(venus as the morning star rising with la luna bella)
(a reprise from March, 2013; still relevant, methinks.)
From Sweet honey in the rock’s ‘We Are’ (sadly, their original’s been removed).
For each child that’s born, a morning star rises
and sings to the universe who we are
we are mothers of courage, fathers of time
we are daughters of dust and sons of great vision
we are sisters of mercy and brothers of love
we’re lovers of life and the builders of nations
we’re seekers of truth and keepers of faith
makers of peace and the wisdom of ages
We are our grandmothers’ prayers
and we are out grandfathers’ dreamings
we are one…’
Imagine for a moment that at our cores, we are all those things, with almost limitless potential for growth, love, justice, and regard and innate knowledge that we’re a tiny bit of a magnificent whole when we’re born. It’s often said that at least in western society, our programming begins soon after birth, and by the time we reach age six, our minds and bodies are already on auto-pilot, reacting mainly to our unconscious mind’s directives, definitions, family relationships, and socializations. Then for most of us, our schools trained us further in obedience to authoritarianism, homogeneity, rote learning, forced to metaphorically ‘only color within the lines’. Our creativity is thus stifled and suspect; our value to society is calibrated and parsed as ‘earning potential’ or patriotic contributions; we’re assured we ‘can all grow up to be President one day’ if we just work hard enough toward that goal.
We’re taught lies about our nations’ history, and taught who to fear, and why. We learn that competition is the key, and that losing is fine as long as we learn to lose graciously. But we also learn that that’s a lie: society only values winners, as do our teachers and schools. Along the way, we learn to present false faces to the world in order to hide our true feelings and reactions, in order to be accepted by our peers, and began to find our tribal affiliations early, and behave with bias toward those outside our circles. Most of us learned The Rules Writ Large, and when we deviated from them, learned to lie to the authority figures in our lives about our transgressions, or even worse: to lie to ourselves.
Often the silent communications, not the ones given voice, were the most powerful. We internalized the voices of those critical of us as sons, granddaughters, teachers, or siblings only too well, and those concepts of ourselves became dominant in our subconscious minds only too often. Our use of language then represented the themes and understanding we’d learned: the limitations, the violent framings, the fear of ‘the other’, the roles we would play, and the ‘fact’ that we were indeed separate beings: distinctly separate not only from each other, but from the planet and ecosphere as well. Our beautiful blue-green planet was there for us to tame, to use, abuse, and disregard as yet another ‘Other’.
We learned the language that described a common reality, but not the only reality.
Some of us, though, were blessed with some portion of grace that allowed us to explore things unseen, and occasionally be stopped by some revelatory beauty that pushed us into a state of Being that was foreign, but so full that we…explored more, desired more of the intangible, ineffable…inner poetry of life.
Perhaps our small epiphanies came through meditation, prayer, spiritual teachings, or we may even have been aided by imbibing the sacrament, lysergic acid, or one of the psychotropic botanicals; no matter. But we learned to try to stop the clock more often, and focus on our awareness…our mindfulness more fully, in appreciation of Being; just gloriously…being. We may have begun the process of choosing what we valued most highly in life, through things not learned conventionally, but by our souls and spirits filling with bits of ecstasy, and a sense of rightness, satisfaction and fullness of the knowledge imparted to us. We may have begun our search for our inner truth, and were willing to even meet our Dark Sides, our shadows, in order to either do with battle them, or elbow them gently out of the way in order to create space for our deeper selves that are made of light, water, electromagnetic energy and…stardust.
Our journeys along the roads less traveled would likely have been intermittent, we may have lost patience in perfecting the practices we intuited would bring increase illumination and peace, but we always knew that there was a place inside we could return to for nourishment and rest, if only we would stop the clock, stop time…and just Be. Breathe our Beingness. And feel our connections to other ethereal selves, their humming, vibrant electrochemistry that connects us all, and connects us to…the mother planet as she nourishes and grounds us, as we send our roots down into her restorative mantle. We can Walk in Beauty.
Beauty before…beauty behind
Beauty above…beauty below
Beauty all around
Love will lay hatred down
We are just about to come out of a long winter of discontent and fear, filled with the knowledge that there is a malign vortex that is threatening to pull us into a dark hole of planetary annihilation and physical want and pain. The Greater Vampire Squid is below the sea, its tentacles grasping and reaching and pulling and sucking and…creating the whirlpool into which we sense we may be pulled under – soon. All evidence indicates that the small craft we’ve fashioned for ourselves in order to live, survive and thrive just aren’t adequate for the task of escape from its clutches, no matter how hard we paddle or row. Our lives are being stolen wholesale, our planet subdivided, rented and raped.
‘We are living in that tragic moment of eerie stillness where the fatal damage has been done, widening cracks can be seen, yet the edifice still stands and business as usual continues; but for how much longer?
Our days may be shadowed by this dark realization, but there is reason to be deeply optimistic for “where danger is, grows the saving power also.” Never before has the tantalizing possibility of a Global Spring, a worldwide people’s insurgency for democracy, seemed as close. In this, the era of the total and transcendent indignato swarm, we look to each other, not to the masters above, to find out what it will take to pull off the ultimate culture jam: spiritual insurrection.’
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Yes, yes, the next revolution of spirit that’s being predicted by so many Indigenous peoples; an evolutionary leap of higher consciousness in which we rediscover our natural heritage, heal the earth and learn to live sustainably and cooperatively. A time of horizontal democracy where all might have a voice; each citizen is valued just for…being. The albino mammals being predicted as harbingers of the great change are being born, and the Indigenous Women are ascendant, organizing resistance and teaching their youth. From Saskatchewan to Pine Ridge, from the Maori in New Zealand, to the global Rising Up! the women are bringing their wisdom and vision to bear for the good of the earth and the people. Perhaps the men who are allied with them realize that the time is right for a bit more yin than yang.
The Indigenous cry: One Tribe, One World!…and understand that it must be that way if we are to heal the world, and create a better one.
If the time is upon us for a nonviolent global revolution, a time that we peasants throw off the yokes of our servitude and sense of powerlessness before the oppressive Behemoth of Doom, there will be hard days ahead. Behind the scenes, many are experimenting with new models, rediscovering older and simpler ways, working outside the machine as much as possible.
But the clearest reason (at least to me) that it must be driven by a wildfire of opening the of doors of consciousness is that without that inspired newness and even ecstasy…nothing that comes next will flourish. No new economic models, democracy models, business models, agricultural or energy models will take hold if we are not changed into more enlightened human beings who understand that we all must be honored, we all must be considered in any just models. We can be, we must be; it’s all that’s left, and it has been foretold. A spiritual insurrection is on the way.
The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.
~ Vergil, The Aeneid
It’s time to remember back, back, back…to the time when we knew that we are luminous beings of truth and honesty and trust, and that we can tap into innate Wisdom of the Ages that’s available when we’re still, and…stop time; then peer inside, and reach upward and outward to collect the wisdom of our ancestors that circles the globe aloft. To be the tree between the heavens and the earth, between the conscious and cosmic collective unconscious (some call the ‘noosphere’)….
In your still time, perhaps tie a key onto the long tail of a kite in your mind, run out into the storm until it’s aloft, and lightning comes down zzzzzzzt to the key. Use that supercharged key to open any door you wish. Find yourself again, whether you be a child of the wind, water, fire or earth, or of God as you know her. Open your heart and your soul to others; it will feed you and free you…and me. The danger is real, the risks are great, but soon there may be nothing left to lose…but the Oppressive Foot on our collective backs.
Give us grace and strength to forebear and persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.
~Robert Louis Stevenson~
Put your lights on. Share with others in need what you’re able to spare. The Hippie Credo says that your gifts will be returned to you three-fold, whether actually, or simply by virtue of the joy of sharing.
Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on, you better leave your lights on
Cause there’s a monster living under my bed
Whispering in my ear
There’s an angel, with her hand on my head
She says I’ve got nothing to fear
There’s a darkness living deep in my soul
I’ve still got a purpose to serve
So let your light shine, deep into my home
God, don’t let me lose my nerve
Don’t let me lose my nerve…
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Nice catalyst to reflection.
My immediate reaction is to not this very tiny wren:
Yesterday the House Subcommittee for Defense Appropriations passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2018. Rep. Barbara Lee offered the amendment; it very simply repealed the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force after 9/11 (the “blank check”) and provided 240 days for US troops to get out of all countries in which their actions were authorized by this legislation.
It claws power back from the President to the Congress. That’s why some Republicans voted for it and why it is not automatically “dead on arrival” in the full committee, the House, and the Senate. If it makes through that gauntlet (not recommending holding one’s breath), the Hobson’s choice that it presents the President on signature is: lose his wish list for the military OR lose the “blank check” in initiating wars that the AUMF has given two Presidents already.
That anything that Barbara Lee proffered in that subcommittee got bipartisan approval is significant. This particular language the moreso.
There is a political realignment going on in the local areas of the US. There are lots of alternatives up for grabs — Dana Loesch’s rallying video to the NRA is only one of the fragments humming out there. This little wren of a subcommittee action, fragile as it is, is another. (BTW, someone used the blue background on Dana Loesch’s video to superimpose a Storm Trooper rally from one of the Star Wars films in the background. Added a “litte Leni” touch.
bless your heart for bringing barbara lee’s aspirational amendment, you carolina wren, you. i haven’t seen the video of which you speak, but after a bit o’ rest, i’ll find it. how lovely of you to remember karine polwart, and The Wee Wren, King of Birds…Dedicated to Bringing Peace to the Realm. hope this one embeds; what a peach of a woman she is:
nope it didn’t; this one will have to do; her most excellent live performance should open in a new window.
okay, dana loesch, pistol-packin’ former ‘liberal’. didn’t find the blue screen one w/ storm troopers, but i can live without it./s i’ve been on the fringe of similar discussions at ian welsh’s place, and may i utter a resounding: whooosh.
i wouldn’t doubt that R support for lees amendment has a hella lot to do w/ the crazy number of mixed signals coming out of his military, state dept., and intel services, no?
be absolute for death-the duke of dark corners, m4m.
acceptance of mortality.
the way up is the way down. there’s only one path in this life, but it goes in two directions. one direction is narrow, the other wide. b/c of the direction of the traffic, silly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_of_horn_and_ivory
there are two gates out of the underworld, corresponding to true & false dreams. two ways to ascend, horn & ivory. I had forgotten that Aeneas, unlike Odysseus, ascends by the false gate in Vergil…hmm…taking shots at his own empire-builder?
I may have posted this here before, I love it. there is no music, for you are the music, while the music lasts.
thank you for all of this, j, but most esp. for the ‘gates of horn and ivory’, as i’m a dreamer, and that it references nt only the odyssey, but virgil’s Aeneid, and includes extra passages, i’ll like consulting it. so…john coltrane stilled himself to find the music that vibrated to those thanks to god? are they his words?
I can’t answer your q.’s about Coltrane. on the second one, I assume so.
http://www.coltranechurch.org/
Odysseus is trying to go home. iirc, labor (=labor) in Vergil’s A is associated w/empire building. except here. dreams come from here, b/c Hypnos/Somnus/Sleep makes his home here. our little life is rounded by a sleep.
maybe he was nuts. maybe w/all the ice melt, some visionary can finally perform his desired multi-arts, synesthetic Mysterium and see if it brings about the end of the world & the birth of the “new man.” dare we risk it? what if that space baby from 2001 shows up?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterium_(Scriabin)
oh wait a minute, scratch that last one. what if the ufo’s from close encounters show up? and then say, “but we hate Scriabin” and start killing us all?
your coltrane church page seems to have answered both in the affirmative.
A Love Supreme Meditation Pending
Come calm the mind and tune into the spirit as you are guided through a meditation on the testimony and music of Saint John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Great for old time Coltrane lovers and new listeners as well. Join us and experience the power of this anointed sound…the music and wisdom of Saint John Coltrane.
not gonna get too invested in scriabin. ;-) but i could guess that the ships here were saying musically that they hate scriabin. your wiki page kinda went dead when it got to the dude that recorded his…scriabin music. pffft. ;-)
the outer space snow cones & sparkly cotton candy balls were expecting &$%#^$* John Williams!!!! how hard is it not to fuck that up!!! i bet it’s a jorge lucas thing. oh earth, he’s gonna cost you…”but I was the first director to do an all black film!” you mean Red Wings, George? i’m not sure we are worth saving.
anyway, love the Santana. and yes, George lucas said that.
if the nihilists in the big Lebowski had been commies:
“vie are trotskyites. vie believ in perpetual refolution. Lebowski. Perpetual.” the dude, “sounds exhausting.”
i’m on an anti owl thing for at least another 1.5 episodes. the emotion thru which the evil spirits in the black lodge enter the world of twin peaks is fear. when people around you start saying crazy shit like, “that chewing gum you like is about to come back,” know that there is a monster under your bed, whispering in your ear. don’t be afraid.
“the heavens will roll up like a scroll.” the sky, the stars, and that beyond the stars. I just find that to be a fascinating image. like someone who only knows about hang gliding or scuba diving from a book. one day the book will be closed, and the reality will step in.
and it’ll be glorious. harmony with nature:
i confess you’ve by and large lost me here, j. but i did discover that ‘the heavens will roll up like a scroll’ is from various verses describing the tribulation, most esp. revelations. but this ‘end times bible prophecy‘ page does seem more ‘scatalogical’ (h/t greyson smythe) than eschatological. now that i know what’s to occur ahead of the second coming, i see that the believers see that only the wicked will die (most especially the jews for a host of reasons), and the blessed will indeed be raptured up…alive.
see, the holocaust wasn’t enough suffering for the jews, so sorry, cuz ‘they killed christ’, but the rapture will commence once israel and the anti-christ form a covenant, and…the antichrist tears apart the temple in jerusalem.
in nature’s infinite book of secrets, i can read a little. know what you know, and know what you don’t know. and be wisest of all.
imagine what they’d done to the natives if they’d had some Mel Gibson apocalypto fantasies to project on to them! they got off easy. megalulz. cuz of words in books. their book keeps biting ’em on the ass. fucking Jews. nothing changes. persecution & fighting w/the jebusites. threatening circumcision.
maybe we do need to play Scriabin or the like in the Himalayas to get that new consciousness thing going? we could do worse things, for damn sure. pull the curtain aside to reveal it? cuz there’s a book (excuse me, a scroll) getting in the way of the sky? maybe? music, dance, color will clear the air?
reading the sky. maybe the book doesn’t close till one dies? excuse me, scroll. but what if i was never literate??? oh shit. should i try? can i learn? can someone teach me to read? read the sky? is it something i can pay for, like a tutorial in MS word? but if i’m blind, is there a braille edition?
I had a tutorial w/ an 11 yr old this morning. we got trapped in a zen koan. I kept saying “what is ‘what’?” she kept repeating to me the Chinese word for ‘what’. such a thatness. quiddity of quiddities. i was referring to pronunciation (say the word dammit! just say it. again. again.) she was trying to convince me she know what the word *means.* ah grasshopper, no one knows what. but, kid, if you pay me, i can put on a convincing performance for you. she’s trying to teach me Chinese. lol. 1st rule of studying: don’t steal the teacher’s edition and make me look stupid. oops, i showed her google translate.
i love this song, for the visuals as well. i couldn’t help thinking of cowboy wrangler jeans & blue soldier uniforms wiping out those (abstracted) colors. it’s very much a “sky” song. but it’s also an earth song.
here’s a thought: maybe you could looked at the bing translator, and brought your student (not knowing which chinese dialect she speaks or writes: 什麼是第二次 ！
(shén me shì dì èr cì !)
(what’s on second, h/t abbott and costello)
serendipitously related.
wsws video on grenfell tower on facebook
i’m so glad wsws is staying on top of the still poisoned water in flint, mi., evicted for not paying their water bills.
We are blessed, so Blessed Be.
And blessed beings be blessing everything, mmmk?
We are: A call to set ourselves on the Beauty Way,
We are: To remember, to restore, to heal and to create
with and for each other.
We Are:
… These Memories …
~~~~~<~~~~~~~~~~>~~~~~
In the reality of many realities
How we see what we see
Affects the quality of our reality.
> We Are: These Memories Running through your veins Racing across your mind Beating in your heart: We are. We are: In time and space We are: From beyond time and space We are. We are: Related to the OverSoul [We are:] Creator-created creator creating creation We are: human being being human <
We are: Human Being
And These Memories are needing to remind us
Human beings, human Being
It is time to rise up and remember
Who We Are.
Remember.
~~~~~<~~~~~~~~~~>~~~~~
I keep thinking John Trudell is re-united and healed as * DNA *. Now & always available
to kick us inlaugh us off our mental blocks. I hear him calling us to be responsible creators creating creation, ‘shake off our chains’ and set ourselves free from IT [Inverted Totalitarian] systems. To think more freely: believe less – alot less.oh, lemoyne, how wonderful it is to see you, and with such a glorious message from john trudell! it’s a perfect fit, isn’t it? and your final paragraph musing about his calls to us to kick off the chains of IT is just so. ‘responsible creators creating creation’, yummy as all giddy-up. i know you must have heard by now the last song he’d recorded (in this world, anyhow) before ‘his ride showed up’. it causes me to feel as…ethereally…chimeric, for lack of a better word. as though i’m turning into one of those shimmering beings, melting, reforming… ah, not the right words. but here it is, and oh, my, john, you made the world a better place in a thousand different directions; thank you from the bottom of my heart.
lemoyne, last night i was laughing out loud to mr. wd that if ‘science’ could bio-engineer some of john trudell’s DNA into my veggies, i might be just fine w/ that. but…it’ll prolly have to enter us by way of stardust, won’t it?
http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=twin-peaks&episode=s02e21
Your dead are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its majestic mountains. When the last red man has vanished from this earth, these forests and shores will still hold their spirits.” For the Indians love the earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. Why have we all lost touch with this beauty? Maybe saving a forest starts with preserving some of the feelings that die inside us every day. Those parts of ourselves that we deny. For if we cannot respect that interior land, then neither can we respect the land we walk. So let us, in walking gently upon the earth, leave behind a simple legacy. That we’re new warriors, mystic warriors who love the earth and tried to save it. Thank you very much.
——–
stealing from chief seattle AND black Sabbath. way to go soundgarden! fuck ownership. boy i do get tired of their musical style after about 20 seconds…
the passage you’ve brought seems to be in that episode. why did he or she say ‘thank you very much’? okay, i’ll watch the series. and the black lodge seems to feature on that episode as well. i’d had no earthly idea what you’d meant by that concept earlier. but yep, that ‘song’, if one could call it that…was hard on the soul (and ears).
you might like this one better. at least i do. ;-)
i just finished it. the series is also very funny. i’m not joking. “do you think 4H has something to do w/it?” w/no rewind and lots of g.d. commercials, I could see why people found it confusing, toward the end, where no gestures are wasted. what’s important, what a joke. what jokes are important. like life. augural. the owls are not what they seem. I know it’s silly, but if I told you what that meant, assuming I know what it is, it would spoil the fun. your fun. your birdloving fun.
oh lord, that’s a trip back in time for me. thanks. every devil I meet becomes a friend.
oh, “thank you very much.” this is part of a speech, the conclusion. can’t say more. well, the words “black lodge” don’t come up till late, but still, nothing spoiled that 5 minutes of reading about t.p. wouldn’t spoil anyway.
boy I bet some college perfessers got tired of reading about twin peaks once upon a time.
now, hadn’t you bemoaned the fact several days ago that you’d been captured by a marathon of twin peaks? my understanding was that you were making sport of it all, hence my jest about ‘you should have watched the marathon ‘dogs of downton abbey’ instead. well, nice to know that in the end you’d liked it, but in the end it explains your many references to it over the past few days.
mr. ordered it thru inter-liberry loan; two seasons together, iirc. and trudell’s ‘these memories’ was worth bringing again. makes me feel like i’m falling into the milky way, as does ‘time dreams’.
“the Norwegians are leaving! the Norwegians are leaving!” there’s some multi-level analysis of Amerika in it. it may not be your cup of tea. comparison w/true detective, I couldn’t avoid it. esp. the unrelenting bleakness of the latter. no happy subplots, all misery & failure.
maybe more apt for the times though? at what point do we start torching the governor’s mansion? and the legislature? i’m not into killing even the chris Christie’s of the world, but boy it would be fun to listen to him squeal in cowardice if he tho’t his constituents were torching the place around his fat ass. where’d all the Crisco go, you fat fuck? squeal for us piggy! you got a purdy mouf. evil tho’ts. maybe. not sure that fat walking tin of rancid fancy feast getting a taste of what he dishes out is an evil tho’t. still. the kid was listening to some pop song at 0730 this a.m. that was just the most vile, hate-filled misogynistic, mammon-worshipping, narcissistic self-inflating p.o.s. I’ve had the misfortune to ever hear. and the music sucked. evil spirits in the air.
well shit man, if only there was a lack of money in this country…off to the piggly wiggly to check out the savings in the fried dough section.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/03/stat-j03.html
heh. i don’t consider violence against property as perpetrating violence, myself. but as i’m working on an ‘independence day’ diary, i give you one of howard zinn’s thoughts related to those criminal governors from 1970:
“But there is another part of the law that doesn’t get ballyhooed- the legislation that has gone through month after month, year after year, from the beginning of the Republic, which allocates the resources of the country in such a way as to leave some people very rich and other people very poor, and still others scrambling like mad for what little is left. That is the law. If you go to law school you will see this. You can quantify it by counting the big, heavy law books that people carry around with them and see how many law books you count that say “Constitutional Rights” on them and how many that say “Property,” “Contracts,” “Torts,” “Corporation Law.” That is what the law is mostly about.”
now zinn went to his great reward in jan., 2010; imagine if he’d lived to witness USian full-bore inverted totalitarianism, or even Obama rule for 8 years (i’d read he was glad O won to rid us of dubya, but then…dubya wasn’t running against him, so…i dunno. trouncing palin/mccrankypants was good enuff for me.)
got to see him a couple of times in Beantown. w/noam of course.
burning down the big house is a good way to “keep your light on.” love that song. first we take the pentagon. yes on property damage, but there are also more important people’s well being to worry about than something happening to that water bed breaker, that two ton dump trump waste of a man, that vat of cookie dough. like almost anybody else on the planet. certainly, when speaking of just deserts (& desserts), Christie deserves anything coming to him, by his own words alone. but just putting a stop to his rampaging fat ass is more important than revenge. him chasing a bucket of chicken on a farm for the proportionally challenged on a treadmill for a few years would be a great relief to his waistband & do his clogged heart a lot of good. prep for breaking rocks in the Georgia sun for the remainder of his days.
how cool you’d gone to see him, j. and yes to: do no harm to the innocent. purdy funny imaginings as to what would constitute permanent hell for christie, though. what was his ‘kettle con’ on a major bridge? oh, for a memory… but plenty of other govs, likely not tubby, (but who doth know?) could well deserve similar hells, no? the ones so far in the wsws list, but remember…after the big roman candle holiday, there will be more…. i’ve got one to add at the bottom in a minute.
permanent or purgative, as long as it’s long, i’m good w/it. didn’t he participate in some b.s. scheme to shut down a major bridge in order to influence an election? something like that. yeah, too bad c.c. is not unique or even, gasp, the worst of the lot.
per dawson at the consumer trap, the revenue in the US from self-storage units exceeds the revenue of the poorest 100 nation-states. I find this hard to grok, but surely this “there is no money” thing is total nonsense.
oh, lordie, yes. and binging for christie and bridgegate gets ya to ‘beach gate’ as well, of course. arrrggggh! photos of him on the closed park beach! mine eyes! but there’s a wiki, too:
It was later suggested that the lanes had been closed to intentionally cause the massive traffic problem for political reasons, and especially theorized that they were a retribution attack against Fort Lee’s Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who did not support Christie as a candidate in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election. The ensuing investigations centered on several of Christie’s appointees and staff, including[8][9] David Wildstein, who ordered the lanes closed,[10] and Bill Baroni, who had told the New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee that the closures were for a traffic study.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lee_lane_closure_scandal
from telesur english: ‘Campesino Movements Say Climate Justice Is an Alternative to Crippling G20 Policies’, june 3
“La Vía Campesina is an international movement which coordinates over 148 organizations from Europe, Latin America, Asia, North America and Africa.
As our communities in the global South and North contend with the social and environmental impacts of market-oriented policies, the gathering of world leaders this week in Hamburg, Germany for the G20 does not raise many positive expectations. This is no surprise given that G20 countries currently dominate the world’s economic governance—together accounting for 85 percent of the global GDP, and their economic growth centered priorities have mostly translated to environmental destruction, social conflict and the exploitation of the poor majority.
Because of this, grassroots social justice movements find it imperative to organize transnationally—in addition to strategic work at the local level—to bring the voice of rural communities from across the world to international forums. Doing so offers an alternative vision of life by linking the question of food production to those of power and democracy. With the revolutionary concept of Food Sovereignty on the forefront, the peasant women and men of La Via Campesina, assert the rights of peoples to use and manage lands, water, seeds and biodiversity. This goes hand in hand with transparent trade, a system that guarantees just incomes to all as well as the rights of communities to control their food systems.
In this light, we find it unsettling to learn that climate and agriculture are agenda items for this year’s G20 Summit. So far, the responses to these two serious issues by the G20 –representing the governments and central banks of 20 major economies in the world- have been market-oriented solutions. Policies addressing climate change have only been accepted if they were able to generate profits for corporate interests, and, as far as food is concerned, the search for solutions from the top to the climate crisis has served to expand the power of the agroindustry and biotechnology companies.”
read the rest and weep for the planet, for food sovereignty, humanity, and sanity.
@ reality checker:
if you’ve clicked in again, it seems i’d only noted that this diary is ‘a reprise from 2013’, not from my.fdl, but i had noted that on my june 29th ‘Serene Serena Madonna’, third comment down. but srsly, jettison the hatred. it’s killing you. not to mention that i will never understand how you can so loathe the idea of non-violent revolution, nor have such enmity toward people of color and differing ethnicity and culture. lay down your white man’s burden, dude. one day you may be glad you did.
did you loathe it so much back in the day? i’d guess not, tho I have no memory of your reaction.
‘reprise’: a repeat, a re-run, an encore. and yep, it’s still as valid now as it was then, although the mean gurls teddy and kelly trounced me for it back in the day, of course…