BP burns creatures alive in incompetent "cleanup"

Androcles comment on BP site:

Please stop burning turtles and other sea life. Please don't make your so-called cleanup actions as murderous as your first assault, which was not an accidental "oil spill." It was a releasing of grotesque calamity through your carelessness. It can be compared to detonating a bomb larger than the one over Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The consequences will extend through many lifetimes.

In addition, perhaps the most troubling part of your company's response to this terrible catastrophe has been the sickening "spin" and public relations convolutions of all that BP says or publishes. It's known your corporation is bigger than the Roman Empire at its greatest; BP is larger and stronger than most nations in the world.

I can speculate that this note will go into the trash or some other collection marked irrelevant. But why cannot your company in its richness and vastness see that it has caused the most grievous assault yet by a single entity upon the planet?

You may call me an idealist or a dreamer but I think the only moral response for BP in its immensity is to take a position never before assumed in human history. BP could become the first empire company of the earth to say something simple and direct: "Yes, our company is responsible for this catastrophe. We cut corners and pushed our subordinates to cut costs in irresponsible ways. Yes, we were encouraged to go further by the multitude of safety violations that piled up without any appreciable notice from the public or from governments.

"Our position has arisen from corporate hubris and our mission to maximize every iota of money possible for our top tier officers and our shareholders. Maximizing profits has surmounted all other matters. We have no adequate plan to repair or to avert this disaster, nor to clean it up. We have caused an assault that affects the entire ecological system of the planet. We are wrong. We were wrong. We are in the process of dismantling the corporation to draw every bit of funding possible so that what remains of the company may be dedicated to doing what can be done in the Gulf of Mexico. Once these resources are exhausted, the corporation BP will no longer exist."

Even then, the end of your empire will not compensate for what you have done.

NY Times asks about the decision to have children

Peter Singer of the New York Times asked for comments on "whether to have a child? . . . what factors entered into your decision?. . . the desirability of adding to the strain that .. .nearly seven billion people already are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. . . . consideration of family history and possibility of a devastating illness, physical or mental? ..."

Androcles commented: "I think it's unwise and edging into a kind of egoist insanity to bring into the world children who will have great suffering. Yet there is the question of, for example, Stephen Hawkins. If genetic testing would have revealed his inevitable condition, should that potential being have been aborted? Is the gene pool so assorted and rich that someone else would have arrived at his conclusions? I think a tentative yes, but obviously the answer is not known.

The American idea of individualism has a lot to answer for -- isn't it the case that most humans are more similar to each other than not? Mathematical/probability question: How many times do we have to toss the genetic dice in order to get a genius or a gifted athlete?

The arrival of Birth Control was a watershed in human history, yet powerful forces throughout the world fight against it. Religions, governments and some cultural forces fight birth control as if it were an evil -- what do they gain from that viewpoint? Could it be thought of as a global version of the suppression of women expressed in the colloquial saw: "Keep them barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." The concept of a woman's being "caught" by pregnancy and therefore revealed as a sexual (not to say sinful) being is still valid in most of the world. Americans in particular are still juvenile about sex, regarding it as something separate from life, fighting sex education and so on.

Remember "Zero Population Growth?" This valid movement was buttressed with wise thought. Yet, among the questions that arise: If so-called sophisticated societies eschew large families or any families and so-called emerging societies are denied the same birth control and knowledge that brought about this decision in the former societies -- what are we to do with this conundrum?

Obama stops Chukchi Sea Oil Drilling

Androcles to President Obama: "Thank you from my heart for stopping the oil drilling proposed in the Chukchi Sea. What you did is another step forward in the evolutionary development of homo sapiens as shepherds of the planet. We must ask in every instance: does this action harm the world of the earth, the world we don't acknowledge, the world of the earth in which we are creatures along with other creatures and wonderful living things beyond the imagination of our most brilliant minds? We will not survive as dominating killers and destroyers. The planet is not to use up and discard. Let us cherish all the life of the earth and the earth itself, our great home of all time, long before and ever since our linage began. Humanity has no other treasure that can compare with the planet.

Killing as entertainment

Comment sent to Animal Planet TV: "Please re-consider both the title and the premise of "River Monsters." In the evolving thought about the planet is it a good thing to label a living creature as a monster and then kill it for show? In war we label "enemies" with negative words and then kill them. A new vision is necessary. These river creatures are not as monstrous as those who kill them. I like Animal Planet and I question using killing as entertainment. The mainstream channels do it; but there is a higher and brighter ground. Please consider the evolving role of humans as shepherds not killers of the world."

Words to Kerry and Brown re Great Ape Bill

I ask you to support the Great Ape Protection Act, to be introduced soon in the Senate. The U.S. needs to evolve into a society which does not use killing and torture as either a routine solution to problems or as "scientific research." Most actual studies reveal that we do not have to torture humans as part of war or non-humans as part of "research."

Millions of federal research dollars are be wasted on the ineffective and unethical "research use" of chimpanzees. I want my tax dollars to be spent on superior methods that include ethical, human-centered studies, in vitro testing, and tissue engineering.

Why is torture in secrecy still part of the America way? Studies show that chimpanzees, intelligent and social, suffer extremely in laboratories from pain, anxiety, fear, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Since they are long-lived this can go on for decades as regulations permit them to be kept in cages the size of a kitchen table, placed in isolation, and repeatedly physically harmed.

Tourists Pay to Kill Lions as Trophies

In South Africa some 4,000 trapped lions are shot to death each year by rich tourists. This legal business practice,"Canned Hunting," makes money by breeding lions in captivity. When they are cubs tourists pay to cuddle them. When they grow larger they are locked in fenced areas where they cannot escape tourists who pay to kill them for trophies.

Up to 50,000 Euros is charged for permission to kill and take away the corpse of an adult male lion. From 2006 to 2008 the number of shot lions more than tripled; most of the killed were born in captivity. More of these coward-hunters are expected this year since South Africa hosts the World Cup.

Such practices in regard especially to foxes are permitted as business operations in some American states. The hand-reared foxes are put into fenced areas where pseudo-hunters can kill them, usually by following one of the human-friendly foxes up to a fence barrier and blasting it with an assault rifle. Additional money comes from the luxurious hunting lodges provided for customers.

All of this relates, of course, to the business of whale killing. With technically advanced search devices and military guns those on whaling ships are doing the equivalent of shooting fish in a bucket.

Our species uses the phrase "homo sapiens" to describe itself; maybe a better phrase would be something like homo assassinios. Comes a time...maybe...when -- many generations beyond now -- our descendants will say: "Why did they kill so unceasingly? Why was killing at the heart of their lives?"

Think this over-stated? Almost nothing is more political than eating. Each American eating meat from supermarkets and restaurants participates in the death of more than two thousand animals a year.

Then "civilization" adds in all matter of pseudo-hunters, baby seal killers, whalers, poachers, bushmeat eaters -- hundreds more. One study shows the English language has 85 words relating to killing, including:

ecocide destruction of the entire natural environment
ethnocide destruction of an entire culture
genocide destruction of an entire national, ethnic or religious group
mundicide destruction of the entire world
onmicide destruction of all living things
populicide killing of all people
speciocide killing of a species

To protest canned hunting in South Africa: https://www.secureconnect.at/4pfoten.org/petition/100427/

Obama may permit commercial whaling

As a candidate Barack Obama declared that commercial whaling was “unacceptable.” Now as President, his International Whaling Commission (IWC) delegates are currently backing a plan that would legitimize commercial whaling for the first time in over 20 years.

Greenpeace link: http://us.greenpeace.org/site/DocServer/Photos_to_Save_the_Whales_Toolkit.pdf?docID=521

Androcles wrote Obama: "As a candidate you said commercial whaling was 'unacceptable." Changing your policy on whaling is more than 'unacceptable' -- it's horrifying. The world has moved beyond promoting mass murder of species. I do not want my America to join the nations who pursue such ignorant practices. All of knowledge and all of history stand against mass killings as an acceptable answer to anything in life itself. Stewardship of the earth has to replace 'anything for business.' I plead that you do not go backward. Stand with life, not death. Please."