraq, and how many that daily confront incomprehensible levels of brutality across too much of Africa?
You were wise to move off the grid, and likely the hurricane of humanity erupting may bypass your door. I no longer think we have the luxury of awaiting evolution. Plausibly the violent aspect and the evolutionary aspect will work together, or one generate from the other. Too many grievances have gone without remedy. That which is empathic in me senses that for many, patience has or is close to running out.
Sioux Rose, the evolution I speak of is an evolution of consciousness. It can happen instantaneously.
We are so brainwashed into thinking that evolution has to take generations or thousands of years. I'm not talking about physical evolution, I'm referring to conscious evolution. An awakening. It's like walking into a dark room and switching on the light.
We can pray all we want, but the only thing I ever got from praying is sore knees. I'm not saying prayer isn't effective. I've heard scientific studies on prayer demonstrate that a shift does occur on many levels when prayer is employed. But don't wait for divine intervention, nor a savior to come along. That is looking in the exact wrong direction.
We should pray with our eyes open, not closed. We shouldn't be looking up for deliverance, but down, at the ground. We don't need to look outside ourselves, but look inside ourselves. We don't need to wait for someone or something to come along and save us. We are it.
Tomorrow never comes. Now is all we really have. This is our moment. This moment is alive and full of all potential, and the power to create change is in our hands.
Forget the government, forget politicians, forget Palestine (well, remember Palestine, and do pray for them), because if you are not in Palestine, then there's not a whole lot you can do for Palestinian people.
We need to be active right where we are in this present moment. We need to make changes in our own lives, in our yards, our neighborhoods and communities. When traveling, travel with a purpose: to learn and to teach and to lend a hand and participate.
Our generation's job is to re-green this wounded Mother Earth. This is the selfless service that is so desperately needed today. We need to learn and teach permaculture methods.
It's not just for people with green thumbs, but it is for all of humanity. For nearly all of humanity's problems can be solved in the garden.
It doesn't do a whole lot of good to sit in a house in Florida spending half the day posting comments on Common Dreams telling people that voting for Obama was a mistake or that the military is making life hell for civilians. It's good to be aware of it, but it doesn't do much good.
Yet it does do a whole lot of good to produce one fifth of your nutritional needs within 40 feet of your kitchen. Need I illustrate the myriad connections?
Please, watch the video called A Farm For The Future: http://tinyurl.com/mspczt
And don't tell me that you don't have the time. I know better.
Let the evolution begin!
Moondoggy, I have read your posts and I think that you are a very reasonable person, witch I think is a wonderful thing, but when you are dealing with the Zombie like American Population, using reason is a waste of time. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it.
If Americans can't bother to do something as easy as protesting, what makes you think they will start making their own food, or fuel, or anything else for that matter. And even if they did, the criminals in office would make new regulations banning gardening, or anything else that cuts in to the corporate profit margins.
No, these elected officials have to be removed from office, investigated and if found guilty(by we the people not some judge appointed by politicians) they should be thrown in one of the many correction facilities they have created for the sole purpose of tormenting other human beings. I truly HATE these bastards. They have taken the public's trust and used it to wipe their dirty asses.
Sioux rose is right about the need for a revolution, power is never given up with out a fight. I would love to be able to be passive in this struggle, but these bastards are raping our mother(Earth) at a pace that if we do nothing now, there won't be a planet left to live in. This struggle can now be classified as self defense. If we don't stop it, they are going to kill everyone, including themselves.
PS "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead.
SanityAssassin, I agree. Read my post commenting to SiouxRose. Also, watch the movie: "Elizabeth," the 1998 version with Cate Blanchett, for a possible solution. It sort of goes along with yours. I hesitate to put it on a public site.
On the other hand, a peoples government, thoughtfully set up and led by masses of people, yet in a peaceful manner, perhaps could arrest the President, Vice President, heads of all multi-national corporations, Congress, the Senate, and bring them before a peoples court. Right! Really, what would it look like for a small group of committed citizens to end the nightmare? And another thing....if these people know something we don't.....what good will it do them if they have to remain on the same planet as us? If they are raping all the goods now and then think they can get away with it and the rest of us die....well, how will that benefit them if there is no planet left to spend all that loot on?! So, maybe they are leaving this planet? Maybe they have developed an alternate world somewhere? Nothing makes sense anymore! There is no logic in this destruction of our own planet!
There is a Spirit of chaos and confusion and darkness permeating the world right now! What will be the outcome?
Hi Moondoggy,
I never thought I'd see you and Sioux Rose exchanging ideas together. You two have a lot in common. I was out yesterday with my family to step out and have some quality time together outside the walls. I've been doing the same and will be going back out for the rest of the day. You're right that there's so much we can do outside posting and Sioux Rose actually acknowledges it. I know you're trying to help her out but please don't take it too hard on her.
By the way, I forgot to answer your question on the Topsy Turvey. Here's the link:
https://www.topsyturvy.com/
http://www.topsygardening.com
I love the recipe on Marinara sauce the most. At least with that and some healthy version pastas, I can eat my favorite pasta dishes without feeling insecure about what's in the sauce but I'll try not to eat too much at a time lest I grow fat. :)
P.S.: Happy 4th of July. I wished I could say Independence Day but our country is far from it to call this day that.
Oh, so that's a topsyturvy! Interesting. Hows it working?
Happy Independence to you too! Stay slender! Be happy!
Was the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela violent? Was the MAS revolution in Bolivia violent?
You seem to be oblivious as to how the working class lives. What you are prescribing is only available to the rich.
Poverty is a creation of the rich. We are poor in one sense that we make way less money than is considered the poverty level. On the other hand, when "poor" people work together to create a community, then no longer are we poor.
A person by himself, trying to survive in a slave job is indeed poor. But when people of one mind band together, there is strength in numbers. Then each person, though maybe "poor" in money, can live very well and enjoy a lot of happiness and fulfillment.
If you are poor, then find people to band together and create a community where everyone works together. It's the modern day equivalent to the tribe.
As Gandhi said, "Poverty is the worst form of violence."
Evolution and revolution are two sides of the change that is what the universe is all about.
They are both expressions of time.
We need both because they are the changes of time and how they are recorded by history.
We can't have one or the other by declaring one violent and one peaceful. Revolutionary changes are changes that are needed in time for the living to enjoy and participate in while evolutionary changes are more of what occurs after many generations..slow but real too.
We need both.
When suppression comes it should be actively opposed because revolution is an expression of immediate human needs.
Any change can be violent or peaceful.... but the idea of "evolution" is not something that gives hope for those suffering now.
If you are working on a new farming technique, that is revolutionary, evolutionary is more about after we are dead...
In other words if you got forever and are not desperate evolution is fine, but for the masses it is like saying "eat cake." or "plant a garden".
Even though we are a scardy cat nation and afraid of the word "revolution", We need both points of view on change.
A revolution of common sense is not necessarily violent but worth fighting for and needed now.
Thanks for your comments. However, nobody seems to get what I'm talking about, even though I tried to explain it. I'm not referring to physiological evolution, but an evolution in consciousness.
Call it revolution if you will, but I'm talking about a huge leap in consciousness that is so far beyond what we we have been practicing that I'm referring to it as an evolution *in consciousness*. Permaculture is what I'm talking about. And it is a leap.
Allow me back up a bit. Evolution, physical evolution can and does take place in leaps, contrary to popular belief. That's why we never find the missing links. Life adapts and changes very quickly in times of geologic upheaval. It changes and adapts, or it dies.
But back to permaculture. It is a very new way of producing food. It's only been defined and practiced since the 1970's, and is still in the experimental stages. However, it is being practiced by about a half million people in about 300,000 sites worldwide. So it's a rapidly growing movement.
What can permaculture do, and where can it be practiced? Here's one example: A group of permaculturists from Australia decided to set up a permaculture site in Israel on the Dead Sea, in the lowest, driest saltiest place on Earth.
They transformed a 10 acre site into veritable garden of Eden in 3 years that is self sustaining and requires no irrigation. There are even mushrooms growing on the site, and the locals there say they had never seen a mushroom before.
The developers of the project say this can be done anywhere, that they can literally make the desert bloom. This can be employed in the most inhospitable places on earth, reforesting vast tracts of land that had previously been rendered a wasteland by desertification.
But in order for people to adopt permaculture it takes an evolution in consciousness. But let's not get hung up on semantics. I don't need to argue my point any longer.
Evolution, revolution. Reminds me of Lance Lot Link, one of my favorite Saturday morning shows as a kid. It was always after The Monkeys. Remember them? "Hey, hey we're the Monkeys..."
I get it Moon, and you're not alone in making this point. J. Krishnamurti said it many years ago. However, you cannot have a revolution in conscious without INDIVIDUAL self-work. There is no such thing as a 'mass' revolution [in consciousness] imposed from the outside. Many want to ignore or skirt around this issue; they think they are perfectly fine as they are, and it's everyone else that's 'screwed up,' or needs to change. However, it is also true that if you transcend the selfish, limited 'me' [ego], you will bring that expression of Light wherever you go and to whomever you meet. Thus, one candle can light another, and a small flame can turn into a blaze. That being said, not everyone will want it; on the contrary, many will fight vehemently against it. Understand human nature and you will understand why.
From: The_collected_works_of_j.krishnamurti_vol_13
"It is absolutely, urgently necessary to alter the whole course of human thought, of human existence, because it is becoming more and more mechanistic. And I do not see how this complete revolution can take place except in the individual. The collective cannot be revolutionary; the collective can only follow, can only adjust itself, can imitate, can conform. But it is only the individual, the `you', that can break through shattering all these conditionings and be creative. It is the crisis in consciousness which demands this mind, this new mind."
http://tchl.freeweb.hu
Wow, man. That was beautiful. I'm so glad people like you post on this site. It's people like you who make me feel at home here, and keep me coming back. People like you give people like me a lot of hope. Thanks for sharing. I'll be paying more attention to your posts from now on. Groovy.
InLakesh ~Moondoggy
(Inlakesh is a Mayan greeting which translates "I am another you")
Thanks, always had a fascination for Mayan culture, especially after visiting Chichen Itza. Ready for 2012? :-)
I'm getting ready for 2012. That is one of my biggest motivators to be getting right on the permaculture program. Anyone that's smart would be doing the same right about now. It's only 3 years away. We need to be fast tracking our lives into a more sustainable, low energy direction.
There's no time to waste! I've left lots of links to helpful and inspiring resources all over Common Dreams, and all over this page in particular. The smart person would be paying attention and getting on it. Go for it! 3 years to go.
InLakesh ~Moondoggy
Civilization is not redeemable, the dominant culture that exists will never willingly change voluntarily. From birth, the dominant culture, indoctrinates the masses to hate the natural world, life, the wild, women, ourselves, if this was not true we would never stand by and allow the destruction of the world, and if we did not hate ourselves we could not allow the poisoning of our homes and our bodies.
The new emperor has lost his way, his visions may fool those who believe they may have had something to gain in worshiping him, but that light grows dimmer every day. He is in fact only a politician, and that puts him right in the middle of the worst of the worst. To believe he will hold the land, the people, and the non-humans in higher regard than the property of those who own him is not rational thinking.
Only when the ropes that pull the the stones to build the hierarchy's pyramids are left behind will the human race find the peace it so desperately seems to be searching for.
Love does not imply pacifism
Well put.
Sioux Rose
CLASH: Do you recall Gandhi's response when asked what he thought of Western civilization? That it WOULD be a good idea. From all that you stated in your first paragraph, the very term "civilization" does not fit the contours (moral and legal) of much of the Western world, led by the bloated spoiled "enfant terrible," America. Has civilization, and by that I mean a partnership between men and women, a respect for life that extended from human bonds to those we share with the natural world, ever been tried by Western culture? Plenty of Indigenous tribes, and those that pre-dated the patriarchal phase, lived by far more harmonious creeds.
Your last paragraph is intersting. I will give it some thought. My energy level is rather low today on the prelude to this particular full moon, therefore my response is shortened.
By the way, as to this hatred, it does not speak for me at all! In fact, due to the wish to preserve my life so that I can teach and raise consciousness, I have not made myself fodder for a tank to run or some psychotic cop to shoot with tasers. MANY of us have devoted much of our lives to trying to make a difference, to singing the song of Creation and articulating the awesome beauties all around us. Hatred may refer to the unawakened who waste their lives before the TV set munching on food that hardly qualifies as such, but such a broad stroke only reinforces guilt and shame. Those are TOXIC emotions. I keep fighting for change, for the spiritual epiphany that might make a difference. Hatred is not what motivates me, sir, LOVE is. Divine love at that! And there are many working as I do, similarly "armed."
Sioux Rose;
The definition of civilization used here refers to the label that most in the dominant culture ascribe to themselves. As far as self hate this statement was surely not directed at you or about you.
As far as following Gandhi's ideas on how to live I would just say to you, A man who hated his wife and disowned his sons will never be a model for how I would lead my life. Personally the life and philosophy of Crazy Horse would be more to my way of thinking about the world. Even if in the end his own people, the very people he was trying to save held him down so the dominant culture could bayonet him in the back .
"As far as following Gandhi's ideas on how to live I would just say to you, A man who hated his wife and disowned his sons will never be a model for how I would lead my life."
And yet back in India, services are offered cheap but great to foreigners including us westerners while the residents get the shaft. That dark side of Gandhi has been used by political leaders all over the world to oppress their own citzens and in seductive ways too. Gandhi's wife agreed to be by his side regardless even though I can never forgive him for refusing medicine for his wife and then taking the same medicine 6 weeks later.
However, I don't think Sioux Rose was talking about Gandhi's dark side of sacrificing his own wife. A lot of Gandhi's selflessness was what really made him better in some ways but unfortunately, most political leaders all over the world never caught on to it and today, few of them do and they usually get villainized. They might as well be vigilantes for the people against the elites.
Sioux Rose
CLASH: Gandhi, like America's founding fathers had a blindspot, and it was related to tradition(s). Who among us is perfect, has mastered all aspects of living? Do we cast the first stone at someone who has given much because in some human area s/he erred?
My point was that civilization is NOT civil. Just because soldiers make their uniforms impeccable, and shine their boots hardly takes away the barbarian nature of their acts of carnage. You remind me of the preacher who finds something cruel in Scripture and uses that as his yardstick for defining God's will. (Although all Bibles were rewritten many times across history; and like the game "Telephone" little kids play, by the time the message comes full circle, it's irreparably distorted.)
One cannot converse with another if the other so fervently believes their mysticism is the only way. Not once did I make this a personal attack on you or any one else.
I merely tried to share my thoughts with you, most unsuccessfully it seems.
Like the one mysticism they believe in, is the only path, this culture has the same beliefs when they choose their life paths, the culture demands that there is one and only way to live or be cast out, and that has always been OK with me.
One last note, in Peru last week the indigenous people of the forest defended themselves against the abusive culture, they won and injunction against their government and the forces out side of their land base to stop the the destruction and poisoning of their homes. It cost the lives of many of their people, and some of the fascist police state but for now they have their homes.
While in Appalachia I am sure the removal of mountains will continue, people will continue to lose their land base, and be poisoned with no end in sight.
Seems like everybody skates around pointing to the darkness of human nature itself; all present societies are erected with ego, so why should we expect selfless action? Without transcendence, the majority of people will continue to live from darkness and unconsciousness. Fortunately, the human CAN live from the consciousness of the Divine, but not without individual self-work. Like Christ on the cross, mankind must 'die' to its darkness in order to be resurrected into the Light. If the majority of us would just BEGIN to work on ourselves in the 'right' way, the whole of things would start to change. So few who begin on the 'path' [the path toward abolishing ego in oneself] persist to the end. Why? Because the trek is a long and difficult one. We can skate around this until the chickens come home to roost and point fingers and blame all we want, or attempt to reform the darkness from the periphery inward, but this approach, of necessity, MUST fail because it does NOT address the root cause. Mankind is in a pot that will soon come to a boil, unless we all work together to turn off the heat. The Divine can only 'intervene' if we channel it through our psyches. And that is the kind of 'revolution' needed today. The word 'evolution' implies time which, as you duly note, we do not have a lot of.