tagged w/ Keep your eye on the prize
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Let's expose the structure of violence that keeps the world economy running.
With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it's terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this - the culture of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels, primarily a dwindling supply of oil - thrust forward wantonly to fuel its insatiable appetite for "growth."
Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves, industrial society leaves a crescendo of atrocities in its wake.
A very partial list would include the Bhopal chemical disaster, numerous oil spills, the illegal depleted uranium-spewing occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, mountaintop removal, the nuclear meltdown of Fukushima, the permanent removal of 95 percent of the large fish from the oceans (not to mention full-on systemic collapse of those oceans), indigenous communities replacement by oil wells, the mining of coltan for cell phones and Playstations along the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Rwanda border - resulting in tribal warfare and the near-extinction of the Eastern Lowland gorilla.
As though 200 species going extinct each day were not enough, climate change, a direct result of burning fossil fuels, has proved not only to be as unpredictable as it is real, but as destructive as it is unpredictable. The erratic and lethal characteristics of a changing planet and its shifting atmosphere are becoming the norm of the 21st century, their impact accelerating at an alarming pace, bringing this planet closer, sooner than later, to a point of uninhabitable ghastliness. And yet, collective apathy, ignorance and self-imposed denial in the face of all this sadistic exploitation and violence marches this culture closer to self-annihilation.
Lost in the eerily comforting fantasy of limitless growth, production and consumption, many people cling to things like Facebook, Twitter, "Jersey Shore" and soulless pop music as if their lives depended on it, identifying with a reality that's artificial and constructed, that panders to desire rather than necessity, that delicately conceals the violence at the other end of this economy, a violence so widespread that we're all not only complicit in it to a degree (e.g., if you're a taxpayer, you help subsidize the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction), but victims of it as well. As Chris Hedges admonished in his books, "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy" and the "Triumph of Spectacle," any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill itself.
Moreover, any culture that cannot distinguish reality from illusion will kill everything and everyone else in its path as well as itself.
As the world burns, as species die off, as mothers breastfeed their children with dioxin-tainted breast milk, as nuclear reactors melt down into the Pacific while the aerial deployment of depleted uranium damages innocent lives, it is perplexing that so few people fight back against a system that has horror as a reality for most living on the planet. And those who fight back, who stand in opposition to the culture behind such wholesale abuse and call it what it is - a genocidal mega-state (especially if you believe that the lives of nonhumans are as important to them as yours is to you and mine is to me) - are met with hostility and hatred, scoffed at, harassed, even tortured. With so much at stake, why aren't more people deafening their ears to the nutcases who preach a future of infinite-growth economies? And why do so many people continue to put "the economy" first, to take industrial capitalism as we know it as a given and not fight back, defend what's left of the natural world?
More at the linkLet's expose the structure of violence that keeps the world economy running.... more
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This Thursday April 22, will be the fourtieth Earth Day I have lived through. But I have lived on this Earth approximately 18,697 days and there has not been one day where this Earth has failed to provide for all of my needs in every sense. And because of this, I pledged a long time ago to do my part as a citizen of this Earth to do all I can to preserve its beauty, mystery, and the systems that provide for our sustenance. That is what Earth Day is all about. It is about remembering all our Earth gives to us and paying homage to her and pledging to do all we can to do the same for her.
However, on this Earth Day as on many other days before I am filled with hope yet sadness at seeing how we humans on the whole do not understand this message. Climate change combined with pollution now threaten to place our Earth on a collision course with catastrophe as we push the limitations of the very systems that give us life. We have become detached from Earth even though we live here. The beauty of a sunrise, a clear mountain stream, a tree, and now even the soul satisfying practice of tilling our own soil have been depraved by those who care little for the essence of Earth beyond what they can sell it for.
So on this Earth Day as I have for almost every other of the approxomate 18,697 days I have lived here, I will pay homage to the magnificence of a planet unlike any other. A planet of unsurpassed beauty and potential.
And I will never give up in doing all I can to preserve this giver of all life.
And I will blog. And I will speak out. And I will take action. And I will fight.
For our Earth. Our home.
For without her, there is nothing else.
P.S. to Mother Earth: Thank you.
Happy Earth Day.This Thursday April 22, will be the fourtieth Earth Day I have lived through. But I... more
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The last meeting before Copenhagen next month, and as with Bush we see the same obstructionism with the Obama administration? WTF? Is this really why Obama is so fervent about shoving healthcare bills down our throat now? Shouldn't we have tackled the most crucial crisis leading to our health ills first?The last meeting before Copenhagen next month, and as with Bush we see the same... more
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Dawn strikes the mountains rising above St. Mary’s Lake in Montana’s Glacier National Park. When the park was created in 1910, it had 150 glaciers. Now it has 30 glaciers, significantly reduced in size.
Many of the world’s freshwater glaciers are shrinking, as warming temperatures melt them away. Some have disappeared all together. The glaciers on both Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro are among those glaciers noticeably decreasing as temperatures climb, causing lower-lying towns considerable worry.
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And when they all melt away then will humanity (if it still exists) say this is a crisis that needs to be 'solved now' when it is too late? Will we still be 'debating' it?Dawn strikes the mountains rising above St. Mary’s Lake in Montana’s... more
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For those who have not understood why Mr. Gore is doing what he is doing and why he is doing it this way, stayed tuned. He knows what he's doing... and it may well help save this planet. You don't have to win an "election" to be a winner.For those who have not understood why Mr. Gore is doing what he is doing and why he is... more
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This is a digital edition, so to see the interview you have to go to page 54 by using the controls at the top of the main page. You can click on shortcuts then table of contents and it should be at the top. And from reading so far it is obvious to me the clear and present danger this planet is now in and how that new level of consciousness he speaks of is where we will find the solutions. He is surely a global leader of vision. And again, he mentions that the paradigm shift will see people laying down in front of bulldozers to stop coal fired plants from being built. He reportedly also stated through his office that he was considering an invitation from the Rainforest Action Network to do just that. This is what he is talking about regarding activism as stated in The Assault on Reason. This is what that shift will have to contain in order to be successful...US. And it is a consciousness that goes beyond the political to the moral and spiritual essence of our very beings which when reached will simply tell us that and other forms of activism to make those changes are the right things to do now. The fact that he would now even consider such an invitation clearly illustrates to me the urgency of the crisis we now face and must address in mitigating the damage we are doing to this planet. Even candidates for office will need that paradigm shift to see beyond their own political biases to do what is morally right. All I know is, that for him to be the leader of this at this time is no coincidence. This is THE issue, and this is the most important position he has ever had in his entire life and is the one I do believe he will be most remembered for. He is an environmentalist above all else, and I respect that. And I am way past ready for that shift.This is a digital edition, so to see the interview you have to go to page 54 by using... more
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