americans today and tomorrow cling to yesterday

i listen to quite a bit of van morrison- love the man. but i thought i would take a break the other day and listen to the eagles- long road out of eden- and when i got to the second disc- whoa! now, when you think political music- springsteen comes to mind amongst others, but i will hazard a guess that the eagles don't top the list. you should check them out. it's a great set. henley, frey and the gang don't mince words and they skillfully weave them to get their point across- not just about politics but about culture.

it's funny because i used to think i was outside looking in on the culture- and now, i know i am. american culture sucks- arrogant, self-centered, pushy, rude- or at least it's how it has been. apparently, the right wing screwed themselves because from the sounds of things- folks are turning more liberal. sharing and not buying new? good lord! the rapture must be coming!

i admit, i have not been keeping up with what passes for the news these days- i mean there is only so much outright lying and fakery i can stand. and what i do scan the headlines and see, makes me sad. you aren't going to find many places where information is sewn together to formulate the big picture- it's like a mystery to solve, all of the pieces are there but you have to figure it out yourself. gore vidal wrote a fantastic article a while ago and i have not read it's entirety because it was too much. but putting it together with this article i read through today- really makes me sad. sad because americans are not willing to see what this country is today- americans cling to the notion of what we used to be.

i would love to be able to do that, but i can't. i know where we came from and what we are today- and i have a pretty fair idea of where we are headed. it's not a pretty picture. but i don't want to end on a down note- i love clara. she is a treasure and a gem- and if you check out her youtube channel, you won't be disappointed. she has seen much and lived through much- but her spirit lives on.

global unrest looks more likely

than global peace. i have been battling a cold and so have been giving my garden a think. the prognosis this year is drought and continuing drought in many places considered 'bread baskets'- america's west and southwest, australia- not to mention what that will do to livestock. and we have almost 7 billion people- hovering around 6 billion 700 million or so right now- on the planet.

that doesn't bode well for our future. there have already been food riots in places like haiti- and around the world- and hungry and thirsty people are not going to be kind and rational. in fact, the un has posted an article declaring that the growing fresh water crisis in the world- is the single biggest security factor in the future.

it's much to wrap our minds around as we have lived in relative peace and harmony in the land of plenty. but i think it's valuable to think about what we would do in a situation where our families were starving and/or dehydrating and i think it's also valuable to think about keeping our families safe. i have the suspicion it's why we now have american troops stationed within our borders for the first time in modern history and why our police are looking more and more paramilitary.

wars have been started and fought over less- but natural, basic resources for 6+ billion people- not a sustainable, renewable option. people's will to survive is strong but the will is not enough.

Wild Action!

Time again to take action(s)!

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petition your reps for

the wilderness

summertime

as my inlaws are here this week- i am reposting from my archives- namaste- b

as i drove home after dropping hubby off with a buddy for a night of frivolity (aka having a beer or two downtown), i started smelling summer. it's funny how very much memory is made up of smells- but i am very in tune with odors so i guess that's why many of my memories are triggered by smells. freshly mowed yards; fragrant flowers; the heat rising up off the asphalt into the night air- and the sounds of crickets. in the morning, it's birds- but in the evening- crickets. and for a moment, in spite of myself, i enjoyed the moment.

reality has an ugly way of creeping into life's lovely moments- and it brings me around to what i am trying to teach myself- the four noble truths. which, of course, led me around to the dalai lama's visit here in the states:

"Things are not black and white. Things are relative. Things are interdependent. When we look at a situation we have to consider all the factors. ... "You cannot look in one direction. In order to see reality, (you) have to see in three or four or seven dimensions" and that this applies in the economical field, political field and international relations."

which of course led me to al gore's speech and on and on....



which was only part of this post. we are all interconnected. and i think many are feeling this but not realizing it. i believe it is why bush still has a 28% approval rating and congress a 9%. most of the people of america listen to what al gore has to say- and they watch the ice melt and the oceans die- and they see the prices at the pump-- and they know it's wrong; terribly wrong. but they don't know what to do.

i recently read the terrific book 'creating true peace' by thich nhat hanh (thanks to bz at intrepid flame for turning me on to that) and it is a simple book with a simple message- peace starts within. we have to be the change we seek. engaged buddhism is simply that- engaging with fellow human beings regardless of politics, race, religion, etc. on a basic human level. yeah. there's always a catch :) he told me in the book- that i cannot isolate myself but must engage with the community at large- because we are all interdependent on each other as part of the human species. yep. no divisions as human beings. that's tough for me. he explains it's tough for westerners because of our culture of division and exclusion. so, i am living in the moment. life is in a state of flux and life is suffering. but we can overcome that and work together in peace to make the planet a better place for everyone. not just the haves.

not exactly the divisive message that the hard right christians and jews are preaching as they seek to divide and conquer the middle east. and there's no hidden agenda like getting to heaven because life doesn't really end. and that makes sense to me because i know matter doesn't die. and that's comforting to me as face my parents' mortality and the end of my country as i knew it. life constantly changes- nothing is permanent and much of our suffering comes from our attachment to things- whether they be ideas, people, material stuff, power, etc. the attachment to my mom is a tough one. but she, herself, has told my sister and i that we must let her go when she goes as she will be at peace.

so, the smells and sounds and textures of summer brought many thoughts to my mind.

i know i haven't given up on politics per se. i don't believe that we can afford to at this time in history. i just can't approach it in the same way anymore. i don't believe in the system. i don't believe in this current world government nor america's. i don't believe in any of the candidates for president and i cannot justify voting for someone i don't believe has the right view for the direction our country needs to head in. as barack obama heads for the center- he is already too far away from it. he needed to stand up for democracy and for changing the way we do things in america. would he have won? i can't say but i can say that i won't vote for him. i can't. he is just as much a part of the system as hillary clinton and just as disinterested in changing the status quo. al gore forcefully spoke about change. it has to happen. it will happen whether we like it or not. i just wish america would have led the way.

letting go and opening up are concepts that do not come easily for me but i need to find inner peace. i need to find a better way. and i think this buddha guy has something here. :)

Bush: Incompetent To The Bitter End

George W. Bush, the Incompetent-In-Chief of the U.S.A. to the bitter end of his disastrous, criminal Presidency (via C&L; emphasis added):

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private (G8) meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Q.E.D.

And then some.

Now, I wonder whether Bush's BFF, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper was among those who "looked on in shock" or whether he was too busy restraining himself from actually cheering on his idol approvingly.

For some reason (cynicism here), I keep thinking of the First, Fourth and Fifth Principles of Incompetence here ... especially the Fifth Principle.

What do you think?

In any case, where Bush is concerned: looks like it is going to be a loooong goodbye tour to irrelevance indeed.

One more case in point:

The Bush administration, dismissing the recommendations of its top experts, rejected regulating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming Friday, saying it would cripple the U.S. economy.

Meanwhile:

Today, the EPA published its response to the April 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA — which mandated that the agency determine whether greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health — listing various ways to control emissions. In letters attached to the document, however, administration officials “disavow[ed] the document’s conclusions.” The Wall Street Journal reports:

In a letter accompanying the EPA document…Susan Dudley, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, bluntly disavowed the analysis, saying it relied on “untested legal theories” and “cannot be considered Administration policy or representative of the views of the Administration.”

See also this gem and this one.

Or this other one.

(It just never stops, does it?)

Incompetence to the bitter end indeed.

Once again - I told you so.

Yet, how I wish I'd be proven wrong ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)

sustainable living

which is not really the right wording- but i didn't want to scare folks. based on what i know of world events- the fact that there are current food shortages and droughts ravaging the planet and the fact that the corporatocracy of this country and elsewhere is basically doing bupkus to even address the issue of global climate change- i am not terribly optimistic that the 6+ billion folks on this planet are all going to make it. here in the land of plenty, it is inconceivable to us that the drought and famine would ever touch us- but it's coming. there are parts of the south and southwest that have been in drought conditions for years- hell, georgia and tennessee are already battling over water rights. so, what can we do?

it isn't easy to do over night- and i began last year trying stuff out- but my plan is to grow as much food as i can at my home. the meat thing is for another post- but the short answer- when possible buy from local farmers. again, that will be another post. i have invested in heirloom seeds but hey, if you don't want to do that- go to your local nursery or garden center and pick up a few packets of the basics. i intend to save seeds from my plants from year to year- and since i haven't had time to devote to really looking into how- i will save that for another post too. i am lucky to have a backyard at my disposal at my mom's house and i tilled up a patch for a garden this year- and i will get into tilling versus no till methods-- yep. another post :)

there are many americans who live in urban settings or have homes that have a postage stamp yard- like me- so what do you do? well, i am of the opinion that any arable land should be given over to growing food or flowers. i am not a big fan of grass. last year i gave it a try in the front yard with one row of cucumbers- i dug up the flower bed by hand- which is why it was so small :) that, my friends, is very hard work. the cukes came along fine and would have fared better if i watered them at all. being lazy- i didn't want to have to lug 2 mop pails of water down 2 flights of stairs every day. no hose outside.

there are other alternatives to lugging water or ripping up your yard- container or porch gardening is one. community garden plots is another. my area has community garden plots and farmer's markets. square foot gardening can be utilized in small spaces too. really, all it takes is some dirt and a container- add some water and seeds- and give it some sun. it really is that simple. i made compost too- out of paper, yard waste, and veggie peels and whatnot. i didn't add any meat products because of the smell and because it takes a long time to break down. it came out great- and all i did was convert a rubber maid bin with a lid into an urban compost bin. the smell was not as strong as it could have been- had i added meat- and only really smelled funky when i stirred it around. i don't know if i had worms- but ants are ok too- and i had those. i started it in may last year and spread it on the flower beds in late october or so. the soil is great now. i grew veggies in pots and window boxes like there was no tomorrow. i actually overdid because i put too many seeds in the containers. it was trial and error but i learned by doing and got an idea of what plants looked like and how they grew in certain conditions and now, i feel more confident growing more things. i intend to can and freeze as many veggies as i can grow- and i have a bigger compost bin this year. i am planning on adding water catchment and storage this year- as this is going to be important as well. but-- you guessed it (another post.) :)

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11th Hour

The long awaited 11th Hour DVD finally arrived from NETFLIX in my mailbox last week. I've had this in my Saved DVD Queue, like forever it seems; well, at least since I heard he had made this documentary. He would be Leonard DiCaprio, of course.

Here's the trailer, for those of you who've lived under a rock for the past year ~ smile.

Now, most people will talk to you about the most beautiful scenery/children dying or the famous people all talking about the doom and gloom of our climate changing us into fried cheese.

I, on the other hand, want to talk about the very end of the DVD ~ where people talk about the root social causes and ta-da ~ solutions to those real underlying problems we are all facing.

It was so fascinating to me that I did something I almost never do - I rewound just the last few minutes of the DVD to hear what they had to say ~ again.

Words like changing social structure and co-existing with each other so we can better take care of our Mother Earth, were spoken at the tail end of the film. They struck me very powerfully, as these are the very words I would like to hear in mainstream media.

Ya know, we do get it. The theme of losing our ozone layer and frying us like a crisp piece of bacon has been repeated over and over again every time Climate change or Global Warming or Global Cooling or what ever set of words you want to use to describe this place, this time we are living in.

But doesn't someone else besides me want to know something besides the what is happening and the how to be 'more' green'??? BTW ~ I'm so green it's coming out my pores ~ smile.

Like does anyone want to know the WHY, since I was a child and played outside all day, ate mud pies and drank from the hose; we got to this predicament of plastic bottled water, disinfectant white homes and baby/children stalkers everywhere?

Is our future really a Fear-based society with lost connections to our roots, making TV reality show participants more important than our next-door neighbors or extended families?

So People, like this review says ~ we have HOPE! And now for those of you shaking your heads and saying, "Az that's just not so.", I'd have to say YES IT IS! It doesn't matter who won the primaries or secondaries, we can have what ever we want in our lives. Yes, we can and I, for one, refuse to take on this fear; to where we are driven to hide under rocks and not ever get to meet our next-door neighbors because we are told they might be serial killers. Point blank, I refuse.

And the reasons I refuse are three. My grandchildren, the most adorable kids on earth ~ says this proud NaNa. But not only for them, for their play mates and classmates and friends and all the tiny perfect children being born right now. We can't buckle down and believe this fear bull-shit thrown at us from every media source. We must be strong and turn it off; either physically by turning off the boob-tube or emotionally by looking in the mirror and telling ourselves how beautiful we are and the world that surrounds us. We must be strong for the next generation and bring them up like we were to, to love our fellow human being - like we love ourselves. We should smile at our neighbors and the grocery clerk; get off our damn cell phones for one minute to acknowledge the person working for less than minimum wage right in front of our face.

Hope my friends ~ hope is what I leave you with!

Now ~ go and pay it forward to at least three people!

Hugs and Peace!

Holy Crap! Barack Obama Is Black!

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as the Wild Wild Left, the Independent Bloggers Alliance, the Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

Anybody out there ever watch the Family Guy cartoon on the American Goebell’s Network otherwise known as FOX? The only reason to watch FOX is for cartoons such as The Simpsons or The Family Guy. How ironic FOX airs cartoons with satirical commentary about America’s conservative culture.

Anyway, some years ago, an episode of the Family Guy showed imbecile father/husband Peter Griffin watching Star Trek on television. In typical Peter fashion he observed, “Holy crap! Lt. Uhura is black!” Adding to the humor was how Peter watched Star Trek regularly and only realized Uhura was black that very moment.

Watching news coverage of this year’s presidential campaign I feel like everyone from corporate media executives, field reporters and the Clintons have declared: “Holy crap! Barack Obama is black!”

Bill Clinton hoped to diminish the outcome of South Carolina by noting how Jesse Jackson (a black man!) won the primary in 1984 and 1988. In other words just a black man getting a lot of black votes in South Carolina. Black votes can’t possibly be considered as a credible bellwether of a candidate’s political viability unless they’re supporting the Clintons. The media of course fanned the flames of race to further generate hype. Hype is far easier to cover than substance anyway.

Sadly, it will only get worse as we approach Epic Tuesday on February 5th. You will read and hear more “horserace” garbage about the Clintons scheming for the woman vote and using subtle codified language to remind voters that Obama is the “black candidate.” Meanwhile, the John Edwards populist anti-corporate message will be dwarfed, as the media instead focuses on how he splits white southern voters with Hillary Clinton.

Finally, you will begin to read how important Hispanic voters are in states such as California as pundits ponder whether “brown” voters combined with women will help Clinton over Obama. A subtle backdrop to all this is how the corporatist media could never allow John Edwards to prevail because he just might implement policies that benefit wage earners at the expense of America’s corporatist pro-war plutocracy. Populism isn't sexy and doesn't fit into a narrative that reconciles with America's corporatist brain massage machine.

Please forgive me for pointing out that the stakes demand infinitely more respect than treating this election as an insipid beauty contest. For starters, the greatest threat to humanity today is global warming. Nothing else comes close. Certainly not the fear mongering canard known as "radical Islam" exploited by sniveling neo-cons.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cited a report from Independent Alert, a London based peace organization that identified 46 countries with 2.7 billion people where climate change and water-related crises create "a high risk of violent conflict" while an additional 56 countries, with 1.2 billion people "are at high risk of violent conflict." I posted about this very topic in December 2005 and noted evidence of a growing water shortage in the American southwest.

How come we never hear any of the candidates asked about the world’s pending crisis regarding access to fresh water? All the Democratic candidates and John McCain regularly utter platitudes about global warming but have any of them even thought through the challenges ahead once global water shortage reaches critical mass? Has any journalist thought of asking them about the issue during the debates instead of their usual gotcha drivel?

And then there is the minor problem of America’s crumbling infrastructure. Typically, infrastructure and capital projects fall under the bailiwick of state and local governments. Seven years of insipid conservative rule, crony capitalism and tax cuts favoring the rich have created a fiscal calamity for municipal governments nationwide. Perhaps the candidates should be asked if they have a plan to bail out municipal governments and how they intend to pay for it.

In yesterday’s New York Times, William Yardley reported about the increasing demands for infrastructure repairs and the inability of municipal governments to meet their obligations. If you think that isn’t important I suggest talking to those Minnesota families who lost loved ones when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed last summer. And don’t get me started on New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina.

If we're discussing race why not ask the candidates about the number one growth industry in America today: incarcerating young black men to populate our prisons? America’s prison industrial complex is as much a blight on our national soul as Guantanamo. What does Barack Obama think about that? Perhaps he should be asked that question during the debates.

Finally, I realize Americans would prefer to just ignore the world but like it or not, we’re currently occupying two countries. Regardless of whatever propaganda you read about the surge working in Iraq or progress in Afghanistan, our continuing occupation of both countries is ineffective and immoral. Yet how many interviews have you observed with the presidential candidates when they’re not asked a single question about either Iraq or Afghanistan? Why not ask the presidential candidates what they intend to do about the increased opium trade in the United States due to our occupation in Afghanistan?

There is also more to the world than America’s occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Rape and violence against women is used as a weapon in the Congo’s ongoing civil war. Genocide continues in Kenya and Darfur. The Bush Administration, Prime Minister Olmert’s government in Israel and Palestinian President Abbas thought they could simply inhumanely ignore the people of Gaza. As a result there is a border crisis with Egypt to further destabilize the region.

Challenges abound at home and abroad with far reaching repercussions for our society, economy, security and ecosystem. Furthermore, the American empire is disintegrating and the fall out needs to be managed with tolerance and sense. But who cares about any of that? Barack Obama is black! Holy crap!