With regards to Obama and HOPE I would like to make this point.
There are, in our world, two lobby groups - the political elites (including the corporations, banks) and the media, and then there's us, the people. We the people are by far the most powerful of these groups, given that we pay the governments wages.... and lots of us work for the government (public servants). They however are by far the most consistent, in terms of a willingness to keep doing what they do, and too bad if we are in the way - collateral damage, so to speak (which is, as we know, quite acceptable to those who launch wars).
The state of play is such that there is no time to wait and see how our Governments and their backers respond to the deeply felt need to act, thus we must start to PUSH real hard to do more than merely influence Government - we must direct it or subvert it. Non-violently of course!
We must do everything we can to shift POWER away from the executive, back to the grass roots.
So here's a critical analysis of my won, flawed as it is, which I would like you to comment upon, of the climate change mainstream movement that ties in most of the issues facing all of us. War and Climate Change are not seperate issues, but inextricably intertwined.
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1. Hey folks, geuss what! THE Climate changes. Always has and always will. Because of what we call natural dynamic equilibrium. A finely tuned balancing process that ALL LIFE ON EARTH IS ENGAGED IN. Fine.
2. Did you know that the billions of industrially farmed animals, (10 billion are slaughtered annually for the US) market fed on soy/grain processed foods, for which their stomachs are, in evolutionary biological terms, unprepared for, fart quite alot more than they would if they were grazing. They fart Methane. In fact they fart so bad, so frequently they have to be treated with medicines to stay alive.
Lots of methane! Lots of medicines. Someones making a killing.... excuse the pun.
Can you imagine what it's like to live with constant farting, just how uncomfortable that might be?
And in the USA where the car is king, the car is responsible for 3-4% of greenhouse carbon type gas emissions... Methane produced by the aformentioned murdered beasties accounts for 20% of carbon greenhouse gas emissions.
3. NOBODY in the mainstream climate change movement or in the IPCC is talking about this....( not true .... the chair of the IPCC Dr, Rajendra Pachauri,a vegetarian urges that we drastically reduce meat consumption, for all the above reasons and for human health reasons to....)
4. The bulk of the maisntream talk is about fossil fuels, plastic shopping bags, energy wastage etc etc and the suggested alternatives are green fuels, 'renweable energy', swiutching off at the powerpoint, and eco shopping bags. All useful, yet I have this nagging feeling......hmmmmmmm.
5. Did you know that the invisible 'externailsed' costs of manufacturing a car are in the region of ten to fifteen time the $ cost of the fuels used to power those cars ... and NO REMEDIAL action is being taken to deal with those costs, in environmental terms - such as loss of habitat, pollution, loss of livelihood for indigenous peoples, soil depletion, flooding etc etc etc... AND GREEN FUELS AIN'T GONNA MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE OTHER THAN MORE DEFORESTATION and NOBODY on the IPCC is talking about this (THE EXTERNALISED COSTS) either!
6. The single biggest activity our culture has engaged in since the time of the Babylonians is, along with WAR and SHOPPING, DEFORESTATION so as to create farmland, and in particular commodity crops - tea,sugar cane, cotton, flax, wheat, barley etc etc....
7. SO.. why not employ millions of people to plant premaculture type forests, for harvestable local food, for materials and for the animals to have some home again! Good work, healthy work, great fun, even children could get in on it!
Why not?
It's not going to be promoted by Government or Corporations - Because there is no easy PROFIT to get from it, thats why.
8. NOBODY in the mainstream or in the IPCC is talking about this....
9. The 'technological fixes' will of course be touted as the way out because those can be a source of profits....... as long as we can continue to work for others and shop to self medicate the psychic pain of being made dependent ...... instead of being self-reliant living creatures of Earth.
10. SO TO ALL CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS - WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP THINKING WITHIN THE LIMITED CONCEPTS THAT YOU HAVE BEEN FED TO THINK WITH, AND THINK WITH YOUR HEARTS AND YOUR INNER INTELLIGENCE.
11. (an extra free point, becuse I care) .... re point 10 .... NOBODY in the mainstream or in the IPCC is talking about this....
and finally
One other salient point - WE MUST STOP INDUSTRIALISED WAR as a prerequisite to any other changes.... because WE CAN, and THIS IS NON-NEGOTIABLE...
We need to do this because we know the harm it causes, because unless we stop this fighting we cannot ever hope to co-operate, and if we do make this happen, then those who are at the hard and bloddy end of the wars will see that WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY and that we're not doing this simply because we are fearful and wish to preserve our fat life-styles, by greening our 'economies' rather than changing the way we do things.
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ps :
"Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called 'neuroses', 'psychoses' and related forms of suffering are nothing to do with faulty biology; nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.
Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning).
Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.
One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society."
From David Smail..... (see my posting below ..... "Power, psychological distress and Society"
and pps : I have a new video out of a song called "I saw Vishnu" recorded live in Brighton, it's on youtube, facebook and myspace..
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k2JWV9QRwc8Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's your gift to universe
