(Healingtalks) Highly toxic compounds, associated with “fracking chemicals” had recently been detected by the EPA in local Wyoming groundwaters. Regulations are promised to further protect the public, but perhaps not just stricter rules but an entirely different national and international energy policy is needed.
What is fracking all about
“Hydraulic fracturing” is a natural gas drilling process for pumping presurised water, sand and chemicals underground in order to open the flow of oil or gas to the surface (The Guardian). The chemical mixture is often made up of:
Sodium Chloride
Ethylene Glycol
Borate Salts
Sodium Potassium Carbonate
Guar Gum
Isopropanol (Barnett Shale)
Fracking companies claim that these toxic chemicals are at such low dilutions (0.5%) as to cause no real environmental or health threat. However a millions gallons of water containing half a percent adds up to a huge amount of pollution. Other impacts are to deplete local water resources and to industrialize a rural region, often ruining tourist industries and the feel of living in the country.
The cause and xtent of the fracking problem
Anyone who resides near a natural gas drilling area can tell you fracking threatens and often does pollute groundwater. Corrupt federal politicians, however, allowed hydraulic fracturing to be exempted from the so-called “Safe” Drinking Water Act in 2005, paving the way for the largest gas drilling boom in domestic history (Fox, 2011). The exemption in that bill, known as the “Halliburton Loophole”, allows fracking companies to inject highly toxic chemicals under the ground in huge quantities and not report it to the EPA (Fox, 2011).
According to Prof Tony Ingraffea from Cornell University, Pennsilvania is 3 years into a 30 year full scale plan, with 2000 wells currently and plans to build another 5000 per year for the next 30 years. Massive fracking has thus led to thousands of reported cases of water contamination, with the EPA’s latest findings being but one confirmation.
EPA’s confirmation
On December 7, 2011 the EPA released this report which for the first time put the agency on record as definitively finding that fracking causes severe water pollution.
The report identified fracking as the chief source of poisons in local groundwater, including a major carcinogen, benzene, in the central Wyoming community (Green, 2011).
Health officials last year advised locals not to drink their water found low levels hydrocarbons were found in their wells (The Guardian). At the same time the aquifer or water reservoirs will never be cleaned. The pollution there, for the foreseeable future, appears permanent (Fox, 2011).
Moving more towards renewable energy
This points out we to need to move more toward renewable energy sources and to stop using fossil fuels that can harm the environment and ourselves. According to The National Resources Defence Council(NRDC), we have plenty of other energy resources for a sustainable future:
Wind Energy – In America alone, wind generates enough electricity to power more than 10 million homes, creates steady income for investors and landowners, and helps support over 100,000 manufacturing and ongoing operations and maintenance jobs (NRDC).
Solar Energy - By the end of the decade, solar energy could become cheaper than conventional electricity in many parts of the US. The industry currently creates about 125,000 American jobs (NRDC).
Biogas Energy – In 2010, there were about 160 operational biogas recovery systems on American commercial livestock farms, which produced enough electricity to power the equivalent of 41,000 homes. This gas mixture can be used to generate heat, hot water or electricity, and the leftover digested manure can be used as fertilizer, bedding, mulch and potting soil (NRDC).
Geothermal – Geothermal energy comes from reservoirs of steam and hot water beneath the earth’s surface. It is among the least explored renewable energies in the United States. In 2010, geothermal energy produced just over 3,000 megawatts of energy (NRDC).
In short, it is far better focus on energy solutions that will not threaten us or our environment.
Hydraulic fracking, fracking chemicals, fracking companies, gas drilling,, hydraulic fracturing, what is hydrofracking, natural gas drilling, fracking shale, fracking Pennsylvania, alternative energy resources, alternative renewable energy sources, chemicals in water, safe drinking water, causes of pollution in water, contaminated water, polluted water, groundwater contamination
(Healingtalks) Picture walking through the local streets of your home town and seeing lush lawns full of veggies and flowers, and where the police station grounds grow potatoes and the supermarket parking lot has a mix of herbs.
Welcome to the world of the small Victorian town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire.
Tomorden townspeople have created a community that is really making a difference. Currently there are thousands of vegetables planted in 70 ‘free-help-yourself’ garden beds around town. The amazing success means Tomorden is well on the way to becoming the first town in all of the UK to have self-sufficient food.
Power of female inspiration
Pam and Mary two women who both shared a concern for the state of our world founded this project. They started simply by getting friends, mostly women, together at a cafe.
‘Wars come about by men having drinks in bars, good things come about when women drink coffee together,’ says Mary.‘Our thinking was: there’s so much blame in the world, blame local government, blame politicians, blame bankers, blame technology, we thought, let’s just do something positive instead’.
Knowing that an ingredient to healthy consciousness is healthy food, the team utilized the community spaces available in order to turn their town into an eatable delight.
A community that gets it
With a walk through Tomorden you’ll now find
Raspberries, apricots and apples are now on the canal path
Blackcurrants, redcurrants and strawberries adorn the grounds of a doctor’s office
Beans and peas can be located amid the college lawns
Cherries grow in the supermarket car park
Mint, rosemary, thyme and fennel shoot up by the health center
Potatoes and carrots grow around the police station
‘We’ve filled the flower beds with fennel and they’ve all been taught that if you bite fennel, it tastes like a liquorice…So when I see the children popping little bits of herb into their mouths, I just think it’s brilliant’
The community spirit is thus more alive in Tomorden ‘were in this together’ to nurture each other.
Mary Clear, 56 grandmother of ten and co-founder of Incredible Edible states that ‘by 2018’ the town will have a self sufficient supply of food. ‘It’s a very ambitious aim. But if you don’t aim high, you might as well stay in bed, mightn’t you?
Plant-based revolution
So is the world ready for a plant based or garden revolution?
Similar plans are being piloted in 21 other towns in the UK, and there’s been interest shown as far as Spain, Germany, Hong Kong and Canada. ‘This is a revolution,’ Mary says. ‘But we are gentle revolutionaries. Everything we do is underpinned by kindness’.
Pam says ‘if you’ve got schools, shops, back gardens and verges, you can do it.’
So out goes packaged and processed GMOs and in comes freshly harvested carrots from your neighbors and herbs and fruit from the middle of town.
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) The biggest story Healingtalks has ever reported about is the current looming death of the US Bill of Rights. The immediate trigger is the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, but there is far more to this.
Why the media blackout
That you practically don’t hear anything about this – except on the Internet – is indicative of the vast cultural and spiritual illness and corruption of our times. Every major newspaper, TV and radio station should be blaring non-stop about this story. Instead there is a blackout. You have to hunt for it. The main street media have been taken over which is what enabled Congress to be taken over.
This has happened quietly, ever since the passage over the Telecommunication Act of 1996. So in the short run this has been at least two decades in the making. That Telecommunications Act, amending the original one of 1934, allowed for the consolidation of media control and as a death-knoll for the spirit of America. Massing enough votes in Congress, this bill overturned the freedom of thousands of independent media outlets to present the American public’s real spirit, the spirit of 99% of the population having become dominated by the voice of the 1% or really much less.
Main Street news thus could be fabricated and almost completely controlled without challenge (except for later on the Internet).
This especially tried to put a tombstone of the spirit of the 1960′s or what had threatened the dominance of commercial forces. Now through this infamous Act, the elite of our nation gained the upper hand to enact their agenda for America, and for decades to come.
But this development was not just one of two or three decades making as in the chart above. It had really been four centuries in the making, and even more (if one considers the evolution of influences since Greek and Roman times)
Mislead by a corrupt 17th century vision
In my opinion, the root spiritual foundation of western civilization is by now itself ill.
This is why we face such ever more corrupt political and economic forces taking mind-control and overturning our otherwise spirited culture.
The fact is that for the past 400 years we have adopted a mechanical, machine-like, spirit-less and essentially dead and unconscious vision of nature – as introduced with great naivete and at the same time huge arrogance and aggressiveness by 17th century European culture. So am I saying that what brought us computers, planes, cars, refrigerators, TVs and so on is a naive view of nature? This is only when misused in a deeply-penetrating way (which is what a universal view ultimately mandates and requires ) to then harm the core of ourselves. Modern chemical pollution accomplishes something akin.
That new vision, however, and as best expressed in the writings of Sir Isaac Newton, gained immense prestige and influence, enough to overturn the dominance of the medieval order, the Bible-led view that had stood its ground for almost two thousand years. The displacing Newtonian view was what inspired modernity as we know it.
Prior political order overturned at the same time
At first this involved an overturning of the rule of Kings and Queens whose power was delegated by the Roman Catholic Church (or via belief in the authority of the Bible whose truths were borne to light by the Pope and his emissaries on earth). Because of this loss of faith, it became thinkable and possible to eliminate the royalty, and in fact the royal family of Russia was murdered in one nighton July 16-17, 1918, as ordered by Lenin.
And so there was the American, French, and Russian revolutions all of which fought for religious liberties, or for freedom from medieval despotic prior authoritarianism and thereby for a new order – for better or worse.
What led the spirit of those times, at least in America, appears on the brink of failure and collapse. In my view, that collapse was inevitable.
Why? Before answering that question, it is instructive to know how the overturning of the spiritual leadership of the biblical vision in more detail, and what was entailed in the new modern vision coming to dominance. For changes in belief precede the changes in our outer world.
New Heliocentric View of the Cosmos
How the new vision rose to dominance
The Bible, for almost two thousand years, had implied that we lived in a “geocentric” universe (the earth was presumed to be at the center of things) and as it was written in Genesis that “the stars were created to shine upon the earth.” That ancient vision, and its long-held truths, suddenly became challenged by the discoveries of modern science that the earth really rotates around the sun. This was shown via telescopes, and the new philosophies of the “Renaissance” offered to better explain how this happened via symbolic math formulas rather than biblical revelations as the supposed highest and surest authority for objective truth. The universe was suddenly moving like a GRAND CLOCK rather than via the Bible-described divine order.
E=mc2
That vision, which led the new way, upheld the universe moved like a Grand Mechanical Clock, in tick-tock or predictable fashion. The underlying and justifying philosophy for this whole view was codified and expressed in Newton’s Principia Naturalis Mathematica. That book, rarely read but probably second only the Bible in the influence if its message offered to outline the essential and “true” laws of nature – again being “supposedly” and everywhere mathematical.
Of course we are taught almost never taught to think these principles could even possibly be just “supposedly” mathematical. Nature was now absolutely mathematical in is unifying order. The title of Newton’s book was thus translated from the Latin to read and express an arrogance that transcended any “supposedness,” namely as “The Mathematical Laws of Nature.
With this new and exciting cosmic vision being grounded on an inner terra firma or bedrock, showing us a new way to the Oneness of nature (and via formulas like E=mc2) man had found an order of nature more certain than the Bible – and thus mroe to be believed in and followed!
Armed with this transcending knowledge, the Renaissance was born. This meant a “rebirth” of our culture out of the Age of Darkness, of blind faith, and again “supposedly” into the Age of Reason.
Belief in a vision “supposedly” no longer faith-led and no longer merely believed in
Humanity now had god-like truth to become Gods. In short, the new vision was not considered a faith-led view. It was absolutely true. It was objectively true. And only peers who adopted that view could be considered those who truly knew nature.
The mathematicians were thus called “natural philosophers.
But I have grown to become a renegade in regard to all such supposition, assured they were dead wrong – and death-ridden in their understanding in more senses than one.
It is my view that we really got a transferred faith to another false and ultimately dangerous illusion – one that is still followed unquestionably as we revered the truths of chemists, physicists, and astronomers -
no less than then.
Thus Newton could make statements like the “atom” (the indivisible building block of nature and to parallel 1/1=1 as the building blocks of mathematics) formed the truest foundation of our world because that was “what God created on the first day of Creation.” If one reads carefully the literature of that time, the mathematical vision was affirmed by our senses but also justified by faith. This is because they really only could explain how but not why the universe had to be mathematical.
There was never a real overseeing explanation of exactly why – why thus to believe in the mathematical order as reigning universally and to displace all other views including the Bible It was simply enough to know that math symbols could more accurately and predictably describe the movement of the stars. With that justification we could arrogantly extend that justified view everywhere in nature – no matter what the consequences were or where we found ourselves as a result. From that point forward we were to follow mathematical symbols and formulas, as unearthed in lab explorations, to wherever they might lead or mislead us.
But the misleading part was thought unthinkable. This is usually in the nature of a faith-born or belief-laden views
But what if that vision is indeed flawed and misleading? What if we have been fooled through a lack of a deeper understanding of what is consciousness and the interplay of beliefs with that consciousness?
Could it even be possible that for the last 400 years we have essentially been so vastly mislead, and by this hugest of mistakes and beliefs – that the consequences are now coming to roost, to haunt us, and to bring us to a very deadly black flowering and fruition – and endgame for life on planet earth?
In my renegade view, that is exactly what I see happening as the predictable outcomes of our course as we have lived through the 20th and now 21st century.
We face actually a spiritual lesson if you like. And from the ashes of that Newtonian vision’s failure – cosmically, micro-cosmically and socially, a far better understanding is possible, if humanity survives this lesson in foolishness of beliefs, arrogance and utter naivete.
Metastatic skin cancer Industrial air pollution
Welcome to the Industrial Revolution and our Modern Age
Then having discovered this again “supposedly” truer order, man’s rise to dominion over nature was now assured for all times. We were to enter a Utopian age of only unlimited progress, health and well being. We were to re-establish Eden.
This myth then led all of humanity, including the later split between socialists and capitalists as two sides of one coin supporting the Industrial Revolution, its commercial, materialistic society and our overall modern age.
As one contemporary of Newton put it, “Newton knew more about the Cosmos than all of humanity combined,” and the Principia. though understood only by a select few physicists, was to be followed as a new faith that was not a faith.
Little did they understand that if we believe in any ideational or conceptual or symbolic order, we might foolishly recreate thereby rather than objectively discover the world by such means.
Architectural symbol for this same rise of a new spirit and vision
What replaced the medieval vision, the mathematical and mechanical, also became the root spiritual foundation of our modern industrial and commercial culture – whether again led by capitalists following the American Revolution or communists following the Russian – as they both believed in the same root vision – just having alternative ways socially and politically to make it work. Socialism would free us from the tyranny of economic exploitation and capitalism from the tyranny of government.
Architecturally a good part of this is symbolized on Wall Street
There we now find a dwarfing of Trinity Church, built in the 17th century – and which used to be the highest building in NYC – with its steeple pointing to the Biblical God. Trinity was built by the Church of England and again architecturally this meant it represented the dominance of the medieval world over the Americas . George Washington knelt there to pray for an overturning of that order. He and his revolutionaries managed to do just that.
What has been the end result?
Now banking, insurance, brokerage, real estate and other commercial structures dwarf Trinity Church – as did Twin Towers before it came down. These are all boxy, linear, math-designed structures, forming a sharp contrast to Trinity’s medieval architectural design, and representing again new spirit of our modern world. Inside the new buildings we also find boxy, linear, separate offices and separate office cubicles (all of which can be considered symbolic) and where grand social calculations are made by accountants and brokers.
With the leadership of a newly-introduced vision, human beings were indeed supposed to, in the depths of their souls, relate best to each other via money or mathematically – or in exactly the same way that Sir Isaac Newton told us the stars related to each other – and rather than as told by the revelations of the Bible . For the latter was no longer to be absolutely trusted.
Following Newton’s lead, his friend, Sir William Petty, became the first economist in England. Petty laid out a new math-bound, statistical guidance for the modern world, and in his book called Political Arithmetic. It implied that all of humanity should and again must relate to each other, along with nature, mathematically (commercially via money) to live in harmony with the new found divine cosmic order.
This was what Newton, Petty’s friend, had supposedly discovered as the “natural order” of our cosmos – with its central or unifying paradigm being mathematics.
Four centuries later, welcome to the not only science but Wall Street-lead culture of our times.
I personally know that culture, and Trinity Church well, having chosen to live in the belly of the Behemoth for nearly a decade, and as president of two Wall Street securities firms.
The flaw must be deeper….and it is
Newton died a schizophrenic, which should tell us something about his inner vision not necessarily being so firmly grounded in the ocean of our inner consciousness.
The root flaw and corruption of that vision was not exactly what Marx and Engels pointed out in the 19th century (that the means of production were owned by just a few capitalists). The repairs done to the collapsing stock markets in the 1930′s and the rise of socialism and progressive or liberal movements to help labor, the poor and the middle classreally didn’t fix the same problem in the end.
We find a yet more extreme polarization of wealth and the markets near collapse,all over again – and as I would claim, predictably.
The great pacific garbage patch
Our socio-economic and political orders, rooted in the revolutions of the past, are not the only things on the verge of collapse. The survival of many living environments around the planet is being challenged. Rachel Carson back in the 1960′s pointed out that there was this strange and apparent misdirection of the modern world that had promised us endless progress – namely that we were destroying our surrounding living ecologies. She wrote this as Carson herself was dying of cancer. But with all the fixes she proposed or a Carson-inspired environmental movement, decades later we actually find the sale of pesticides and herbicides are astronomically greater!
Our oceans, air, and land terrains are hugely more polluted and threatened then ever before, and increasingly so. Above is pictured the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, said to be twice as large as the state of Texas, and stretching a thousand miles. It is an ugly and toxic manifestation of our recreation of nature.
Thus the taproot flaw must, in my view, be deeper, far deeper – and it is! The mistake lies deep not on the surface, in what we do to create pesticides and herbicides, for example, but rather in the very adapting of the core vision as first polluting our minds, and then as a consequence the outer world surrounding us and the biology within of our own bodies.
Single greatest discovery of my life
one which explains the central flaw of our
modern vision, and how we can move beyond it
The single greatest discovery of my life has been actually several parts to this revelation. First I began to realize, after certain events in my life, that the root essence of nature is really what we experience as life – no matter how rare that might manifest as strongly elsewhere in the universe, and not what is mechanical. Machines never occur naturally anywhere in pristine or untouched-by-man terrains. You won’t find a bicyle in a rainforest unless we have put it there.
How can what never once occurs anywhere naturally represent what occurs everywhere and always. Such a distortion of reality can only be the result of projected and artificial or synthetic beliefs.
So I discovered for myself that rather and instead what is again at the core of nature is life rather than what is mechanical But that is not the end of it. What points to the mechanical and designs machines is mathematics. Or one could say that machines model the mathematical order of things. What then plays the same role in a life-centered view?
Planet Earth
If one watches the video planet earth, the common denominator in all of life is living awareness. We can use a still lengthier spelled out word for what is really a simple phenomenon, namely “consciousness.”
But this begs the question what is the root nature of math-symbols, their pointing paths, and likewise what is the root nature of consciousness – as these two views can guide us to two very different ways of perceiving all things.
In my youth, when my left-brain shut down temporarily after a stroke, and after having been a math prodigy,I learned that this consciousness really forms something special and at the same time precisely distinct – namely “the universal relationship of connectionin nature or the principle of connection itself in nature” – connecting all of nature as One and thus forming the real and true essence of nature – not the illusion-born or surface appearing math-bound order that Newton envisioned, presupposed, and sold to the rest of humankind to follow.
I became , as you can see, a renegade, opposing the vision I had been taught to believe was absolutely true, and especially as a math prodigy. It was like deifying Ayn Rand, the great capitalist writer while working on Wall Street. I very simply grew to be no longer be sure that the mathematical vision of chemistry/physics/astronomy was infallibly true. I went further, much further to characterize the whole vision of Newton as essentially false when imposed upon the depths of nature, or as a powerful reversal illusion. This is why Nobel-prize winning physicists and chemists can come down with Alzheimer’s disease, because their math-bound vision doesn’t extend far enough – not to all the reachers of their inner world and for the guidance of their personal lives – rather than space ships to outer space.
Life being dedicated to healing and the raising of consciousness
Knowing this – that we live in a life and consciousness centered universe, and to the very depths of my soul, has led me to an endless stream of very deeper and greater insights. The most important application of these insights are to he healing arts, helping myself and others heal from a variety of ailments.
Overall it has essentially taught me to revolutionize everything I know about nature and my own life’s guidance. It has led me to a life more dedicated to the healing arts and to the raising of my consciousness and that of others to a higher level.
Rather than making money on Wall Street
Imagine that natural healing comes about through the re-connection of our inner consciousness, our life, and that this is because the essence of consciousness is again a universal relationship of connection.
A better understanding of consciousness, as the universal connective relationship in nature, then guides life to become more whole, more healed, more connected – and rather than, with the mathematical vision, to guide us to develop industrial technology and a fragmentation of vision. All of my naturopathic wisdom on how to heal practically is based on this understanding – with a thousand and one derivative insights. The proof of this vision is actually in the healing arts as applied to depth, systemic, chronic ills – just like the proof of the mathematical view appears in its ideological home turf or when designing machines.
Among the most important and beginning insights, and with absolute certainty for myself is that wedo notessentially live in a mathematical universe – and not as Newton proposed, described and mathematically expressed. This is what physicists, chemists, and astronomers still follow in step. We rather live in a universe a life-and-consciousness centered universe, one that is only superficially mathematical in appearance, but not so in its interior, permeating inner essence. This is why a living organism can break all of Newton’s mechanical “universal laws” of motion.
In fact Newton’s vision, with its reversal of what is essential and what is superficial, is what has so powerfully corrupted our whole economic/political and cultural consciousness about our natural world and ourselves – especially where there is concentrated, centralized power to do so.
To concentrate attention represents separative consciousness, and the corruption of that attention thus happens with centralized government, and by monetary forces that concentrate their influence – causing representative of democracy to be separated from those they represent. We thus need more publicly funded elections to demonetarize the consciousness of our legislators. We need to decentralize government as much as possible, and to re-establish the vitality of local community governance, based on sustainable models of being truly at one with nature
Why don’t we really live in a cosmos whose essence is mathematical?
In short, we really need to overturn the highest truth of the Renaissance, the belief in an essentially machine-like world, just as the Renaissance overturned the highest truths of medieval times, the belief in a divine cosmos as described by he Bible.
Otherwise the road we are on and where we are headed, predictably, will destroy not a little but all of life on earth – because the essence of our central vision of the cosmos, when used to penetrate into the universal core of life harms and undermines that core essence of life. This is the same as a knife cutting a living organism apart. A cutting knife cannot be swung in all directions without doing harm. The mathematical view, like the knife, cannot be swung in all directions as a universal paradigm. It is better used as a servant to the conscious, life-centered, and life-supporting views.
At present our culture leans in the opposite direction toward a most extreme dominance of mechanical view over life (symbolized by genetic engineering)- and which can only lead to our self destruction and the destruction of life on earth.
Still we are inundated with icons (culturally mythologized images) of both physicists who supposedly best and beter understand nature and similar icons (again culturally-mythologized images) of doctors with stethoscopes, who via mechanical view supposedly better undersand our bodies.
The latter view also sees the heart as merely a mechanical pump.
Why is this whole inspiration of the past 400 years, again what has led us to live in an industrial, money-dominated, and pharmaceutical-led “healing” culture, so flawed?
The following may upset those who studied physics and chemistry, if my words are taken seriously, and they are so meant to be.
Let us suppose that math symbols do not really point to the divinely essential order in nature. Where then do they point us? This requires putting consciousness above the pointing path of these symbols rather than following obediently from behind or below, which is itself a huge revolutionary step. What is the more objective, rather than mythologized view of the use of math symbols? What can we perceive when we consciously overview the pointing path of those symbols?
Remember that the 17th century came out of a biblical, or faith-led culture – a faith now transferred to the new math-bound view. There could never be something above God to judge God, and so too with math symbols as ultimate arbiters of reality.
Here we deny this claim and do put our consciousness above as it anyway forms the more real essence by which to perceive and judge our world.
What I have repeatedly seen – with what I call naked, right-brain dominant or raw-wisdom – is that math symbols clearly and unmistakeably and consistently point to certain directions that are not without biases, The form the very highest (or most universal) inner pointing tools for how to separate all elements of consciousness. They are the naturally dominant means to then organize left-brain consciousness, the surface/separative and thereby surface-bound view. When we confuse what is seen as surface appearances with more a more depth view, we harvest illusions and become lost. This is what happens to dementia sufferer. They lose their way in the inner world of consciousness. This is what happens to right-brain damaged patients, who only have the use of the left brain, and thus and again suffer from dementia.
Because one cannot connect a vision of nature universally using universal abstractions of separation, the mathematical, the highest left-brain vision becomes itself demented. It is actually the most deeply irrational and ultimately consciousness-destructive and corrupting of visions – when deeply applied in the midst of living terrains. It does not really objectify perceptions. It does not deeply know or understand our life-centered world. This is why our healing arts are in a shambles and we have multiple, major run-away health epidemics in a consciousness-numbed culture. The fasting growing of these health epidemics are all consciousness ailments – like diabetes, metastatic cancer and Alzheimer’s. With Alzheimer’s especially the consciousness is lost so that memories no longer connect.
All of the above is childishly easy to demonstrate
It takes no PhD or being a math prodigy to sort through any philosophic dumbo jumbo.
We miss the simplest of truths when covered over by complex algebraic or calculus formulas.
If three apples are separate, we can count them
But blend these same apples together to make applesauce, and we cannot count them any longer. Math symbols abstract universal separation – pointing to the opposite principles relative to what is life and consciousness. When universally applied with integrity, which is what the cosmic vision are bound to do ( and nowadays more so to the tiniest nanotechnology levels) that view has to lead to a systemically undermining, corruption or ill consciousness and impinging of life. This becomes a profound insight, why our modern world must change its course if we are to be rescued form our stranded straights.
Thus we cannot do the following:
Build a consciousness uncorrupted culture led by a math-bound vision – If consciousness is the universal relationship of connection in nature, then you predictably and ultimately undermine cultural consciousness via the dominance of a math-bound view of nature to her deepest depths. Why? Because conscious is again the opposite universal relationship of connection in nature, and inside of us! Again there is hardly a more revolutionary statement to make than to say that we undermine the integrity of consciousness through a universal mathematical vision, rather than the claimed opposite stance of the Renaissance. Is this just my fantasy, without any basis in our senses? No one can see this reality in our consciousness challenged culture, and in how nursing home patients fed multiple, math-designed drugs walk the halls like near-dead zombies. One can see this insight in how money can corrupt consciousness. Mirror reverse image or reversal illusion
But the mathematical view does seemed to work Doesn’t it? - At first a math-vision-led culture will seem to make great progress as the vision is applied more superficially – and where it best applies. But later, the same guidance can and will pollute and destroy living nature and the essence of living nature, again corrupting and harming its consciousness. That has been my own overall, life-long insight. The reversal illusion is universal, and between the surface and depth or superficial and essential order of nature. It is like a mirror image reversed, apparently true with a trillion details but at the same time false. This also happened with the reversal illusion of geo- and heliocentricity. Reversal illusions in general are the most powerful, griping and addicting of illusions, why when uncovered this can be shocking and can engender “re-volutions” in thought. Here the reversal illusion of he math-bound view is of much greater significance than the geo-helio reversal, whose discovery catapulted us into the modern world. It is the ultimate and most difficult of illusions to pierce – the quintessential mistaking of surface appearance for depth truth.
Thus an allopathic doctor will initially suppress consciousness-surface symptoms to make it appear that he or she is healing a disease. But eventually it does not heal when systemic. What his or her drugs will do is harm life yet more with so-called “side-effects” which are really main effects. This is why there are no chemical cures for Alzheimer’s disease. The order of inner consciousness and that of life again class oppositely with the math-bound order. We intuit this when whatever is mechanical is anathema to creative/conscious life.
We feel it with conscious pain when our bodies are cut apart, or rendered to become like machines which they are not. Machines are made of separate parts, we and all living things are whole organisms connected via our consciousness, the universal connective relationship. We feel pain as that consciousness rushes to a site of any tear, rip or cut.
This is why a large random mix of chemicals thrown into a compost heap destroys the life of the heap or forms a super-toxic waste site. The same happens ecologically on a wider scale. The very same also happens deep inside of us as we ingest synthetic chemicals, being lured by the marketing pressure and consciousness deceptions of giant pharmaceutical firms. To avoid this view, these pharmaceutical companies test drugs in lab-created environments of separatetest-tube isolations. They don’t test the mathematical view as a connected whole, as with the example, of the compost heap, because that would challenge and undermine their science.
I know all the arguments about positive uses of math and science – Positive uses exist and have validity. But the validity is surface limited, rather than universal or all-integrally and depth true. The vision profoundly lacks integrity and was not well thought through. Yes we can use a thermometer, for example, to measure exactly how far there is a departure from a point of temperature balance. But again, these are double negative applications- to use what is separative consciousness to get back to what is connective or a point of balance. If we alternatively or directly force that separative vision onto the essence of nature, the same life that is helped will be lethally harmed and even to the point of mass extinctions. We see this looming threat on the horizon with many developments, the proliferated of atomic weapons, the ever expanding chemical pollution of our planet, and the rising genetic engineering and nanotechnology applications.
Discovering the ultimate depth essence of nature -The real essence of nature has to be what integrally connectsall things. It cannot be what universally separates all things – no matter how much I would like to follow the lead of Newton.This is similar to chocolate being the essence of a chocolate bar. That essence is not represented by what is on the wrapper of the chocolate bar. It is rather represented by what is inside and connectively throughout. Mathematics remains ever the abstraction of how to separate all elements of consciousness.
When we separate things, we form surface appearances. We cut an apple apart, and surfaces appear which then also start to brown and to decay. The latter, the universally separative understanding, on an inner level, similarly starts to corrupts the universally connective, the more conscious understanding. This is the understanding of nature that lies in between the slices of light that a microscope isolates or separates as 1, 10x, and 1000x. As you cannot glue things together with a chainsaw, you cannot connect a vision of nature with chainsaw symbols that mislead us to cut all perceptions apart. Rather with a universally separative vision of nature, you can best build atomic weapons to destroy the Earth and we can create the means to pollute all of our planet’s living, conscious terrains – without exceptions.
In short, we have been misguided grossly for 400 years
It is paradoxical that the vision which created democracy and lands of liberty and a modern science of nature is also what is now undermining those terrains, as highlighted on a special anniversary date.
Just 210 years ago, on December 15th, 1791, the Bill of Rights became the law of the land. Now we see an overturning of that Bill of Rights on Dec 15, 2011!
But understanding what was presented above, this process has been an inevitable and twice as long-run development (400 years, two hundred past the enactment of the Bill of Rights).
The early fruits of the Industrial Revolution were again, what we can best might call double-negatives which equal only superficial positives – and to be undermined latter as the vision is ever deepened applied and expanded. Thus machines negated and replaced mechanical chores, a double negative that yielded a superficial positive – including a short-term abolishing of slavery. This is why the Renaissance vision was treated with such huge excitement – with the thrilling belief that it would only lead us to endless human progress and the glorious conquest of nature – including our human nature.
Sir Isaac Newton never imaged McDonald’s innovative mechanization of food delivery and what that would do to our health; or Monsanto’s mechanization of what is at the core of life and what it would do to threaten life all over the planet; or Fehmi’s invention of formulas that led to the building of atomic weapons – based on Cartesian coordinate formulas, a vision of space infinitely separated or exploded. Newton never imagined the creation of a Bill of Rights and its later shredding. Blind belief in an order does not yield wisdom or foresight.
Thus a far deeper application of the very same root Newtonian vision, has mislead and misguided us toward a wholesale destruction of life, of free-will and ultimately of cultural consciousness – or a far greater and deeper eventual slavery of humanity.
We are on that doorstep. Make no mistake about it. We have arrived at that doorstep.
What we visualize, we always create
We are ultimately responsible for the world we have created it. And not until we change our root inner vision, or what has led us to where we are today, until we green our inner consciousness and not just our gardens, our outer world will continue on this very same path to the very same ends and unstopped.
What we visualize inside of us, we materialize outside of us.
That is the ultimate law of consciousness and the ultimate challenge.
Greatest story of our times
And so the story unfolds that on December 15th 2011, the US Senate, following the US House of Representatives, passed the National Defense Authorization Bill.
It is a bill that totally historically guts the Bill of Rights.
It is a bill that ends the dominance of the spirit of 18th century America.
The founding fathers were wise but their efforts were not enough to withstand the evil potentials of government and its dominant economic forces. They still underestimated the power of those forces to undermine their noble efforts – to withstand the ever greater evolution of a commercial-dominated culture which we’ve seen in our times.
The real terrorist attack
This new NDA Act destroys the liberty that Americans have fought for, for at least two hundred years. It is the ultimate terrorist act or overturning of our nation.
It allows for the arrest and indefinite detention of any US citizens who are just accused of being a “terrorist” – without the necessity of any trial or proof.
Building 7 Demolition Though Never Hit by a Plane
The fake terrorist attack
This has been enacted during a time when the whole “War on Terror” was fabricated by the Bush administration. The notion that three buildings came down on Wall Street due to a terrorist attack of two planes, and within seconds or in demolition fashion is a public IQ test. It is also a test for how far mass consolidated media can distort and recreate Orwellian reality.
No loin-skill clothed Afghans could ever have challenged a trillion-dollar-a-year-spending military and its air defense system.
Norad, that air defense system, was ordered to be shut down on 9-11. The only true accounts of what happened can be found on the Internet.
Then came the passage of the “Patriot Act” – which the whole primary purpose for staging 9-11.
And now comes the ultimate follow up, the NDA Act – the end game of killing American democracy.
I came from Nazi Germany
Those criminals in our culture who have staged 9-11 studied what happened with the burning of the Reichestag that thus led to the destruction of democracy in Germany.
My family was a survivor of Nazi Germany only because my father read Mein Kampf and saw what was coming. We live in times, that is in an age of drones, where there is no where any longer to run to. So we are forced to remain and stand up to the forces of our times and via an infowar – letting the truth come out.
Hanging together through these tough times
Our commercial culture has created a new brave world were we live ever more separately and in zombie-like ways, dumbed down by drugs and TV addictions. Also the single person living alone has become the highest rising social statistic of our commercial times. This evidences still further a disintegration of society. But ultimately the pendulum must swing the other way.
As Benedict Arnold once stated, and this applies powerfully to our times. a time of deep cultural illness and corruption,…. we must now either hang together or else hang separately. We need to create new local and intentional (conscious) community structures – to rebuild our world out of the ashes of the modern.
What is martial law, what is marshal law, marshall law united states, obama indefinite detention detention laws, detention definition, death of liberty, shredding the bill of rights, fall of modern civilization
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) Normally we write just about health issues. However, certain recent political developments are so threatening to the freedom of our culture that they affect the health of all aspects of our lives.
When it comes to politics there is an elite in control. And what has spooked that elite of our country the most?
It is not difficult to figure out.
Trying to control the collective mind
Back in the 1960′s there was a very powerful cultural movement that threatened the soul of modern capitalism. To remedy that threatening climate, bills were soon passed to consolidate control of all the media, setting the stage for an essential killing of America’s spirit. The aim was to guarantee that a 1960′s style or unconventional cultural revolution would never happen again. That effort was highly successful, and has held its ground for nearly four decades. But just as flowers and grass dare to eventually grow through the cracks in cement sidewalks, something new and alive is popping up that threatens to overturn this apple cart.
It’s the freedom of the Internet.
The power of Internet freedom
We have seem its power of the Internet in the Middle East, helping to overthrow authoritarian governments.
Make no mistake about it, the elite in America have gotten the message, and quite a long time ago (considering that they began to build FEMA camps over a decade ago). Their plans have accelerated to retake control in 2012.
This includes the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to allow for indefinite confinement of US citizens just by being accused or suspected of being a “terrorist”
Attempting mind control
A follow up thrust is a bill called SOPA in the House and a parallel bill called Protect IP Act in the Senate.
Thus what began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has totally changed into a bill to essentially kill the Internet’s freedom. Make no mistake about it. This is a criminal piece of legislation. Congress no longer represents the American people when passing legislation. It represents lobbyists and corporate influence, no matter how malevolent.
Why Congress is moving so quickly on these bills
The answer is simple. If they don’t, and in as little as a year, the elite will lose out big time.
Movements like the citizen effort in California to put on the ballot a bill to label genetically engineered foods will set a trend that will eventually bankrupt Monsanto.
Such uncontrolled public efforts, circumventing Congress, are scaring the daylights or freaking out the elite.
They want to retake and maintain full control. But because their thrust is so malevolent and evil, this time it will require violence.
The combined effort of NDAA’s unlimited detention law, the building of FEMA camps, and now the SOPA/IP Act’s attempt to destroy the Internet – these are all part and parcel of the same big picture to retake control.
SOPA and IP Act thrusts to destroy Internet free speech
Thus the proposed legislation would be an Orwellian power grab by the U.S. Justice Department to be able to shut down any Internet site it wants to, and by fiat. All the “Justice” Department has to do is claim a site violates this law. As with the National Defense Authorization Act, the accusation, without trial, suffices to criminalize the target. There will be no due process in the Courts. It would establish an unbridled “thought police and set a worldwide precedent.
A mere accusation is enough
Again under the proposed legislation, a mere accusation shuts down a site, supposedly because it unlawfully featured copyrighted content. The accusation need not be proven or even accompanied by probable cause. This is similar to how the FDA is threatening and has successfully put out of business natural supplement companies.
Again, all that the government accuser has to do is point a finger at a website and it is dead.
Financial death too boot
Additionally, the bills grant regulators the right to choke off revenue to the owners of these newly classified “rogue” websites by accusing their online advertisers and payment providers as co-conspirators in the alleged “piracy.” Again, no finding of fact would be required – the mere allegation of impropriety is all that’s needed to cut the website’s purse strings. The bill would threaten to make linking illegal, except for the linking from and to government approved (or not disapproved) sites.
Who’s vulnerable to this legislation?
Just about all websites. The bill would criminalize sites like Youtube or even Facebook. The penalty for posting “copyright” material is 5 years in jail!
Don’t be fooled these bills are not at all about protecting copyrights any more than the Clean Air Act was about clean air. The latter was about allowing for more pollution. Know the difference between a pretext and the real reason a bill is being passed.
SOPA and the IP Act are the equivalent of curing a headache with a guillotine.
If they go through Congress, kiss goodbye to America’s freedom of speech. Know the ulterior and clear motive has really absolutely nothing to do with copyrights. There are enough laws on the books for that already. The real goal to kill freedom of expression that is threatening the elite
End of internet, internet freedom, for net neutrality, net neutral, internet neutrality, net neutrality cons, net neutrality pros neutrality net, netneutrality, neutrality legislation, fcc and net neutrality, internet net neutrality, public knowledge internet, net neutrality
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) December 15th (the day this article was first posted) was the 220th anniversary of when, in 1791, Congress entered into law The Bill of Rights. This represented the soul of America, what brave men and women fought to defend – our liberties. All of that is about to be overturned, no kidding. This is no joke. Besides the fact that the US government has built around 1000 detention centers around the country, and is now staffing them, a friend tells me of another friend in the military who is disgusted about how troops, returning from wars like Iraq, are being trained to turn on the American public with lethal weapons. Again no kidding. This is no joke. How I wish this was just fear mongering.
Forbes details the legal framework behind this development.
________________________________________________________________
If Obama does one thing for the remainder of his presidency let it be a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act – a law recently passed by the Senate which would place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them “terrorists.”
So much for innocent until proven guilty. So much for limited government. What Americans are now facing is quite literally the end of the line. We will either uphold the freedoms baked into our Constitutional Republic, or we will scrap the entire project in the name of security as we wage, endlessly, this futile, costly, and ultimately self-defeating War on Terror.
There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an “associated force” can be held in military custody “without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.
Indefinite detention
But far more dramatically, the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”
An amendment that would limit military detentions to people captured overseas failed on Thursday afternoon. The Senate soundly defeated a measure to strip out all the detention provisions on Tuesday.
So despite the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end. And because the Senate is using the bill that authorizes funding for the military as its vehicle for this dramatic constitutional claim, it’s pretty likely to pass.
I seriously don’t care if you’re a liberal or a conservative or a libertarian or a Zen anarchist. So long as you aren’t Carl Levin or John McCain, the bill’s architects, you can join the Civil Liberties Caucus. Spencer writes:
Weirder still, the bill’s chief architect, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), tried to persuade skeptics that the bill wasn’t so bad. His pitch? “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States,” he said on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill would just let the government detain a citizen in military custody, not force it to do that. Reassured yet?
Civil libertarians aren’t. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said it “denigrates the very foundations of this country.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) added, “it puts every single American citizen at risk.”
This is what I mean: Give me Rand Paul and Al Franken any day of the week over the Levins and McCains of the Senate. We need more elected officials with the sensibility of Ron Wyden or Al Franken* on the left, or Rand Paul on the right. Right and left are such shoddy, ad hoc descriptors these days anyways.
What’s truly at stake when we start talking about Big Government and such is far more dangerous and preposterous than high marginal tax rates.
Stripping away our freedoms
We’re talking about the stripping away of our most basic freedoms. We’re talking about a potential state that can call me a terrorist for writing this blog post and then lock me up and throw away the key.
What’s the line from Batman? The night is always darkest just before the dawn. I like to think that’s true, because times seem awfully dark these days.
* Update: Actually,Franken voted for the NDAA so never mind. He’s also sponsoring the PROTECT IP Act which would clamp down on free speech online.
what are my rights, human rights law, what are the civil liberties, fundamental rights, citizen rights, constitutional rights, citizens rights, human rights legislation, individual rights, civil liberties
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) A healing blog normally is focused on giving you the means to heal yourself, and to ward off the external threats to your health. But there is more happening to our world that can upset our well-being than just a virus.
When I came to the US from Germany some 50 years ago, my family were the lucky survivors of the war. This was when America was the land of the free and the home of the brave – a refuge for those seeking shelter from political and religious tyranny. When my uncle came to the US, shortly before us, he kissed the ground. We all worshiped the Statue of Liberty
Who’s not aware that lots has changed in America?
Lots has happened since, and the change is about to accelerate. If you are not aware of sinister elements of the US government that are preparing for marshal law on our soil – you are not entirely with it. My dad saved his life in 1939 when he read Hitler’s Mein Kampf and knew something evil was amiss. He fled to Poland, then Russia and survived the war. Without his foresight, I would not be alive to write these words.
Germany was then a full democracy. It was also a “high culture” as well- the land of Goethe, Beethoven and Mozart. People said it just couldn’t happen there. Then, like the demolition of Twin Towers, came the burning of the Reichstagand the abrogation of liberties, supposedly to protect Germans like the Patriot Act. Heimland or Homeland Security was initiated there as here (ring a bell?). Many of those who refused to believe this all was happening, especially among Jews, died in the camps in the millions. It may seem unimaginable for something similar to be brewing. But a criminal elite in our country has recently been freaked by the rapidity of Middle East uprisings, unseating tyrants, and by the freedom of information of the Internet, and more recently by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They are taking it seriously.
Thus they have vastly accelerated a plan, more than a decade in the making.
More than just threatening marshal law
When the banks, who pull the strings of Washington government, demanded a bailout as their right, when some Congressmen balked, they threatened marshal law. The banksters are doing the same in Europe now, threatening marshal law if the Euro collapses. But the threats in the past were empty because they weren’t prepared for it, not as yet. As unbelievable as it sounds, they have been systematically planning for it, and soon these banksters who tell Obama, what to do and when, will be ready. Thus we are close to facing times like the demise of democracy in Germany. Don’t kid yourself, thinking that such a view is just one of extremism and unfounded.
Wake up America. Smell the REAL detentions camps that FEMA has already built to house millions of Americans all over the US, 800 camps built under contract by Haliburton beginning in 1999. Now for the first time these are openly being staffed for emergency 72 hour activation. If you are at all spooked, it is a time for a call to action. Should I mention some really have ovens and a store of 500,000 plastic coffins. Now that would be too much to mention.
Legislative key to Americans occupying the camps
The legislative key for operating and occupying these camps is the ‘indefinite detention’ provision’of the National Defense Authorization Act. It is set now been rushed for a vote in the House and Senate. It is an open and dangerous step to establish full martial law in America – and basically to shred the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
Speaking with the Alex Jones Show today, Congressman Paul went on the offensive against the bill, which is set to be signed into law by President Obama later this week.
Battlefield of NDAA bill – Section 1031
Section 1031 of the NDAA bill, which itself defines the entirety of the United States as a “battlefield,” allows American citizens to be snatched from the streets, carted off to a foreign detention camp and held indefinitely without trial. The bill states that “any person who has committed a belligerent act” faces indefinite detention, but no trial or evidence has to be presented, the White House merely needs to make the accusation.
Paul said he saw significance in “the announcement and the arrogance of it all,” making reference to the Obama administration’s claim that it can now assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world and noting that the passage of the NDAA bill is an effort to codify the policy into law.
This is the biggest news of our times
“This is a giant step – this should be the biggest news going right now – literally legalizing martial law,” said Paul, noting that the subject did not come up at all in any of the Republican debates.
The Congressman also decried the “arrogance” of an attempt to push through via a voice vote an amendment that would have still authorized indefinite detention even if a detainee was found innocent after a trial. The amendment was narrowly defeated by his son, Senator Rand Paul.
“This is big,” emphasized Paul, adding “This step where they can literally arrest American citizens and put them away without trial….is arrogant and bold and dangerous.” Despite speculation that the Obama administration would veto the bill, it emerged yesterday that it was the White House itself which worked to remove language from the bill that would have protected American citizens from indefinite detention under Section 1031. The administration has been working with lawmakers to alter a separate provision, Section 1032, which pertains to the military being required to take custody of individuals.
With the administration’s concerns over Section 1032 now largely resolved, a revised and final version of the bill could be signed into law before the end of the week. “The conferees said they plan to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote as soon as Wednesday afternoon and to the Senate soon thereafter,” reports Politico.
Despite the revisions, the bill still contains language that allows Americans to be detained without trial at a detention center anywhere in the world.
Legislators are intentionally misleading Americans
Republican Congressman Justin Amash has again warned that lawmakers are attempting to mislead the American people by claiming U.S. citizens are exempt from the most dangerous provisions of the bill. “Pres. Obama and many Members of Congress believe the President ALREADY has the authority the bill grants him. Legally, of course, he does not. This language was inserted to keep proponents and opponents of the bill appeased, while permitting the President to assert that the improper power he has claimed all along is now in statute,” writes Amash.
“They will say that American citizens are specifically exempted under the following language in Sec. 1032: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States. Don’t be fooled. All this says is that the President is not REQUIRED to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial. It still PERMITS him to do so,” warns the Congressman.
Super-urgent call to action
Amash is encouraging Americans to contact their representatives and sign a petition expressing their opposition to the NDAA bill, calling it “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.”
Click here to listen to the interview with Ron Paul in full.
*********************
Based on an article by Paul Joseph Watson, editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show
Related Videos
Keywords
What is martial law, what is marshal law, marshall law united states, obama indefinite detention detention laws, detention definition, death of liberty
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) You might the headline is just a cute joke but unfortunately it isn’t. The mainstream media doesn’t want you to know any of this story, even though it is one of the most important we have ever reported on, since our inception. It affects everyone’s health as well as liberty and free rights to pursue happiness.
Literally repealing the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights
The US Senate jus voted, as part of the National Defense Authorization Actto essentially repeal the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. The law authorizes the U.S. military to operate on U.S. soil, conduct secret kidnappings of American citizens and throw them in secret military prisons. There they can and will be “legally” tortured, interrogated and even murdered.
Welcome to the NEW AMERICA
All that is required to become a detained outcast from the NEW AMERICA is the accusation that you are somehow linked to “terrorism.” There is no definition of that term, no due process and no evidence required. This has already been voted on by a traitorous U.S. Senate, led by Republicans like Sen. John McCain who should, due to that vote, themselves be in jail.
News Blackout
As with the Constitution-destroying provisions of the “Patriot Act,” you won’t find any depth coverage of this story in mainstream media, which has been bought up, lock-stock-and-barrel by an elite that is simultaneously behind the passage of this law. This is no joke. How and which newspaper and media magnates are involved is another story.
If you thought Bush was bad, just wait until a Republican wins the election in 2012 and then uses this law to declare open war on the American people. Impossible? The massive FEMA detention camps, built by Halliburton, and to hold a million or more American “terrorists” have now been built. This year they even have paid management, and with representatives ready-to-go in every state.
FEMA camps no joke
Where do you think the U.S. military planned to put all these U.S. citizens they round up under this new law? The FEMA camps. There is no longer any doubt!
Detention or concentration camps can’t happen here – think again
We’ve got the entire censored episode of Jesse Ventura’s “Conspiracy Theory” that reveals these FEMA camps in full detail. Watch it now with renewed knowledge of why these internment camps have been constructed across the USA: Learn about FEMA CAMPS!
All this harkens back to World War II and the Japanese internment camps set up on U.S. soil, followed by the military rounding up of Japanese citizens: About Japanese internment camps.
You think they won’t do it again? Why did they just pass a bill declaring the entire USA to be a “battleground” of terrorism – and opening the door for the military occupation of US cities? Your hometown?
On the verge of becoming a military dictatorship
Our liberty and the soul of our country is at stake. Our survival as a free nation. It is time thus for all of us to reaffirm the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Without the Bill of Rights, we are nothing but a military dictatorship, led by bankster criminals?
Time for all to become constitutionalists
The looming scenario is we get this law signed by Obama declaring “I’ll never use it on American citizens.” Then Newt Gingrich gets elected in 2012 and all hell breaks loose. Mike Adams of naturalnews suggests “he might unleash the U.S. military on California pot dispensaries, using armed troops to round up everybody who smokes a little weed, then throwing them in secret U.S. military prisons where they are subjected to torture. No charges, no public defense attorneys, no due process, no accountability whatsoever. All 100% legal because it was voted into law by the traitorous U.S. Senate. You think this couldn’t happen in America? Wake up, people: The Patriot Act was passed with the promise that it would “never be used against Americans” and was only for “terrorists,” right? But now up to 90% of the Patriot Act prosecutions are being leveled against American citizens for things that have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: See (Looming Destruction of America by Patriot Act)
Power corrupts andabsolute power corrupts absolutely
That’s for certain. Wake up America. Tyranny is at our doorstep.
The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to limit government power. It was prevent secret arrests, torture, assassinations, unlimited detention and other police-state tactics used by nations like Nazi Germany, North Korea, China and Cuba. But with this Senate bill, the USA will become among them, in short order. All the things we in the USA complain about in these other nations will become routine in the US – illegal arrests, torture, etc. – as it will be entirely LEGAL under U.S. law! The complaints against the tyrant dictators in other nations may pale in comparison to what is in store. So will Hillary Clinton organize a United Nations invasion of America to “protect the innocent protestors?” Don’t hold your breath.
List of criminal U.S. Senators who voted for this bill
The U.S. Senators who voted for this bill are criminals to be arrested, since they are the true terrorists who have openly attempted to destroy the very U.S. Constitution they swore allegiance to. The list is mostly of disgusting Republicans. Do they represent your state. Be sure to vote against them come the next election.
corrupt power, corruption of power, power corrupts absolute power, japanese camps, fema camp, internment camps for japanese, concentration camps america, internment camps in the usa, fema concentration, fema concentration camp, the laws of the constitution, repeal the constitution, repeal the bill of rights, bill of rights of the constitution, the constitution bill of rights, articles of the united states constitution, constitution of the united states of america
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) When Michelle Obama first entered the White House, she wished to share her spirited persona – her style, beliefs, and pet projects. This included growing an organic garden with children and in order to inspire a connection with deeper nature as well as to help a nearby food bank. Not since Eleanor Roosevelt grew a Victory Garden at the White House during World War II had a First Lady again tilled that soil. But it was the first time the garden was distinctively postured as organic, thereby “breaking new ground.”
Ms. Obama teaching a lesson to children
The intention of Mrs. Obama was simply to educate children about growing their own pure, unadulterated whole food – and at a time when the opposite, or processed foods contributed and were causing an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the United States. This was a valuable lesson in nutrition and growing food to high and pure standards. The Obama White House garden was grown organically and using the methods of farming this country has used for centuries to yield the most nutrition and “clean” foods to Americans.
Setting an inspiring example
- with the whole family involved
The garden was 1,100 square feet, and 23 children from Bancroft Elementary School from Washington D.C., helped her dig the garden and plant the vegetables near the Obama swing set. Barack Obama, the President promised to pull the weeds when necessary and even Michelle’s mother was involved as a supervisor. Michele Obama broke the ground with her own foot, tilled the soil with the children to produce a magnificent garden that yielded fresh, organic and non-pesticide food for her own First Family. Many Americans were inspired because they naturally prefer produce that is locally grown – the way it was a century ago in usually extended-family and small farm settings.
Big Ag and the chemical/GMO industry didn’t see it that way
Quickly, the lobbyists went to work to stop our President’s wife’s blasphemy and they have successfully silenced her – stopping her forever for uttering the following most verboten or banned and banished words:
Organic Food
Organic Gardening
Pesticide-Free Food
The lobbyists correctly instructed Michelle Obama instead to use the term:
“Crop protection food products” – with Round Up, Monsanto GMO seeds and non-traditional chemically agriculture being more essential.
Why Mrs. Obama grew her “nasty” garden
Mrs. Obama noticed the family was eating too much processed foods so that her girls, Sasha and Malia, were gaining weight. Then her pediatrician advised her to have them move away from eating junk foods – those that included excessive salt, sugar and fat.
But Mrs Obama succumbed to “better” advice from political forces
Her family needs soon became secondary to the required political messages enforced by lobbyists who pay big mullah to elect politicians. They silenced her misguided zeal about organic gardening.
Who pulls the puppet strings in Washington, DC.
This so dramatically illustrates the reigning power of lobbyist in the Obama administration. So does the fact that Obama hired Tom Vilsack, a hard-core supporter of GMOs, to head of the USDA.
Michelle should have known better!
Though Mrs Obama caved to lobbyist, she long ago should have known better . Having a nation of healthy children is not what the pharmaceutical industry has in mind for American – especially if the children start out in life to learn such healthy, organic nutrition lessons. The resulting good health would bankrupt the industry’s game. It would put thousands of chemists out of work, adding the the nation’s already strained unemployment roster.
One of the greatest “successes” of the Big Pharma industry is seeing 1 in 4 children regularly taking medical drugs. They are not ingesting organic foods – come on now, what a yuk idea! From a business point of view, half of all teenagers in America wonderfully suffer from some chronic illnesses that needs treatment – like diabetes, obesity and the four A’s, asthma, allergies, autism, and attention deficit disorder. The statistics have doubled over the last 30 years and so have the profits. We don’t want America to go backwards now, do we ? A whole nation shifting to a nutrient rich diet would play havoc with the great gains of pharmaceutical stocks on Wall Street.
Mrs Obama’s dangerous and maverick project thus had to be stopped
Michelle Obama must have been taking hallucinogens when she said: “You can begin in your own cupboard by eliminating processed food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables.” (2009) The First Lady was thus chastized and corrected by the biggest agriculture corporations. Michele Obama’s garden first yielded 80 pounds of vegetables from seeds before Ms Obama yielded to lobbyists.
The Obama Obama’s infamous organic garden- shame on her!
Whose telling our government what best to do
Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) and organization that lobbies for the pesticide and Big Ag industry sent Mrs. Obama a letter to instruct her about living in a different world than our grandparents. It advised her that their lifestyle was not what most Americans want anymore.
Mrs Obama had to be “set right”
The First Lady should fall in line and serve her family only pesticide-rich foods to promote a future population suffering from cancer and other high-maintenance systemic illnesses. Corporate profit interests must, after all, come first – far before health, safety, eating nutritious foods. Thus Mrs Obama had to be “set right” by MACA. This same group represents Monsanto, Dow AgroScience, Dupont Corporation and so on. The fact that Michelle Obama did not use pesticide-sprayed seeds at all, and did not need to spray chemicals on her plot shows she needs some serious “re-education.” The group advised her not ever to use the word organic or to promote organic gardening in any way.
Better living through chemistry
One shouldn’t believe that pesticides or pesticide-sprayed seeds, plants, foods, and processed foods containing GMOs all are linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and birth defects. Rather we should follow the greater leadership of Tom Vilsack - a former defense lawyer for Monsanto. We should applaud that Vilsack was named Secretary of Agriculture by the Obama administration and for reasons not of influence peddling by big agriculture and campaign donations – but because it was the right thing to do.
Obama’s “wisdom” and trying to be with the times stretches only so far
Obama’s wisdom apparently guides him to keep his doors wide open to corporate interests, and so much so they even dominate the kind of garden his wife is allowed to grow and what ends up in his kitchen cupboard or on his dinner plate.If we can force people to have vaccinations, this doesn’t see like such a bad thing.
Still hush, hush, the Obamas are not perfect.
Sometimes they indulge themselves and dine out at an organic restaurant.
Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) Can you imagine climbing up a limb of a tree and seeing the mathematical Fibonacci Sequence in its branches, and then using that insight to develop far more efficient solar panel arrays?
He’s the 13-year-old genius from Long Island, New York who was a recent presenter at the PopTech conference, where he presented the idea. His solar panel configurations are 20-50% more efficient than traditional solar arrays, especially in low-light conditions or cloudy days in winter or shady spots. “My design is like a tree,” he said, “but instead of having leaves it has solar panels at the ends.”
Award-winning solar invention
Dwyer created a prototype for a science fair with his granddad’s assistance. He ordered the panels online. His efforts won hime the Young Naturalist award this year from the American Museum of Natural History. (You can see a photo of the solar-panel prototype on that museum’s website).
Dwyer’s inspiration from organic nature
This idea for this energy-saving project hit Dwyer on a walk through the woods. “One day…walking through the woods – well, on a winter hiking trip – and I noticed that the tree branches collect sunlight by going up into the air. And I thought: ‘Maybe if we put solar panels on the ends of the branches it would collect a lot of sunlight.’”
He also noted that the tree branches spiral up the trunk in a way that mimics the mathematical Fibonacci Sequence. The sequence was an invention of a medieval mathematician, Fibonacci, and he played with this mathematical sequence to how fast rabbits could reproduce, like 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on. Dwyer noted, in a CNN interview that “The fraction for an oak tree is 2:5, which means five branches spiral around the trunk two times to reach the same starting point. So, if you start out at 75 degrees, and you get five branches to 4go around the trunk twice, then you’ll be back at 75 degrees.”
Dwyer added that he was ” trying to see if the tree design could collect more sunlight… But I also measured open-current voltage and it collected 20% more (than flat-panel solar arrays). ” The panels also collected 50% more light in low-light conditions than flat-panel arrangements.
An invention to change the world?
Who knows if Dwyer’s tree-based solar panels really will change the world – but how cool that a 13-year-old has come up with this idea. At PopTech, he stated, it was “pretty lonely being the youngest one … I don’t know how to start a conversation with an adult yet – so I just have to wait for them to ask me questions, and all that. They just come up to me and go ‘You’re that kid!’
Inspiring youth leadership making solar energy advances
Dwyer is not alone in such an achievement. Recently another 13-year-old, William Yuan, accepted a $25,000 fellowship from the Davidson Institute when he won an award for designing a new, more efficient solar cell — a project he undertook at Meadow Park Middle School in Oregon.
It is greatly inspiring to see our youth paving the way for a future with more efficient and cleaner energy resources.
Keywords: generate electric[ o6y54wity, solar panel costs, solar technology, build a solar panel array, solar power system, solar tech invention, passive solar, best solar panel, go solar, efficient solar panel, building solar power, solar cells most efficient, energy inventions, solar panels invented, sunlight panels.
By Nathan Batalion CTN, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) What do statistics about family households have to do about ‘healing?”
Actually a lot! The video below also covers some of the health issues.
The reason is that healing is simply a process of connection to wholeness.
Our modern commercial society is geared to service financial aims that create a rat race and certain other conditions that can undermine and actually break up the healthy coherence of society. A major sign of such a breakdown is not merely rising poverty and the destruction of the middle class. It is also that the single person living alone has for nearly the entire century been one of the fastest rising social statistics.
Loneliness breeds depression and ultimately illness. So does the stress of living in that kind of a society.
Said without mincing words, for decades our social structure has been falling apart at the seams for a long time.
There are deep reason why this happens in our form of dominantly commercial society, such as the requirements of such an environment for individual mobility to take jobs just about anywhere where a higher salary is offered.
Ultimately (and this is a bit philosophical) mathematics (which price-tagging represents and where price-tagging creates a commercial society)….such “mathematization’ of our world involves using math symbols which I define as the most universal symbols for the separation of all element of consciousness. A deep negative impact of universally mathematizing everything and everywhere in our lives socially is to create the conditions for separations, for the disintegrating and tearing apart the ecological as well as social fabric of our world.
This is quite a revolutionary statement.
This is something we are almost never taught by our education system or by both liberal and conservative politicians. The latter both want to continue our commercial society… just with different ways of distributing the by products or wealth. They don’t advocate a different kind of society.
But as we indeed face a serious breakdown (long-term recession with no end in sight) there has been a rise of people (especially families) working more closely together with each other (cooperatively rather than competitively).
There is a rise, in essence, of connective = healing social consciousness.
Back at the Turn of the 19th Century
Before the dominant rise of our industrial/commercial society, when America was still primarily agrarian, extended families living together were commonplace. People were lured from open fields of nature to office and factory cubicles – symbolic of separative consciousness. The trend since then has been for a constant decline in multi-generational and extended households, that is until recently.
This is a tremendous sign of revitalization and a potential turnaround.
As our competitive economy falls apart, strangely people might have a better life! They may buy less toxic drugs that promise illusionary health. They may order less optional surgery, endure less chemotherapy (things we are lured into by corrupt commercial forces) and in many other respects we may actually lead healthier, less rat-racing, stressful and more vital lives. Some may have far more stress as they become unemployed, but not all is gloomy across the board.
Trend Reversal
Here are the Living in Multi-generational Family Household stats where we see the trend reversing.
Indeed the multi-generational American family household is staging a comeback — driven in part by the job losses and home foreclosures of recent years but more so by demographic changes that have been gathering steam for decades.
As of 2008, a record 49 million Americans, about 1/6th of the total U.S. population (from about 300 million people in total) lived in a family household that contained at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data.1
This represents a significant trend reversal.
Starting right after World War II, the extended family household fell out of favor with the American public. In 1940, about a quarter of the population lived in one; by 1980, just 12% did. A range of demographic factors likely contributed to this decline, among them the rapid growth of the nuclear-family-centered suburbs; the decline in the share of immigrants in the population; and the sharp rise in the health and economic well-being of adults ages 65 and older.
Since bottoming out around 1980, however, the multi-generational family household has mounted a comeback. The reversal has taken place among all major demographic groups, and it, too, appears to be the result of a mix of social and economic forces.
One is the change in the median age of first marriage. The typical man now marries for the first time at age 28 and the typical women at age 26. For both genders, this is about five years older than it was in 1970. One byproduct of this cultural shift is that there are more unmarried 20-somethings in the population, many of whom consider their childhood home to be an attractive living situation, especially when a bad economy makes it difficult for them to find jobs or launch careers.2
Another factor has been the big wave of immigration, dominated by Latin Americans and Asians, that began around 1970. Like their European counterparts from earlier centuries, these modern immigrants are far more inclined than native-born Americans to live in multi-generational family households.3
However, the trend reversal has also played out among native-born Americans. And for all groups, the move into multi-generational family households has accelerated during the Great Recession that began at the end of 2007. The Pew Research analysis of census data finds that in 20084, 2.6 million more Americans were living in such a household than had been doing so in 2007.
Who lives in multi-generational households?
While the phenomenon has grown more prevalent in recent years among virtually all major demographic groups, the incidence levels vary considerably by age, race, ethnicity and gender. A rundown:
Older Adults
Older adults were once by far the likeliest of any age group to live in a multi-generational family household. Back in 1900, fully 57% of adults ages 65 and older did so. But over the course of the 20th century, older adults grew steadily healthier and more prosperous as a result of a range of factors, including the enactment of social safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare and improvements in medical care.
With these changes came what amounted to a new intergenerational social contract within most families — namely, that older adults who had the health and resources to live independently should do so. By 1980 and 1990, just 17% of those ages 65 and older lived in a multi-generational family household. Since then, however, the trend has reversed course and the share has risen slightly — to 20%.
One possible explanation for the recent trend reversal is an increase in what demographers refer to as “kin availability.” The outsized Baby Boom generation is now passing through late middle age. Compared with earlier generations, it offers its elderly parents about 50% more grown children with whom they can share a household if and when their life circumstances (such as widowhood, declining health or poverty) take them in that direction. Another possible explanation is that cuts to Medicare enacted in 1997 have increased the financial incentives for those who are elderly and infirm to move in with a grown child who is able to take on the role of informal caregiver.5
When two adult generations of the same family live under the same roof, the older adult is the head of the household in about three-quarters of all cases, according to the Pew Research analysis of Census data. However, when the parent is 65 or older, the share drops. In 2008, a total of 6.6 million older adults lived in a household with one or more children. Of this group, 58% were themselves the household head, while in 42% of the cases, their grown child was the household head.
Young Adults
Older adults are not the age group most responsible for the overall trend reversal since 1980. That distinction belongs instead to young adults — especially those ages 25 to 34. In 1980, just 11% of adults in this age group lived in a multi-generational family household. By 2008, 20% did. Among adults 65 and older, the same share — 20% — lived in such a household in 2008. However, the rise for this group has been less steep. Back in 1980, 17% lived in a multi-generational family household.
As noted above, the trend toward older median ages for first marriage is a big part of this long-term shift among younger adults. But in recent years, the economy appears to have played a significant role. Just from 2007 to 2008, the share of adults ages 25 to 34 living in such households rose by a full percentage point, from 18.7% to 19.8%.
According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as of 2009 some 37% of 18- to-29-year-olds were either unemployed or out of the workforce, the highest share among this age group in nearly four decades. In addition, a 2009 Pew Research survey found that among 22- to 29-years-olds, one-in-eight say that, because of the recession, they have boomeranged back to live with their parents after being on their own.6
Gender
The increase in the share of young adults living with their parents is notable for another reason: its gender profile. The 25-34 age group is the only one in which significantly more men than women are living in a multi-generational family household. Among older age groups, this living arrangement is much more common among women than men. At the later stages of the life cycle, this disparity is partly explained by the fact that women are more likely than men to outlive a spouse, at which point they become more likely candidates to live with a grown child.
Race and Ethnicity in Multi-Generational Family Households
Hispanics (22%), blacks (23%) and Asians (25%) are all significantly more likely than whites (13%) to live in a multi-generational family household.
The rates of three of these four groups have increased significantly since 1980, with blacks the lone exception. However, the rates of all four groups have gone up from 2006 to 2008 — a time when the recession brought on a wave of joblessness and foreclosures.
Types of Multi-Generational Family Households
Of the 49 million Americans living in a multi-generational family household, 47% live in a household made up of two adult generations of the same family (with the youngest adult at least 25 years of age); another 47% live in a household with three or more generations of family members; and 6% are in a “skipped” generation household made up of a grandparent and grandchild, but no parent.
There are significant differences by race and ethnicity in the makeup of these various types of multi-generational family households.
Among whites living in a multi-generational family household, 64% are in a two adult-generation household, 28% are in a three-generation household and 7% are in a skipped- generation household.
Among Latinos, 48% are in a three-generation household, 47% are in a two-generation household and 4% are in a skipped-generation household.
Among blacks, 48% are in a two-generation household, 40% are in a three-generation household and 13% (the highest share for this category) are in a skipped-generation household.
Among Asians, 55% are in a two-generation household, 43% are in a three-generation household and just 1% are in a skipped-generation household.
Living Alone – Ten-fold Rise!
The multi-generational household isn’t the only growth sector in the national landscape of living arrangements. There’s also been a steady long-term rise over the past century of the single person or separative household.
In 1900, just 1.1% of Americans lived in such a household. By 2008, that share had risen to 10.3%.
Here, too, there are significant variances by age. Among young adults (ages 18 to 24), just 4.6% live in such households, down from a peak of 5.7% in 1980. Among adults ages 65 and older, the numbers are much larger but they have declined from a recent peak. In 1900, just 5.9% of adults in this age category lived alone. That share rose steadily over the course of the last century, eventually peaking at 28.8% in 1990. Since then it has retreated a bit. As of 2008, it stood at 27.4%.
According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last year, adults ages 65 and older who live alone report they are not in as good health and are more likely to feel sad, depressed or lonely than are older adults who live with another person (be it a spouse or some other family member). Chapters 2 and 3 of this report will explore those findings in greater detail.
Also, a separate Pew Research survey taken in 2005 found that a majority of the public (56%) considers it a “family responsibility” for adult children to take into their home an elderly parent who wants to live with them. A sizable minority — 39% — said this isn’t really a family responsibility. Attitudes varied sharply by the age of the respondent. Two-thirds of adults ages 40 and under said it was a family responsibility, compared with just 38% of adults ages 60 and over.7
Of the 49 million, 23.2 million are in family households with two adult generations (with the youngest adults ages 25 or older); 23.1 million are in households with three or more generations; and 2.8 million are in a household with a grandparent and grandchild. For more about these categories, see Appendix A. ↩
See Greg Kaplan, “Boomerang Kids: Labor Market Dynamics and Moving Back Home,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Working Paper 675 (October 2009). ↩
Some 18.8% of people living in immigrant households in the U.S. live in a multi-generational family household, compared with 14.2% of people in native-born households, according to a Pew Research analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s 2009 Current Population Survey. Interestingly, however, among the nation’s two largest immigrant groups by race and ethnicity – Hispanics and Asians – the native-born households of these groups have a slightly higher tendency to be multi-generational families than the foreign-born households. ↩
2008 is the most recent year for which data are available from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. ↩
Engelhardt, Gary V., and Nadia Greenhalgh-Stanley. “Public Long-term Care Insurance and the Housing and Living Arrangements of the Elderly: Evidence from Medicare Home Health Benefits.” Chestnut Hill, MA: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (December 2008). Orsini, Chiara. “Changing the Way the Elderly Live: Evidence from the Home Health Care Market in the United States.” College Park, MD: University of Maryland (February 2007). ↩
Michael Moore: Arrest Wall St. Bankers, Not Wall St. Protestors
Below is the Democracy Now! broadcast, Amy Goodman and Michael Moore
Comment: It is the monetary interests of our culture, centered on Wall Street, that have worked to create industries which destroy our health and well-being – and for their own self interests. It is time we don not passively sit by.
Comments by Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
AMY GOODMAN: Today we spend the hour with one of the most famous independent filmmakers in the world, Michael Moore. For more than two decades, Michael’s been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. His films include Roger and me, Bowling for Columbine, for which he won the Academy Award, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story.” Today, we speak with Michael Moore about his new book that just came out, it’s called, Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life. It comprises 20 vignettes from his life that illustrate how his political and sociological view points developed. As far back as 20 years ago, when Michael Moore made his award winning debut documentary, Roger and Me, he knew he was anything but an average child.
MICHAEL MOORE: I was kind of a strange child. My parents knew early on something must be wrong with me. I crawled backwards until I was years old, but I had Kennedy’s inaugural address memorized by the time I was six. It all began when my mother didn’t show up with my first birthday party because she was having my sister. My dad tried to cheer me up by letting me eat the whole cake. I knew then there had been warned to life than this.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Michael Moore in his award winning 1989 documentary, Roger & Me. Well, today he’s one of the world’s most acclaimed and notorious independent film-makers and rabble-rousers. On Monday night, Michael visited the Occupy Wall Street protest in lower Manhattan. Police have barred the protesters from using any form of public address system at the encampment, so the crowd amplified Michael’s comments by repeating them in unison.
MICHAEL MOORE: Whatever you do, don’t despair because this is the hard part. You are in the hard part right now.
CROWD: Whatever you do, don’t despair because this is the hard part. You are in the hard part right now.
MICHAEL MOORE: But, everyone will remember,
CROWD: But, everyone will remember,
MICHAEL MOORE: three months from now,
CROWD: three months from now,
MICHAEL MOORE: six months from now,
CROWD: six months from now,
MICHAEL MOORE: 100 years from now,
CROWD: 100 years from now,
MICHAEL MOORE: that you came down to this Plaza,
CROWD: that you came down to this Plaza,
MICHAEL MOORE: and you started this movement.
CROWD: and you started this movement.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Michael Moore addressing the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Lower Manhattan. Well, for the remainder of the hour, we’re delighted to have him here in studio and we won’t be repeating everything you say, Michael, although it is ingenious when you’re not allowed to use a microphone.
MICHAEL MOORE: It’s a little weird at first because it sounds either like your reciting the Rosary and church or that seen in, Life of Brian, where the whole crowd just repeats everything that Brian says. But, the reason they do it is because the police have not allowed them to have an amplification. So, in order for the people to hear in the back, everyone around you just shouts out what you just said so everybody can hear it. I thought it was, actually, kind of an interesting and a workable idea.
AMY GOODMAN: Well we’ve put out to the world that you’re coming in today. Of course, the questions came in on Facebook. We tweeted this and people can tweet back right now. But, when we posted the question on Facebook, “What you want to ask Michael Moore?”, Tausif Khan wrote, “What do you think is the next step the protesters need to take to get Washington and Wall Street to listen and to make real change?”
MICHAEL MOORE: They don’t need to worry about a next step. It’s already happening. This is something that has, sort of, sprung up. There’s no group, organized group, no dues-paying, members only organization behind this. This is literally an uprising of people who have had it. And It has already started to spread across the country in other cities. It will continue to spread. It has to start somewhere. It started here with a few hundred. It will grow, and really already has grown here to a few thousand. And will be tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of people because, what I was in them other night, the great thing about what they are doing, and great in the sense that their work ahead is not as difficult as other movements in the past; when the Women’s Liberation Movement began, when people began protesting against the Vietnam War, civil-rights movement. At the beginning of those movements, the majority of the country was not with them, did not believe the basic principles of any of those philosophies. That’s not true right now. The majority of Americans are really upset at Wall Street. Millions of Americans have lost their homes or are facing foreclosure right now. Fifty Million do not have health insurance. Fourteen Million officially are unemployed, and it’s probably well up into the 20 million-plus people that are actually unemployed. So you’ve already got an army of Americans who are just waiting for somebody to do something, and the something has started.
AMY GOODMAN: And it is so interesting, if you had 2000 people, as the first weekend, whatever, 12 days ago, 2000 Tea Party activists down on Wall Street, you probably have double the number of reporters there. But, at the beginning of this, very little coverage. This is day 12. And, I wanted to talk about what happened this past weekend; the New York Police Department’s handling of the arrest of 80 protesters over the weekend that’s come under fire as a number of videos have emerged showing officers using heavy handed tactics to say the least. Protesters captured some of the attacks on video, including the arrest of a 21-year-old Bronx resident named, Hero Vincent. He was trying to calm the crowd and organize people to leave. This is a clip from after he was released from jail.
HERO VINCENT: That’s when the police charged at me, and just started, you know, swinging at me, and another policeman pushed me, and I’m backing up, and as I’m backing up I hit the barricade. And then I look at them and they come at me. I go over and then four policeman just started beating on me, yelling at me, “Stop resisting arrest,” while I’m just laying there, I’m not fighting back. They kick me in my stomach, knock the breath out me. Hit me with their baton. They put their knees into my face, not into my head, into my face, into the ground, and just laughing.
AMY GOODMAN: While other demonstrators were charged with blocking traffic and resisting arrest, Vincent faces the most serious charge of assaulting a police officer. The NYPD says they acted appropriately, but Vincent said he’s confident the videos of the attack will exonerate him and has vowed to continue to participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest.
HERO VINCENT: If there’s anything called the epitome of a struggle, me and my family lived it. We were foreclosed on. My father had trouble finding a job, still hasn’t found one. I had trouble finding a job, still haven’t found one. My sister is in college, the tuition is doubling. They’re trying to fight for her financial aid. We struggle with food. I even slept on a bench for a few nights before this occasion. So, I’m here for everybody in my family, not just myself, and everybody who goes through the same struggles, that I can empathize with.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael, your comments on Hero Vincent and all that are down there?
MICHAEL MOORE: Well, it’s highly ironic that now over 100 of the protesters have been arrested and not a single banker, a CEO from Wall Street, anyone from corporate America — nobody, not one arrest of any of these people who brought down the economy in 2008. Who created schemes, financial schemes that not only destroyed the economy, but took away the future of this generation, of this young man and his children in the future. They have completely ruined it for people while they have become filthy rich. Not one of them arrested, but 100 of these people who have stood up non-violently against this madness, and they’re arrested? This just boggles the mind. I want to say something, too, because, Amy, you’ve lived here, in this area, in the city for probably most of your life. I have been here for many years. By and large, the New York City cops are actually pretty good as police forces go. I can tell you from filming around the country, you know…
AMY GOODMAN: I think it depends where we live.
MICHAEL MOORE: Well, this is what I was going to say; yes, what’s rough here, is that when you have the bad apples, they are really bad here, and it’s not just one or two. I think it’s very important, also, when you look at this videotape and the other video that was shot that day of the people—-especially the one individual who was pepper spraying women in their eyes when they were standing there doing nothing—-those were the white-shirted management types. They were not just the street officers. These were the guys that were supposed to be in charge of them. They were the ones going up there. It’s one thing if you’ve got a rogue cop behaving violently, but when you have management, when have the white shirts there of the NYPD doing this, that’s not rogue, that’s policy. That’s coming from somewhere else. They’ve been told by those in charge to corral this thing, end this thing, stop this thing. Somebody should inform them that everybody is a filmmaker now. Everybody has a camera. You cannot just treat people like this and get away with it, and I hope they don’t get away with it.
By Nathan Batalion, Global Health Activist, Healingtalks Editor
(Healingtalks) In just the past few decades, our democracy has broken downBIG time.
The interests of the common person are being gang raped. Most of the major public institutions that protect people have been ravaged. The list is too long to mention, and this process really did speed up to dizzying speeds during the Bush Administration.This has not halted under the current “democratic” one.
As major media have been monopolized and/or co-opted, real issues and real people’s candidates have almost no voice to partake in true democracy. Computerized voting booths are not reliable and even two prior presidential elections were stolen through fraud. 1% or less of the population now controls the whole wealth and power of the rest.
What used to be America the democracy, the land of the free and the home of the brave is falling apart.
Not to mince words and besides all the related grievances expressed below, and there are tons more, we must not ever forget the vast levels of lies and deception – expressed through a control of TV, newspaper and radio outlets…(about 20% of all advertising is for pharmaceuticals with paid actors to tell us evil lies) as well as the gross mis-education of doctors, we see the creation of a diabolical practice of “medicine” that systematically postures the most mis-trained doctors to have god-like scientific authority, dressed in sterile white coats with largely useless stethoscopes (for the healing process) worn around their necks and who really are indoctrinated to not fathom even the meaning of “healing” and to systemically pollute our bodies with the toxic main (not side) harming chemical drugs (and whose waste even harms our earth beyond measure).
They practice criminal medical ignorance to make a “living.”
Beneath the veils, it is all about making money at all costs, and at the terrible expense of our true well being as disease epidemics like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and so on continue unstopped – though all these conditions are largely unnecessary and preventable.
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
Keywords: Occupy Wall Street, economic injustice, social injustice, occupy New York City, wall street protest, march on wall street, protest on wall street, wall street demonstration
Based on an article by Chelsea Green‘s Makenna Goodman
(Healingtalks) In recent years, there’s been a crackdown on small dairies producing raw milk, designed as an obstacle to the growing legions of consumers demanding healthier and more flavorful milk. Raw milk has been deemed “unfit” for human consumption by the FDA and other government sting operations, and the public propagandized into fearing it. According to some fear-mongers, for example, raw milk causes rabies.
David Gumpert, author of popular blog The Complete Patient and forthcoming book Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights (Chelsea Green, Oct 2009), asks an important question: How much of the fear-mongering from the pro-pasteurization people is real, and how much is propaganda from Big Agribusiness? Gumpert says the anti-raw-milk campaign is just another governmental technique to sanitize the food supply—even in the face of ever-increasing rates of chronic disease like asthma, diabetes, and allergies.
Here are 10 things you should know about raw milk that the government won’t tell you:
Raw milk is healthier: Pasteurized milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but back in the day, these diseases were rare. In fact, clean raw milk from grass-fed cows is chock full of healthy amino acids and beneficial enzymes, and was used as a cure.
Raw milk does not make you sick: That is, if it is properly collected from cows fed good, clean grass. Grass-fed milk has natural antibiotic properties that help protect it from pathogenic bacteria. But it’s worth noting, if you’ve been using pasteurized dairy products, you might want to eat small amounts of yogurt or kefir for a week or so, for a dose of probiotics, just to be safe. I did, and it helped.
Not all raw milk is the same: The cow’s diet, how and where it’s raised, and how the milk is collected are all factors in the safety and quality of raw milk. Cows pastured on organic green grass produce milk with good health benefits. It’s good to know where your milk is coming from.
Pasteurization was instituted in the 1920s to combat TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by poor animal nutrition and dirty production methods. But modern stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated trucks, and inspection are enough of a precaution, and pasteurization has become irrelevant.
Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.
Calves fed pasteurized milk don’t do very well, and many die before maturity. Scary, considering the milk originally came from their mom.
Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk turns putrid; processors must remove slime and pus from pasteurized milk by a process called centrifugal clarification. Gross.
Inspection of dairy herds for disease is not required for pasteurized milk. This means, pasteurization is used as a nifty way to wash away all forms of bad bacteria that are allowed to flourish freely before the process. Imagine that for a second.
Raw milk has more butterfat, which is rich in fatty acids that protect against disease and stimulate the immune system. Skim milk doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better for you, in other words.
Pasteurization laws favor large, industrialized dairy operations and push out small farmers. When farmers have the right to sell raw milk directly to their consumers, they can make a decent living even with a small number of cows. Support small farmers!
(Healingtalks) The US Food and Drug Administration has been conducting raids on farmers, cancer treatment pioneers and dietary supplement manufacturers – and other resources that might enlighten us about the powers of alternative natural healing.
About the FDA Timeline List
We can thank the editors of NaturalNews for compiling the list below which hints that there are not occasional but systematically planned armed FDA raids conducted over the last twenty-five years and that reveal a pattern of government terrorism against the natural healing industry but the health of the American public in general. It puts all of us in real peril and is being done in the name of the opposite or so-called “protecting” us from the evils of nature. The real reason behind all this, of course, is to protect corporate profit interests that are vastly undermining our collective health. This is being done also with a supportive public relations campaign. This is one of distributing often wildly-manufactured fears and creating intimidation against the best producers and providers of natural products and services. In the context of a similar international thrust by Codex, this is an attempt ultimately to destroy the natural health industry in the US and to give Big Pharma and the allied deadening/processed/ preserved food industry a monopoly over our “health” or actually both the creating and treating of pandemic diseased states.
Skeptical?
If you’re skeptical of that conclusion, read the timeline below. Also be sure to read this helpful resource created by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund entitled How to Survive a Farm Raid: http://www.ftcldf.org/farm-raids.html
Timeline of FDA raids
- 1985, July 7.
FDA agents raid the Burzynski Research Clinic (Texas), steal 200,000 medical and research documents, and force Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski to pay for copies to be made of them. No official charges are ever filed by the FDA (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1987, February 26.
Twenty-five armed FDA agents and US Marshals storm offices of the Life Extension Foundation (Florida), terrorize employees and seize thousands of nutritional products, materials, computers, files, and newsletters. Eighty percent of seized items are later determined not to even have been on the warrant (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1988, November.
FDA agents raid Traco Labs (Illinois), seize several drums of black currant oil as well as many containers of encapsulated product. The FDA claims the capsules the oil was being put into are an “unapproved food additive” (http://www.drpasswater.com/nutritio…).
- 1998, Summer.
FDA agents seize entire inventory and business records of Pets Smell Free (Utah), a company that produces a natural product for eliminating pet odor. The company later wins a lawsuit against the FDA in court (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1990, October 6.
Federal agents raid HA Lyons (Arizona), a women-run, home-based mailing service that publishes materials for vitamin companies. Armed agents seize all business records and literature, and even try to steal the owner’s checkbook and cash. The FDA eventually drives the company out of business (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1990, Fall.
FDA agents raid Highland Laboratories (Oregon), a company that produces vitamins and nutritional supplements. The agents do not present a warrant, but proceed to seize everything except for office furniture, and threaten employees with violence if they fail to comply (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1990, March.
FDA agents raid Solid Gold Pet Foods (California), seize all pet food products without a warrant, and shut down the store. Owner Sissy Harrington-McGill is later indicted, and spends 179 days in prison with leg irons clasped to her legs (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1990.
Agents from both the FDA and US Postal Service twice raid Century Clinic (Nevada), and steal chelation products, computers, and various other equipment. No official charges are ever filed against the clinic, however both illegal raids go unpunished (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1991, Fall.
FDA agents raid Scientific Botanicals (Washington), a nutritional supplement company, and seize herbal extracts and literature. FDA strong-arms company into complying with its unlawful demands before agreeing to release seized products (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1991, December 12.
FDA agents raid Thorne Research (Idaho), and seize $20,000 worth of vitamin products, and 11,000 pieces of literature. The company cannot afford to fight the battle in court because of high legal costs, and decides to no longer publish literature (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1991.
FDA agents raid NutriCology (California), a nutritional supplement company. All FDA injunctions against it are later tossed out of court (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1991.
Agents from the FDA and the Texas Department of Health again raid the Burzynski Research Clinic (Texas), and seize more products and materials. Dr. Burzynski eventually wins the fight against the FDA (http://www.naturalnews.com/032998_B…).
- 1991, March.
Armed Mexican police officers raid offices of alternative cancer clinic in Tijuana, and kidnap the owner without warrant or charges. They then ship him across the US border and into the hands of the US Justice Department, where he unlawfully spends two years in prison (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1992, May 6.
Agents from the FDA and officers from the King County Police Department raid the Tahoma Clinic (Washington), a natural health clinic. Because Dr. Jonathan Wright has been giving patients injectable B vitamins in high doses, agents decide to storm the clinic with guns drawn, and seize product, computers, records, and other products. The FDA shows no valid warrant to justify its actions (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1992, June 2.
FDA agents raid the personal home of Mihai Popescu (California) for producing and selling a natural supplement called GH-3. The raid involves agents stealing $5,000 worth of GH-3, personal records, computers, and other equipment, and results in the false arrest and imprisonment of Popescu, as well as the termination of his business (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1992, June 30.
FDA agents raid Nature’s Way (Utah), a vitamin and nutritional supplement company, and seize bulk containers of primrose oil because the addition of vitamin E to the formula was allegedly “unapproved” (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1992, June.
The FDA prompts the Texas Department of Health to conduct raids on numerous health food stores throughout Texas. They seize natural oils, aloe vera, zinc, vitamin C, and other natural products. Agents reportedly threaten store owners not to speak of the raid, or more raids will ensue. No valid warrants are presented, and no charges are ever filed against the stores (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1992, August 14.
FDA agents raid Family Acupuncture Clinic (California), and seize $15,000 worth of natural tea pills. The products are left to spoil, and then sent back to China by the FDA (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1992.
Federal agents arrest three vitamin company owners (California) for selling supplements freely available throughout Europe. Agents try to get the men imprisoned for a collective total of 990 years (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html).
- 1993, May.
Agents from the FDA raid Zerbo’s Health Food Store (Michigan) for “illegal drug trafficking” involving the natural supplements coenzyme Q10, selenium, carnitine, and GH-3. Agents threaten the owner’s 78-year-old father with imprisonment if the family attempts to fight the FDA’s indictment (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1993, May 12.
Dozens of armed federal agents storm Hospital Santa Monica (California), an alternative cancer treatment center, seizing records, charts, computers, and other equipment. The agents also steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the hospital’s bank account, as well as from two vitamin companies with which it works, and even steal $80,000 from the hospital owner’s personal safe (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1993, May 12.
Agents raid personal home of Kirwin Whitnah, claim he is selling “unapproved drugs.” No products are ever found, but agents proceed to terrorize a woman staying at the home, and seize thousands of dollars in equipment, literature, and even money orders (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1993, May 14.
FDA agents raid Waco Natural Foods (Texas) in search of a natural supplement called deprenyl citrate. Owner Tom Wiggins tells agents that his attorney holds tremendous clout in the Waco area, and the agents immediately apologize, leave, and never return (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1993, June 24.
FDA agents, a Federal Marshal, and a public relations specialist together raid International Nutrition Inc. (New Mexico), and seize $1 million worth of vitamins and nutritional supplements, as well as computers and business records. The owner ends up losing 80 percent of his business, and subsequently has to lay off 80 percent of his workforce (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 1993.
Federal marshals raid Natural Vision International (Wisconsin), and steal 17,000 pairs of pinhole glasses that help customers exercise their eyes and improve vision. Valued at over $200,000, the confiscating of these products by the agents results in the company going out of business (http://www.myopia.org/fdaraids.htm).
- 2001, March 23.
Forty armed federal agents and USDA officials storm Three Shepherd’s Farm (Vermont), and confiscate and destroy the farm’s entire flock of sheep for supposedly having mad cow disease. Government laboratories verify previously that the sheep are healthy, and that sheep cannot even contract the disease, but the USDA persists in eliminating them anyway, destroying evidence and breaking various other laws along the way (http://www.threeshepherdscheese.com…).
- 2004, Spring.
Upon being prompted by the FDA, state officials show up unannounced at Organic Pastures Dairy (California) and pretend to be evaluating cheese production. However OPD workers see Special Agent Jennifer King secretly taking pictures of private customer files, and they tell her to leave (http://grassfedonthehill.com/govern…).
- 2005, June 23.
Federal agents perform a series of raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, businesses, and personal homes throughout Northern California. They arrest many individuals along the way, despite the fact that marijuana dispensaries are legal in California (http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cf…).
- 2006, March 6.
Ohio police, Ohio Department of Agriculture officials, FDA agents, and agents from unmarked vehicles intercept a raw milk pickup in the Cincinnati area. They confiscate milk and harass customers, and leave farm owner Gary Oakes so shaken up that he is hospitalized three times for post-traumatic stress disorder (http://www.businessweek.com/smallbi…).
- 2006, September 14.
Armed agents storm the hunting preserve of Danny and Cindi Henshaw (Virginia), and perform SWAT-style raid of property They shoot dozens of hogs with 12-gauge shotguns and drag them off (http://www.readthehook.com/79983/co…).
- 2006, October 6.
Armed agents from the FBI and FDA arrive at Growers Express (California), a produce company, and begin searching the premises for evidence that the company’s bagged spinach might be linked to an E. coli outbreak. Agents never even try contacting the company prior the raid, and find nothing in violation (http://www.naturalnews.com/020670.html).
- 2006, October 13.
Michigan Department of Agriculture agents and police officers stop Richard Hebron on the way to deliver raw milk to cow share owners. Agents seize his cell phone and wallet, and proceed to unload 453 gallons of fresh milk from his truck. A six-month investigation finds Hebron innocent, but he gets stuck paying a $1,000 “administrative” fee (http://www.thecompletepatient.com/j…).
- 2006, November 21.
Dozens of armed agents storm Glencolton Farms (Ontario), a farm that produces dairy among other things, poring through every building and structure on the property. They steal records, computers, and milk processing equipment. Farm owner Michael Schmidt, who provides raw milk to cow share owners, as well as other farm-fresh food, is fined $3,500 and placed on two years probation (http://www.glencoltonfarms.com/inde…).
- 2007, August.
Pennsylvania Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt declares his God-given right to sell fresh milk and has his farm raided by federal and state agents, who seize $25,000 worth of milk, milk products, and other equipment. (http://www.farmfoodvoicesdc.com/201…
small.html).
- 2007, September 21.
FDA agents spur the Virginia Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services to raid Double H Farm (Virginia) and seize and destroy pork products. Agents try to justify their actions by claiming the products contain the wrong price tags. Owners say they have been needlessly harassed by officials for years (http://www.readthehook.com/76761/po…).
- 2007, October 11.
New York Department of Agriculture officials raid Meadowsweet Dairy (New York) and seize 260 pounds of raw milk products (http://ftcldf.org/meadowsweet%20dai…).
- 2008, April 28.
Agents again raid Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt‘s (Pennsylvania) property, and steal more milk, milk products, and equipment. This time, agents charge and take him into custody (http://www.ftcldf.org/aa/aa-26apr20…).
- 2008, December 15.
Armed agents storm Manna Storehouse (Ohio), a family farmhouse that operates an organic food buying cooperative. Agents terrorize and hold family hostage for eight hours while ransacking house, and seizing food, computers, and records (http://www.ftcldf.org/press/press-1…).
- 2008, December 18.
Agents pose as customers trying to buy goat cheese from Sharon Palmer’s Healthy Family Farms (California). She is then arrested and thrown in jail, and her businesses temporarily shut down (http://www.thecompletepatient.com/j…).
- 2009, April 8.
Undercover agents trick daughter of farmers Armand and Teddi Bechard (Missouri) into selling them raw milk, which sparked harassment and extensive legal troubles for the family (http://www.naturalnews.com/030974_r…).
- 2009, January 16.
Federal marshals raid Cocoon Nutrition (South Carolina), a nutritional supplement company, and arrest owner Stephen Heuer at gunpoint (http://www.naturalnews.com/025347.html).
- 2010, April 14.
Dozens of FDA, IRS, and FBI agents conduct full-scale raid on Maxam Nutraceuticals (Oregon). Company complies with all notices, but gets targeted anyway by a fully-armed, SWAT-style cadre of officers, who steal products, paperwork, computers, and personal files (http://www.naturalnews.com/032203_M…).
- 2010, April 20.
Two FDA agents, two US Marshals, and one state trooper raid Rainbow Acres (Pennsylvania) at 5 am, breaking their warrant’s restrictions instructing an inspection at “reasonable business hours.” Agents scour the premises for hours and charge the farm with illegally selling raw milk across state lines (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa…).
- 2009, Fall.
USDA inspector shows up at Dollarhite Family Farm (Missouri) and demands an inspection. After insisting there were no problems with the family’s small-scale raising of bunny rabbits, USDA officials later try to fine the family $90,000 for alleged violations (http://www.naturalnews.com/032476_r…).
- 2010, May 26.
Officials from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the Minnesota Department of Health send armed deputies to raid Hartmann Farm (Minnesota). Agents order Mike and Diana Harmann to stop selling all meat and dairy products, and to stop delivering raw milk (http://www.ftcldf.org/food-freedom-…).
- 2010, June 2.
Agents from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, the Trade and Consumer Protection Agency, and local health officials, arrive unannounced at Hershberger Farm (Wisconsin). They violate private property signs, demand to do an inspection, and proceed to take shut coolers and order that raw milk be dumped in a field (http://www.ftcldf.org/news/WI-DATCP…).
- 2010, June 10.
Officials from various health and law enforcement agencies raid the personal home of Rae Lynn Sandvig (Minnesota), a raw milk and local food consumer, for allegedly “assisting in the sale of raw milk” from her home by sharing food with neighbors (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/swarm…).
- 2010, June 30.
Various federal agents, and even Canadian agents, raid Rawesome Foods (California), a private, raw food buying club, and steal computers, raw food products, and other materials. They hold members and workers hostage for many hours before finally leaving with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product (http://www.naturalnews.com/030136_R…).
- 2010, August 26.
Agents show up at Morningland Dairy (Missouri) and confiscate cheese samples for testing. After improper handling of the samples, which allegedly return positive for contamination, the farm appeals. Officials then demand that the farm destroy its entire 50,000 pound inventory of raw, artisan cheese, valued at $250,000 (http://www.naturalnews.com/030148_M…).
- 2010, September 21.
Federal agents arrive unannounced at Camino de Paz Montessori School and Farm (New Mexico) on supposed suspicion of marijuana. After scouring the premises and terrorizing teachers and students, they find nothing but fruits, vegetables, and other produce (http://www.naturalnews.com/030573_m…).
- 2010, September 21.
After years of fighting back against federal tyranny, the Christian church ministry Daniel Chapter One (Rhode Island) is raided by agents from the FDA, IRS, the US Army Criminal Investigation Command and several other agencies. Agents break into the home of owners and steal computers, paperwork, files, personal documents, and hold owner at gunpoint (http://www.naturalnews.com/033265_D…).
- 2010, October 15.
Georgia State Department of Agriculture officials illegally search raw milk buying club truck without warrant, seizes and orders 110 gallons of product to be dumped (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMfQ…).
- 2011, March 9.
Minnesota officials again target Hartmann Farms (Minnesota), this time going after James Roettger, a man who helps distribute the farm’s food. Agents pull Roettger over while driving, seize as much as $6,000 worth of food from his van, and arrest him (http://www.thecompletepatient.com/j…).
- 2011, June 3.
At the prompting of the FDA US Marshals raid Wyldewood Cellars (Kansas), producer of natural elderberry juice, and confiscate the entire stock of product, claiming it is an “unapproved drug” (http://www.naturalnews.com/032631_e…).
- 2011, August 3.
Slew of agents conduct second raid on Rawesome Foods (California), a private, raw buying club, and confiscate everything in sight. They handcuff and arrest founder James Stewart, without warrant, and proceed to destroy the shop’s entire food inventory (http://www.naturalnews.com/033220_R…).
Please share this article so that others may learn this truth about the FDA’s war on farmers, food freedom and nutrition.
Based on an article by MICHAEL TORTORELLO Published in the NYT
(Healingtalks) This article was inspired by coming away from auditing a four day course in Permaculture Design led by Wayne Weiseman, 58, the director of the Permaculture Project, in Carbondale, Ill.
As a way to save the world, digging a ditch next to a hill of sheep dung would seem to be a modest start on a hobby farm in western Wisconsin. And the trenchers, far from being day laborers, had paid $1,300 to $1,500 for the privilege of working their spades on a cement-skied Tuesday morning in late June. Fourteen of us had assembled to learn permaculture or simple systems for:
Designing sustainable human settlements
Restoring soil
Planting year-round food landscapes
Conserving water
Redirecting the waste stream
Forming more companionable communities
Turning the earth’s looming resource crisis into a new age of happiness.
It was going to have to be a pretty awesome ditch.
History of Permaculture
The movement’s founders, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, coined the term permaculture in the mid-1970s, as a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture. In practice, permaculture is a growing and influential movement that runs deep beneath sustainable farming and urban food gardening. You can find permaculturists setting up worm trays and bee boxes, aquaponics ponds and chicken roosts, composting toilets and rain barrels, solar panels and earth houses. Truly, permaculture contains enough badges of eco-merit to fill a Girl Scout sash.
Aim of Permaculture
Permies (yes, they use that term) like to experiment with fermentation, mushrooming, foraging (also known as wildcrafting) and herbal medicine. Yet permaculture aims to be more than the sum of those practices, said David Cody, 39, who teaches the system and creates urban food gardens in San Francisco. “It’s an ecological theory of everything,” Mr. Cody said. “Here’s a planet Earth operating manual. Do you want to go along for a ride with us?”
Prevelance of Permaculture
It’s hard to say just how many have climbed aboard the mother ship. In San Francisco, Mr. Cody saw more than 1,500 volunteers turn out in 2010 to create Hayes Valley Farm, a pop-up food garden near the site of a collapsed freeway ramp. “I like to say it was the largest sheet-mulching project ever done in the world,” said Mr. Cody, who designed the garden following the permaculture principles and directed the process of covering the ground with a cardboard weed barrier and organic material. “We sheet-mulched about an acre and a half,” he said. “That’s something like 80,000 pounds of cardboard diverted from the waste stream.” In the last four years, Mr. Cody has helped train 250 students through the Urban Permaculture Institute in San Francisco. Scott Pittman, 71, who directs the national Permaculture Institute from a farmstead outside Santa Fe, N.M., estimates that 100,000 to 150,000 students have completed the certificate course since the philosophy was developed in Tasmania over three decades ago. “In the U.S., I would say we represent 40,000 to 50,000 of that number,” he said.
Permaculture as a Decentralized Movement
But then pemaculture has no membership rolls or census-takers. By intention, “it has been, for all of the years I’ve been involved, a pretty decentralized movement,” Mr. Pittman said. The message seems to get out in its own fashion, without publicists. Mr. Mollison, for example, has been permaculture’s leading figure since the late 1970s, and his books have hundreds of thousands of copies. Yet his name has apparently never warranted a mention in this newspaper. Permaculture, Mr. Pittman said, is “guided by the curriculum and a sense of ethics, and that’s pretty much it.”
Nicene Creed
The ethic of permaculture is the movement’s Nicene Creed, or golden rule: care of the earth; care of people; and a return of surplus time, energy and money, to the cause of bettering the earth and its people. In its effort to be universal, permaculture espouses no religion or spiritual element. Still, joining the movement seems to strike many of its practitioners as a kind of conversion experience. Mr. Pittman first encountered Mr. Mollison and his teachings at a weekend seminar in New Mexico in 1985. As a system, permaculture impressed him as panoptic and transformational. “It shook my world,” Mr. Pittman said. Almost on the spot, he decided to drop his work and follow Mr. Mollison to the next stop on his teaching tour: Katmandu, Nepal. Soon after, he began to lead courses alongside Mr. Mollison, in cities and backwaters around the globe. Mr. Mollison hasn’t toured the United States in almost 15 years. At 83, Mr. Mollison has “kind of faded into semi-retirement in Tasmania,” Mr. Pittman said.
Permaculture Affecting the Mainstream
Yet in recent years, Mr. Mollison’s ideas seem to have bubbled up from underground, into the mainstream. “I just trained the Oklahoma National Guard,” Mr. Pittman said. “If that’s any kind of benchmark.” The troops, he said, plan to apply permaculture to farming and infrastructure projects in rural Afghanistan. It’s a system, permaculturists contend, that can work anywhere. In Park Slope, Brooklyn, Claudia Joseph, 53, has used the precepts of permaculture to develop new food gardens at the Old Stone House. (Its original 1699 Dutch edifice was a locus of the Battle of Brooklyn in the Revolutionary War.) “It’s a huge breakthrough,” she said. “To go from a swatch of grass to 1,000 blueberry bushes.” The parks department recently bulldozed two of her gardens in an overhaul of the playground in the surrounding Washington Park.
Food Forests
But in a few protected spots, Ms. Joseph, an environmental educator and consultant who lives two blocks away, has already started on an edible food forest. This “guild” of complementary plants is the opposite of annual row-crop agriculture, with its dead or degraded soil and its constant demand for labor and fertilizer. Permaculture landscapes, which mimic the ecology of the area, are meant to be vertical, dense and self-perpetuating. Once the work of the original planting is done, Mr. Mollison jokes in one of his videos, “the designer turns into the recliner.” At the lowest level of a food forest, then, are subterranean crops like sweet potatoes and carrots. On the floor of the landscape, mushrooms can grow on felled logs or wood chips. Herbs go on the next level, along with “delicious black cap raspberries,” Ms. Joseph said. Other shrubs, like inkberry, winterberry and elderberry, are attractive to butterflies and birds. They’re an integral part of the system, too. But more likely to appeal to the children who attend the nearby William Alexander Middle School is a Newtown Pippin apple tree, “a variety first grown in Queens,” Ms. Joseph said. Ruling the forest’s heights are the 40 large pin oaks already in the park, whose abundance of acorns will make a banquet for squirrels.
From Bushmeat To Patio Gardens
Permaculture also looks favorably on high-quality bushmeat. But Ms. Joseph will be leaving that harvest well enough alone. With its focus on close planting and human-scale projects, permaculture is ideally suited to a small suburban yard or a patio garden.
Where Students Are Of To….
But most of the students I met in Wisconsin had their own 1,000-blueberry-bush visions and ideas on how permaculture could help fulfill them.
Kellie Anderson, a 27-year-old rolfer, lived for five months in a giant sequoia tree named Keyandoora. (At the time, she was protesting a logging plan in Humboldt County, Calif.) After the workshop, Ms. Anderson said, she planned to inhabit a 1986 diesel school bus that she and her boyfriend were in the process of converting into a camper. But fortune seems to have taken her instead to Sanibel Island, Fla., where she is now helping to plan a sustainable-housing community.
Kris Beck, 48, a founder of an energy-efficiency tech company, had a notion to build a sanctuary with a megalithic stone circle (think Stonehenge) on her family’s old Wisconsin dairy farm, along the Mississippi River bluffs. Bruce Feldman, 60, who spent two decades as an English teacher overseas, experienced the collapse of the baht in Thailand (he was being paid in that currency), and an earthquake in Japan, in 1995, that left him wandering the streets for four days.
These events, Mr. Feldman said, “got me thinking that I should start preparing for my own future,” ideally, a four- or five-acre self-reliant homestead in the Ozarks of Arkansas. The site of the workshop was a permaculture Shangri-La unto itself: 60 acres of rolling pasture and woodlands, a few miles from the Buffalo River in Wisconsin.
In 2004, Jeff Rabkin and his wife, Susan Scofield, bought this Amish farm for $125,000. The original plan was to lease out the fields and build a cordwood cabin as a weekend home. Instead, under the influence of permaculture, Mr. Rabkin became seized with the idea of stewarding the property himself. To this end, he and a permaculture buddy, Victor Suarez, 44, bought a small flock of sheep and planted 300 fruit and nut trees. During the work week, Mr. Rabkin, 49, and Ms. Scofield, 48, run a marketing and public relations firm in Minneapolis. That background is apparent in the catchy name they gave the place: Crazy Rooster Farm and Amish Telephone Booth. But the Amish telephone booth is no gimmick. The couple installed a phone line in the shed next to their farmhouse, and their neighbors roll up in buggies to make calls. While Amish visitors mill around in Mr. Rabkin’s yard, they may strike a deal to sell him three steer and two heifers, or 20 black-locust fence posts. Like a coneflower patch draws honeybees, Mr. Rabkin said, “I like to say that the telephone attracts beneficial wildlife — our Amish neighbors — which is what permaculture tells us to do.”
Ms. Scofield collected asparagus, beets and raw milk from neighboring farms to feed the permies. The occasional Amish visitor, like Thomas Zook, who delivered a bucketful of new potatoes in the middle of a downpour, gave a glimpse of what low-impact living might look like, taken to an extreme.
Mr. Zook’s father, Jonas Zook, even dropped in to watch a video about pond management, but walked out after a minute or two. After marathon days of PowerPoint presentations, I wouldn’t have minded joining him.
Zones Patterns and Functions
For all its exhilarating ideals, permaculture is a movement grounded in “zones,” “patterns” and “functions.” Labs, as it were, took place in the toolshed. On the first day, Mr. Weiseman demonstrated how to create biochar, or partly burned charcoal, in a primitive “rocket” stove, a device he assembled out of a piece of ductwork and a paint can. Helpful mineral elements attach themselves to the unique molecular structure of biochar, Mr. Weiseman explained. Mixed with compost, it makes a top-dressing for trees.
Next, he started bubbling compost tea with an aquarium pump in a plastic bucket. (“Even petroleum has a place in permaculture,” he said. “The five-gallon bucket is the greatest application of petroleum in the world.”) He wrapped a clump of standard compost in a cloth like a hobo’s bandanna pack and dunked it in water. Next, he added molasses to feed the brew. After a couple of days, we would fling this brownish broth over the kitchen garden to enrich the soil with beneficial bacteria. That was the concept, anyway.
Faith or Science
A week after the workshop, I ran these theories past Jeff Gillman, 41, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota and an author of four books about gardening practices and the environment. He professed to be “a believer in the whole concept of permaculture.” But he dismissed the compost tea as “lunacy.” Scattering a few foreign microbes into a sea of soil, he said, was like parachuting 10,000 people across the breadth of the Sahara. They would not survive. Normal compost, the solid stuff from a backyard bin, “should already contain all the microbes that are beneficial to the soil,” he said. And if it doesn’t, “beneficial microbes move in very, very quickly.”
With biochar, Mr. Gillman admitted to a bit of bafflement. “Charcoal, in general, is not in and of itself harmful to soil,” he explained. “It helps to hold on to nutrients. But having said that, it boggles my mind why you would take a perfectly good block of wood that you could use as compost or mulch, and burn it.” IN a broad sense, though, permaculture is not about the scientific method or textbook agronomy. “I don’t know that anyone has ever done a double-blind study of permaculture,” said Mr. Pittman of the national Permaculture Institute.
“Most people in permaculture are not that interested in doing those kinds of studies. They’re more interested in demonstrating it. You can see the difference in species diversity and yield just by looking at the system.” As Mr. Weiseman observed, permaculture may be a “leap of faith.” But not leaping might have its own consequences.
Forecasts of Permaculture
Beginning with Mr. Mollison, permaculturists have forecast a near future of resource scarcity. “Not just peak oil,” Mr. Weiseman said, “but peak water, peak soil.” And the news, with its drumbeat of economic decline and ecological catastrophe, feeds the prophecies. In this dystopia to come, permaculture won’t be a lifestyle choice, but a necessity. “We know what’s right,” Mr. Weiseman said. “We know what’s best. We feel this thing in our bones and in our heart. And then we don’t do anything about it. Or we do. And I did. And it’s bearing fruit.” But preparing for doomsday in San Francisco, Mr. Cody said, is not what draws a crowd of busy souls to shovel horse manure on a drizzly Saturday morning. To the 12 central tenets of permaculture, then, Mr. Cody added a 13th: “If it’s not fun, it’s not sustainable.” In other words, why mourn the eventual demise of our office blocks and factory farms, when there’s a feast to be made, right now, in your own backyard?
Introductions to Permaculture
The Movement in Your Backyard A good introduction to permaculture is Bill Mollison’s 1991 book, “Introduction to Permaculture” (Tagari Publications, $25). For a start, it’s 350 pages shorter and about $75 cheaper than his “Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual,” the movement’s full, unexpurgated testament. The greatest hits of permaculture are all in the “Introduction”: the ecological ethics, the landscape design principles, the domestic architecture. The book also dabbles in some colorful minutiae. Will shredded licorice root make suitable wall insulation? Does a goat like to munch carob pods? (Spoiler alert: the answer to both is yes.) New Yorkers won’t have much use for the section on “Avenue Cropping Techniques for Monsoon Tropics.”
Going Local With Permaculture
Permaculture’s philosophy may be universal, but its practice, focusing on microclimates and native ecosystems, is strictly local. In this spirit, dozens of cities hold regular permaculture gatherings. The New York Permaculture Meetup Group is one such place to post questions and view local projects. New members can join at nycpermaculture.info, and attend the next assembly on Aug. 2, said Alice Lo, 29, of Rego Park, Queens, one of the event’s hosts. If Meetup participants go home believers, they may be ready for the baptism of an immersive Permaculture Design Certificate Course.
Learning More
Many of these workshops take the form of a residency. Ms. Lo suggested a permaculture-and-yoga biathlon, Aug. 5 to 25, at an ashram/ranch in the Catskills. For information: (845) 436-6492 or sivananda.org/ranch/perma_design.html. Wayne Weiseman, who taught my course at Crazy Rooster Farm and Amish Telephone Booth, worked as an organic farm manager, an outdoor skills instructor, a public school teacher, a cabinetmaker, a luthier and a New York cabdriver. He brings these trades to the teaching of permaculture. Mr. Weiseman will lead fall workshops in Jessup, Md., and Americus, Ga. (For information: www.permacultureproject.com). Permaculture should be practiced at home. Commuters can be sojourners at courses in Brooklyn (permaculture-exchange.org), San Francisco (upisf.com), Oklahoma City and Albuquerque (permaculture.org).
And if all these newly minted permies feel compelled to quit their day jobs and start urban farms?
(Healingtalks) US farmers are for the first time growing GM corn plants for putting ethanol in petrol tanks rather than producing more food.
Aid organizations warn the GM corn could worsen a global food crisis exposed by the famine in Somalia by diverting more corn into energy production.
The food industry also opposes the new product because, although not inedible, it is unsuitable for use in the manufacture of food products that commonly use corn. Farmers growing corn for human consumption are also concerned about cross-contamination. The corn, developed by a branch of the Swiss pesticide firm Syngenta, contains an added gene for an enzyme (amylase) that speeds the breakdown of starches into ethanol. Ethanol plants normally have to add the enzyme to corn when making ethanol.
The Enogen-branded corn is being grown for the first time commercially on about 2000 hectares on the edge of America’s corn belt in Kansas. Syngenta says it will allow farmers to produce more ethanol while using less energy and water.
Meanwhile, campaigners say the corn will heap pressure on global food supplies and contribute to environmental degradation. ”The temptation to look at food as another form of fuel to use for the energy crisis will exacerbate the food crisis,” said Todd Post, of Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger organisation.
Although individual events such as the Somalia famine are caused by a complex combination of factors, several studies have established that the expansion of biofuels has pushed up food prices worldwide.
A World Bank report released yesterday says food prices that are now close to their 2008 peak have contributed to the famine in Somalia. The food industry is warning of the dangers of contaminating existing corn crops with GM corn.
Even a small amount of the amylase corn – one kernel out of 10,000 – could damage food products, according to data supplied to the North American Millers’ Association by Syngenta. The European Union, South Korea, and South Africa have not approved its importation.
Farmers will grow the corn under contract to an ethanol production plant, getting a premium over regular corn.
Steve McNinch, of Western Plains Energy, in Kansas, the only ethanol plant to have processed the GM corn, said adding a small amount of amylase corn to the mix – about 10 per cent – would increase production.
Let’s Begin With the Very Deepest-Digging or Taproot Reason to Go Organic
(Healingtalks) There are many great reasons to go organic and we have gathered a list. But the conventional reasons leave out the most deep-digging one of all. This involves the heart and soul of our modern industrial culture. What this refers to is something radical, and the word radical means going to the root, or in this case the taproot problem.
Imagine that our dominant modern philosophy of nature, the mathematical and mechanical, which dramatically brought us out of medieval culture and into the Industrial Revolution (with its “gifts” of mechanized agriculture, food production, delivery, and serving – including McDonalds) is really out of sync with the deepest core essence of nature. This means we need to learn something different about nature than what is taught in most all elementary schools, high schools and/or colleges.
Imagine that again what has led us to create synthetic lab chemical is an ideology of nature, namely the belief-laden following of wherever the symbols of mathematics point us in nature, and unfortunately to the deepest depths of nature.
Why is that a falsely guiding vision, one involving both a reversal illusion and corruption of consciousness?
This is because those lofty and elevated math symbols, stripped naked of their royal garbs, are really but our left-brain’s highest or most universal symbols to separate all elements of our consciousness. The number “1″ is the universal separate whole, the ultimate building block of mathematics, like a “point” in geometry.
Why is a math-based ideology of nature then a very, very, very serious problem?
First, if you systematically separate things in nature, especially what is most together, it then falls apart! Atom bombs symbolize this. Their design by Dr. Femi used the framework of Cartesian coordinates (the mathematization of geometry) or the visualization of space universally separated or disintegrated.
Secondly, it is not just dead matter than can be disintegrated. Remember what is most deeply connected in the whole in nature happens to be organic life.
Thirdly, lets consider the math-based philosophy of nature as out of sync with nature’s true deepest essence. There are steps to this process.
Imagine that at the core inner depths of all of nature and cosmically is something else, namely life. Imagine this to be true even if it is rare to bring this inner essence to the surface.
Imagine that the essence of life is something we and all living forms experience as “consciousness,” awareness or sentience.
Imagine that this consciousness forms the universal relationship of connection in nature. When we are conscious of something we simply connect with it. Universal connection creates a Oneness in nature and this would mean consciousness and life are at the foundation of nature’s Oneness and not what math symbols point to.
If that is so, then the math-based vision of nature, in a marriage with $-signing and when driven far too deeply, pits us directly against the very core essence of nature, including the core essence of ourselves (or what keeps us and the rest of organic life whole and healed).
It pits oneself against nature’s life thus producing systemic death or the death of whole ecologies and species. This is why when you test not individual synthetic chemistry but the entire underlying order (by throwing a large random mix of chemicals in a compost heap) all of life therein dies. That is exactly what is happening in our times…why species are dying, why chronic ills (especially consciousness-depletion diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and diabetes) are increasing at exponentially pandemic rates.
Now we can add to this all the other reasons to go organic, most of which are derivative of the above:
No toxic chemicals in organic products
Organic certification means products are grown and handled according to strict procedures with no toxic chemicals added.
Avoid toxic load for ourselves and our environment – our air, water, soil and our bodies
Buying organics promotes a less toxic environment for all living things. With only 0.5 percent of crop and pasture land in organic, according to USDA that leaves 99.5 percent of farm acres in the U.S. at risk of exposure to noxious agricultural chemicals. Industrial agriculture pollutes not only farmland and farm workers; it also wreaks havoc downstream. Pesticide drift affects non-farm communities with odorless and invisible poisons. Synthetic fertilizers are the main culprit for dead zones in delicate ocean environments, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where its dead zone is now larger than 22,000 square kilometers, an area larger than New Jersey, according to Science magazine, August, 2002.
Go organic to protect future generations
Before a mother first nurses her newborn, the toxic risk from pesticides has already begun. Studies show that infants are exposed to hundreds of harmful chemicals in utero. We are now have four generations of exposure to agricultural and industrial chemicals since the 1940’s, and whose safety was deemed on adult tolerance levels, not on that of children. According to the National Academy of Science, “neurologic and behavioral effects may result from low-level exposure to pesticides.” Numerous studies show that pesticides can adversely affect us, increasing the risk of cancer and decrease fertility.
Organic farmers build healthy soil and avoid erosion
Soil is the foundation of the food chain. The primary focus of organic farming is to use practices that build healthy soils. Mono-cropping and chemical fertilizer dependency has taken a toll with a loss of top soil costing an estimated $40 billion per year in the U.S., according to David Pimental of Cornell University. There is also a disturbing loss of micro nutrients and minerals in fruits and vegetables. Feeding the soil with organic matter instead of ammonia and other synthetic fertilizers has proven to increase nutrients, with higher levels of vitamins and minerals found in organic food, according to the 2005 study by the Organic Center State of Science Review, “Elevating Antioxidant levels in food through organic farming and food processing.” Also soil in America is eroding seven times faster than it can be replaced. Organic farming is the solution to this problem.
Organic production reduce health risks
Many EPA-approved pesticides were registered long before extensive research linked these chemicals to cancer and other diseases. Organic agriculture is one way to prevent any more of these chemicals from getting into the air, earth and water that sustain us.
Organic farms respect water resources
The elimination of polluting chemicals and nitrogen leaching, done in combination with soil building, protects and conserves water resources.
Organic farmers work in harmony with nature
Organic agricultural respects the balance demanded of a healthy ecosystem: wildlife is encouraged by including forage crops in rotation and by retaining fence rows, wetlands, and other natural areas.
Organic producers are leaders in innovative research that avoids poor science
Organic farmers have led the way, largely at their own expense, with innovative on-farm research aimed at reducing pesticide use and minimizing agriculture’s impact on the environment. What’s avoided iscloned food or GMOs! Today an astounding 30 percent of our cropland is planted in GMOs.
Organic producers strive to preserve biological diversity
The loss of a large variety of species (biodiversity) is one of the most pressing environmental concerns. Organic farmers and gardeners have been collecting and preserving seeds, and growing unusual varieties for decades. On organic farms you’ll notice a buzz of animal, bird and insect activity. Organic life is thriving in diverse habitats. Native plants, birds and hawks return usually after the first season of organic practices; beneficial insects allow for a greater balance, and indigenous animals find these farms a safe haven. As said best by Aldo Leopold, “A good farm must be one where the native flora and fauna have lost acreage without losing their existence.” An organic farm is the equivalent of reforestation. Industrial farms with clear cutting of native habitats focus mostly on high farm yields and not the preservation of life.
Supports organic farming, those who care the most about our environment, and helps keep rural communities healthy
USDA reported that in 1997, half of U.S. farm production came from only 2% of mechanized, non-organic farms. At the other end of the spectrum and according to Organic Farming Research Foundation, as of 2006 there were approximately 10,000 certified organic producers in the U.S. compared to 2500 to 3,000 tracked in 1994, and measured against the two million farms (1/2 of 1%).. Small family farms that are organic tend to farm in harmony with nature, with their surrounding environment, helping to bring together extended families and rural communities.
Organic abundance
Now every food category has an organic alternative. And non-food agricultural products are being grown organically – even cotton, which most experts felt could not be grown this way.
Organic food tastes better and with truer flavors
It’s common sense – well-balanced soils produce strong, healthy plants that become nourishing food for people and animals and that then tastes great. It makes sense that strawberries taste yummier when raised in harmony with nature, but researchers at Washington State University just proved this as fact in lab taste trials where the organic berries were consistently judged as sweeter. Plus, new research verifies that some organic produce is often lower in nitrates and higher in antioxidants than conventional food.
Protect farm worker health
Farm workers in this country and abroad are exposed to the highest concentrations of agricultural poisons. The devastation to them and their families is well documented. Higher cancer rates abound. Those who harvest our food deserve better. Help them by voting with your pocketbook which means buying organic foods.
Organics aren’t really more expensive
Many hidden costs are involved with the buying of conventionally products. These hidden costs include billions in federal subsides favoring big business. Chemical regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal, environmental damage and cleanup, illnesses and hospitalizations are among vast hidden costs. Low prices of conventional foods are also often a signal that the farm workers did not receive a fair wage.
Save energy with organics
Organic farming is accomplished with less energy consumption. Inputs like fertilizer are naturally occurring and require less processing than substances manufactured by huge chemical companies. Organic food generally travels less miles from farm to market saving energy in transport. Many organic farmers incorporate alternative and renewable energy sources into their farming/homesteading systems.
Save a Life with organics
The best of natural healing centers use organic nutrition and detoxification (removing the toxic chemicals lodged in our bodies) to help reverse chronic ills and save lives. We can be proactive and not take in those chemicals by going organic.
Keyword Tags: Go Organic, Reasons to Go Organic, save a life with organics
Keyword tags: criminalizing raw milk sales, Raid of Rawesome Foods – Video Footage, suppression of raw milk, outlaw raw milk sales, raid on raw milk farm
(Healingtalks) Back in April of 2010 the FDA conducted an armed pre-dawn raid on a gentle Amish farmer selling his raw milk from a couple dozen cows and to a few faithful customers. This, and dozens of similar incidences, have set the stage for a more recent and second armed raid of Rawesome Foods in Venice California where, for the first time, the government upped the ante. Not only did the FDA, in a joint raid with other corrupt government agencies, thwart the sale of raw milk and confiscate the proprietors’ inventory and cash, they now want to criminalize the sale of raw milk with multiple pending felony charges – and in a state where raw milk is legal to sell!
This is a critical turning point in the whole establishment of a food police state, sending a very frightening, chilling message to all other raw milk farms, distributors and retailers in our entire nation and all along our food chain supply channels.
All the while the government is becoming ever more militant in its campaign and armed raids on small local farmers. According to Gary Cox of the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund: “I’ve seen numerous search warrants being carried out; I’ve even seen it where a SWAT team would come into a family’s home in Northern Ohio and hold the family including the children at gunpoint for six hours while the agents searched the home for food,” says Gary.
The incident with the gentle Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, and actually dozens of others, have long set the stage for the creation of a heinous “food police state” and this has been brewing for over two decades – at least since the FDA regulatory ban of raw milk interstate sales in the late 1980′s
Every reader should be informed, alerted and rightly alarmed that this process is now accelerating.
The sample Amish incident, preceded by a year and a half sting operation, ended in a lawsuit in 2011 attempting to prevent the Amish farmer from selling his raw milk to his small faithful cadre of customers across state lines.
PA Undercover Raw Milk Sting
The agency began its investigation of Mr. Daniel Allgyer’s farm (Rainbow Acres Farm in Kinzers, PA) in 2009. This was when an undercover FDA agent in Baltimore placed an order under an assumed name to sign up for the Yahoo user group tied to Allgyer’s Rainbow Acres.
His milk orders went to a residence in Maryland where the milk could be picked up.
By crossing state lines the milk became part of “interstate commerce” and thus presumably subject to the FDA’s regulatory ban on the sales of raw milk. The court papers noted that the jugs of milk were not labeled – forming a second violation of FDA regulations. FDA investigators then came to the farm in February 2010, when Mr. Allgyer turned them away from his farm.
The armed encounter and harassment wasdocumented by Ellen Marie, also privately interviewing the Allgyer’s family about the trespassing involved. She reported that other dairy farms and their families in the area had similarly been subjected to FDA intimidation. In April the FDA sent a warning letter from the Philadelphia district, signed by Kirk Sooter, the director, telling Allgyer to essentially cease and desist or they might face an injunction as well as the seizure of his property. This warning letter can be found on the FDA website.
How FDA Got Such Orwellian/Nazi Police State Powers
The FDA now has immensely expanded new powers due to the so-called Food Safety and Modernization Act approved by Congress last year and signed by President Obama in January, 2011.
Starting July 3, 2011 the agency gained the ability to confiscate any food at any farm that it deems s0-called “unsafe or mislabeled.”
This is what has tipped the scale for far more aggressive and unconstitutional FDA actions – in the spirit of Bush’s Patriot Act. It essentially treats farmers in the same way terrorists might be treated in the Patriot Act, and with no rights at detention centers across the world.
The Saga Continues
FDA agents thus returned in April of 2010 to Allgyer’s farm with a warrant submitted by Joshua Schafer, the FDA investigator) and then U.S. marshals and a state police trooper made apre-dawn raw milk raid (at 5 am) but which the FDA called a “lawful inspection.”
The FDA claimed they spotted coolers labeled with Maryland town names, and with dairy products. The inspection again led to a letter dated 04/20/2010 from FDA informing Mr. Allgyer that he had to stop selling across state lines.
Mr, Allgyer instead formed a private club where members could be shareholders in the farm’s produce, paying only for the farmer’s labor. This was to avoid the FDA’s regulation of “commerce.” The FDA investigators continued to take shipments and in April of 2011 week filed suit in Federal Court to stop Allgyer’s sale of raw milk.
The FDA this year filed for a legal injunction against Allgyer and accused him of “contributing to the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases” at his farm where he tends just three dozen cows and sells their raw milk to a very small buyers’ club in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.
For decades there has never been any real evidence whatsoever that raw-milk forms a health hazard.
Not an Isolated Incidence and Prelude to Criminalizing
There is alist available on the Web of 20 small farms and enterprises, especially dairy farms and their distributors, who have been raided by federal agents since 2004 and in eight different states in US. This includes a previous gunpoint raid on Rawesome Foods in 2010. likewise confiscating their property. The list also gives ample details of many other unconstitutional, horrific and intimidating actions of the FDA.
Interestingly the initial seller of raw milk on that list is Organic Pastures Dairy, raided in the spring of 2004. At the time the agents even illegally went through customer files and photographed them.
Organic pastures is no small operation to be targeted. In fact, it is the largest dairy operation subject to FDA intimidation. Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno, sells raw milk to 50,000 customers a week and through 400 stores in the Bay Area and the rest of the state. He endured a long undercover investigation. All the while “they refuse to acknowledge raw milk can be done in a safe manner,” McAfee stated. “The state of California is very effectively doing that… There is no recorded evidence anywhere, any place – the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, anybody – that shows anybody has ever died from raw milk in California.”
What’s Really Behind the Raw Milk Suppression – $$$
Despite raw milk’s tiny market share, McAfee (owner of Organic Pastures Dairies) stated that milk processors are behind efforts to ban raw milk because they see the product as a competitive threat. He said demand for pasteurized milk is falling about 1 percent a year, and farmers can earn as much as 10 times more for raw milk than they do selling to processors. The processors then denature the milk via pasteurization and in order to extend shelf-life. They don’t want the public to know they are denaturing the milk to create an inferior product because it would be a death-knoll and financial disaster.
Furthermore when milk is in the raw state, not all the milk is the same, pooled from different farms. Some of the milk will lose its fresh taste more quickly than others – sometimes in as little as a week. Unlike eggs, meat and fish, dairy milk can’t be refrigerated or frozen for months without adulterating its taste. Without pasteurization of pooled milk, there is a loss of control of shelf-life. This equates to a loss of control of the market as such.
Pasteurization is critically necessary and must be justified at all costs, and through all possible info-wars or mind-deceits of the public – even if it means fabricating health scares or all kinds of fear-mongering about raw milk… all of which is scientifically indefensible. The very survival of large dairies depends on maintaining this consumer infowar deceit. Thus they solicit corrupt government and scientific support.
A careful study of pasteurization shows it truly denatures the milk.
It makes milk significantly deficient. Pasteurized dairy consumption leads to long-term arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis and arthritis, all of which are among the most common diseases in aging dairy farmers who drink pasteurized milk for decades. Among farming populations, dairy farmers have the highest rates of arthritis.
There is also short-term allergenic or lactose-intolerance reactions to pasteurized milk. This is because the pasteurized milk simply becomes heat-harmed and dead food. Our bodies require living foods for optimal health. Like chemically-preserved staples deadened to increase shelf-life, the end result is the true health-hazard at the altar of making more money.
If the public knew all of this, it would fatally threaten billions of dollars of conventional dairy sales. These are maintained only via this huge market deceptions. In the meantime, illnesses like arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis and arthritis are pandemic. Statistics show these three ailments affect literally hundreds of millions of people over the age of 50, which then helps allopathic medical and pharmaceutical industries thrive.
Dairy Industry’s Thrust Toward Total Market Control
“The fluid milk markets are already dying on the vine because people can’t digest , it’s too allergenic and it’s got lactose intolerance,” McAfee continued by saying “Raw milk is an out-of-control milk. It’s by the farmer directly to the consumer, so all the dairy industry people are upset that they are losing control of the market.”
Reactions to the Raw Milk Sting
Coming back to our example of the Pennsylvania-Amish dairy sting operation by the FDA, one of the customers, Liz Reitzig, president of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, said she started looking into raw milk because her oldest daughter showed signs of not tolerating pasteurized milk. Thus she sought out what they call “cow sharing” or where a group of people buy shares in owning a cow, and pay a farmer to board and milk the cow.
But Maryland outlawed that practice and so she turned to Mr. Allgyer’s farm.
“We like the way they farm, we love their product, it’s super-high-quality, they’re wonderful. It’s just a wonderful arrangement,” she said. ” The FDA really has no idea what they’re talking about when they’re talking about fresh milk. They have no concept – they really don’t understand what it’s like for people like me who have friends and family who can’t drink conventional milk,” Ms. Reitzig said.
Other customers were likewise furious, especially those from the District of Columbia and Maryland.
“I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers,” said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys directly from Rainbow Acres. “I don’t want the FDA and my tax dollars to go to shut down a farm that hasn’t had any complaints against it. They’re producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it.”
Members of the Grassfed on the Hill group reacted by planning a rally in Washington DC, raw-milking a cow as pictured below with the Capitol building in the background.
Author David Gumpert, writing for the website Grist, wondered whether those who took part in the raid felt “remorse or shame” in an “official effort to deprive people of food.”
Action Center:
What Readers Can Do
Bill to Stop the FDA from Banning Raw Milk
On May 11, Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, introduced H.R. 1830, the Unpasteurized Milk Bill, which would end the FDA’s ban and permit the sale of raw milk across state lines. This would reverse the mandate given in 1987 FDA regulation to ban interstate commerce in raw milk.
Suit Against FDA in Iowa
Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, said undercover stings are a matter of course. “It happens quite a bit. It’s almost like they treat raw milk as crack. It happened in a number of states, and at the federal level,” he said. His organization has now sued to try to halt FDA enforcement, and the case is pending in federal court in Iowa.
Getting Raw Milk Locally
One way support raw milk for real optimal health is to seek out a local raw dairy. A new resource called Finding Your Safe Local Raw Milk offers an instantly downloadable $7 ePaper to help you find such dairies in your area quickly.Read more about the $7 ePaper
Helping Friends and Allies
NICFA (National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association
Fresh (website for award-winning film that supports non-industrial farming)
The Complete Patient (blog of David E. Gumpert, with an intense coverage of the issue)
Take back control of your health and well-being. Don’t let our government destroy your collective health rights through fear-mongering mind-control efforts and food police state tactics – all pursued to serve profit interests of consolidated corporate behemoths.
Today the issue is the sale of raw milk.
Tomorrow the issue is the sale of all the rest of our food supply, and ever more artificially processed, bio-engineered and thus denatured for profit.
First they came after the raw milk producers
and I didn’t speak out because I drank no raw milk.
Then they came after the non-GMO farmers
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a farmer.
When they came for natural food supplement manufacturers and health food retailers I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a manufacturer or store owner.
When they arrested naturopaths and natural healers, I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a doctor or healer.
When they hauled away organic home gardeners
I didn’t speak out because I grew no gardens.
When they handcuffed and jailed breast-feeding women who refused to pasteurize their own milk, I didn’t speak out because I had no children
Finally when they came for me there was no one left to speak for me.
Listen to this important, uplifting message from the Health Ranger, called Hold your head high: How to stay positive during difficult times.Click here to listen now or click the PLAY button in the following object:
Must See Video of Rawesome Raid:
Keyword tags rawesome food coop, raw milk sales, FDA criminalizes sale of raw milk, raw milk suppression, raw milk sting
(Healingtalks) Why would anyone want to ban natural supplements? Here is the scoop. They represent cheap competition to expensive, highly profitable drugs. Also remember that so-called harmful side-effects of chemical drugs are really their harmful main effects (the term side-effects is just a marketing invention) and we are programmed by corrupt media to think in this way. Thus if we are poisoned or killed by a drug, that was something incidental!
Know and Test Truths For Yourself
Natural remedies without harmful effects are true or integral healing agents ….while drugs generally are not. The expensive government-mandated studies of chemical isolates cannot yield really wider truths. No one in the public media ever tells you that. That insight takes a holistic, all-sided view. So, guess what, we really don’t need multi-billion dollar drug testing (false authority stamping) to find out the most authentic and important truths in the healing arts! Below is an example of an alternative.
Compost Heap Test
Just very, very simply do the following. Find some out-of-date chemical drugs the local pharmacy wants to throw out (or where ever else you can get them) and put a large and random mix of these chemical drugs in a compost heap . You can do this right in your own backyard if you are willing to pollute your property. Then you will soon find out that the overall order that chemical drugs represent will kill all of life in the heap. All of life! No seed will grow any longer. Put any organic plant in the heap and it will decay to make the materials for the growth of all new plants. There are almost no exceptions to this order of Unity in nature. Put chemicals in, and that unifying order is not just harmed. It is destroyed. What do you think happens inside our own bodies’ ecology?A similar destruction. Lab scientists are often left-brain geniuses and right brain ignoramuses. They are trained to look myopically at tiny, microscopic isolates and not at the more obvious and overall impact. Drugs will suppress symptoms dramatically. A pain killer will kill pain. But little or nothing is healed thereby, what nevertheless has value in rare emergency circumstances and wider use for marketing purposes because dramatic/immediate impacts are what take us in. They fool us. Thus the public is sold on a philosophy that drugs are the foundation of the allopathic medical treatments arts, and in order to reap in big profits from daily addictions. A deluge of fake smiling actors in TV ads sells this Big Lie or fraud of “better living through chemistry” to us all.
When the Organic Truth Seeps Through
And when the organic truth seeps through this subterfuge and to the general public, it is a huge threat to the status quo, with an actual police-state effort to obliterate this truth and its representative health products – the more integral healing “competition” or the natural supplements industry.
Make No Mistake: Keeping Truths From Us Is the FDA’s Primary Job
Don’t be taken in. This threat to all of our health and that of future generations is currently real. The regulatory apparatus to effect this has been in place since 1994, and they have taken their time with careful beta testing of how the public will react and accept this – including via trying to ban not only natural supplements but also closing down raw, whole food organic food coops (coming without a search warrant, destroying their inventory, pressing felony charges, and all at machine-gun point)! Also they plan to require animal studies for all natural supplements that are either not practically cost-effective or require such high doses to be tested where the results cannot be effective.
Also for more details on this issue, see the website of the Alliance for Natural Health USA (which links an informative article on the FDA’s sneak attack). Learn about past beta testing with the banning of a critical form of Vitamin B6. Also see our breaking news article on Welcome to the new food police state and on-going collusion between industry and government agencies. Ultimately they want to force-feed us junk food, vaccines and pharmaceutical, even with gunpoint tactics - all the while defrauding us.
A First Step: Banning the Best Supplements
It is apropos to add the following, based on an article that Dr. Bill posted a few years ago, when this issue was first brewing, and that now becomes ever more urgently something to address: There is an old saying, “Follow the money.” Big Pharma develops drugs to supposedly fight disease and then sell it via doctors to consumers. But consumers are finding that readily available vitamins, minerals, herbs, and supplements are often just as effective (if not MORE so) as the drugs, but without harmful side effects. Wouldn’t it then make sense for lobbyists to push to regulate away these readily available, natural supplements to protect their Big Pharma constituents? Yes.
And therein lies the problem. Right now, we have the choice to use supplements and herbs, if we choose to… so, in steps the FDA to take away that choice!
When it comes to health freedom, this is the FDA’s end game.
FDA’s Plan
A new FDA ‘guidance’ document, published on the FDA’s website, reveals plans to reclassify virtually all vitamins, supplements, herbs and even vegetable juices as FDA-regulated drugs.
Massage oils and massage rocks will be classified as “medical devices” and require FDA approval.
The document is called Docket No. 2006D-0480. Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA is accepting public comments on the docket. They tried to sneak this under the radar, but word got out and now the natural health community is up in arms over this rule. If you wish to protect your access to nutritional supplements, herbs, essential oils, homeopathic medicine or any other ‘complementary’ or ‘alternative’ modality, it is crucial that you take action to post your comments with the FDA right now and write your representatives in Washington to put a stop to this outrageous effort to destroy natural medicine. (And be sure to really write them. Just sending an email has virtually no impact compared to writing a physical letter in your own words.)”
What You Can Do
Write, call, or use this link to send the FDA a message… we want access to supplements, and natural health alternatives!
Here is the FDA’s address and their phone numbers: Food and Drug Administration
1401 Rockville Pike, Suite 200N
Rockville, MD 20852-1448 Phone: 800-835-4709 or 301-827-1800
Be sure to cite Docket No. 2006D-0480. Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration in your message, letter, or call.
Here is a link to what the FDA is saying in its “Guidance:”
Notice that it says that this, “includes, but is not limited to, botanicals, animal-derived extracts, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, proteins, prebiotics and probiotics: whole diets, and ‘functional foods‘.”
There is is, folks… do you want anything in this list regulated by the FDA?
What else can you do
Send a letter to your Representative and two Senators demanding the FDA immediately withdraw their oppressive proposed guidelines pending rational discussions with those who depend on dietary supplements to protect their health and livelihood.
Send a letter to the President’s Office of Management and Budget as the FDA’s proposed guidelines on new dietary ingredients directly conflict with an Executive Order issued July 11, 2011, that orders the FDA to streamline and repeal burdensome regulations that interfere with job creation, economic growth, and innovation.
Keyword Tags: natural supplements, FDA food bans, welcome to the new food police state, regulation of food by FDA
(Healingtalks) Economic health is akin to physical health. It goes haywire when the “best treatments” are corrupted by the biggest financial interests.
Let’s note the following. America’s greatest period of explosive prosperity occurred exactly when the top 1% of wealthiest Americans were taxed at 90% of their income and when estate taxes were also confiscatory. This transferred wealth from the rich to the poor, and kept the powers to be in balance.
It prevented the wealthy elite from harming the general economy, the middle class and poor, for their own purposes.
Now everything is upside down.
So predictably we are in the worst of manufactured recessions.
The trickle down theory (allowing ever more money to flow to the rich to best and move the economy forward) is more than a sham.
Life was far better, beyond comparison, in the 1950′s when labor movements were strong, when the average worker had two weeks vacation or when most mom’s tended to stay home to raise children rather than be forced to work to survive.
That American Dream has already been destroyed and the process continues.
It was accomplished via the systematic and deep corruption of Washington as well as consolidated takeovers of the media (the latter thanks mostly to The Communications Act of 1996 passed by Congress, signifying a control of the collective consciousness by the rich, and the death toll of what was once the spirit of America).
Both Republicans and Democrats have been affected by this immense corruption.
This was evident in the recent federal debt-cutting compromise where neither side raised taxes for the super-rich.
Perhaps if there is a further collapse of our economy then some kind of real grass roots revolution will take place.
The article from Op Ed below highlights a manufacture “grass roots revolution” that is actually working against itself and how this hugely malevolent coup was achieved.
Nathan Batalion CTN
How Billionaires
Are Destroying
the American Dream
The recent US deficit reduction plan makes no sense at all– until you remember who’s behind the Tea Party movement.
Based on an article by George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian
Two Ways to Cut Federal Deficits
There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending.
Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor.
Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.
So the rich, in a nominal democracy, have a struggle on their hands. Somehow they must persuade the other 99% to vote against their own interests: to shrink the state, supporting spending cuts rather than tax rises. In the US they appear to be succeeding.
Partly as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2003 and 2005 (shamefully extended by Barack Obama), taxation of the wealthy, in Obama’s words, “is at its lowest level in half a century”(1). The consequence of such regressive policies is a level of inequality unknown in other developed nations. As the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out, in the past 10 years the income of the top 1% has risen by 18%, while that of blue collar male workers has fallen by 12%(2).
Compromise Federal Debt Ceiling Deal,
It Cremates the Little Guy
The deal being thrashed out in Congress as this article goes to press seeks only to cut state spending. As the former Republican senator Alan Simpson says, “the little guy is going to be cremated.”(3) That, in turn, will mean further economic decline, which means a bigger deficit(4). It’s insane. But how did it happen?
Origins of the Tea Party
The immediate reason is that Republican members of Congress supported by the Tea Party movement won’t budge. But this explains nothing. The Tea Party movement mostly consists of people who have been harmed by tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor and middle. Why would they mobilize against their own welfare? You can understand what is happening in Washington only if you remember what everyone seems to have forgotten: how this movement began.
On Sunday the Observer claimed that “the Tea Party rose out of anger over the scale of federal spending, and in particular in bailing out the banks”(5). This is what its members claim. It’s nonsense.
The movement started with Rick Santelli’s call on CNBC for a tea party of city traders to dump securities in Lake Michigan, in protest at Obama’s plan to “subsidise the losers”(6). In other words, it was a demand for a financiers’ mobilization against the bail-out of their victims: people losing their homes. This is the opposite of the Observer’s story. On the same day, a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP) set up a Tea Party Facebook page and started organising Tea Party events(7).
The movement, whose programme is still lavishly supported by AFP, took off from there.
Who is Americans for Prosperity?
So who or what is Americans for Prosperity? It was founded and is funded by Charles and David Koch(8). They run what they call “the biggest company you’ve never heard of”(9), and between them they are worth $43 billion(10).
Koch Industries is a massive oil, gas, minerals, timber and chemicals company.
Over the past 15 years the brothers have poured at least $85m into lobby groups arguing for lower taxes for the rich and weaker regulations for industry(11). The groups and politicians the Kochs fund also lobby to destroy collective bargaining, to stop laws reducing carbon emissions, to stymie healthcare reform and to hobble attempts to control the banks. During the 2010 election cycle, Americans for Prosperity spent $45 million supporting its favoured candidates(12).
But the Kochs’ greatest political triumph is the creation of the Tea Party movement. Taki Oldham’s film AstroTurf Wars shows Tea Party organisers from all over the Union reporting back to David Koch at their 2009 Defending the Dream summit, explaining the events and protests they’ve started with AFP help. “Five years ago,” he tells them, “my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start Americans for Prosperity. It’s beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organisation.”(13)
AFP mobilised the anger of people who found their conditions of life declining, and channelled it into a campaign to make them worse. Tea Party campaigners appear to be unaware of the origins of their own movement. Like the guard in Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male who has been conned into working for the enemy, they take to the streets to demand less tax for billionaires and worse health, education and social insurance for themselves.
Are they stupid? No. They have been systematically misled by another instrument of corporate power: the media. The Tea Party movement has been relentlessly promoted by Fox News, which belongs to a more familiar billionaire. Like the Kochs, Rupert Murdoch aims to misrepresent the democratic choices we face, in order to persuade us to vote against our own interests and in favour of his.
The Rich Man’s Political Coup
What’s taking place in Congress right now is a kind of political coup. A handful of billionaires has shoved a spanner into the legislative process. Through the candidates they’ve bought and the movement that supports them, they are now breaking and reshaping the system to serve their interests. We knew this once, but now we’ve forgotten. What hope do we have of resisting a force we won’t even see?
11. Tony Carrk, April 2011. The Koch Brothers: What You Need to Know About the Financiers of the Radical Right. Center for American Progress Action Fund. http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/04/pdf/koch_brothers.pdf
12. As above.
13. http://astroturfwars.org/
Keyword tags – destroying the American Dream, who is behind the Tea Party, bankrupting America, origins of the Tea Party, billionaires are destroying the American Dream
We are all aware of escalating food prices, but what’s driving the shortages and the price hikes? The answer is multifaceted: global political unrest, inflation, weather anomalies, the nuclear incident in Japan and the rising price of oil that increases the cost of planting, harvesting and transportation have all played their part.
US & Abroad Facing Food Shortages
Over the past several months, US cropland has been decimated by a one-two-three punch. Flooding and tornadoes have destroyed portions of Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma croplands, leading to crop failure for many US staples: rice, corn, wheat, soybeans and other crops. Livestock has also been negatively impacted in many of these regions.
In the US wheat belt, Texas and Oklahoma have suffered drought conditions, which lead to the failure of portions of the regions wheat crops.
Many outside US borders aren’t faring any better. France is experiencing drought and Russia is likewise battling drought along with an infestation of locust. Canadian farmers have reported late planting due to unseasonably wet conditions.
The price of coffee, sugar and cocoa hasn’t totally caught up with us yet, but recent political unrest in Africa has already impacted supplies of sugar, coffee and cocoa, driving up their price to unprecedented levels. Superfund Financial officials have stated it is possible prices for these commodities could increase five to ten-fold by 2014. Wal-Mart’s CEO, Bill Simon, has weighed in by warning the public there will be an across-the-board price hike for foods.
Already, the price of corn has nearly doubled over the past few years; partially due to one-third of the nation’s corn crop having been allocation for fuel production. Add in another 44% increase in soy bean prices, 47% increase in wheat prices, and projections for sugar, butter, oats, and orange commodity price hikes and you get the perfect storm for runaway food prices.
Food Crisis – More To Come
Since the Fukushima meltdown, the F.D.A. says our food chain is still safe. In fact, safe enough that they do not seem to have committed to strict guidelines on testing fish caught in the Pacific Ocean (the one that Japan continues to spill nuclear waste into).
Responsible restaurants and sushi bars have turned to performing their own tests to extend peace of mind to their customers. Although the US media hasn’t reported extensively on the impact to the food chain over the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, the poisoning of Japan’s food crops, Kobe Beef and fish are a realistic concern. While radiation continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean and radiation plume particles are deposited globally from Fukushima through snowfall and rainwater, testing has shown Japan’s crops and fish to be contaminated. Fish contamination is especially problematic with regards to world food prices, as Japan exports 15% of the global catch, although fishing in the region has been significantly slowed due to heavy damages of fishing boats and production in the area. High concentrations of radioactive contamination have been reported in albacore, anchovy, and Japanese sand lance caught in their waters.
To date, Officials have underplayed the long term effects of consuming fish caught from the Pacific Ocean, yet recent studies reflect bottom fish and fish that travel close to surface of the Pacific near Fukushima are found to have high levels of radiation and new concerns are being reported on contaminated fish found in Iwa, Japan located 500 kilometers from Fukushima. Studies also warn of health risks with consumption of fish that have been affected by radiation poisoning near Fukushima that then travel beyond the affected area and are caught elsewhere in the Pacific-with tuna being at the top of list. Many countries have already placed a ban on fish imports from the belabored country.
Fortunately, the US imports less than 4% of its food supply-opposed to 15% of seafood’s– from Japan. However, the FDA has placed a ban on Japanese imports of milk products, vegetables, fruits and beef. Due to supply and demand, the recent ban on the relatively low percentage of Japan’s imports to the US market can have an effect on our food prices.
Problems with exports from Japan are egregious enough, but with regards to safe consumption of fish and shellfish, the Gulf oil spill must be taken in to consideration. B.P sprayed a reported 870,000 gallons of the dispersant Corexit over the gulf in an attempt to control the 2010 oil spill. Since then, cleanup workers and people living in the affected areas have reported illnesses, with some having to be hospitalized, who point to the Gulf oil spill as the cause.
Reports from the media and officials disagree there are health concerns while residents cry foul over B.P and the government’s urging that nothing is amiss. Those already effected, and others worried over the long-term effects of the dumping of Corexit dispersants aren’t buying the “there’s nothing to see…” stance on B.P’s part that is being reported by certain sectors of the mainstream media. In an attempt to uncover the truth, it’s worthwhile to understand Corexit readily claims, “No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product.” Many critiquing the impact on human and sea life claim the heavy dispersant spray did nothing but settle the oil below the surface of the Gulf waters; out of sight, out of mind. There seems to be judication of oil spill workers and resident’s health risk concerns as cleanup workers report being warned not to wear face masks during the clean up (ostensibly to calm resident’s fears and quash media attention). Further, many fisherman and cleanup workers have been told not to discuss concerns they have over health risks of Corexit, most specifically Benzene, one of the chemicals used to eradicate the oil spill which has been found to cause cancer.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has gone on record with their belief that it is not necessary to monitor fish and shellfish caught in the Gulf, as they do not consider the chemicals used in the dispersant Corexit to pose any health risks to humans.
It appears the consumer will need to practice due diligence with regards to consumption of sea food from both the Gulf and Pacific Ocean. If it is ever determined by officials the impact to sea life with the Gulf oil spill to be higher than limits set by the FDA, expect sea food prices to skyrocket.
Radiation Reaches Our US Borders
Already, many states in the US have reported increased radiation contaminants in drinking water, with the highest concentration being reported in Chattanooga, Tennessee, although the EPA has assured the population that levels are far below the maximum containment level. Milk in Vermont was found to have the highest contamination of Cesilum-137, although Washington, Oregon, Phoenix and Los Angeles had varying degrees of contamination in milk, with some pushing the allowed limits of maximum containment set by the EPA.
Very concerning is recent high radioactive isotopes found in Boise, Idaho-one of the nation’s farm belts that ranks 3rd in nationally grown vegetables. The majority crop grown in Boise and surrounding areas is potatoes. Boise also produces Hay, Alfalfa, Kentucky Blue grass, barley, sugar beets, Lentils, sweet corn, carrot, onion, garden beans, turnip, lettuce, and grapes. It isn’t only crops that Boise contributes to the US food chain. They also raise a portion of the US market of beef. Although we must insist on the safety of the food we eat, and should expect the EPA to do their job of watch-dogging the food chain, should concentrations of radiation contamination be classified above acceptable EPA limits, crops and beef may cease to be distributed from this region, and the price of these crops will see a sharp price increase; again led mostly by supply and demand.
Should the Food Chain Be Broken
Many of us never consider how our food arrived to the grocer’s shelf, but rather that what we need is available. The truth is, grocers no longer carry back stock, and why just before a storm or a situation arises like the recent tsunami alert in Hawaii, the shelves are picked bare. Today’s modern grocer carries only a 72-hour food supply. But should an emergency arrive that has lasting effects, and deliveries are disrupted, shelves could remain bare. As Americans, we have relied too heavily on constant trips to the grocers.
Blame the Food Crisis on the Bankers
Grocers have long depended upon lines of credit, as they operate on profit and loss, with some stores locations pulling in more than others. But should bankers start tightening their belts on these lines of credit, as they have with consumer loans, the results could be disastrous to food supplies. Based upon the US dollar’s decline, we should all be preparing for such an eventuality.
Genetically-Altered Food
Of course, none of the issues already discussed address the possible ramifications of GMO (genetically modified organisms) food, or GM (genetically modified) food.
Studies preformed on lab rats and other mammals do not generally reach the public, but studies that have been released are alarming; infertility, allergic reactions, low birth rate, immune deficiencies, gastro-intestinal illness and more.
Many consumers have turned to organically grown fruits and vegetables, but it is possible these growers will be negatively impacted by Bill S.510, the Food Safety Bill which was recently passed. Tighter controls, documentation, and the high cost of mandated insurance coverage for organic growers may drive up the already higher costs of healthy fruits and vegetables, and some warn that regulations may disallow organic growers to sell their produce beyond a narrow geographical parameter-another words an organic grower in Oregon may not be allowed to sell to Washington grocers. Until new regulations begin to take effect, it is anyone’s guess what the backlash may be.
It is probable organic ranchers will experience an increase in their organic feed, which will drive up the cost of organic beef.
So What Are Solutions To Our Food Crisis?
None of what’s been discussed is good news to the consumer, especially with high unemployment, higher taxation, and lower income for those who have been forced to accept lower wages or part-time work during the continued economic downswing.
The good news is there are many ways we can cushion ourselves from rapidly increasing food prices and still eat healthy. The bad news is it takes work.
Grow Your Own Food
Growing a garden from heirloom seed is one of the few assurances we have against skyrocketing food prices. Why heirloom? Heirloom seed produces fruits and vegetables that are higher in vitamins and nutrients. Their seed can be saved from one season to the other. Another benefit with heirloom seed is knowing what you’re putting into your body, unlike the unknown health effects that may show up later when eating GMO and GM fruits, vegetables and grains. By growing your own food you control the use of pesticides, herbicides, and some fertilizers that have been found to contain carcinogens. If you haven’t already, study up on composting and small worm farms that will turn soil into a rich environment for the best garden yields possible.
If you already garden, think about a greenhouse and cold frames to extend the growing season; especially for those of you who live in colder climates.
Fish Your Food
If you’ve grown alarmed over eating seafood caught from the Gulf Coast and Japan, you may want to consider a fishpond. You’d be in good company; although not reported, many folks have turned to cultivating their own fish supply in response to questionable food safety measures with regards to the fishing industry. Internet websites, bloggers and You Tube offers free do-it-yourself instructions on building and maintaining fishponds. For those who live in cold climates, where the cost of heating a pond may be prohibitive, look for advice on large indoor fish tanks that can be maintained in a basement.
Fence Your Food
Two excellent sources of protein are chickens and goats. They offer high yield for minimal expenditure of time and money. Chickens will provide eggs and meat, and should you have the land, free-range chickens can forage for a portion of their food. It may a surprise to some living in urban areas, but since a resurgence of public interest in raising chickens, many municipalities allow them within city limits. There might be restrictions on roosters; neighbors don’t typically enjoy the 5:00 AM crow of a rooster. The good news is hens are resourceful and will lay eggs without benefit of a rooster.
Goats will yield milk, butter, yogurt and meat. For those living in rural areas, your biggest concern will be sturdy fencing, for goats are escape artists, so be sure to study up on fencing requirements before you bring home a goat. And should you decide to take the leap of goat ownership, you will need more than one because goats are very social animals.
Store Your Food
So far we’ve covered gardening, fish farms and keeping chickens and goats for food security. There is one more step you might consider; food storage. While the price of food continues to escalate, foods that are purchased at current prices will be protected from inflation and shortages.
Food storage can come in many forms; bulk foods, canned goods, dehydrated and freeze-dried foods, and MRE’S. However, it should be mentioned recent demand for dehydrated, freeze dried and MRE’S has lead to a sharp increase of price. Many suppliers of these long-term storage foods are back ordered because of demand relating to their long shelf life (usually between 5 – 15 years), so practice due-diligence with regards to back-order time lines. But before you place an order, be aware that some suppliers “pad” their shipping prices, while others charge a flat $5.00 shipping fee, no matter how much shipping weight your order entails.
Typically, the purchase of bulk foods can save upwards of 35% or more of the cost of food. Check with larger chain stores who sell in bulk and ask their price for beans, rice, baking mixes, pasta’s and spices so you can do a cost comparison. You should also check with a grower in your area. A grower’s prices are often much lower, as you are then cutting out the middle man-the grocers and their necessary profit margin. By purchasing bulk quantities from a grower, you can drastically reduce the price of beans, wheat, and fruits and vegetables. For those of you willing to home can fruits and vegetables, your pantry shelves can be filled for future use. Another benefit of buying from a grower is the ability to investigate whether pesticides, herbicides and certain fertilizers have been used.
The cost of canned goods can be greatly reduced through coupon clipping and checking weekly online circulars, newspaper inserts and purchasing canned goods during flat sales, usually held once or twice a year, which typically reduces their costs by 50% or more.
Control Your Food
We have control over empty pantry shelves, even if it’s done one trip to the grocers at a time. With food storage comes freedom from worry, so we can get on with the business of living. But you’d better get busy now. There seems to be every indication we are in for a bumpy ride.
Visit Survival Diva Blog survivaldiva.com/ for more information on rural living, gardening, home canning, food storage, and tips on combating skyrocketing food prices.
“Corporate Police State,” it’s a fraught — some might even say, overwrought — term. But in its purest, apolitical form, it simply describes the periodic commingling of state and corporate power to protect private interests.
In the American psyche, any discussion of that phenomenon typically brings one of three images to mind. There’s the Old Corporate Police State — the sepia-toned America of decades long past, a place where state militias murder striking mine workers on behalf of Gilded Age barons and Congress empowers the government to forcibly ban work stoppages that defy corporate executives’ wishes. There’s the Fictional Future Corporate Police State — that smoldering bombed-out world depicted in “Robocop,”“Fortress” and every other dystopian flick in Hollywood’s post-apocalyptic catalog. And there’s the Foreign Corporate Police State — think Dubai, Singapore, Monaco and every other lavish enclave defined by lots of rich people, lots of corporate headquarters, lots of heavily armed cops — and almost no civil liberties.
By imagining the Corporate Police State primarily as a historical, fictional or foreign monster, these snapshots encourage us to believe that this monster poses no threat to us in the here and now. They encourage us, in other words, to ignore the monster’s creeping advances in present-day America.
In just the last few years, the Corporate Police State has reared its head at every level of government.
States and municipalities, for instance, have toughened criminal penalties and immigration laws at the behest of the private prison industry; empowered Wall Street banks to not only collect taxes but levy additional tax penalties; and allowed energy companies to exploit so-called forced pooling statutes, thereby creating what one Republican governor calls a new power of “private eminent domain.” One state is now even considering making it a criminal act to share your Netflix password with friends and family, because that is cutting into Netflix revenues.
In Washington, D.C., the federal government just enacted a healthcare bill whose individual mandate forces citizens to purchase private insurance, and the Pentagon has developed a reliable pattern of using military power to occupy resource-rich countries — and then to privatize those resources at the barrel of a gun.
This same government, which has granted corporations the rights of “personhood,” has also used its power to let corporations avoid the responsibilities of personhood — effectively using state power to create a new privileged status that is above the law. For instance, federal statutes have trampled the concept of “equal protection” by deliberately exempting corporate interests from the laws the rest of us live under — laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act (which doesn’t apply to natural gas drillers) and antitrust statutes (which still don’t apply to private health insurers). Federal courts have used judicial power to limit corporations’ legal and financial liability for fraud and lawbreaking.
This modern Corporate Police State differs from what we call “corporatism” in that it is not merely about funneling public dollars to private interests à la the Wall Street bailout. Indeed, this new monster has bigger goals than the occasional bailout. It is all about using the government’s position as society’s supreme rule maker and law enforcer to create a fully- functioning corporate state — one that doesn’t just channel police power into crushing the occasional protest, but constructs an entire legal and military framework around preserving and expanding private profit. And, as we’re now seeing, that includes a radical reimagining of the U.S. Constitution.
Last month in California, the Los Angeles Times reported that “the recording industry is pushing California’s lawmakers to approve legislation that would allow warrantless searches of companies that press copies of compact discs and DVDs.” The Democratic bill, which includes no “standard for suspecting that counterfeiting is occurring,” would “give law enforcement officials the power to enter manufacturing plants without notice or court orders.” As one legal expert told the Times: “We have the 4th Amendment that generally requires probable cause (and) this is a huge exception” — that’s right, a huge potentially precedent-setting exception designed not for national security or the common good, but for protecting private corporations’ profit.
Likewise, at the federal level, the New York Times this week reported that the FBI, wielding the Fourth Amendment-trampling Patriot Act, targeted a peaceful political activist with three years’ worth of round-the-clock surveillance. What caught Big Brother’s watchful eye? Was the activist cavorting with al-Qaida? Was he conspiring to commit mass murder? No, the Times reports that the FBI deployed its “anti-terrorism” apparatus specifically because the activist participated in a protest against Exxon Mobil — aka the Most Profitable Corporation in the World. And in case you thought that was an “isolated incident,” this revelation comes just a few years after the ACLU discovered that other similar “anti-terrorism” surveillance efforts have been aimed at animal rights and environmental activists who wage protests against private agribusiness and energy interests.
Meanwhile, in the wake of a cyberattack on private military contractor Lockheed Martin, the Wall Street Journal this week reported that the Pentagon may begin classifying cyberattacks that impact “commerce” (read: corporate profit) as official “acts of war” meriting military retaliation — no doubt, sans constitutionally mandated congressional authorization in this age of extra-constitutional power grabs. Yes, hackers who infiltrate, say, an energy company’s mainframe won’t just face prosecution anymore. Instead, as a military official boasted to the Journal: “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”
Granted, in outward appearance, this Corporate Police State still resembles the America we’ve come to know and love. It doesn’t yet look like the Ludlow Massacre, Abu Dhabi or post-apocalyptic Detroit under the iron fist of Omni Consumer Products.
But the operative word is “yet.”
David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books Hostile Takeover and The Uprising. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.
We are all aware of escalating food prices, but what’s driving the shortages and the price hikes? The answer is multifaceted: global political unrest, inflation, weather anomalies, the nuclear incident in Japan and the rising price of oil that increases the cost of planting, harvesting and transportation have all played their part.
Over the past several months, US cropland has been decimated by a one-two-three punch. Flooding and tornadoes have destroyed portions of Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma croplands, leading to crop failure for many US staples: rice, corn, wheat, soybeans and other crops. Livestock has also been negatively impacted in many of these regions.
In the US wheat belt, Texas and Oklahoma have suffered drought conditions, which lead to the failure of portions of the regions wheat crops.
Many outside US borders aren’t faring any better. France is experiencing drought and Russia is likewise battling drought along with an infestation of locust. Canadian farmers have reported late planting due to unseasonably wet conditions.
The price of coffee, sugar and cocoa hasn’t totally caught up with us yet, but recent political unrest in Africa has already impacted supplies of sugar, coffee and cocoa, driving up their price to unprecedented levels. Superfund Financial officials have stated it is possible prices for these commodities could increase five to ten-fold by 2014. Wal-Mart’s CEO, Bill Simon, has weighed in by warning the public there will be an across-the-board price hike for foods.
Already, the price of corn has nearly doubled over the past few years; partially due to one-third of the nation’s corn crop having been allocation for fuel production. Add in another 44% increase in soy bean prices, 47% increase in wheat prices, and projections for sugar, butter, oats, and orange commodity price hikes and you get the perfect storm for runaway food prices.
Food Crisis- More To Come
Since the Fukushima meltdown, the F.D.A. says our food chain is still safe. In fact, safe enough that they do not seem to have committed to strict guidelines on testing fish caught in the Pacific Ocean (the one that Japan continues to spill nuclear waste into).
Responsible restaurants and sushi bars have turned to performing their own tests to extend peace of mind to their customers. Although the US media hasn’t reported extensively on the impact to the food chain over the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, the poisoning of Japan’s food crops, Kobe Beef and fish are a realistic concern. While radiation continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean and radiation plume particles are deposited globally from Fukushima through snowfall and rainwater, testing has shown Japan’s crops and fish to be contaminated. Fish contamination is especially problematic with regards to world food prices, as Japan exports 15% of the global catch, although fishing in the region has been significantly slowed due to heavy damages of fishing boats and production in the area. High concentrations of radioactive contamination have been reported in albacore, anchovy, and Japanese sand lance caught in their waters.
To date, Officials have underplayed the long term effects of consuming fish caught from the Pacific Ocean, yet recent studies reflect bottom fish and fish that travel close to surface of the Pacific near Fukushima are found to have high levels of radiation and new concerns are being reported on contaminated fish found in Iwa, Japan located 500 kilometers from Fukushima. Studies also warn of health risks with consumption of fish that have been affected by radiation poisoning near Fukushima that then travel beyond the affected area and are caught elsewhere in the Pacific-with tuna being at the top of list. Many countries have already placed a ban on fish imports from the belabored country.
Fortunately, the US imports less than 4% of its food supply-opposed to 15% of seafood’s– from Japan. However, the FDA has placed a ban on Japanese imports of milk products, vegetables, fruits and beef. Due to supply and demand, the recent ban on the relatively low percentage of Japan’s imports to the US market can have an effect on our food prices.
Problems with exports from Japan are egregious enough, but with regards to safe consumption of fish and shellfish, the Gulf oil spill must be taken in to consideration. B.P sprayed a reported 870,000 gallons of the dispersant Corexit over the gulf in an attempt to control the 2010 oil spill. Since then, cleanup workers and people living in the affected areas have reported illnesses, with some having to be hospitalized, who point to the Gulf oil spill as the cause.
Reports from the media and officials disagree there are health concerns while residents cry foul over B.P and the government’s urging that nothing is amiss. Those already effected, and others worried over the long-term effects of the dumping of Corexit dispersants aren’t buying the “there’s nothing to see…” stance on B.P’s part that is being reported by certain sectors of the mainstream media. In an attempt to uncover the truth, it’s worthwhile to understand Corexit readily claims, “No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product.” Many critiquing the impact on human and sea life claim the heavy dispersant spray did nothing but settle the oil below the surface of the Gulf waters; out of sight, out of mind. There seems to be judication of oil spill workers and resident’s health risk concerns as cleanup workers report being warned not to wear face masks during the clean up (ostensibly to calm resident’s fears and quash media attention). Further, many fisherman and cleanup workers have been told not to discuss concerns they have over health risks of Corexit, most specifically Benzene, one of the chemicals used to eradicate the oil spill which has been found to cause cancer.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has gone on record with their belief that it is not necessary to monitor fish and shellfish caught in the Gulf, as they do not consider the chemicals used in the dispersant Corexit to pose any health risks to humans.
It appears the consumer will need to practice due diligence with regards to consumption of sea food from both the Gulf and Pacific Ocean. If it is ever determined by officials the impact to sea life with the Gulf oil spill to be higher than limits set by the FDA, expect sea food prices to skyrocket.
Radiation Reaches Our US Borders
Already, many states in the US have reported increased radiation contaminants in drinking water, with the highest concentration being reported in Chattanooga, Tennessee, although the EPA has assured the population that levels are far below the maximum containment level. Milk in Vermont was found to have the highest contamination of Cesilum-137, although Washington, Oregon, Phoenix and Los Angeles had varying degrees of contamination in milk, with some pushing the allowed limits of maximum containment set by the EPA.
Very concerning is recent high radioactive isotopes found in Boise, Idaho-one of the nation’s farm belts that ranks 3rd in nationally grown vegetables. The majority crop grown in Boise and surrounding areas is potatoes. Boise also produces Hay, Alfalfa, Kentucky Blue grass, barley, sugar beets, Lentils, sweet corn, carrot, onion, garden beans, turnip, lettuce, and grapes. It isn’t only crops that Boise contributes to the US food chain. They also raise a portion of the US market of beef. Although we must insist on the safety of the food we eat, and should expect the EPA to do their job of watch-dogging the food chain, should concentrations of radiation contamination be classified above acceptable EPA limits, crops and beef may cease to be distributed from this region, and the price of these crops will see a sharp price increase; again led mostly by supply and demand.
Should the Food Chain Be Broken
Many of us never consider how our food arrived to the grocer’s shelf, but rather that what we need is available. The truth is, grocers no longer carry back stock, and why just before a storm or a situation arises like the recent tsunami alert in Hawaii, the shelves are picked bare. Today’s modern grocer carries only a 72-hour food supply. But should an emergency arrive that has lasting effects, and deliveries are disrupted, shelves could remain bare. As Americans, we have relied too heavily on constant trips to the grocers.
Blame it on the Bankers
Grocers have long depended upon lines of credit, as they operate on profit and loss, with some stores locations pulling in more than others. But should bankers start tightening their belts on these lines of credit, as they have with consumer loans, the results could be disastrous to food supplies. Based upon the US dollar’s decline, we should all be preparing for such an eventuality.
Genetically Altered Food
Of course, none of the issues already discussed address the possible ramifications of GMO (genetically modified organisms) food, or GM (genetically modified) food.
Studies preformed on lab rats and other mammals do not generally reach the public, but studies that have been released are alarming; infertility, allergic reactions, low birth rate, immune deficiencies, gastro-intestinal illness and more.
Many consumers have turned to organically grown fruits and vegetables, but it is possible these growers will be negatively impacted by Bill S.510, the Food Safety Bill which was recently passed. Tighter controls, documentation, and the high cost of mandated insurance coverage for organic growers may drive up the already higher costs of healthy fruits and vegetables, and some warn that regulations may disallow organic growers to sell their produce beyond a narrow geographical parameter-another words an organic grower in Oregon may not be allowed to sell to Washington grocers. Until new regulations begin to take effect, it is anyone’s guess what the backlash may be.
It is probable organic ranchers will experience an increase in their organic feed, which will drive up the cost of organic beef.
So, What Are Solutions to a Food Crisis?
None of what’s been discussed is good news to the consumer, especially with high unemployment, higher taxation, and lower income for those who have been forced to accept lower wages or part-time work during the continued economic downswing.
The good news is there are many ways we can cushion ourselves from rapidly increasing food prices and still eat healthy. The bad news is it takes work.
Grow Your Own Food
Growing a garden from heirloom seed is one of the few assurances we have against skyrocketing food prices. Why heirloom? Heirloom seed produces fruits and vegetables that are higher in vitamins and nutrients. Their seed can be saved from one season to the other. Another benefit with heirloom seed is knowing what you’re putting into your body, unlike the unknown health effects that may show up later when eating GMO and GM fruits, vegetables and grains. By growing your own food you control the use of pesticides, herbicides, and some fertilizers that have been found to contain carcinogens. If you haven’t already, study up on composting and small worm farms that will turn soil into a rich environment for the best garden yields possible.
If you already garden, think about a greenhouse and cold frames to extend the growing season; especially for those of you who live in colder climates.
Fish It
If you’ve grown alarmed over eating seafood caught from the Gulf Coast and Japan, you may want to consider a fishpond. You’d be in good company; although not reported, many folks have turned to cultivating their own fish supply in response to questionable food safety measures with regards to the fishing industry. Internet websites, bloggers and You Tube offers free do-it-yourself instructions on building and maintaining fishponds. For those who live in cold climates, where the cost of heating a pond may be prohibitive, look for advice on large indoor fish tanks that can be maintained in a basement.
Fence It
Two excellent sources of protein are chickens and goats. They offer high yield for minimal expenditure of time and money. Chickens will provide eggs and meat, and should you have the land, free-range chickens can forage for a portion of their food. It may a surprise to some living in urban areas, but since a resurgence of public interest in raising chickens, many municipalities allow them within city limits. There might be restrictions on roosters; neighbors don’t typically enjoy the 5:00 AM crow of a rooster. The good news is hens are resourceful and will lay eggs without benefit of a rooster.
Goats will yield milk, butter, yogurt and meat. For those living in rural areas, your biggest concern will be sturdy fencing, for goats are escape artists, so be sure to study up on fencing requirements before you bring home a goat. And should you decide to take the leap of goat ownership, you will need more than one because goats are very social animals.
Store Your Food
So far we’ve covered gardening, fish farms and keeping chickens and goats for food security. There is one more step you might consider; food storage. While the price of food continues to escalate, foods that are purchased at current prices will be protected from inflation and shortages.
Food storage can come in many forms; bulk foods, canned goods, dehydrated and freeze-dried foods, and MRE’S. However, it should be mentioned recent demand for dehydrated, freeze dried and MRE’S has lead to a sharp increase of price. Many suppliers of these long-term storage foods are back ordered because of demand relating to their long shelf life (usually between 5 – 15 years), so practice due-diligence with regards to back-order time lines. But before you place an order, be aware that some suppliers “pad” their shipping prices, while others charge a flat $5.00 shipping fee, no matter how much shipping weight your order entails.
Typically, the purchase of bulk foods can save upwards of 35% or more of the cost of food. Check with larger chain stores who sell in bulk and ask their price for beans, rice, baking mixes, pasta’s and spices so you can do a cost comparison. You should also check with a grower in your area. A grower’s prices are often much lower, as you are then cutting out the middle man-the grocers and their necessary profit margin. By purchasing bulk quantities from a grower, you can drastically reduce the price of beans, wheat, and fruits and vegetables. For those of you willing to home can fruits and vegetables, your pantry shelves can be filled for future use. Another benefit of buying from a grower is the ability to investigate whether pesticides, herbicides and certain fertilizers have been used.
The cost of canned goods can be greatly reduced through coupon clipping and checking weekly online circulars, newspaper inserts and purchasing canned goods during flat sales, usually held once or twice a year, which typically reduces their costs by 50% or more.
Control It
We have control over empty pantry shelves, even if it’s done one trip to the grocers at a time. With food storage comes freedom from worry, so we can get on with the business of living. But you’d better get busy now. There seems to be every indication we are in for a bumpy ride.
Visit Survival Diva Blog survivaldiva.com/ for more information on rural living, gardening, home canning, food storage, and tips on combating skyrocketing food prices.
The price of gasoline keeps rising, and who knows, there may be little end in sight. Gasoline is the “food” of our cars and the more we spend on fueling these machines, the less we have to nurture and heal our bodies. So it is time to seek ways to conserve and make each pumping of gas stretch to the limit. There are many well-known car maintenance and driving tips, or for buying a less gas-guzzling car (e.g. hybrid or electric).
But here are some less known gas-saving tips:
FILL GAS MORNINGS
Here are some basic tips: Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried in the ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline becomes, and when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening….your gallon is not exactly a gallon! This is when the ground temperature is still cold. The specific gravity changes with the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products. This plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal. But most service stations do not have temperature compensation at pumps.
FILL GAS WITH TRIGGER IN SLOW MODE
If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less.
FILL GAS WHEN HALF FULL
The reason is the more gas you have in your tank the less air is occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you think. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. This doesn’t happen in your tank.
KNOW WHEN NOT TO FILL YOUR GAS TANK
If there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, don’t fill. The gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
GAS-SAVING CREDIT CARD
We us American Express Simply Cash card to save 3% off the price of each fillup. Their interest rate currently is under 10% a year. While there are others like it, but few as good.
GAS-SAVING SHOPPING CARD
Some gas stations offer these to regular customers. Also if you shop to PriceChopper, in upstate NY, they have an AdvantEdge card that saves 10 cents a gallon for each $50 of goods purchased at their store. Perhaps there are gas-savings cards in your area. Check the Internet. In 2007 Price Chopper also introduced an extensive natural and organic food section. This week , for example, with the same AdantEdge card they had a 2 for 1 coupon to purchase 5 ounce packages of fresh organic greens! The Stop & Shop card (for this chain of supermarkets located in NJ and NY) offers similar type savings, though the 10 cent less per gallon is for every $100 spent. Still combine that with using a gas-savings credit card, the cost reductions can be substantial.
BICYCLE OR RUN
When using a bicycle be sure to wear a helmet, have adequate mirrors, and other safety equipment and then local shopping with a bike can be a breeze – as with short runs – while you get ever healthier with the exercise.
BETTER TRAVELING PLANS & CARPOOLING
I make my daily “to go” list for errands. With that, it is a good idea to plan these errands in the light of shorter overall distances to travel. The same holds for vacations. Carpool or have someone run an errand for you when they have to go out and drive near your errand-destination anyway.
MORE FROM HOME
What trips could regularly be avoided, using instead home shopping, mailing and banking?
FOR THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
POST OFFICE
Pitney Bowes is offering their meter for $15 per month (used to be double that). They’ll throw in $7.50 free postage/month for two years. If you actively mail the gas and time savings will make this pay for itself.
ON LINE BANKING SAVES GAS
Services like Paypal transfer money to bank accounts without gas guzzling trips.
MORE GAS-SAVING IDEAS
Please post more creative gas-saving ideas in your comments and so that we can convert wasted gas dollars to useful health dollars.
We are grateful for volunteers from the International Institute for Cooperative Development who came to help with our organic gardens. Thanks to Ayaka from Osaka Japan, who is on her way to Zambia to do childrens aid work; to Hyuna from South Korea who is also going to Zambia to volunteer in an orphanage; and to Christina from Massachusetts who will soon fly to Angola.
ORGANIC GARDENS EXPANDED Our gardens were expanded with extra organic soil, manure, peatmoss and compost. We made new raised beds and got more seeds ready for a later fall/winter crop of cabbage, collards, radicchio, and kohlrabi. We added more tomato, pepper, eggplant, zucchini, red cabbage, okra and cucumber plants. We also added bottom-line fencing to help keep various critters from digging under the existing fence and eating our produce (as they managed to attack the broccoli in the last couple of days. This is a perennial challenge with organic gardens and farming. This is because so many life forms compete to get access to alive products of organic beds while chemicallized/bioengineered agriculture does not attract other life forms or the soil is life-stripped, deadened and poisoned.
We are glad Christina, Hyuna and Ayaka had a fun time and enjoyed the stay. We invite others to come, learn and benefit from the Raw-Wisdom Community experience.
Despite the fact that silicon is the market’s most commonly used semiconductor in the majority of electrical devices (which includes PV cells that solar panels employ to transform sunlight into power) it is hardly the most cost-efficient material on the market. For example, the semiconductor gallium arsenide plus connected compound semiconductors offer nearly twice the effectiveness of silicon in photovoltaic products, yet they are rarely utilized in utility-scale applications mainly because of their high production price!
ADVANCES
At the University of Illinois (http://illinois.edu/) J. Rogers and X. Li researched much lower-cost methods to create thin films of gallium arsenide which widened the possible usefulness of these types of units.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
Usually, gallium arsenide is transferred in a individual thin layers on a little wafer. Either the ideal device is made specifically on the wafer, or the semiconductor-coated wafer is cut up into chips of the preferred size. The Illinois team decided to deposit several layers of the material on a single wafer, creating a layered or “pancake” stack of gallium arsenide thin films. If you increase 10 levels in one growth, you only have to load the wafer 1 time. If you do this in ten growths, loading and unloading with temperature ramp-up and ramp-down takes a lot of time. If you also take into account exactly what is necessary for every growth – the machine, the research, and the workers’ time – the overhead saving that this approach offers equals a sizable price reduction. After that the researchers individually peeled off the levels and move them. To complete this, the stacks swap layers of aluminum arsenide with the gallium arsenide. Bathing the stacks in a solution of acid and an oxidizing agent dissolves the layers of aluminum arsenide, freeing the single thin sheets of gallium arsenide. A soft stamp-like system picks up the layers, just one at a time from the top down, and for move to another substrate – glass, plastic-type or silicon, depending on the application. After that the wafer may be used again for an additional growth.
RESULT
By doing this it’s possible to make significantly more material faster and with greater price efficiently. This process could create bulk amounts of material, as opposed to merely the thin single-layer manner in which it is typically grown. Freeing the material from the wafer also starts the possibility of flexible, thin-film electronics made with gallium arsenide or different high-speed semiconductors. It is significant to make conforming products with advanced performance at lower costs.
MANY APPLICATIONS
In a paper published online 5/20/2010 in the newspaper Nature (http://www.nature.com/), the team explains its techniques and demonstrates 3 types of units making use of gallium arsenide chips manufactured in such multilayer stacks: light units, high-speed transistors and photovoltaic cells. The creators additionally supply a comprehensive cost comparison. An additional advantage of the multilayer method is the release from area constraints, especially important for solar cells. As the layers are taken away from the stack, they can be laid out side-by-side on another substrate in order to generate a significantly bigger surface area, whereas the typical single-layer procedure limits area to the dimension of the wafer. For solar panels, you want big area coverage to catch as much sunshine as achievable. In an extreme case we might increase sufficient layers to have 10 times the area of the standard.
WHAT’S NEXT
Next, the team plans to explore many more potential item applications and other semiconductor resources which might adapt to multilayer growth.
SOURCE OF THIS POST:
Shannon Combs shares her knowledge for the <a href=”http://www.residentialsolarpanels.org/”>residential solar power systems cost</a> site, her personal hobby blog focused on tips to assist home owners to conserve energy with sun power.
EVEN SMALL DOSES OF CHEMICALS POSE HEALTH HAZARDS Early on governments tried to estimate safe amounts of chemical additives in our food. However, more research is showing that relatively small doses of chemicals can be just as hazardous to our health as large ones. This means there are no real safe limits to agricultural and food chemicals.
CHEMICALS ARE UNNECESSARY TO GROW FOODS “Synthetic” compounds are just that. They are unnatural and unnecessary. This includes toxic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, GMOs and so on in our agriculture. Also there is no food that can’t be grown as well or actually better using organic means. Right after World War II a large cadre of army chemists began working in private industries and their collective motto was “better living through chemistry.” Foods were then thought to be ”enhanced” using chemical additives and processing agents. These chemicals changed the colors, flavours, textures and shelf-life of foods. But then it was discovered that many, if not most, synthetic chemicals caused various illnesses and serious side-effects and people were shocked. The cultural propaganda and expectation had been otherwise.
CHEMICALS HARM THE SOIL’S LIFE Chemicals tend to literally sterilize and systemically kill life in our soils. Organic farmers have confided with me that their organic lands are full of living critters, otherwise absent or severely reduced on surrounding chemical-laden farms. This includes birds, butterflies bees, worms, chipmunks and so on. They all tend to avoid chemicalized farms. Also countless micro-organisms seem to get harmed and the overall biodiversity of life.
CHEMICALS POISON OUR AIR AND WATER Most chemicals do not biodegrade within a growing season. Like nuclear waste products chemicals tend to hang around and create dead zones. This is true not only our soil but the surrounding air and seeping waters.
ORGANIC FOOD IS BOTH HEALTHIER AND SAFER Countless studies have shown the higher nutrient value of organic foods. Organic foods are thus safer to ingest. They are not laden with dangerous and toxic chemical traces.
EATING ORGANIC HAS BECOME MUCH MORE CONVENIENT You can nowadays find all kinds of organic fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds in most major food chains. We are no longer as limited in our organic food selections.
AN ILLUSION MAKES ORGANIC FOODS SEEM MORE EXPENSIVE Government subsidies for high-tech, chemical-laden farming causes non-organic foods to have lower prices. However, if we add the health and environmental costs to such products, they are ultimately far more expensive.
ORGANIC GROWING IS SAFER FOR FARM WORKERS Organic farming does not result in the same worker safety problems and cancerous outbreaks that are common in industrialized farms.
ORGANIC FARMING HELPS REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING An exciting and literally groundbreaking discovery was made at Rhodale Farms. It is that certain organic soil microbes (killed on non-organic farms) such as mycorrhizal fungi that grow on plant roots, powerfully block the release of carbon dioxide. This reduces the atmospheric emissions that cause global warming.
WHY CHEMICALS POLLUTE Back in the 17th century, Newton proposed that all of nature followed only math-based, mechanical laws. Tie those laws together and you get the whole unity of nature. This was a root tenant for the development of modern chemistry, physics and biotechnology. The flaw of that Newtonian worldview is extremely deep. Math symbols really abstract how best to separate all elements of consciousness – symbols like 1,2,3. We cannot count 1,2,3 apples any more if we make applesauce. This is because what was separate is now blended together as one. Imagine that a) much more deeply at the core of nature is what we experience as ”life” and that b) at the core of this “life” is what we experience as consciousness, and c) that consciousness represents the principle of connection itself in nature. Now if that is so, and mathematics abstracts the polar opposite principle of consciousness separation, the math-based worldview will systemically undermine life. It has to. We are now experiencing that harsh and surprising lesson - a very, very deep and profound failure of a commonplace belief and worldview.
RAW ADVENTURE
My name is April Stevenson and I’m visiting the Raw-Wisdom Community and volunteering with Nathan in Oneonta, New York. This visit is my first full-fledged venture into a raw food diet and I’ve been really enjoying it.
FRUGAL INSPIRATION FOR MAKING RAW VEGGIE BURGERS
This past Thursday morning we both decided (and because lunch on Wednesday afternoon was so filling and required so much chewing) that we could use a break. We therefore opted to have juiced fruits & vegetables for breakfast and instead of anything heavier. The juice ingredients included plum tomatoes, carrots, ginger, garlic, broccoli rabe (rapini), kale and leeks. The drink was most refreshing and had quite a strong taste. Though composting is done here, I felt the juice pulp leftovers should still be eaten too. Thus Nathan suggested making veggie burger patties with the remaining pulp. For further inspiration he referred me to read “The Raw Gourmet” by Nomi Shannon where on page 134 there was a neat recipe for Lentil Burgers.
GIVING IT A TRY
For my own purposes, however, I didn’t follow that because I’m really not, you might say, a precision “recipe person.” Normally I’m just content with winging it. Besides, seeing how all the ingredients are truly healthy and flavorful, I think it’s hard to have an undesirable result (unless you really go overboard with certain strong-tasting spices or foods). Getting back to our burgers, Nathan encouraged me to give it a go….. and I did.
OUR MODIFIED RECIPE
I started by juicing a few more items, namely a couple lemons and a handful of celerystalks. This I combined in the food processor with the leftover pulp plus about a cup of sprouted lentils. Before processing all of this, I also used an inexpensive coffee/spice grinder and filled the grinder’s cup with brown flax seeds plus a little bit of Gopal’s Rawmesan (Parmesan cheese replacement), Celtic Sea Salt, Organic Caribbean Season by Sharp Labs Inc.
COMBING IT ALL
Again I am not the kind to measure things exactly (too left-brain). I rather like to experiment. So feel free to do the same yourself! Putting this all together, I combined the pulp ingredients and seasoning and let this spin in the food processor for about 3 minutes. When the mixture reached a bulky consistency I was comfortable with, I then formed the veggie patties and in a size not larger than my hand. I ending up with a total of nine and placed them on trays in the very cool Excalibur Food Dehydrator. The setting at which I left them on was about 105 degrees (marked the “living food” setting). By the time we got back in the evening, the burgers were ready to eat for supper (though you can, of course, have them at any point of the day).
MMM…HOW MOST DELICIOUS
Our veggie burgers were really delicious, very flavorful (of course not greasy or fried at all) and they didn’t leave me feeling full or weighed down. I just LOVE knowing how far all that raw food stretched! So happy eating!
Currently under development is a new solar cell technology that is said to be about 90% efficient. The silicon wires absorb up to 96 percent of “incident sunlight” and 85 percent of “collectible sunlight,” breaking previous records. These solar cells are also not primarily made of silicon but 98% plastic, which will significantly reduce the cost as an added and tremendous bonanza.
SOLAR REVOLUTION IN THE MAKING This offers the prospect of revolutionizing energy production here and around the world. It can get everyone of the grid. These cells are currently under development at the California Institute of Technology.
WHAT THE NEW SOLAR CELLS CONSIST OF The new solar cells have tiny silicon wires that measure just 1 micron, thus using minimal silicon in their construction. These wires are strung into plastic plates where they more efficiently convert sunlight into solar power. Only two percent of the cell is composed of semi-conductors. They are about the same thickness as conventional solar cells.
PRIOR BREAKTHROUGH Nanosolar has developed a highly thin roll-out printed on metal foil solar technology that currently is only used for commercial purposes. It is competitive with coal’s generation of electrical energy and gets 15-16% efficiency but at a very low cost. It was named the best invention of the year for 2008 by Time Magazine
GOING MAINSTREAM The development of new solar cells that are both more efficient and less costly portends that solar power will soon go mainstream.
PROTECTING OUR PLANET With new renewable energies we can stop the current drift toward increasing global warming and other non-sustainable trends.
This past week we had eight volunteers from an organization called International Institute For Cooperative Development – see http://www.iicd-volunteer.org/ They have a six month training program and then send their volunteers all over the world for various projects – especially in Africa and South America. This past week they took off from their Massachusetts home for what is called “action week.” We had volunteers from Japan, Korea, Chile, and the US (NJ, Mass, and Alaska).
PERFECT TIMING It was great timing for us. They offered to help prepare our organic gardens. We have a particularly short growing season so the work needed to be done right away. In addition to preparing our local gardens, we also helped Turquoise Barn prepare their organic raised beds for the season. Just after the seed plantings were done and the kids left, the rains came – so again it was perfect timing.
SETTING UP AN ORGANIC GARDEN The garden was planned with a pond in the middle that is deep enough to maintain fish through the winter. The pond’s upper surface was lined with flat rocks gathered from the grounds. We dug a small trench for a low-voltage line to provide electricity for a light in the pond and to run the fountain. We rented a machine to till the whole garden and some extra grounds for the excess growth. The organiccompost was gotten from the leaf collection pile at the local municipality’s recycling plant (Oneonta’s Mosa). We also added peat moss and regular soil to the radiating-from-the-center raised beds. The markers for each planting were gotten using rainbow-colored Popsicle sticks from the Dollar Store and small carpentry shims from the hardware store. We used a black permanent marker – writing on both sides of the wooden shims – so that the rain would not wash off the writing. In between the rows we placed hay from a local hay farmer. It took about 5 bales of hay. For a pond liner, we looked into a rubber roofing material which work just as well as a pond liner but costs half the price.
PLANTING RESULTS About a hundred different all-organic vegetable, herbs (including medicinal) & flower seeds were planted. We bought some seed potatoes and onions from the Green Earth, all-organic.The seeds for summer plants were put into either flats or pots – like those for peppers, tomatoes and melons - waiting to be put out when the weather got warmer. The compost is rich in worms – both the compost from the City and our own from table scraps thrown into a worm-farm container. Thus early in the morning we were visited by a couple of blue jays who feasted on the worms. For a living garden attracts all manner of wildlife. My cat, who stays outside and mostly in hiding under the garage, also came out to take a sneak peak.
MULTIPLE-LEARNING AND FUN EXPERIENCES Together we studied companion planting and I gave my volunteers some insights into holistic healing and a following of a vegetarian/vegan, mostly raw food diet (including how to make really tasty green blends and kale chips)- and why that helps to heal and raise our consciousness – plus is rooted in ancient traditions (such as the Essene). Cora had a 7th Day Adventist background from Korean and was very receptive. Shermel began to read the ancient Essene Gospel of Peace. We had a lot of fun, and made good fun of each other’s accents – especially Sam’s “”forget-about-it” NJ accent. I kept many gardening and nutrition books out for them to look at over their stay. I also taught my great guests a little about a) what is a life-and-consciousness-centered worldview and b) how to eat and live in accordance thereof – including with a zero waste and 100% recycling policy and a low-carbon-footprint vegan diet. We toured the green office under construction – which will use passive and active solar energy, a composting toilet, and no paints or solvents in order to maintain optimal air quality.
OTHER ACTIVITIES The green office project was helped by digging a small trench to connect the electric lines from the main house to the office. We made communal meals together and went out for a meal at the Green Earth – which was all organic and vegan . We also went out to another locale that made super-tasty and spicy veg-wraps. We considered the new Japanese restaurant but it was a little pricy for dinner. We toured the City of Oneonta, a little of the two colleges and much of the beautiful countryside. One afternoon was spent at the Turquoise Barn helping to hand till their garden and the another on a long trip to Albany were we visited to a large coop (Honest Weight) and bought both organic foods and plants . Next we went to a Albany raw-vegan Meetup where a nutritional consultant gave an inspiring and informative talk about diet transitions. On these trips we got to share life-stories and plans.
MUTUAL LEARNING Each day at about 7:45 began with a silent meditation in order to dig deep inside each of our spirits inspiration for the day. Then we help hands in a circle to share the plans and aims for the day. On Earth Day we visited a local college festival, and also listened to an incredible lecture on peak oil and the coming related crises. Zachery and Joanne taught me how to make simple water filters out of clay, with coffee grinds in the core. The coffee is burned out to create a slow water-filtering mud container to use in Africa. Meg taught me about what Japanese food is really like. Joanne clued me in on the riches of Chile. We discussed much more, including their training program, the challenges thereof, including fundraising. We took many pictures at each step of the garden-and-pond creation project. All in all, it was a very rich, full and definitely fun experience. DIARY NOTES Here are some notes from our diary:
“Thanks for allowing my team and I to spend some time at your house and to particate in your lifestyle for a couple of days. The “raw-wisdom” eating style was new to me and it taught me a lot…I’ll be sure to send fun pictures from Nhamatanda, Mozambique!”
SB.
“Nathan, thank you for everything you are so knowledgeable I almost took notes the first day. I would have loved to sit under your teaching. For the short time we were here, thank you for sharing…and even giving me that gift you gave me.”
SR.
“I had a lot of fun from working…food was good as well as everything has been perfect for me. I want to see how is garden and koi fish gonna be. Send me pictures.”
HH.
“I have enjoyed…just spending time here. I really like what you are doing and the direction you are choosing to live your life.”
Z.
“This experience is so precious to me. I think I’ve learned a little bit of farming…thank you so much”
C.H.
“It was really nice to make a garden as well as a pond. I never have done these before…It was kind of an adventure and I’ve learned a lot…leaving for Mozambique next month, this is our last activity all together. So thanks again for having us!”
M.H.
“Thanks for the few days in your house…good experience, dig…the vegetarian life. Thank you again
GREAT NEWS FOR THE HEALING OF THE PLANET
A new deep-storage battery is under development that could provide power for an entire home usage for pennies per kilowatt. Everyone could then go off the grid!
GETTING TOTALLY OFF THE GRID
Nowadays alternative-powered homes remain on the grid because it’s difficult to store enough to serve peak usage times. If you want to be off the grid totally, you’ll have to give up some appliances. Forget an electric dryer, for example. However, this is likely change in the near future as new battery technologies arise.
UNDER DEVELOPMENT AT COORSTEK
Under development at Ceramatec, a research division of CoorsTek is just such a battery. It is being designed to store 20-40 killowatt hours of electricity at 90 degree Celsius temperatures. Estimated life is one cycle per day for 10 years (currently under testing). A $2000 battery translates to a cost of approximately 3 cents per kilowatt compared to about 8 cents per kilowatt currently with utility companies. The battery could continuously release its energy at a pace of 5 kilowatts per 4 hours – enough for most home appliances.
WE CAN JUST IMAGINE
This forthcoming revolutionary development may make utility companies obsolete. This is something many of us would greatly relish, considering how we are at their financial mercy. Pay the bill or get shut off, even in the dead of winter! Thus we can only imagine the many wide-reaching cultural, political and economic implications. For example, perhaps someday soon there will be no centralized, coal-fired, air-polluting utilities, nor nuclear ones. Perhaps someday our dependence on oil will be gone, with huge geo-political reverberations. And all that because of some new battery technologies!
COMBINE WITH THIN-FILM SOLAR TECHNOLOGY
Now if we combine this with Nanosolar’s thin-film technology (named among the top inventions by Popular Science and Time magazine) we are sitting on the beginning of a life-style revolution for our homes, factories, offices – and transportation – in the coming decade.
Our New Green Home Office In Oneonta, NY We are currently converting a garage in Oneonta, NY to a new attached home office with a green office building plan. To inspire others I thought I would outline some of our going-green construction and new sustainable building designs we’re putting into effect on a low budget.
Inspired By “The Greening of Southie” I learned last night while watching the movie, The Greening of Southie, that because heating and electrifying our homes is so vital, about 40% of carbon emissions and other environmental impacts involve how we build our homes, offices and factories. Thus our habits of the past must change or the trend towards global warming and other impacts will force the choice. In the process using green and sustainable building material lists, this is quite vital in our overall green construction process. Living under the shadow of a deteriorating environment, it behooves us to create ever better and more effectively sustainable facilities. Below is a short list of some of the more sustainable building techniques and approaches we’ve been using to create our Oneonta green office:
SHORT LIST OF GREEN CONSTRUCTION APPROACHES
A) HEAT ENERGY EFFICIENCY
- Solar radiant heat – We poured a cement floor with radiant heat tubes that will be connected in time to a solar hot water heating system on the roof.
- Passive Solar Building- We have more skylights on the south side of the building to let in more warmth from the sun.
- Tile Flooring- This will further absorb and maintain heat though out our green sustainable building.
- Extra insulation – The walls were built with 2×8 so that we could add extra insulation, about 30R. Another 14.4 R is planned with a 2 inch faced hardboard under the siding. The cathedral roof will have R38 insulation installed plus again the 2″ hardboard. This adds to 52R. In addition, there is a considerable air space via the use of trusses in the building the roof, and this adds another approximately 1R per inch of air space.
- Highest Efficiency Windows - We are using Pella low-E windows because they have a far above average energy rating. We can add additional glass layers using clear caulk to install them. We do that often when adding stained glass to an existing window. The stained glass works well as it does not usually show any moisture buildup between the caulked together panes.
- Metal Roof – This is designed to hold more heat in and qualifies thus for a federal energy tax credit.
- Cathedral Ceiling Fan - To circulate the captured air, a ceiling fan is going in at the peak and a smaller fan in the bathroom. Hopefully all of this will avoid any backup heating system kicking even during the middle of the winter.
B) LIGHTING The lighting will all be fluorescent and the office, which is only 16×24, will have seven skylights to avoid any use of artificial lighting during the day.
C) WATER USE Our bathroom with have a composting toilet and a low water-use shower head. We are going to find a way to recycle the roof’s water runoff into some irrigation for the surrounding plants.
D) CHOICE OF MATERIALS AND CONTRACTORS Whenever possible, we have used local materials and contractors to avoid the impact of transportation on our environment. This includes our solar installation contractor who is a part of our community. We do not have “green woods” such as quick growing bamboo from China nor hardwoods from certified sustainable forests in Bolivia because the overall cost and negative impact of transportation is too great. Using all cement floors and roof trusses, I believe, saves on the amount of lumber needed in the total green construction project.
E) RECYCLED BUILDING SCRAPS The scrap wood from our eco building will be used in a fireplace to our electric contractor’s home.
F) INSPIRING GREEN DESIGNS We are planning wood, tile and stained glass mosaics designs to help feed the spirit of the place. This includes installing three octagon windows to contain stained glass.
G) AIR QUALITY There are absolutely no paints, chemical solvents, petro-based stains or glues used in the interior construction. The walls are all 1×6 natural pine tongue and groove and that will be kept protected only by using non-toxic natural oils. When you walk in, you can thus immediately smell the refreshing odor of raw wood. What a HUGE difference this makes for the resulting air quality. We will take care to have furniture that also is not made with toxic glues, paints and solvents. The exterior will have some synthetic siding, but this is to avoid the periodic use of toxic paints every few years to maintain the place. We will have printers in the office, which tend to let out lots of toxic emissions into the air so we will have to plan some quiet air filters as we go along.
H) ORGANIC EDIBLE LANDSCAPING There is nothing worse than putting a mono-crop lawn all around one’s home, and worse with bio-engineered grass seeds from Scotts, a major partner of Monsanto. These tend to be maintained using toxic chemicals that kill all of surrounding life and cause cancer. Our vision, instead, is to have surrounding organic and edible gardens with raised beds, and which attract all manner of living critters – including song birds, beautiful butterflies – and not to mention deer, squirrels, chip monks, rabbits, and so on. We want to create Eden all around us.
I) RECYCLING SYSTEMS We compost all of our kitchen wastes and recycle any of our plastic, glass, cardboard and paper products.
IT’S SIMPLE AND EASY
Building a green home or office is not very complicated if we don’t make it so. The same applies to green remodeling. Environmental homes, being energy efficient buildings, are also inexpensive in the long run. Anyone can put into practice more sustainable building construction. It takes a little will and a lot of vision to make an eco-friendly building into a reality. Environmentally-friendly building is the wave of the future, and we might as well get on board.
The atomic view as not just a way of seeing nature, ideologically-led, 
The great pacific garbage patch
The Obama Obama’s infamous organic garden- shame on her!
