Trump Outrageously Attempts Bribing DE for Exclusive Rights to Covid-19 Vaccine

“German ministers have reacted angrily following reports US president Donald Trump offered a German medical company “large sums of money” for exclusive rights to a Covid-19 vaccine.” Excuse me, did i read this correctly? So Trump would like to capitalize on a vaccine, to exclusively own, control and drive the prices higher; with more concern for profit than saving lives worldwide?

Coronavirus: anger in Germany at report Trump seeking exclusive vaccine deal.

Coronavirus: anger in Germany at report Trump seeking exclusive vaccine deal.

This is a mad man, of the mentality which has arrived through decades of a population who have been increasing fixated on reproducing and consuming, driven by marketing lies and blindly following the herd. This mentality of followers have been conned into voting for this masquerade of a leader, who was groomed and bred not as a diplomat, but dégoutant (french for disgusting). This mentality allowed the Sackler family to get away with murdering hundreds of thousands (certainly my number is an underestimate). How many years has the opiate epidemic in the USA been allowed to continue with a blind eye?

This is too preposterous to be real. Trump wanted to persuade, once again through money and bribery, the exclusive rights to the Corona virus vaccine (not yet developed) and exclusive US access. Let’s expose this malicious excuse of leadership for what it is, a horrific display of egomania that could wrench a country into war with his rhetoric. It’s a mentality that perpetuates war, (us first, USA first, me first).

In terms of the laws of nature in which every creature is interdependent and part of a larger network of systems, this errant behavior of me first, is an assault to the natural world and aberrant to nature itself. Our industries and dominant story: perpetual production, geared towards continuous profit, while never considering the impacts on everyone and the stress to all other life systems, has become the perfect breeding ground for a virus to appear to nudge the ‘me first club’ into a far larger perspective on the assault that all the rest of the planet has been taking from man’s short-sighted greed and contempt, rather than praise and care, for the natural world which we’ve been casually and thoughtlessly contaminating and destroying, with the aberrant vision of valuing things through the profit we can make from them, rather than seeing worth in life itself.

It’s the right climate to breed a contemptuous virus,

This mentality must be wiped from the planet.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/not-for-sale-anger-in-germany-at-report-trump-seeking-exclusive-coronavirus-vaccine-deal

Nothing Lives for Itself – Pantheism | Nothing Sacred before Cold Blooded Cash | Indigenous Murder in Amazon for Lumber | Plutocracy Bleeds – Corpocrisy Feeds

And just like that, going from here to there and in between, I was captivated with colors and textures and took 107 photos today. Here are most, except for three that I retouched, wysiwyg.

I was simply going to post the 106 pics whose subject matter grabbed my attention today, and then it morphed, into the topics that stabbed my attention.

nov 7 autumn leaves photo album
beauty of the natural world

Pantheism
nothing in nature lives for itself
systemic interdependence and harmony

 

Horrible events are occurring among Amazon Indigenous people who have been repeatedly attacked, killed, mostly by loggers who want to get to their trees. I’m sure the convoluted story includes international corporate and banker criminals of the USA as well. There was also a recent news story in the BBC about lumber thugs killing a man in Romania, who wished to protect the only virgin forests left in Europe. Perhaps there should be an international team who can get information from the sources of people who wish to protect the forests and act as liaisons. They should have within their tools a bunch of drones, that can quickly and accurately see what’s going on, and a team of scientists and data analysts who can help to interpret the data. A body of teachers and negotiators who can work with local and national governments and more specifically, talk to the culprits in the industries that have been doing the attacking, and figure out a way for them to be subsidized and brought into training in various different renewable industries.

There are plenty of people with skills and needs, and plenty of changes that need to be made in the world. These people are acting out of desperation. I presume that if the lumber or whatever trade these people have (lumber, palm oil, plastic, coal, oil, gas, chemical industries) if they were provided with alternative work, other options and subsidized as they are educated and trained in new skills towards renewable, regenerative agriculture, planting trees, being guardians of the forest, clean energy, building animal bridges, windmills, solar, growing hemp, bamboo, fungi for growing building material as well as cleaning up toxic waste, that they would choose to do it. If there were educational outreach systems and options for training in any one of a dozen of relevant new trades that can help to safeguard the planet and the habitats of other creatures, they would do it.

I’m sure that all of the weapons, ships and aircraft and warcraft of the world could be melted into some pretty functional items, other than to kill people. Okay, I’ll stop now.

 

A young Brazilian indigenous leader was killed days ago in the Amazon, and according to Democracy Now, 135 indigenous people were killed in just 2018.

He wanted only to be a guardian for all the life in the forest. Simply put down, he was in the way of cutting down trees.

Brazilian Indigenous Leader Killed in Amazon
he wished to be a guardian for all life
murdered by lumber thieves

 

 

This story doesn’t seem to go away. People with greed or desperation, only see through the filter of their desire to make gains.

They’ve lost their soul. The Brazilian leader along with the US and dozens of right wing plutocrats around the globe, prefer to turn a blind eye, and cold heart.

 

 

Sacred Giving, Sacred Receiving by Joseph Bruchac June 20, 2016 The American Indian Giveaway

 

 

Parabola, Search for Meaning
Sacred Giving, Sacred Receiving, by Joseph Bruchac
June 20, 2016

 

There appears to be a spiritual malaise, whenever faith encounters the market place. This existed since the time of Jesus Christ, who was a huge threat to the Romans, because he wanted to empower people and expose the truths. The market place won.

“Wealth, among American Indian people, is not seen as the accumulation and keeping of money or goods or land. The strengthening of community is much more important in the American Indian practice, a gifting more akin to prayer than self-aggrandizement and acquisition. American Indian giveaway practices have often been viewed as a threat by government officials, both in the United States and Canada. Government policies in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century were designed to suppress such activities.”

Indigenous people who are closest to nature and respect all life the most, just keep getting massacred, by what is propelled by the power of fascism driven by economics. The US governenment, in protecting their economic interests, continue to grab weapons first and contemplate their actions, never.

UN Report Millions Species Extinct | Anti-Idling Fines | 10 Things We Can Do | Strike for Climate September 20

I talk with people ‘strangers’ all the time – at the grocery store, post office, art events, walking by – about plastic, the climate crisis (el cambio climático), idling engines, etc. I learn things in the process.  There was a massive heat dome sweeping the United States this past weekend. A few days ago I was informed of this report about the level of emergency of the climate crisis we are in, written by people in the Australian Navy, divulging the truth that they have learned.

Shocking UN Report Warns Millions Species are at Risk of Extinction due to Human Activity Democracy Now

Frankly, what does it take to get people’s attention and leaders to have the strength to go against the status quo of thinking about their coffers, and actually taking unprecedented action by enforcing sweeping informational campaigns and establishing regulations to change peoples’ habits – and particularly industry practices? As in Burningman, when people are facing the extremes together (as opposed to the wealthier ones remaining insulated from the elements), when we are all participating together to make the changes that we need to, then brilliant minds will continue to have great ideas to help out in different communities. I think the only way we can do it, is when ALL PEOPLE PARTICIPATE.

Australian Military Report High Liklihood human Civilization Ending 2050 Independent

As long as the truth is not out to the public, we can keep shopping and acting as if we are clueless about how our actions affect this. Thing is, it appears that many people are. News feeds are lined with sleek automobile ads, seducing you to believe that you’ll suddenly have that exceptional strength and fire to finally do what you want. As if.  We can not let government inaction, choosing to ignore the truth as they bow and cater to the oil oligarchy, to steam roll ahead. There are the few politicians who are principled and brave enough to speak the truth; i.e. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, the Squad of newly elected women of color democrats – each one ferociously eloquent, each one could cause DUMPH (CHUMP/TRUMP) to just melt or start screaming like a toddler and covering his ears. Yet we really sort of have to help to steer this, and do something, rather than waiting for ‘the next election’; ad infinitum.

BUSINESS AS USUAL, NEEDS TO COMPLETELY STOP.

 

The Climate Reality Project the Climate Crisis and Your Health

Here are 10 examples I thought of, that we can do [with money earned through idling fines] to better our environment and build a nature friendly infrastructure. At the post office, mentioning idling cars, one of the postal workers responded that the state of New Jersey imposes a $75 dollar fine for a car parked with an engine on (idling). New York city, $150 for idling buses. There could be bicycle cops in cities who are only hired to enforce this, to gather tens of thousands of dollars a week, just here in the small city of Providence, to contribute to:

 

1. bicycling lanes to invite more ease, comfort and safety bicycling
2. bus transportation system that is electric or solar powered
3. fines to homes that are using too extreme of a power usage to air condition their homes (unless the inhabitants are elderly, disabled or ill)
4. paying people to plant trees in their yards, streets and parks
5. create community gardens where people can grow their own food and enjoy community participation in the process
6. putting money towards transportation and building architecture that is renewable
7. creating more parks and pathways for animals such as: animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways
8. encouraging people to bicycle, rather than drive in a car
9. creating local transport that is not gasoline based, but bicycle powered, solar or electric trollies that are fun
10. stop buying water in plastic!!! please
…etcetera

Why Are You Striking for the Climate

“Millions of people across the world are going to be striking for climate on September 20, all with different experiences of the climate crisis. We’re all a part of this movement for a better world, and all our stories and reasons matter.
Are you joining in? If so, tell us why. We want you to take a selfie or record a quick video explaining why you’re going to take part and show your support for the incredible mobilizing already happening from our youth.
We also need you to do more than just take a selfie though, don’t forget to sign up at globalclimatestrike.net. We need you on the streets in September.”

I just wrote to a local educational institution and then to the Congressman in the state where I reside presently, about making legislation to enforce anti-idling laws.

Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island

subject: Establish Anti-Idling Laws for RI > Funds from Fines to Create Jobs Transportation Infrastructure

Back of the Envelope: Establish Anti-Idling Laws for RI > Funds from Fines to Create Jobs to Build Community Greenways & Renewable Energy Transportation & Building Infrastructure.

The state of NJ has anti-idling fines of $75./automobile. New York city fines idling buses, $150. Nova Scotia, Canada just passed laws against idling vehicles waiting in fast food take-out lines. There are plenty of state, county and city anti-idling laws. It is a no-brainer that in Europe, where many vehicles are diesel, turn off the ignition when they aren’t moving. Many countries have excellent train transportation. Train transport could be subsidized, to invite people to use public transportation because it is cheaper and more efficient than driving.

https://www.edf.org/attention-drivers-turn-your-idling-engines

When Federal government leaders in large countries such as the USA and Brazil are in climate change denial, and more in the pocket of the Oil Oligarchy, they tend to ignore the present extinction and climate crisis. That is when individual State, County and City leaders need to set precedents and show their accountability and ‘best practices’, as leaders for others to follow.

How about a ‘Have you Heard’ educational campaign, to inform the public about the consequences of idling (among other habits)? We are currently in an unprecedented climate crisis. It is not 10 years away, it is happening now, around the globe.

The habits of individuals, collectively, quickly add up.

My encounters as a bicyclist residing in Providence and having visited Block Island, RI, after living in multiple US cities, states as well as abroad, has lead me to being completely astounded at the apparent total lack of awareness of individuals. I see dozens of idling cars and trucks, daily. Most individuals simply are not aware of the impacts of their idling cars and trucks; of the toxic fumes released in the immediate vicinity of their vehicle nor awareness of how the heat and exhaust affect global warming. Because of this general lack of knowledge, nothing will raise their attention or raise your budget faster, than establishing legislation and fines, to set the precedent for others to follow.

I have contacted the RI Governor, Mayor of Providence, RI DEM, Brown University and am finally contacting the most appropriate recipient, the one who can establish state-wide laws to prohibit idling, and fine people.

Allison Archambault, Supervising Air Quality Specialist
Climate Change & Mobile Sources Programs – RI DEM –
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, retorted to my letter, that “Motor vehicles may not idle unnecessarily for longer than five consecutive minutes during any 60-minute period.”, siting https://rules.sos.ri.gov/regulations/part/250-120-05-45 a law on paper.

However, there is absolutely no enforcement nor awareness of this law. Various police officers know nothing of anti-idling laws. A woman officer in Providence mid July, 2019, told me she knows of no anti-idling laws and ‘what people do in their cars is their own business’.

She is unequivocally incorrect in her response. It is not up to the individual, when collectively, each contribute to poor air quality that affects others directly in their vicinity and long term effects of CO2 emissions leading to the potential extinction of humans, along with the human induced 6th mass extinction of life on earth. it is everyone’s business when the quality of the air, water, the temperature and fumes emitted in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle and temperature of the global environment is warming due to ever increasing CO2 levels.

I implore you to take a stand and impose legislation and fines. You could accumulate tens of thousands of dollars a week, hundreds of thousands a month, if you’re interested in deterring peoples actions and at the same time utilizing the money towards creating jobs to build green infrastructure.

Please impose laws and fines. $75/car, $150/truck, $300/diesel engined vehicles. Double the fines if they are caught a second time. Create a task force for this issue, police on bicycles, to regulate and enforce it. $300/dirty institutional air conditioning systems. Enact a statewide campaign.

I can not emphasize the huge number of vehicles i come across daily, on every block. It is so excessive, that it is blowing my mind. I have resided in several states and abroad, and have never come across such an excess of idling vehicles and complete lack of awareness as well as blatant hostility in response. I’ve encountered parents sitting in their idling SUV’s while waiting to pick up their kids from school.

Students test ozone levels where cars idle at schools

Students test ozone levels where cars idle at schools

There is no age, ethnic, or socio economic divide, there is a tremendous lack of awareness.

I just sent a letter to Brown University to implore them to educate their Facilities’ staff about the implications of idling vehicles, to encourage them to enforce anti-idling rules and be leaders with ‘best practices’ for other organizations to follow.

I’ve blogged about the IPCC report and the need for particularly the developed wealthier nations and the US in particular, as the leader in emissions from the transportation sector and a major player in habitat destruction and industrial pollutions, to be accountable to the world community and be leaders in creating jobs, rebuilding renewable energy infrastructure.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that we have ten years to avoid outright disaster and extinction of the human race, while human activity has already triggered the six mass extinction of all other creatures, mostly due to the human energy demands tied to the Petroleum industries, along with excessive building, global warming from CO2 emissions with the transportation sector responsible for most.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/ipcc-climate-change-report-highest-recorded-co2-levels-arctic-temperatures-bill-mckibben-discussing-significance-of-rising-co2-greta-thunberg-ted-talk-enforcing-legislation/

I routinely encounter people sitting in their idling vehicles talking on their phone, saying that ‘they’re just about to leave’. I encounter people who are working in houses, in construction, in moving businesses, who leave their trucks idling while they are working outside of the vehicle, yards removed from their vehicle. I can not ignore this issue, because it is scorching my nostrils and heating my skin, literally every day, every block. I do not have the time to approach people – as i do frequently to gently communicate this – nor do I wish to risk my life with some hostile reactions, because people become defensive when approached. The public needs to be informed and educated through campaigns, the media and most effectively, by laws that spell it financially, since that appears to be the main driver, not just running the world but ruining the world.

Please contact me if you want to hear what I encounter on the streets, in dirty detail.

Sincerely,

I’m doing this on my own time. This blog is not for profit, no advertising.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Carol Keiter on Block Island
lens through convex lens

 

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein | You’re at Your Best – Doing What You Love

Charles Eisenstein, I discovered through a Facebook group initially, “The More Beautiful World”, that our Hearts Know is Possible.

He created a short film to introduce the concepts of his book, through the direction and production of Ian MacKenzie

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix

“Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. As we imagine new ways of interacting with one another and with all life on the planet, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein is a book he wrote.
Here’s where you can learn more about Sacred Economics and purchase the book.

Sacred Economics book with Charles Eisenstein

 

 

 

Why is there a biodiversity crisis? Why are we drilling for more oil?…Many questions that you ask about the world come down after several layers of why, to the answer of money.

You can read the pdf file online, http://sacred-economics.com/read-online/ translated into 12 languages

This new narrative of sacred economics, shifts the individual to following what they inherently love doing and do best, so that rather than feeling incapable of pursuing what they love to do because of the lack of economic support, they are free to do just that. This is why I’ve incorporated the message of Joseph Campbell, a

The writer Joseph Campbell coined the term Follow Your Bliss.

The Power of Myth is the full transcript of 24 hours of interviews by Bill Moyers of Joseph Campbell

Great advice from Joseph Campbell – Follow Your Bliss

“Campbell saw as the greatest human transgression “the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.”

 

You’re at Your Best – Doing What You Love

 >Make Your Play Your Work, and York Work Your Play<

His introductory short film ‘Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix‘, directed by Ian MacKenzie reveals a lot of information about quite a different narrative of perceiving and feeling about the natural world.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix directed by Ian MacKenzie

Charles Eisenstein’s book Sacred Economics. Is what he’s come to offer to the world as his gift, realizing that by following the truth and what is in our hearts, this concept will really take on a life of its own and spread physically, as more people become aware of it. Like reaching a critical mass, we can adopt it as a new universal way of looking at our world and our place in it. He talks of the money economy that we have been in, as both the source and the symptom, of an old narrative that has had to do with continually wanting and needing to take things that were once free and plentiful in nature and shared between people as gifts, and turned these into goods and services that we then sell back to one another.

Charles talks of the planet as a living being whose organs and tissues are all the natural systems and biomass; of the different natural waterways, forests, coral reefs, watersheds, elephants, bears, wolfs, butterflies and insects are all part of the planet and its health. The health of humanity and all creatures depends on the health and balance of all of these systems of life.

Here’s an interview of Charles Eisenstein by Russell Brand. Video · Climate Change – What’s The Whole Truth? | Russell Brand & Charles Eisenstein

Climate Change What is the Whole Truth Charles Eisenstein interview by Russell Brand

Charles Eisenstein who’s written a book on the subject, says that in the traditional sense, people are reducing all problems of the Earth from an environmental perspective to climate change.

Within it Charles talks of the living earth narrative.

In it Charles mentions that we are not recognizing the earth as a living being, with its tissues and organs equivalents to forests, grasslands, coral reefs, elephants, birds…He mentions that only talking about the environment and carbon output, is reduces the problems to one thing, CO2 levels, and completely ignores all the other different factors that are part of this massive ecocide (mass extinction) by reducing things only to numbers.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Joel Sartore photo ark picture and the blogger, Carol Keiter

Arundhati Roy’s Extraordinary Eloquence, Poetically Incising the Truth

I wasn’t going to do another blog till I complete my book. However I decided to listen to the entire Democracy Now news hour while I chopping vegetables preparing my dinner, when I saw that Amy Goodman would be interviewing here. I am once again absolutely blown away with how sharply Arundhati Roy incises the truth with her vision.

I first learned of Arundhati Roy decades ago, after the September 11th attacks in the United States. In her Come September speech in 2002, she peels the truth from the political and economic realities of the constructs of our world, to expose power and powerlessness. It is of the context of what was going on at that time, and is STILL THE TRUTH.

I blogged about Arundhati Roy’s profound speech, “Come September” in 2009 https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/arundhati-roy/

Come September is A PROFOUND BEARING OF TRUTH. Roy speaks poetically to power on the US’s War on Terror, globalization, the misuses of nationalism, and the growing chasm between the rich and poor.

Arundhati Roy full speech 2002 Come September

Her first fiction novel is entitled “God of Small Things”

Please take the time to listen to each of the interviews. She is profound in her imagery and astounding insightfulness.

Each of these segments have the transcripts. I suggest you trying to find as much of here writings (fiction and non-fiction) and speeches, as you can!

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/13/arundhati_roy_a_us_attack_on

Arundhati Roy: A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Be “Biggest Mistake It Has Ever Made”

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/13/arundhati_roy_capitalism_is_a_form

Arundhati Roy: Capitalism Is “a Form of Religion” Stopping Solutions to Climate Change & Inequality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKaU8skVKnU

Arundhati Roy on the Power of Fiction: “Literature is The Simplest Way of Saying a Complicated Thing”

Arundhati Roy Interview Democracy Now

“As the ice caps melt, as oceans heat up and water tables plunge, as we rip through the delicate web of interdependence that sustains life on earth, as our formidable intelligence leads us to breach the boundaries between humans and machines and our even more formidable hubris undermines our ability to connect the survival of our planet to our survival as a species, as we replace art with algorithms and stare into a future in which most human beings may not be needed to participate in or be remunerated for economic activity, at just such a time we have the steady hands of white supremacists in the White House, new imperialists in China and neo-Nazis once again massing on the streets of Europe, Hindu nationalists in India, and a host of butcher princes and lesser dictators in other countries to guide us into the unknown.

While many of us dreamt that another world is possible, these folks were dreaming, too. And it is their dream, our nightmare, that is perilously close to being realized. Capitalism’s gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the Stone Age with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the U.S. government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim, it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions. A whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities pounded into dust.

Amidst the desolation and the rubble, a monstrosity called Daesh, ISIS, has been spawned. It has spread across the world, indiscriminately murdering ordinary people who had absolutely nothing to do with America’s wars. Over these last few years, given the wars it has waged and the international treaties it has arbitrarily reneged on, the U.S. government perfectly fits its own definition of a rogue state. And now resorting to the same old scare tactics, the same tired falsehoods and the same old fake news about nuclear weapons, it is gearing up to bomb Iran. That will be the biggest mistake it has ever made.”

Pope Francis Encyclical on Climate Change

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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December 10th, 2018 Carol Keiter

Earth Day April 22 | Msg from the Future ~Green New Deal~ with AOC | Extinction Rebellion

Today, April 22, 2019 is Earth Day!

Earth Day April 22

“On April 22, 1970, millions of people took to the streets to protest the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development.” This was almost 50 years ago! I currently live in Providence, Rhode Island. I just watched as I stood in a coat and sweater, with long underwear on, a man get out of his truck in a t-shirt, then get back in, turn on the engine, and sit there parked, with dark brown and grey fumes coming from the ignition. He sat there for a long time. I stopped approaching people about the topic of their spoiling the air by leaving their engine’s idling after the first few months.

Earth Day April 22.

 

Certainly the most exciting thing presently, is the release of this fabulously illustrated, simple and direct message which reaches us through the heart.

The Intercept: A Message From The Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Intercept

You can listen to the making of this message through Democracy Now, “A Message from the Future with AOC”: New Film Imagines World Transformed by the Green New Deal

In the meantime, The Climate Reality Project states “In report after report, including the IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, the world’s leading scientific experts have sounded the alarm that unprecedented and aggressive measures must be taken to reduce emissions to safe levels to protect our future.”

The Climate Reality Project Protect Our Planet

Which is why scientists and professionals as well as school children globally such as the Sunrise Movement, are stating that writing books and relying on the government as leaders and guides in addressing climate change and creating legislation to honestly do something about it, has not been working. That’s why people have started to Rebel for Life.

Extinction Rebellion: what pushes people to drastic action on climate change?

Farhana Yamin is a climate changer lawyer who helped draft the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. She participated in the Extinction Rebellion and was arrested, expressing that at various points in time people have to take a stand and act, in order for things to change, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Farhana Yamin Climate Change Lawyer who helped draft Paris Climate agreement arrested XR

Extinction Rebellion, which began on April 15th in London and locations WorldWide, continues. Extinction Rebellion wants a Citizen’s Assembly for Climate Change. Greta Thunberg, who boycotted school to sit by the Swedish parliament, demands that they honestly talk about climate change and educate the public. She has inspired youth all over the globe to act. Greta Thunberg addresses the participants of the Extinction Rebellion rally in London.

 

Greta Thunberg Swedish teen School Boycott for Climate Action speaks at Extinction Rebellion rally

Extinction Rebellion Day 1 London Greatest Threat is Leaving it for Someone Else

There are plenty of local groups to join or discussions to participate in. I went to one by chance a week ago in which 8 panelists talked to a full auditorium of local Rhode Island citizens, to talk about Climate Change Solutions.

Publick Panel Climate Change Solutions

We Demand a Green New Deal

Horse Racing is Lame | US Horse Deaths and Drugs | Run to Death

What is up with the American addiction to excessive use of drugs and chemicals to enhance and control nature; in horse racing, child and adult psychology, the healthcare industry (not wellness), agriculture, animal slaughterhouses, fish farming, the energy industries – to the point that rather than optimizing performance, they become a lethal poison?

Horse Racing Drugs and Deaths PETA undercover- investigation PETA

Back in early March I saw a disturbing news clip “Spike in horse fatalities at Santa Anita Park casts shadow over racing industry” on PBS News Hour published March 7, 2019. A 21st horse died at the same race track in California, within just a few months. It primarily pointed to the conditions of the track as the cause. Near the end of the clip there was mention of horses being pushed very hard, with drugs used to mask their pain. Yet the overall message was poor track conditions. Perhaps because of the unusually wet weather, the rain had made the track brittle, like concrete.

How bizarre? What is this really about?

I had a horrific awakening to the reality of the sport several years ago in Pennsylvania when I accompanied my brother to see the horse of his friend race at Penn National racetrack. His friend owned the stable where my brother lodged his horse. When the race finally started I watched from the stands. However, the horse I was there to watch never came around the track. I asked where’s the horse? I found out within minutes that he was dead. What? He’s been ‘put down’ – shot, because he fell.

What? Shot? Already? What in the world? I hate the term ‘put down’ – as if you’re doing someone a favor. You don’t ‘put down’ your grandmother? Well, I later spoke to a friend who believes in the humane ‘euthanasia’ of humans as well as animals. I could understand her logic. Regardless, this was a very disturbing experience. In shock, I asked my brother why in the world was the horse killed? I learned for the first time that when a horse say, twists an ankle, it is kindly, slaughtered. This is routine? With panic in my voice I asked, “You mean there aren’t sophisticated ways to give horses support while they are healing? Aren’t there braces? Casts? My brother explained that the horse’s body weight couldn’t support a broken leg. “Aren’t there straps and ways to hold the horse securely while keeping weight off the injured leg? Can’t you immerse the horse in water to take the weight off their body?” No, it wouldn’t be able to hold still. I couldn’t believe it.

santa anita horse 23rd death CNN

When I saw this headline a few days ago 2 days after racing resumed, 23rd horse dies at Santa Anita Park that more horses died, again, since reopening the track, I was angry. Within this a man makes openly claims that the horse racing industry must commit to stop using drugs, revealing that the deaths are not about the track quality at all, but the extreme measures the horses are pushed to. This declaration with respect to the state of California, is for a total ban of all medication (on race day), and commitment to a new trend, to put the welfare of the horses and the (mostly immigrant) workers’ who work closely with the horses, first. It Implies that it’s been quite clear to a lot of people within the industry, that these horse death’s were not by any means due to surface irregularities on a track. Well, that’s California, 1 in 52 states. It’s a start. I notice he is only talking about the banning of drugs on race day. Nevertheless, this is a huge admission to the connection of drug use and deaths of horses – on a regular basis in the United States – on this particular California race track.

I didn’t have to look very hard for more confirmation of race horse deaths as a result of bad practices and the use of drugs to articulate them. The practice of using syringes and injecting all sorts of drugs into the horses, is more a phenomenon in the United States. It verifies that the nature of horse racing is not about the horses, but about the money. The value of winning in this high-roller deluxe gambling industry, doesn’t truly value and honor the horse, at all.

It’s an industry in which humans gamble to win money, with the welfare of the animal a very low priority. The horses are exploited, abused, run on seriously injured feet and joints, exercised until their lungs are bleeding and driven beyond their capability, with drugs to mask the pain and enhance their physical stamina. They are run to death..

The nonsense of putting profit over the value of life, is the standard modus operandi – rippling through all of its industries. A country whose economics of capitalism, bleeds from the earth and its creatures.

‘Drugs and dead horses’: US racing reels after Peta video broadside

Horse Racing Exposed: Drugs and Death.

Horse Racing Drugs and Deaths PETA undercover investigation PETA

Horse Racing Exposed: Drugs and Death

“On average 24 horses a week die on race tracks in the US. This PETA video reveals that one of the leading thoroughbred trainers, Steve Asmussen, has continued a chronic misuse of drugs.”

Steve Asmussen one of many US horse trainers with drug violations PETA

“These are factory farms, where syringes are the most important tool of the trade.”

Posted March 22nd, 2019, Asmussen, the torture of racehorses and agonizing death of Nehro

The PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – video reveals the footage from an undercover journalist working with horses in the ‘industry. Race horses are pushed and trained through serious injuries and pain. By using a cocktail of performance enhancing drugs as well as pain-masking drugs, regardless of having terrific injuries in their feet and joints, the horses are run to death.

This reassures me that horse racing is lame. Ironic pun. It’s a cruel and vicious ‘sport’ – using an animal to do the dirty work while people profit with dirty money. It’s up there with dog fighting, bull fighting and trophy hunting.

The extreme pain due to rotting and breaking shoes on their hooves is enough to reveal that they should not be running at all.

Lasix drug debate which is bleeding US horse racing dry

I looked up some of the drugs mentioned, and found this  Lasix: the drug debate which is bleeding US horse racing dry

and found this, Lasix Kentucky Derby Horses Use a Drug Banned Everywhere Else

“Nearly all of the horses running in the Kentucky Derby will be given a drug on Derby day that is banned in most of the rest of the world.”

Lasix Kentucky Derby Horses Use a Drug Banned Everywhere Else

Pharmacology of furosemide in the horse: a review. “Neither the effect of furosemide on athletic performance nor its efficacy in the prevention of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage has been convincingly demonstrated.”

Since rather than the horse being retired, they are exterminated due to the nature of almost any injury to the legs, I absolutely loathe the sport. I object to treating an animal with cruelty. Horses are beautiful and gentle creatures. The concept of racing horses was  here long ago. This article shows a lot of the history of horse racing. “While the modern-day sport did originate in Britain, horses have been racing for as long as they have been domesticated. Nomadic tribesmen raced horses in Central Asia as far back as 4500 BC, while the first horseback tournaments on British soil took place around 200 AD.” It mentions that in the western world, horses were originally bred for war. Now it’s not surprising. And the fact that it became a royalty-centered thing in Great Britain, whose reputation went on to colonize and subjugate people from all over the world. It continued a hundred years ago, perpetuated as a sport which had connections with the social elite of Hollywood. And naturally, the excessiveness consumerism within modern day capitalism, the industrialization of just about everything and quantifying everything over how much profit it can generate, has outweighed again and again a respect and value for the natural world. In this game, the horse is a disposable commodity, which is valued by how much money it can generate. What is up with the American addiction to an excessive use of drugs and chemicals to enhance and control nature (in horse racing, child and adult psychology, agriculture, animal and fish farming, the energy industries) to the point that rather than increasing performance, they are a lethal poison?

Zayne Cowie – Goodbye Earth | Yuval Harari – Master Storytellers are Bankers | Andreas Weber – Economy of the Commons | E. O. Wilson – Half-Earth Project

Zayne Cowie wrote this book which he presents in video. ‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups by Zayne Cowie

Goodbye, Earth written by 9 year old Zayne Cowie on the travesties of grown-ups mis-management leading to climate catastrophe

It appears that an answer to the dilemma of our economic and political system that has been thriving in the past century due to the power of its agreed upon valuation of money over natural resources and the natural world, is the need to use our hearts and minds to create a new system. A system which recognizes and values all life forms and the resources upon which they all depend. Integrally connected and interdependent, requiring clean water, air, soil and the right to life and to wander on the planet. I don’t think that humans have the right to choke the planet with plastic, deplete the spoil and spoil the water and air. This and warming the planet are ecocide. George Monbiot says, Heating the Planet is an Ecocrime.

In my digesthis.wordpress blog Israeli historian, Yuval Harari talks about the power of human stories. Beyond our objective reality, humans have contrived fictional realities and entities, which dictate actions upon which all life depend.

Harari states in his Tedtalk on the rise of humans that “the master storytellers are the big bankers, the finance ministers, the prime ministers. They tell us a very convincing story and if everyone believes this story, it actually works.”

“Money is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans; it is the only story everybody believes.”

Species all over the planet are critically endangered due to human population increase, territory intrusion, human industrial policies regarding food, housing, energy and transportation demands as well as their tendency to continuously promote war and military might. These activities have damaging repercussions on the health of both humans and the habitats they encroach upon and destroy.

All of creation is dependent upon the decisions made by fictional entities, the storytellers (banks, corporations, governments, religions) and their fictional content (money, shares, development, GDP).

Harari eloquently reveals that “The most important actors in the global economy presently are companies which are legal fictions. Corporations mostly want to make money. And our capitalist system is one built on growth as measured by the Gross Domestic Product. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the healthiest manner of cooperation with the ecosystem of the earth.

George Monbiot published ‘Common Wealth‘ in the Guardian 27th September 2017, subsequently in his blog. “Hope lies with a great, neglected sector of the economy, through which we can create a system that is neither capitalist nor state communist.”

Andreas Weber The Biology of Wonder cover

The German biologist, philosopher and nature writer Andreas Weber recognizes the interconnectedness of humans to nature. In his talk at the conference on “Economics and the Common(s): From Seed Form to Core Paradigm” Weber mentions that though we can maintain aspects of our modus operandi of the age of enlightenment, we need to make a paradigm shift to enlivenment; seeing all life in continuous interrelationship.

“In our question of “what is life?”, we need to look beneath the ‘operating system’ engendered by the enlightenment in which things, life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

This is where Andreas Weber draws the distinction between the repercussions of the enlightenment, in which nature and species have been commodified. “life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

We need to create a paradigm shift, Weber states “we need a new bios, enlivenment; stressing the expressive and experiential qualities of being alive. Instead of looking at nature and life in a causal way, when we see things as they are, they are constantly changing, in an unfolding process of freedom, autonomy and value. Every commons is a material and knowledge commons.”

Enlivenement – we are feeling beings who wish to feel meaningful experiences within a community of other beings.

He recognizes that the wealth and extent of human experience and awe and wonder contributes to the emotional and spiritual health of humans beings. We need the richness of diversity for the wealth of experience in feeling.

Andreas Weber’s book describes how he wishes the world to see natural living systems.

He claims, “Nothing is more open-source than DNA.“

The economy of the commons is naturally anti-capitalist. From within a cell to a whole organism, all life is in compartments with its own boundary. However it’s not a wall, but a permeable boundary, in which the inhabitants are continuously interrelating and crystalizing into a whole, a unity. Quantum physics demonstrates that we affect the outcome of the experiment by observing. When we’re talking about the biosphere, ecology, economy, we are always talking about ourselves.

E.O. Wilson extends this recognition of the importance of the commons, to half of the entire planet devoted to other species. To provide half of the earth for the species whose habitats have been rapidly depleted by the human community and their development, military exercises and energy extraction policies.

“Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.” – E.O. Wilson

Edward O Wilson proposes the Half-Earth project
Devote Half the Surface of the Earth to Nature

Designing an interactive means for all of us around the planet to participate in protecting the flora and fauna of our globe. https://www.half-earthproject.org/pledge-support/

Let’s help him! We can all do this together! Half-Earth is a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity

Edward O Wilson Devote Half Surface of Earth to Nature

 

Half-Earth Project Maps

Take the Half-Earth Pledge Learn Care Act

Chante Tin’sa Kinanzi Po: Still Standing Up for Standing Rock | Earth Injustice

This links to the Black Snake film about Standing Rock

Bobbi Jean, the young Native American woman (featured in the photo with her arm raised) was raised in the Standing Rock community. She spoke of her experiences – walking and running – gathering people of all ages as they went from one to another community.

She said they made prayers with their feet.

She said that there were a lot of magical & spiritual events that happened along the way, among the different people and animals’ that joined in. For many days it rained, and yet when certain people spoke, suddenly the sun burst forth or a wind would woosh in. She knew that the ancestors were present with them in their journey. They walked to enlighten people about the fate of the land and all of the creatures, this sacred land, to money.They eventually landed in Washington D.C., which she said was a culture shock. She Lots of kids participated at different points who developed their own voice about the issue. Elders participated as well. The oil industry and the federal and state governments’ in the pocket of it, created all sorts of obstacles and their own narrative to events. Bobbi Jean continues to inspire and share the story.

This event was a panel discussion with Bobbi Jean Three Legs and Indigenous Water Protectors. Followed by screenings of Black Snake, a 360° virtual reality short film experience featuring citizens of Standing Rock, by Philip Sanchez ’05. It took place at Brown University, sponsored by Native American and Indigenous Studies at Brown, Native American Brown Alumni, and the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

“Sacred Ground. The struggle for clean water continues.”

For more information and to support this cause, go to earthjustice.org

Blurred Media Black Snake Sacred Ground 360 video by Phillip Sanchez

Philip Sanchez’s 360º video Black Snake — Standing Rock — 360° Video is quite powerful; looking at the land that is sacred to the people who have lived there for generations, who know that they are not dispensable.

I had tears in my eyes, resonating with what one of the elder Native American women near the end of the film said.

 

“We’re destroying this earth.There’s no common sense. You’re hurting us, you’re hurting each other.

Don’t you think about life?

Every living thing has got to live. There is a purpose and reason why we are all here. You’re hurting yourselves and this earth. The waters. Everything is connected. My prayer goes out to all of you.”

 

“The story of the Dakota Access Pipeline is a long and difficult one to tell. On its face, it is the story of thousands of Native Americans and their non-Native allies that gathered for months in 2016 to protest the pipeline. However, this is only a small part of a much larger issue. The pipeline brought to a head conflicts about disputed treaty lands, the historical treatment of Native Americans by the Federal Government and the changing relationship between the predominantly white towns of Bismarck / Mandan to the north and the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to the south.”

The XL pipeline has different names depending on its location, which works as a mask to recognizing that it is one and the same black snake that is slithering through the land and sickening it’s waters.

President Trump Presidential Memorandum advance approval of pipeline construction

I was fortunately informed by a fellow ultimate frisbee player who is also keenly interested in protecting the natural world.

“The struggle for clean water continues.”

For more information and to support this cause, go to earthjustice.org
How can we be silent? How can we not see the value of the natural world?

When You Do Nothing, You Are Part of the Problem

Sarah J. S. said this in her facebook post, and then I responded. I just decided to put it out there – un edited – beyond facebook.

Sarah J. S. says:

“Unless you are loud and explicit in your outrage, I consider you complicit in every death at the hands of another white terrorist, every suicide by a transgender American, every black person killed by law enforcement, every Latino child crying for her parents, every Brasilian forest cleared, every Sri Lankan cabinet member who gets sacked or killed, every German protester who’s maced in the forest, every journalist assassinated inside an embassy, EVERYTHING. All of it.

IF YOU ARE SILENT, YOU NO LONGER HAVE THE LUXURY OF THINKING YOURSELF “GOOD.” You simply aren’t a good person. You’re a comfortable person, but you are not good. You are the silent German neighbor in the 1930s who watched your childhood friend forced onto a train. You are the silent American in the 1960s who watched your neighbor return from the hospital with burns on her face.

And if you remain silent in 2018, you have made the decision, however tacit, to support the venomous hate that is galvanizing killers and burning holes into the fabric of humanity.

If you won’t stand proudly in your values, and if you won’t stand with humanitarians on the right side of history, I no longer understand you, and feel no remorse whatsoever in outing you as an oppressor and forcing you to stand in shame in your silence. Your implicit endorsement of oppression does not merit the peace of comfort.

Those of us who feel and respond to the pain of the world have been forced to feel discomfort for so long, while you have made our job harder by “staying out of politics.” Well, it’s not politics anymore, it’s life and death, and if you can’t be woken up enough to support life, may you find enough delusion to sustain you when they come for you—as they certainly will—and no neighbors come to your rescue.”

I respond.

I met Sarah J.S. when we were both participating in the http://placetob.org during the Paris climate talks. everyone there, from all over the world, were either there representing their countries who had already been devastated in the years preceding by global warming; from parts of the world feeling the brunt of the loss of their land to water or victims of massive storms- which most of the Global Northern hemisphere have been causing because of their appetites and demands for energy and comfort. There were people there who have gone all over the globe to do things to help people to help themselves, to stand up to industries and recognize that their forests are worth more alive, than dead, etc. we are living in a strange lie, in which incessant building and focus on profit, continues to wipe out community, compassion, empathy, connectedness (to one another and to nature and other life). The world is a big place, so that unless you know someone who is victimized by losing their access to clean water and air due to fracking or coal mining or oil spills, it just doesn’t really impact you. I grew up eating meat, driving in cars, living in a spacious home, when the word extinction was not used, it was a far off idea. Now, we live in a world in which everything is continually commodified – and it’s been sort of backed up with Christian ideology. The cows and pigs are there for humans to consume. We are, so the idea has been, at the top of the pyramid. We displaced the native Americans (but kept their names of territories as a nice gesture) and basically eradicated them. Native American indigenous people traditionally used only what they needed, and saw their connection and relationship to all of life – as something to honor. Western man has cut off any recognition of how they are part of a much larger web, in which all of this is splendor and awesome, and of which, man is only a small part. But humans have become so obsessive about material acquisition and domination, that they are just absolutely killing the planet and displacing all the life forms. The talk of walls, a border wall, is the most loathsome thing as far as all the OTHER LIFE FORMS ON THE PLANET WHO ACTUALLY DON’T HAVE POLITICAL BORDERS – THEY ARE ANIMALS THAT NORMALLY ROAM. WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE? WHAT THE FUCK? every time some new mall or Wallmart or Costco or housing development, or highway cuts through land, it is killing off all the species. the idea of ever continuing to exploit oil and coal, or mines are just destroying habitats. the idea of minding the arctic or antarctic or bottom of the ocean, to just take, take, take and build, build build…is crippling every other species. we do not need new updated iPhones and computers and whatever in shorter and shorter generations. we have the capacity to do much more with our minds and hearts, and we are just continually seduced and misguided by media, and beguiled, yes, completely misinformed and used by political leaders. the billionaires club. All other life forms, people, air, water, land…are not valued as something worth alive, and left to be in its best form. we are fucking everything up as we continually build, increase square footage of homes, plow down trees, wipe out communal spaces, privatize, obsess about making a profit, obsess about acquiring things, relying more and more on the automobile, on comfort, on ease..okay well, I thought I’d add a few words to Sarah J.S.‘s