Thursday, February 23, 2017

Standing Rock Sioux About to Get Overrun; Trump, Greed, a New Age of Belligerance

Here To many of us who have been fighting for environmental justice and for human rights to come before corporate greed and need, this is a dark time.

Much ink is being spilled recounting the efforts Donald Trump -- and his newly befriended zealots on the right wing and in fossil fuel industries -- are making to turn back time in America, but some words must be put down here as well.

We have a chance to take the high road. To avoid violence. To choose different energy sources that do not produce destruction and problems during extraction; that do not produce pollution, and property and human rights problems during transportation; that do not create pollution and health problems for humans at the burning and end-use stage of their energy life cycles.

Wind and solar pose few if any of those problems. And their source and end-use are as clean and endless as the wind and the sun.

But greedy people maintain the levers of power in their continuing investment in fossil fuels: owners and investors in tar sands and oil field property (now mostly multi-billion dollar companies), owners and investors in refineries and pipeline companies. The 'black snake' collectively as Native Americans often refer to it. It is a destructive and vile thing.

Greedy investors--including mainstream banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America and 15 others--are putting the pedal to the metal here.

Trump and his administration have waved the start flag at the stalled process in North Dakota.
And innocent people, places and things are getting squashed: tribal leaders whose land was taken away where this pipeline is now scheduled to go, water rights and quality for local people, citizens concerned with their plight, citizens concerned with the expansion of the finite and destructive black snake--all are getting squashed.

The burning tee-pees are symbols of all of that.

There is elegance and simple morality in these people.

There is the cold disdain of the military industrial fist, hammering away again.

Thank you again Donald Trump and Wells Fargo et. al., for showing us a way that many... should we say most?.... good people do not want to go.

Thank you for showing us the opposite of the way we want things to work for our children and their planet.

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Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012
I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.

Antidotes to Violence, a.k.a., Take Charge of Where Your Head's At - here

Tell Congress to Strengthen Gun Control Laws NOW - here

Good News & Brain Food News -
Christians & Muslims Gather, for Peace here
Good News - Top RIO+20 Summit Posts here
The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
here