The New Holocaust

We have done a grave disservice to one another. We have all been complicit in the horror of our current state of affairs. Instead of standing up and telling the ruling classes that we will not stand for carcinogenic compounds being released onto the soil, into the air and water, ultimately making their way into our bodies, we have decided to participate in fundraising runs, buy rubber bracelets and to "bike for the cure". This is like going fishing but bringing no pole, no line and no hooks, just the bait. I know that I am not the only one who sees through the sham of spending billions on cancer research while simultaneously poisoning the environment.

I have dozens of friends who have passed the veil because they have been ravaged by cancer. I would guess that not one of us has been spared the heartache of losing a beloved friend or family member, perhaps a bunch of them to this disease. Is it always going to be easier to focus only on the hurt than to do anything about sparing one another from this exquisite pain?

Our species seems intent on hitting the wall. Like a fly in a speeding bullet train, about to hit an immovable object, we seem to be completely unaware that we are moving. Our entire environment is moving with laser speed into the future. We are on a collision course with destiny and after more than fifty years of rearranging the deck chairs on our sinking ship, we are no closer to plugging the gaping hole in the side of the hull than when we first began to dabble in the chemistry of death. The very first carcinogenic compound that we humans "discovered" was benzene. It is still a legal contaminant in gasoline. The earliest representation of the chemical was a serpent biting its own tail. Benzene is only one of many carcinogens that many of us are exposed to nearly daily. The irony is that when we put fuel in our automobiles, this carcinogen can be detected on our breath for up to six hours after we finish pumping our gasoline. The advent of "self-service" fuel depots came about because science could prove that service station attendants were getting lethal doses of the compound. We must each decide whether getting our own "fair" share is worth the cost.

My wife recently learned and related to me, that in the first six years that GMO(Genetically Modified Organism) crops have been authorized for use in the United States of America, emergency room visits because of food allergies have increased by 260%. It may just be the tip of the next iceberg, but we need to realize that all food worldwide is potentially GMO already. Pollen from these organisms can be carried vast distances on the wind and it has already been proven by Monsanto that organic growers have had their seed contaminated with patented genetic material.

 I once received a hefty fine because a roommate's mutt dog had been allowed to run loose, got with a show dog that belonged to a neighbor, and inseminated the bitch. My only crime was to call the dog home (Something, by the way, GMOs can never be) when I saw it run down our street. Now, I know many organic growers and they don't want their valuable seed to be contaminated by these rogue pollens, why should we protect a corporate outlaw who cannot control their pollen?

The elites that benefit from our combined suffering need to be held to task for their inhumane treatment of the rest of us, worldwide. From their nuclear debacle to the war machine, the powers that feed are parasites of our own blood, fanciful masters of those feeding the ovens of our own demise. Ont this day of souls, let the hallowed voices of those who have died from this disease speak though our combined action to stop the crazy drunken stagger into our own demise, step away from the abyss and return to a hospitable world in which we create out of the ruin of stupidity and healing the damage caused by genocide. Our entire race is in jeopardy because of the current tragectory.

I hope that it is not too soon after 9-11 to remember those days. I solemnly hoped that in the days following, when flights were canceled, that millions of "disrupted" people would realize that where they were was a pretty good place and that families and neighborhoods across the world, or at least our part of it, would be strengthened by the contact. For decades, when I saw traffic jams, I always imagined how wonderful it would be when all people to find ways to make their way through the world, without leaving "home". I have lived from the day when a handful of local markets existed within walking distance, now it is a mile (1.6Km) to the closest one, and it used to be the furthest away. During my youth, it was the largest, by far, and saved a few cents per item over the local grocers. All those pennies, after all those years, worked up some pretty good loyalty, but now the shoe is on the other foot, by driving five miles, or ten, those same savings could be had. With a mega-grocer, moving your money further from your neighborhood.

This is the economic state of affairs for virtually all of us is like a cancer, the pennies, and in many cases dollars are being siphoned out of the majority of the people, being extracted from this region, this city, this county and this state with mind-bending consequence. I hear the term The Richest Third World Nation On Earth and I think it should stick. Apparently, now, some Germans bring their children to Detroit to show them what Berlin looked like after the war. We have had perpetrated every form of injustice on our people for the enrichment of a cream of the cream of the crop and they are in full scale assault mode. They have been winning the class war for generations. We have only threatened revolt while stoned, or that is what they would tell you. The peace movement of the sixties and the efforts to reign in pollution were feeble at best and the long term data indicates that we are failing to limit releases of many hazardous chemicals. Again, like cancer this robs a vital being of essential nurturing to continue to exist, and the "person" we knew wastes away, vitality stolen from a dear one.

To re-seed the tree of life, this insidious tree of death needs to be pulled up by the root, or it will re-establish and threaten us again. Part of my ritual intentions this Sabbat, will be to unleash as much fury on the Agro-bio-chemical-financial/insurance-petro-industrial/military complex as possible. I want clarity to be established about planet rape, about biocide, about the rampant costs to each and every one of us for the financial gain of others. We have been forced by unimaginable powers of wealth and deceit to build the very instruments of our own destruction/demise. Just the other day on the news, they were touting how upgrading the infrastructure around a boat-building facility there would help the company to become more productive. We taxpayers will foot the bill fore more roads, more trucks, more traffic and do it gladly for the sake of the company. In their defense, the company can afford and has awesome equipment that greatly increases the health and safety of their workers, but the down side is that they pump the fumes further away, into the surrounding neighborhoods. So people who don't work there will pay in two ways for the sake of the corporation, first in taxes to make it bigger and then breathe even dirtier air.

For my friends, this holiday season, I just want to say in the words of good friend, James Baker, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, After we have tried every key, it is time to try the skeleton key.

Lest this post be mistaken for a scary one, this is like the black spot in the white side of the yin yang symbol. If humans did not have the power to be infinitely kind, there would be no humanitarians. If we did not have infinite capacity for acceptance, we could not turn our heads from this crisis. If we did not have hope, we would have surely crashed and burned as a civilization long ago. The actions we take, knowing that these cancers are there, engulfing us as I write this, burning away at the center of a swirling vortex of our lives, our neighborhoods, our families, our cities and towns. Our activity as a species reflects whether we will ultimately vanquish, or push back the nugget of evil at our core. Likewise, in the realms of the dark side, they try to overwhelm, but can never extinguish the light.

The only way out of our current state of affairs is to create new structures upon which we can be proud to hang our hat for generations. Many communities are fighting back against the extraction model by creating power co-ops, sharing in the cost of buying their electricity into the future, today. Much like our food buying club of old, we banded together to create our own store, one day each month. Ultimately, reparations need to be made, but how can one put a price on generations of pain and suffering of thousands of millions of direct victims their families, their communities, over many generations? Our lives truly have infinite value and sacrificing a single one for profit is not acceptable. Corporations are exacting death sentences upon all of us and we must all call for them, in unison to stop.

Federal Regulators Run Amok

The long hand of the law has reached into my home twice this week. The resulting confusion it has created in me as well as the utterly deceitful approach with which the government has taken their actions begs the question, "What part of taxation without representation do they not understand?" Those of us who have been paying attention, wonder why we are paying taxes for that kind of "service". As the wealthiest members of our society find more efficient ways to capture evermore wealth, evermore power and reduce risk factors resulting from their revolting behavior, the best actors,  people of conscience, and the general public find it more and more difficult to protect themselves or compete with the greedy and deceitful corporados. Knowing that regulators seem to be siding more and more with those who would risk our health and well being for the almighty buck is driving more and more people to take drastic action that puts them outside the law in order to protect their own health or that of their loved ones. This week I have bumped up against at least two hideous miscarriages of justice from just one agency, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) First was the recent crack down by them on a product called Hcg, human chorionic gonadatropin, this hormone, naturally present in humans, encourages fat metabolism and was what I used to lose over sixty pounds last year. Not only did it reduce my "bad cholesterol", blood pressure, risk factors for heart disease, and all that extra weight, but losing that weight safely made me feel twenty years younger. The FDA did not receive a single health complaint about this product, but banned production and sale of it based on what seem to be claims by the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry because of the threat that an effective product like Hcg poses to their livelihood. If you check out the FDA website, you will find them actively soliciting complaints about this hormone and supposed side-effects that have resulted from its use. In the rest of the world, outside the taxpayer funded regulatory agencies, we make changes based on facts, not imaginary consequences, hazards rather than ghosts and fact rather than fiction.

I wanted to write a letter to the FDA on their website, directly stating the health benefits that Hcg provided me, but there is no clear way to offer the truth of my experience unless I would willing to say that the loss of sixty pounds was a negative health impact. Whatever doctors and scientists are running the FDA, must either be incompetent or on the dole of the moneid class because they certainly are not caring or compassionate in the way they discharge their responsibility to the American people. We have a horrendous situation here in the US, the obesity epidemic is killing us slowly, but the fast food nation that we have become operates freely, addicting children to sugar and fat, even though the food pyramid tells us to eat less of both. We often find it a struggle to eat more fresh vegetables because of the growing food deserts that have engulfed most major cities and even more rural towns. To top it off,  science tells us to eat less meat and carbohydrates as well, but the rampant over production of grain and the continued subsidies to the meat industry continue to offer these products at artificially low cost. I recently came across a burger that weighs in at over 4,000 calories, but even though it should over-feed a person for two days, there is no health warning or even a batted eye over the true danger that eating such an obscenity represents for the casual diner. This sort of irresponsibility in the name of a "free market" could be understandable if the second prong of the regulators approach  was absent, but the crack down on Hcg proves that the agency is not at all interested in the dangers of the food supply, only the corporate welfare that is behind the removal of effective weight loss options for the general public.

The second heinous act of the FDA this week is actually inaction. They have found a banned fungicide in orange juice. As we are told repeatedly, we are now a global economy, but our food supply is supposed to be protected from dangerous chemicals by FDA regulations. Banning of chemicals that have deleterious effects is one of the responsibilities the FDA is charged with, it is their purpose. Instead, large quantities of tainted juice, contaminated with a banned fungicide, has found a route from Brazil's rainforests into our juice glasses. Instead of regulating, like they are supposed to, it seems that the agency is taking a hands off approach, allowing the remaining juice to flow for several more weeks as it "makes its way out of the supply chain". This reminds me of the police officer who asks the person pulled over for speeding down the highway, "You will stop speeding when you get to your destination, Right?" and then lets them take off again without a ticket. Is it too much ask for our regulators to do their job? Can we not expect a reasonable level of protection from the regulations we have on the books? How can these agents, paid for by our hard earned money, utterly ignore their responsibility to us? Perhaps when we are forced into a doctor's office to get prescriptions for multi-vitamins, or arrested for having naturally occurring chemicals in our blood, we will find that a better approach to protecting the American public from dangers posed by unregulated food and drugs would have been to cut off funding for the very regulators who are supposed to do that job.

The developing science of social control is leading to some pretty scary territory. When the FDA was first envisioned, you could find snake oil salesmen on nearly every corner and I do not advocate a return to the wild west mentality that sanctioned the selling of who knows what for nearly every malady. Continuing threats to public health do need to be addressed.  When we find real and present danger, turning our heads cannot be an option, just as importantly, we cannot find fault with things that are used safely and effectively either. One has to wonder if there is not something in our constitution that would allow us to rise up and fight when our government allows "acceptable levels" of poisoning to occur and denies us the means to live healthy lives in spite of the onslaught of bad choices and harmful products offered by corporate interests. There must be a better way that will not make criminals out of people who are trying to help people get more healthy and we certainly cannot reward those who would roll the dice with our lives either.