In article , Charlie wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:48:41 -0700, Billy wrote:
In article , Charlie wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:54:56 -0400, Bill wrote:
Anyway the rant also has a bright spot look at my signature url.
Make that two good apples related to the same subject.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/25/9884/
OK. I contacted all my Congresswomen and asked my Senators to support
Feingold in his filibuster. It only takes a few minutes. You can cut and
paste the message to the first Senator into the message box of the
second. Let your representatives know what you think. It's the American
way.
Then you can get back to gardening . . . unless you are distracted by
the refusal of our government to label GMOs in our markets, or label
hormones in our food, or their refusal to allow farmers to do a more
thorough testing of their meat than is required, or to stop feeding the
residue of potentially sick animals to healthy herbivores. Maybe the
governments subsidizing of an unhealthy diet, or it's promotion of
unsustainable petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides that create a
paucity of nutrients in produce from our factory farms, and also kill
the soil, water ways, and large parts of the oceans, while adding to
erosion, lack of clean water, and dwindling bio-diversity of nature.
These same agro-petrochemical cast-offs from our war machine accumulate
in our bodies and roughly coincides with increased incidents of
coronary-vascular disease, diabetes, obesity and a weakened immune
system. What the mad scientists call the "green revolution" is really
creating GMOs (that don't produce more food and must be purchased at
great price) that allow the even greater usage of biocides in the food
chain.
So give a shout out to your Congresspeople, and let them know what you
think.
Dang, I forgot to write about defunding the WTO, IMF, and the World
Bank, nuts. I guess I have another letter in me;O)
Hell, as long as we, meaning all of us with any more sense than god
gave the goose, are all ****ed off, or should be, here is another
letterwriting campaign in which to join.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/...69234645e233cf
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From that long article:
"Ironically, it's that great troublemaker Voltaire who has too often
been trotted out (and too often misquoted) as an advocate of
withdrawing from the tumult of society, into tending one's own
property. Voltaire was indeed a gardener, and he did end his most
famous novel by having Candide, after surviving so many far-flung
hazards, utter those famous words to his fellow wanderer Dr. Pangloss:
"We must cultivate our garden."
However, with the publication of Candide in 1759, Voltaire entered the
most politically active part of his life, as he "went on to a series of
confrontations with the consequences of human cruelty that, two
hundred-odd years later, remain stirring in their courage and
perseverance," in the words of Adam Gopnik.
If Voltaire could find the time for both gardening and radical
political action, then all of us can do it."
I've been reading too much Kunstler and Bageant and others, dead and
alive, as of late. Feh....what an effing mess. TIme to spit, hoist
the black flag and go to work.
On a positive note, the first 'mater is ready for harvest. Does it
count that is the size of a dime? :-)
Charlie, distracted and spread really thin....too many projects wanting
starts, too many more wanting finishes....
"The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of
enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is
that he wants to believe." --Voltaire
Unfortunately, golbalization was reeling after the Seattle and
Washington D. C. demonstrations, then came 9/11, like manna from the
skies, with laws curbing civil liberties (the right to protest where you
can be seen and heard) and the privacy (wire tapping) to orchestrate a
raising of public consciousness to the social costs of corporate
fascism. Terrorism is being increasingly used as a label and a charge
against militant resisters of capitalist hegemony, who destroy property.
There are already laws against property destruction but terrorisms laws
are more draconian.
This isn't just our problem. People in the global south (70% subsistence
farmers) have been exploited unmercifully for decades.
----------
We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good
wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers.
Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained
by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to
the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not
submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to
prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages
over business rivals.
* Speech at Progressive Party Convention, Chicago (1912-06-17)
------
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capitol. Capital is only the
fruit of labor, and could never had existed if labor had not first
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deseves the higher
consideration.
Abraham Lincoln
Dec. 1861
Keep gardening and grousing and bitching.