Sass the police of the white elite and they will kill you

A friend told me all she knew was that a white policeman shot and killed a black teenager. She asked me what had really happened.  I said:


The black kids did not heed and instantly obey when the police ordered them-- in what I’m sure was a derogatory fashion--  to get on the sidewalk instead of walking in the street. That’s the entire basis of the whole encounter.  When the black kids sassed them back the cops were enraged, especially the killer.  Even when Michael Brown was trying to appease him and walking in the “correct” direction the cop kept firing at him…most of the bullets into his back. The kid had his hands in the air.  He even said: “Don’t shoot me.” 

There are cell phone videos which the authorities are doing everything to suppress.  The white cop killed him because the cop was in a rage of hatred because he thought the black kids “dissed” him. That’s it, pure and simple. But now the entanglement of lies lies lies. 

All this takes place in an environment of permissible and encouraged racism from the Ferguson police that has been going on for decades.  Over all this time the police became more and more empowered in their attitudes to treat black people as inferior subjects.  The store robbery police tried to connect after the fact was not known at the time by the police in the car that was harassing the kids. Police found that out later when they went back to the station and tried to connect it as part of their development of what they would be testalying, the word  American police made up themselves to describe to each other what they were doing in courts and reports. 

Fact never to be forgotten:  the police were so disordered about this that they insisted on leaving Michael Brown’s body in the street for FOUR hours and didn’t allow anyone to touch it, cover it, or go near it.  There is no better proof that cops and civil authorities of Ferguson had gone berserk behind their closed doors as they tried desperately to figure out a way not to be held accountable for the outright and unjustified killing.  If it had been the middle of the night the police probably would have moved the body in order to try to falsify what happened. Once it had happened in the clear light of day they were desperate.

Everything going on now has to do with the police trying to maintain their power along with a determination not to blamed for what they have done wrong.  The magnitude of the police reaction to the protesters is another proof of the knowledge inside the police and civic officials that a wrong and evil act was perpetrated. In a more innocent example, it resembles a child who talks louder when he realizes he is being caught in a lie. 

Second Fact never to be forgotten: For decades police continuously stopped cars and levied fines on those in the black community, an encouraged practice that funded a large part of the city's budget. Abusing black people in this way had been going on so long it was a very short step to shoot to kill just because one of them had the temerity to sass a policeman.

If you watch “Democracy Now” on Link TV you'll get all the real facts directly. This news program and The Nation magazine are the only consistently reliable sources of reporting that allows people to know what is going on in the country, without the spin, distortions, avoidances, elisions and outright lies of the commercially owned and controlled media. 

Web of life

I've been meditating on the web of life and how we humans -- as part of our journey called "progress" -- have acted more and more in innumerable ways as if it had nothing in the world to do with us. Astounding.

Who Cares About Butterflies?

Sept 11 2014 Who cares about butterflies?  They’ve always been around.  The gravely diminishing population of the Monarch butterflies is something humanity would scarcely have noticed at another time.  However we now live at a nexus calling for us to see and approach differently the world in which we live.  Humanity’s next evolutionary step has to start now, a step in which we think in new ways about the web of life within  which we have our being.  Mankind as the conqueror of nature and the entitled rampant killer has to give way to another way of thinking.

Not just for new concepts of morality but for survival of the web of life – which we have rarely considered with the relevant and necessary vision.  Mankind’s path of triumphalism has been predicated on a vision of humanity as above and apart from nature. Earlier in the 20^th century politicians and developers boastfully said:  “We will make the deserts bloom,” not realizing that the deserts already bloomed in ways differently than suburban gardens.

We need to become seers (see-ers) and activists.  Today’s example is “Roundup,” Monsanto’s herbicide, a poison similar to the “Agent Orange” used to devastate lives and the countryside in the Viet Nam war.  “RoundUp is made of glyphosate, the primary active ingredient and Agent Orange of our time,” according to Natural Society.

Read more:  http://naturalsociety.com/still-eating-agent-orange/

Using herbicides like Monsanto's Roundup on genetically engineered (GE) crops is destroying a significant portion of the Monarch butterflies breeding habitat.

We are asked to implore the the U.S. government to take urgent action in listing the Monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/mailalert/969/monsanto-vs-monarchs-millions-of-butterflies-disappearing

Androcles Says: Elephant killings Increase

Androcles Says: Elephant killings Increase

Elephant killings Increase

Animal protectors and other groups cannot withstand the growing massacre of elephants for their tusks.  For a long time I've winced every time I see an "ivory" object on Antiques Roadshow even though they carefully point out that these items are from elephants killed a very long time ago, even though they say they will not show "new ivory."  I wrote to the show today.

" Dear Directors, Editors, and Producers of Antique Roadshow – With countless others I am a fan of your programs. However, I  am asking you to reconsider the showing of even antique ivory objects.  The argument is made that these objects represent human artistry from long-dead elephants.  However, even the special sound of an appraiser’s voice saying “ivory” can ignite the desire in human beings to possess ivory objects.  Just as even the wearing of antique furs encourages others to buy new furs.  I note that you do not feature furs – an excellent decision.

Please think about the influence of showing antique ivory – you may think of it as subtle.  Rather,  it is a compelling message causing humans to want to possess such vaunted things.  The caveats -- pointing out that this is antique ivory -- do not have the power to override the concomitant praise given to the object. Saying “ivory” is the cultural equivalent of saying “diamond.” It impels a desire in the consumerist peoples of the world.  The proof of this statement lies in the ravening business of killing elephants for their tusks, a business which is growing rather than lessening.

Take a higher road.  The killing of elephants by poachers has reached one every fifteen mintues.  Please join the consciousness now arising which calls on us to regard the web of life as humans have never regarded it before.  We live WITHIN it, not apart from it, not above it.  We must develop new approaches to thinking and caring about it – for the sake of our souls, for the sake of life itself.  Every destructive act resonates more than we have ever realized before.  Please become part of the new realization, the new way to be a human on the living planet, our only home.  Please stop praising and appraising the sad relics of dead elephants, no matter how humans may have tried to transform them.  It’s not actually so different from showing a lamp shade made of human skin, no matter how “beautifully” it may be done.

Thank you for reading this letter.  A response would be most welcome"

THE WAR IN AMERICA YOU NEVER SEE IN THE NEWS

A war within America grows more aggressive every day – never seen in the news --  the war against animals and insects such as bees.  Thousands of animals are killed every day by the US Department of Agriculture Wildlife Service (USDA WS) and the U.S. Forest Service.  Yes, hundreds of professional killers hired by the government go to work every day in America  to produce as many animal corpses as possible. 

 To learn more, on the Internet go to Defenders of Wildlife, In Defense of Animals, and World Wildlife Service.  Among the many animal groups these three are the ones I interact with most frequently.

These groups keep us informed about local, state and national bills concerning animal welfare and, more somberly, the ongoing massacres organized by the federal government,  paid for with taxpayer money.  Some states have their own programs of killing.

I am distressed beyond endurance about government spending of tens of millions of our tax dollars to kill more than 100,000 wolves, bobcats, foxes, black bears and other native carnivores every year.

See below for a listing of just some of the animal-kill news from today.

What does it matter? 

No American citizen has been allowed to vote on the government’s massacre of "wild" animals in the west. The real push to kill them comes from wealthy businessmen and ranchers of the cattle industry who impel these actions in exchange for their campaign contributions. All land is for the cattle industry – they get the government to kill all other creatures to increase their convenience and profits.  No one has voted to turn the American west over to the cattle industry.  American advisors continually counsel "emerging" countries to protect rather than kill their native wildlife since the native animal life is such an integral part of each country's identity and heritage. What about  America? These animals are as American as you and I.

We have to look differently into humanity's place on earth. All humans, including Americans, exist WITHIN the web of life -- not apart or above it. Why continue to ignore the signs that illustrate the need for us to become guardians of the web of life? Not just for moral reasons but for survival itself. No one knows where the tipping point is as we trample about in the web of life as if our rubber stamping of the bottom line policies of out dated capitalist practices would ultimately protect or save us.  Really?

The killing of wild horses and wolves and the other native American animals sends a message to children and to all the peoples of the world. Nothing is so powerful as the example.  Do we want to continue using killing as a knee-jerk solution to mis-labeled “problems?”  The dollars these animal killers fold into their bank accounts are for today. The destruction is for eternity.

In the new consciousness now arising about humanity's place on earth we see clearly that it's not just a momentary choice but a necessity to become guardians rather than senseless destroyers of the web of life. We are not apart or above it.  Within it we have our being and our hope.  No one knows whether or if a human soul exists.  If it does, can you think of a more abiding place than the web of life itself?  

TODAY’S ANIMAL MASSACRE NEWS;

--In Montana the state legislature has a bill to increase the number of otters the state is allowed to trap and kill.

--At Bush Airport in Houston they are killing thousands of birds.

--In Kentucky they are using gas chambers identical to those used in the Nazi genocide to kill cats, dogs and other animals at shelters

--In Annapolis Maryland they have contracted with the U.S. Wildlife Services to kill deer in a 90 acre woodland.

--The City of Berkeley in California has proposed to kill  up to a thousand of California Ground Squirrels and Western Pocket Gophers in Cesar Chavez Park, formerly known as Berkeley Landfill,  situated along San Francisco Bay.

--Idaho and its macho governor, Butch Otter, hold rallies to kill wolves. The state now is revealed as using traps to torture and crush lynxes. The government appears to want the state to contain only commercial development and housing tracts. Earlier this year, Idaho officials hired a hunter/trapper to kill two entire wolf families in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area, and then, in cooperation with USDA Wildlife Services, gunned down another 23 wolves from helicopters. Idaho State Senator, Bert Brackett sponsored a bill to allocate $2 million of taxpayer money to kill hundreds of wolves.  Idaho officials stood by private parties who conducted wolf and coyote killing contests, with no objection to a private foundation's $500 bounty for each wolf killed.

--In Holley, New York the Fire Department is gearing up for the eighth annual fundraiser “Squirrel Slam,”  which gives prizes to persons, including children of 14 and upwards,  who kill the most and largest squirrels.

--Many large companies, especially Proctor & Gamble, continue to torture and kill thousands of animals such as rabbits and cats by out-of-date and ineffective “testing” so they can boast of cosmetic and other products as being hypo-allergenic. Representative Jim Moran of Virginia introduced a new bill to end animal testing in cosmetics,  H.R. 4148, entitled the "Humane Cosmetics Act," which would prohibit animal testing in the U.S. cosmetics industry and phase out the sale of cosmetics tested on animals in other countries.

Moran said "The U.S. can and should phase out the use of animals in cosmetic safety testing. Not only are animal-based tests fundamentally inhumane, they also rely on outmoded science that can fail to accurately predict safety for humans." 

--Companies such as Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta and others are completely free of government enquiry and sanctions as they make millions on pesticides containing  neonicotinoids, or "neonics," a class of pesticides that many scientific studies have linked to the devastating decline in bee populations across the country. It has been proven that these neonics are toxic to bees. Yet the EPA remains silent and inactive on this matter.

When I have written on the White House or presidential Comment Site, I receive meaningless public relations answers such as the following auto-signed by the President: “My Administration will keep working to protect animal welfare in areas where there is a role for the Federal Government.  Please know I value your perspective, and I appreciate your thoughts on how we can meet our responsibilities.” 

 

This language is appalling in light of the government’s role in animal massacre.  This president has descried elephant poaching in Africa – good for him – but he remains blind and silent to the animal killing war in the United States.  He is not alone – no other president has addressed this tragic American activity.

Why pursue such a cause as animal rights?

I spend a part of every day at my computer with several animal activist groups who organize petition and letter writing campaigns for politicians, corporations, university medical schools and government officials. These groups question, protest and give information about the never ending killing, especially of wild animals in the west, information that is never in the “news,”  which by the way is never news but a distortion, a formulaic and lop-sided glancing glimpse at reality. These sign-up (sigh-up) campaigns usually have a line asking us to personalize the messages.  Someone emailed me that it was a waste of time to write anything personal. A good point really.   Here’s what I said.

Much of the time I do only add my name to petitions because I know that adding another number is the most help I can give.  I know that in general nobody reads these words. You say the Joe Shmoes delete them without reading them. Of course they do – they are part of the sleepwalkers who make up most of humanity.  I know they are there.   Nothing in life is so difficult as communication.  I just keep on and I think it’s better to use the best mind I have at any given moment in this great planetary crisis that most people think is not occurring. Killing our animal co-inhabitants is a significant and deeply meaningful part of the assault on the web of life itself.

Once I’ve written personal comments I post them on my blog and sometimes on Facebook, and to some on my email list. Sometimes when I write to University presidents and people like that I get an answer.  I got an answer from a sheriff a couple of times, a few times from editors. Quite often I get an answer from politicians too, although I know the actual letters don’t have much of a chance to get to them. 

I will continue to write my thoughts and hope that they may edge someone here and there a little closer.  A stranger responded negatively to one of my Facebook comments about wolf and coyote killers – she said it was the first time she had ever seen or heard anyone use the term “wealthy ranchers.”  She thinks there is no such thing. !!!!  I won’t respond because it’s impossible to communicate with anyone who makes such a strange statement, a statement that illuminates so clearly her world which she thinks is the only world.  The obstacles we face are complex and quite terrible, really.  And THEY think the same thing about us.  !!!!   We all think we’re on the right side. 

As humans we can be wrong about anything at any time. In the so-called “wild” a creature who chooses a certain place to walk may be killed and eaten for the mistaken choice while another on another track goes free to live another day. As humans we have thought of ourselves as being superior to nature – a word that can now be interpreted by some of us as the “web of life.” For a long time and still today for some of us, nature is something we conquer…exploit…turn into commerce…transform…fear…think of as a danger.

Some random thinkers referred to the idea throughout time, as far as we know -- the thought that the essential being of our lives is within, not separate from the web of life. Being human, for all our triumphalism, does not mean we can actually transcend nature – the ultimate proof of that lies in the process of our lives and our deaths.  

It has been a complicated dimension of many variations and kinds of persuasion  – the idea that we can be separate from nature, that we are superior to the web of life.  We walk on that path whistling distortions we think will make us safe.  We think our descendants can walk on the same path.

In my small view I feel compelled to think that a different approach to our co-inhabitants on the planet could lead us to different ways of being.  Why do we remain “kill first … take first … win first?”  What has it brought us that we really wanted if we can be truly quiet to think about it for a time?    Evolution awaits us. 

Global Hunting Glorifies Killing Animals

GLOBALHUNTS@AOL.COM  is the contact for Aaron Neilson whose Facebook page shows him smiling and holding his rifle over the corpses of many animals, elephants, lions, bighorn sheep and so on.

I wrote to the company today:

Dear Aaron Neilson -- Killing so-called animals  with modern weapons is not so far from opening fire on other humans in unprotected situations. This approach is out of date and evil. I know you will scoff at what I think. But enlightened visions see another approach to our co-inhabitants on the planet.   Seeing and caring for other creatures leads us to see and understand the web of life, to which we belong. We are not above it, we are within it.  In the web of life is where we have our most essential being and we have no other home.

Killing animals and glorifying yourself for doing so is to proceed backward against common sense and the reality of right now. It illustrates you as an ignorant bully.  All the assault rifles in the world cannot make you into the man you wish you were.  I have seldom seen anything so ugly as your web site, which I note has space only for” likes.”  You may censor out from the page those who have other views but that does not disguise who you are or keep others from seeing you as an ego-obsessed killer of unarmed and helpless creatures, a person who sees beauty in others as a signal to murder by pulling a trigger.

There is no equality and no contest between a person armed to the teeth and an unprotected animal.  It is not  “hunting.”  It is killing.  You are a blight on life itself. 

Must Syria Be Iraq?

I admit to an attitude of mockery toward "commentator" Glenn Beck. However, a friend sent me an excerpt from his broadcast.  I was deeply saddened.  I agree with what Glenn Beck said:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=294976200639003

I sent the comment below to the president and Massachusetts senators.  Although President Obama still promises the most open White House in history I doubt whether mine and other comments are seen or tallied in any useful way. Surveys show we Americans don't want to continue the endless wars, we don't want the President to be Bush II. Yet here we are.

I continue to send occasional comments into the White House's equivalent of the astronomically labeled "Black Holes" in outer space.  This from today:

"NO to U.S. war in Syria, upon Syria or within Syria. Please learn from the bad years that have injured our souls, that have corrupted American ideals, that have killed our people and thousands of innocents, that have bankrupted our country, that have cost us our place as positive examples for the world.

"The lies that led us into Iraq caused harm that will not be resolved in hundreds of years in the Middle East. The dictators we supported in South America have killed tens of thousands and degraded the lives of millions.

"Please, look for a higher and wiser vision. Endless wars have not supported but invalidated our ideals. Continuous political language speaking eloquently for the greatness of America -- when will that be made true and real? How far down must we fall before we see ways to match our actions with our persistent dreams? Do we really want to stand as those of whom they say: "Bring in the big guns. Bring in the killers?" We must look, in MLK's example, for a light we have not yet seen. We must look for a better way."

Helen Thomas Attacked, Even Unto Death

Reporter Helen Thomas of the United Press and the United Press International died last month and there’s been a lot of renewed talk about an offhand remark she made about Israel. She covered the presidents for more than 50 years and was the heart of the Washington press corps. For her remark she was attacked, and all sorts of evil occurred: stripping her of past honors and more. When she was interviewed a few years ago by Playboy they identified her as disgraced.  Following is part of the reaction I wrote in my journal at that time and the last part I wrote while thinking about the continuing calumny heaped on her (even unto death) by jealous people.  They do it because she was a highly accomplished WOMAN who rose above them. You could feel the glee and sanctimony when they heard the remarks and sprang to attack, as if they finally GOT her, as if their minds were famished from years of watching her excellence. I posted the following on the UPI Downhold wire and also in her funeral book.

"When Playboy labeled Helen Thomas “the disgraced dean of the White House press corps,” it bothered me in my heart.

Who is disgraced?  Justice is disgraced when a 35 year old white man is serving a six year sentence for killing his wife while in an adjacent cell a 25 year old black man is in the sixth year of 25 years to life for having marijuana in his pocket.

Torture disgraces all of humanity. Disgraces are common.

Helen Thomas was attacked, maligned, opposed, envied, scorned.  She was not disgraced. Grace could no more be removed from her than her courage and her constant spirit.

When she was removed from her seat I felt a lightning quick silence, like a wave through the air and out to the horizons and around the world. Disgrace was when humans of various kinds hooted and reveled and sprang to opportunities to contribute to the desire to obliterate her. 

The Israeli stuff?  Quibbles like old shreds of debris blown by the wind at the feet of a monument.  Mistake or not, consider why the reaction was so vicious. Other mistakes that result in innumerable deaths and unimaginable destruction, mistakes that hurt the soul of the world – these in their thousands are disregarded, discarded, tossed into the transient box, their perpetrators allowed and welcomed into ordinary life.  We must get on.

In Helen Thomas’s case – mistake or no -- why such a reaction to such a person?

I am a very small person compared to her but in instances when I have stood up in a very strong way I have sometimes felt anger and rage coming at me like a blast from a furnace.  What she stood for was very simple at its core. Now the world is inundated with the infinite verbosity of political and public relations language, language which is dead, which does not breathe. Those who want, in Helen’s way, to find out what happened and to report it – they are scarce on the ground, hard to find in the noise.

What Helen Thomas did in her life will resonate – to borrow from Rilke -- “far beyond life and far beyond time.”

She is and always has been to me a warrior and an exemplar.”

Maybe it's not killing if we do it somewhere else

Less than 90 whales remain in Puget Sound and now the World Wildlife Action Fund reports a consortium of coal companies plan to use trains to move 100 million tons of coal every year from Montana's Powder River Basin to coal terminals to be build in Oregon and Washington. From the terminals the coal goes onto giant barges to be shipped overseas - spewing coal and toxic pollution into orcas' waters.

Along with the destruction of the ocean waters coal pollution will be spread over huge continental areas. Take it somewhere else, get the money, don't look at the killing.

The waters and life in the oceans are as essential to human life as the air we breathe. To destroy life in the oceans leads directly -- and sooner than you think -- to the destruction of all life. Another vision now being developed leads humans to take a role as stewards of life and of the planet and of our fellow inhabitants.
 
This monumental plan by Big Coal exemplifies the bad and ignorant processes that are destroying the world -- get the money now, buy and buttress yourself with luxuries, let somebody else worry about it. That is as wrong-headed and out of date as the inquisition.

As distressing as this plan for profit is the knowledge underlying it:  This destruction and these deaths will not make the front pages of any  mainstream paper nor be reported on any mainstream tv news.  Perhaps when the corpses are floating, a titilating visual, a tsk-tsk.

We cannot trample in the web of life without consequences to ourselves. Beyond the actual terror of this kind of thinking, overriding everything is the damage being done to our souls and to the soul of the world.

Go to World Wildlife Action to sign the petition.  

https://online.nwf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1773

Obama speaks for Elephants but Not For Wildlife of the West

 

“On Monday, President Obama made an unprecedented move in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking.” the Wildlife Conservation Society reported. “In a visit to Tanzania, the President launched a poaching crackdown, dedicating the United States to fighting back against poachers and criminal wildlife traffickers.” 

This touched and surprised me.  “Larger” planetary concerns such as oil drilling and fracking are mired in layers of politics and power.  As to concerns about “wildlife”  has President Obama taken any other action that clearly speaks to the essential matter of wildlife as part of the evolving new approach to human stewardship of the planet?  

Consciousness grows slowly as we see, learn and work to develop a different role in the wellbeing of the planet.  The lives of the “wild” animals who are our co-inhabitants of the earth most often are not considered, or they are placed in secondary or minor positions within the discussion.

The actual concept of the web of life – and especially the reality that we humans live within the web, not above or separate from it – still is thought in the main as poetic or irrelevant or invalid. Business and commercial leaders, if considering the concept at all, demonstrate that they regard the idea primarily as being obstructive to their goals.

Any new approach to planetary thinking has to consider the human position within the animal realm – to which we belong. We are animals. How strange that we flaunt and praise our “civilization” and “progress” while we wear the skins of our fellow beings, enslave them in “meat industries,” trap and use them for experimentation and entertainment.  In the case of elephant and rhino poachers humans often shoot them with tranquilizer darts, then saw off their tusks while they are alive and leave them to die long and horrible deaths – all that for what is called “ivory” to be used for objects or adornments or ground up to sell as potions for sexual potency.

Obama comes late, as most people do, to the global plight of elephants.  But most remarkable, he does not come at all to the American equivalent:  whole sale federally funded massacre of wolves, coyotes, wild horses and other such “wild” animals in the west of the country. There is an industry for rounding up and killing wild horses for their meat. These and other killing actions are fueled primarily by the political contributions and the subsequent power of ranchers who abrogate unto themselves the kind of status formerly held by kings and emperors.  To increase, everlastingly, the profits of the meat industries – America is business - they demand to kill all animals who may encroach or compete from adjacent lands.

Since they are imperial, they see no other options. Since they possess the power of one of the globe’s most profitable businesses, they exist in private kingdoms within the United States. They are no more interfered with than the leaders of other sovereign nations.

Obama takes no stand on the wholesale killing of wildlife in the American west. 

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that American “advisors” routinely use campaigns of education and various kinds of pleadings to convince those in “emerging” nations not to kill the wild animals who are a part of their identity, their heritage, their birthright – and not incidentally the foundation for profitable tourist and travel enterprises that can profoundly affect the quality of their lives. 

There are a few organizations and voices who speak for the animals of the American west.  {These “animals” are as American as you and I!)  However, in the overwhelming snarl of distortions, omissions and lies that comprise so-called news and information in the America that has come to be, they are voices in the wilderness.  

 

Nevada Governor Becomes a Horse Hero

On June 17, 2013, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed a bill paving the way for the State of Nevada to enter into cooperative agreements with organizations to humanely manage mustangs under the State's jurisdiction. Primarily these horses live in the Virginia Range near Reno.

Deniz Bolbol from the American Wild Horse Preservation Group attended the signing ceremony with representatives of local wild horse advocacy groups. The Preservation representatives: "We look forward to working collaboratively with local and national organizations to put in place a humane management program for the Virginia Range horses and prevent them from being removed from their homes on the range."

I wrote to the governor:

"Thank you with all my heart for signing the bill to improve the lives of wild horses.
They are as American as you and I.  They belong to our heritage and our ideals of freedom. They share with us co-habitation on this planet, our only home. 
Your enlightened action is an invaluable example of the kind of approaches we need to take as we become stewards of life -- for the sake of all of us and for our souls."

U.S. Navy Wants to Bring Hell to the Oceans

I am writing to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel about the Navy's plan to blast the oceans with explosives and sonar, bringing torture and death to marine mammals and other destruction we haven't yet realized. 

"Dear Secretary Hagel -- Now that you are even more prominent in the world, please reflect on the new perspectives now arising about the web of life and how we need to be caretakers, shepherds and stewards instead of being those who exploit, harm and kill life on the planet, without thought. 

 We cannot live if we reach a certain tipping point in our destruction of this web, in our harm toward the earth, our only home.  The tipping point is far closer than we thave thought.  Please think, not just for reasons of a deeper morality than the usual, but for reasons of survival of our descendants.

 It's not beyond the realm of possibility that our children and grandchildren will be alive when the waters rise disastrously, when the planet tells us in the ultimate way that the harm we have done has ended forever life as we know it."

"They" Keep Trying To Kill The Wild

Our government's Fish and Wildlife continually bows to pressures to remove protection from "wild" horses, wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs and almost anything else considered "wild" in the western states. The only truly "wild" -- in the meaning of out of control - creatures in the west are the ranchers or "cattle barrons."

The "wild" horses and other "animal" beings in the West are as much or more of an integral part of America the Beautiful as are you and me and any human alive.

When governing forces, local and federal, "manage," corral, torture and kill them, they are killing part of our heritage, part of the dream of this nation to be a light to the world. American advisors continuously work in "developing" countries to persuade them not to eliminate their "wild" animals and "wild" spaces, teaching and trying to get them to see that these are an irreplaceable part of their heritage. As well as being a limitless resource for travel and tourism income.

Are we to be more primitive than those "natives" we seek to educate about care of their lands?

The true driving force behind these movements to kill and eradicate the wild in the west of America comes from the wealthy ranchers who act as kings and despots, separate from the laws and interests of this nation, separate from mankind's historic quest for a more informed morality.

The cattle (meat) industry is a major cause of destruction of the planet, as well as a cause of multiple diseases for the human population. These ranchers need to be seen in the perspective of the reality they actually represent. No matter how much raw money they may have from their meat industries, no matter how much raw money they give to political candidates -- they must be brought to see that they are not apart from humanity, from other living things, or from the planet. There is no option except for us to become stewards instead of killers. We must do this for all of life and all of the dreams that impel us to acts of thoughfulness rather than domination and death.

 

Struggle For "Wild" Horses Continues

These "wild" horses are as much or more than an integral part of America the Beautiful as are you and me and any human alive.

When governing forces, local and federal, "manage," corral, torture and kill them, they are killing part of our heritage, part of the dream of this nation to be a light to the world. American advisors continuously work in "developing" countries to persuade them not to eliminate their "wild" animals and "wild" spaces, teaching and trying to get them to see that these are an irreplaceable part of their heritage. As well as being a limitless resource for travel and tourism income.

Are we to be more primitive than those "natives" we seek to educate about care of their lands? 

The true driving force behind these movements to kill and eradicate the wild in the west of America comes from the wealthy ranchers who act as kings and despots, separate from the laws and interests of this nation, separate from mankind's historic quest for a more informed morality.

The cattle (meat) industry is a major cause of destruction of the planet, as well as a cause of multiple diseases for the human population.  These ranchers need to be seen in the perspective of the reality they actually represent.  No matter how much raw money they may have from their meat industries, no matter how much raw money they give to political candidates -- they must be brought to see that they are not apart from humanity, from other living things, or from the planet. There is no option except for us to become stewards instead of killers. We must do this for all of life and all of the dreams that impel us to acts of thoughfulness rather than domination and death. 

Ignorant official killing in Newton Massachusetts

They found a bear cub in the city of Newton, MA, which has a large population percentage of wealthy, elites, and "well educated" persons.  What to do?   The quickly arrived solution:  Kill it. The options of relocation, sanctuaries, and consultation with wildlife and animal agencies were not even considered.

I wrote to the mayor:

"Treatment of the bear cub -- What a shameful commentary on your community.  What ignorance is revealed.  Can we hope that officials and police of your city can become aware of the evolving consciousness about the web of life itself and the human relationship to all of life?  Unless we develop an enlightened perspective on the natural world a day will come – and not in the far distance but closer to now than you think – when humanity cannot live on this planet. 

 It’s not namby-pamby to protect rather than going immediately to killing when encountering other forms of life.  A more enlightened perspective has to do with our survival. 

 Additionally, is this kind of killing the example you want to hold up to children?  In an increasingly violent time the examples held up from leaders need to be for thoughtfulness, peace and kindness, not knee-jerk murder at random."    

 

China Altman 1 Melrose St #4  Boston MA 02116  617 933 9926

Androcles Says

Androcles Says

RAMPANT KILLING OF WILD HORSES, BURROS AND WOLVES - Speak to the new Secretary of the Interior

Comment to Secretary Sally Jewell:  https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=2437&autologin=true


Androcles said:  The "wild" animals are as valuable and intrinsic a part of the American landscape as any of its historic buildings and monuments.  American advisors continually plead with emerging countries not to destroy their native wildlife because of their irreplaceable value, not just in terms of tourism but in many other ways.  Will we be more ignorant than the emerging cultures we counsel?.

U.S. FORESTRY ALLOWS LOGGING TO DESTROY 800 YEAR OLD TREES

U.S. Forestry allows logging of old growth trees in the Tongass Forest, our nation's largest forest.  Go to http://act.alaskawild.org/sign/Tongass_pcomments_3-20-13/?akid=488.39845.TMS5ww&rd=1&t=3    to add your comments.

 I said: 

These old trees are treasures of our country, of the world, and of the planet.  They are irreplaceable.  In recent times we humans have begun to recognize that trees and other green things sustain the air of the earth -- without it we cannot breathe, we cannot live.  Additionally the old trees --, just like the old virtues of care and kindness and looking beyond the moment -- teach us by example and give us a unique way to see and reflect upon present time, past time and future time.  Just as they are inextricably linked to the air we breathe they are inextricably linked to our spirits.  To kill them is similar to saying, as a culture, that we will kill all our elders.