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____The World's a Nice Place to Live, Only it's Not Going to Stay _____ that Way for Long, the Way Things Are Going .....Of Course, -____the More Any of Us Goes Green (with Organics, Fair Trade, ___Wind Power, etc.) and Supports Whole Cost Accounting, ___Employee Cooperative Ownership, and Socially Responsible ___Democracy...
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How is your life going? Scientists worldwide, at the U.N., U.S. Agencies, and elsewhere, are very worried. Global Warming Climate Change is just one issue. Then there's more. Scientists and Development Economists at the U.N. and elsewhere are confirming non-profit NGO concerns about massive income inequalities, social injustice, and environmental degradation. See the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, UNEP's Global Environmental Outlook GEO4 , UNEP's Interfaith Partnership for the Environment, UNDP's Human Development Report , the ILO's Multinational Corporation report , the Tripartite Interfaith Forum for Peace, the Committee of Religious NGO's at the UN, the World Council of Churches, and the U.N. Interagency Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) . Thanks to yoga, buddhism, 12-step groups, shamanism, Jewish activists, Alan Watts, the excommunicated priest Matthew Fox, and the healing demonstrations of Christian Science, I have come to appreciate the historical and spiritual origins of secular society and democratic activism in Christ's teachings. The extent of today's widespread perverse injustices derive from the powerful corporations, politicians, and economic theorists who perpetuate their theories of wealth instead of responsible social and spiritual premises. in this Socially responsible behavior, therefore, mixed with modern education gains its strongest rationalizations, ironically, in returning to its source: Jesus Christ and his apostles, including Mary Magdalene, who taught commandments to love God, neighbor, self, and enemy, to reconcile, to forgive, and to avoid greed and practice kindness, even while practicing investment. Given all the developments of modern education, science, and economics, all directly a development of Christ's followers, there are no more excuses for modern injustices within Christian society. Secular disavowals and indulgence in greed and brutality are hiding from the spiritual basis and responsibility on which their continued existence depends.
I met two guys on the train today from Colorado, Evan and Scott. They're biking from Albany down to Florida. Evan's going to go to school there to study Environmental Policy and be near the Everglades. If you have ever been to the American River in California, or the Rocky Mountains, or the Missouri River by the Ozark Mountains, the Adirondacks or White Mountains, or any wilderness area in the U.S. or the Big Blue Marble Planet Earth, not to mention a city park, then you know that it's nice to have a place to get away.
Of course, all the cars on the roads are hard to get away from under the current lifestyle. Then, there are all the chemicals from all the machinery. Something has got to change. Business and economics have pioneers and entrepreneurs, and all kinds of good activists, consumer, political, and otherwise, have made important strides.
A deeper question is raised for the thoughtful. Many people live in a consumer swirl of advertised choices. Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping have made an entertaining and activist way to grapple with that delusion and reality. His act moreover leads to this deeper question, What do you, does any of us, believe about life? The Puritan Christians arrived here as Pilgrims and believed in Christ and the Bible. Already, they had been transported under terms with the Virginia Company. Their creed seems to have focused on Jesus' teachings about industriousness, discipline, and investment. With the appearance of modern education around the time of St. Francis, St. Dominic, and St. Thomas Aquinas, Greek logic was brought to bear upon Jesus' teachings. Today, psychology, comparative religion, anthropology, and ecological biology, have fleshed out the situation a little bit more. The commandments of Jesus revolved around love. Love God, love your neighbor. Ecological biology has revealed that through evolution, humans evolved, are cousins with all living things, and depend upon the ecological web for survival. Air and water made fresh by soil and trees, and psychologically and otherwise on biodiversity. Anthropology and Comparative Religion deliver further insights from the other religious and cultural traditions, like Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Shamanism. Economics, also, has become a religion for many. Partial cost, or bubble cost capitalism, has shown its power to discipline and organize activity. Also, to strip people of their mutual obligations to respect each other under Christianity, and to observe their dependence on healthy ecosystems. However, since the founding of the Sierra Club, Earth Day 1970, the Stockholm Conference, the founding of the UN Environmental Program, Greenpeace, The Body Shop, organic food, and more, hope has returned to transform the economic paradigm that has been transforming and destroying the planet.
Staples sells 100% post-consumer recycled paper in a few stores in New York already. FedEx, Starbucks, HSBC Bank, and others are offsetting some of their electricity with renewable energy, and Whole Foods is powered by 100% green energy. Some of these companies, DuPont, Dow, and others have joined together in the Green Power and Climate Change Groups, for example. WalMart is even selling organic food and clothing. ShoreBank Pacific, NCB the National Cooperative Bank, and Amalgamated Bank have people friendly accounts that pay interest, and socially responsible purposes. Green Century Mutual Funds and New Alternatives are extremely committed to using the stock market for whatever good can come from all that gambling with ownership. Since the times of the British East India Co. in the 17th Century, and later John D. Rocekfeller, many corporations have been organized with management hierarchies that follow accounting systems and shareholder ownership structures that minimize the value of employees. These companies use company relocations and outsourcing to find cheap labor overseas to dismantle their operations in the U.S. Other companies, on the other hand, are set up as cooperatives. While there are large ones in Europe and Japan, like Migros of Switzerland and Credit Agricole of France, and elsewhere in the world, the U.S. has its share already. Land O'Lakes and Ace Hardware, for example, are among the biggest in the world. Ocean Spray and Sunkist are two other fairly well-known ones.
Since profit was calculated by accounting, and executives had quite a bit of power and authority originally, they did not pay much attention to making the accounting of safety features, environmental costs, and employee ownership and profit sharing a priority. In this way, society has learned by trial and error a few hard lessons, including environmental disasters. Environmental tragedies have been occurring in one form or another for Centuries, since before Queen Victoria had problems with smokestack emissions near one of her residences in the 19th Century. The Minimata Chisso Tragedy in Japan from Mercury poisoning was one modern occurrence, as was the burning of the Cayahoga River in Ohio, and similar events in Europe in the 1950's and 60's. Love Canal by Hooker, Woburn by Grace Co., Bhopal by Union Carbide, Chernobyl by the Soviet Union, and the Rhine poisoning by Sandoz. While those were news events, don't forget the EPA still keeps track of toxic chemical emissions, even with the amount of corporate influence in American politics. This evidence of continuing signs of social responsibility can remind us of reality. Science and democracy allow us to look at economic theories and realize where they are lacking. Current accounting externalizes many costs, like environmental and worker safety and disenfranchisement stress. It is only partial cost accounting, biassed toward profits. Whole cost accounting, on the other hand, does not externalize these costs, and instead, internalizes them. That is where the ISEW, GPI, and sdEffect come in below, to replace the GNP and GAAP.
The idea is that the lives most of us lead, and the money we earn, is being generated because people like us have been taking the Earth and making it the way some of us want it to be. Some people have been telling others to do what they want, because from the earliest days, they have used certain advantages forcefully. Modern public education, however, was seen to be a necessary element in modern, industrial, and democratic society, and it arose out of the Christian monasteries around the time and effort of Thomas Aquinas, Marco Polo, and Francis and Clare of Assisi. The social scientists and economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Robert Owen, and Karl Marx all went through the schools and perhaps universities that had been started, as did the American and French Democratic Revolutionaries. The movies "Master and Commander", "Jerry Maguire", "Norma Rae", "Sybil", "Lorenzo's Oil", and "Analyze This", and the books The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher, Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall, Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, and Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by Carl Jung when considered together, raise the interplay of issues that follow the simple fact that ethics and nature are part of using money to live life.
Individuals in Corporations have taken money-making to its Extreme, since they found that their power and privilege let them use Profit and Stock Market Shareholder Value as a reason to reduce quality and ignore employees, communities, and even nations. They have been using Natural Resources gung-ho and full-speed ahead for generations, in the process dumping on them, and emptying them with hardly a second thought. After all, the earth is pretty big. Worst of all, however, since the early days of the British and Dutch East India Companies, merchants and traders became Corporate Executives and Managers who have frequently behaved like autocrats, dictators, tyrants, and criminals in a mafia. But people are waking up and seeing through the pat concepts of "private property" and "the profit ideology" that exaggerate material goods, deprive most people of their own rights, and the results of the work they do, their own actual "private property". Profit sharing and employee ownership are the thing. Employees help make it, and executives take it. Since Robert Owens realized that his employees were not machines themselves and wrote about it, along with the first union movements; even before Teddy Roosevelt's Trust Busting, Ralph Nader's Consumer Protection Advocate work and Public Interest Group's, Gloria Steinem's investigative journalism, and the Reverend Billy's Church of Stop Shopping, and all even before the NAACP, the ACLU, the AFL-CIO, Amnesty International, SNCC, NOW, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth and the rest of that blessed Justice League. The Rochdale Cooperative was started by a bunch of employees scraping together their pennies to start a general store that they all owned. It is still around today, and there are employee-owned cooperative businesses all over the world. Are you ready? There are more cooperatives all the time. Also, consider the use of the terms "GDP" and the "GNP".
They are talking about all the money that is spent in an economy, regardless of how. Even in business accounting, they add assets and subtract liabilities. Some clearheaded economists have been forging a better way for a sustainable society with new indices, the GPI or ISEW. Thinking about things from that economic perspective gives a little more depth to all the renewable energy being developed, like NYPIRG's Fuel Buyer's Group Windpower, the Mayors' Agreement on Climate Change, the States' Renewable Portfolio Standards, and Corporate Initiatives 1, 2, 3, all show decisions and initiatives to choose electricity from renewable energy and energy efficiencies because of the recognition that electricity from coal and other fossil fuels is creating costs that will have to be paid in the future, among other current costs that are also not included, like excess mercury. Similar rationales apply to organic and local foods, small businesses in cooperative association, employees, civil rights, moderate income individuals and families, and consumers. If you ever heard of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, or Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and their books including Hero With a Thousand Faces and Women Who Run With the Wolves, you may have learned something about the metaphors and symbolic myths they talk about. Even Freud´s early work before the Oedipus Complex showed the healing power over trauma of intimacy and the truth. His other students including Reich (developed into the school of Bioenergetics) and Assagioli (in what he called Psychosynthesis) and then more recently With all this talk about changing the world, we need to reimagine and reinvent a few things. Dr. Carl Simonton in Getting Well Again, John Bradshaw in Healing the Shame that Binds You, Michael Harner in the Way of the Shaman, and Gloria Steinem in The Revolution Within are some more skilled and learned people who have helped lay out vision of a culture beyond the depleting and catastrophic greed of profit. See Richard Róbbins´ Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism , Marjorie Kelly´s the Divine Right of Capital , and William Greider´s The Soul of Capitalism for more insights on these issues. In this light, ethical and spiritual people of conscience are pioneers, artists, and entrepreneurs. We are the future. Read this page all the way down, look through the site, visit the public interest group campaigns, use the socially responsible businesses, and help wake up democracy...
The Earth Charter ... is a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century. Created by the largest global consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living world. http://www.earthcharter.org/ See More Below
The Profit Motive
and Ideology Needs Democracy
Impeach George W. Bush! http://impeachforpeace.org/ImpeachNow.html
Buy Local, Organic, and Fair Trade!
Join a Windpower and Heating Fuel Buyer's Group! www.nypirg.org , http://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/calculator_intro.cfm
Start a Small Business of Your Own, and Make it Employee-Owned: www.ncba.coop
Welcome to the Center. Corporations are economic vehicles allowing executives with money to command workers to take natural resources of the Earth and use technology to make things. This type of productive role has made them like Godzilla craftsmen of old. A team of blacksmith in their workshop are now men in suits commanding men at machines in factories and on tractors, now often in other countries. What was once honest labor, has now become corporate swagger. They act like and believe that the profit motive is all powerful. Instead of just doing business, they overdo it, and do it whatever the cost.
Meanwhile, who has given them the privilege of acting that way? Who owns the community in the first place? It wasn't them. The Founding Forefathers of America created Democracy, not Autocracy. The Economy, however, left something to be desired. Through campaign contributions and gifts, corporations have bought political mouthpieces, and proliferated widespread values of materialistic power over spiritual, individual, community, informed and democratic wisdom, and moderation, and are influencing governments and creating a world society that behaves more aristocratic than democratic.
As is clear from the amount of industrial activity, toxic chemicals, disposable goods, and obscenely disparate wealth, their heedlessness and widespread disregard for investing in clean technology is imperiling our sustainable future.
Public Interest Groups and Socially Responsible Businesses and Shopping are important parts of the answer, the cure and the solution. Go right to the TAKE ACTION link to start looking at the issues.
Visit the blog site and discussions at: http://bluegreenmarblewarcry.wikispaces.com/
They've got so much money and influence they can't think straight. Tell Big Coal, Oil, and Automobiles what they can do with their money and power:
Windpower Offsets: Green Tags (Bonneville Environmental Foundation) http://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/calculator_intro.cfm
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/carbon_offset_wind_credits_carbon_reduction.htm
and sustainable banking: www.eco-bank.com and www.greencentury.com
"(No matter how small your act of decency, it is absolutely essential that you do it.)" - Gandhi
"(Never doubt the ability of a small group of committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is all that ever has.)" - Margaret Mead
"Fairness to farmers. A closer connection between people and the farmers we all rely on.
This was the essence of the vision that the three Equal Exchange founders — Rink Dickinson, Michael Rozyne, and Jonathan Rosenthal — held in their minds and hearts as they stood together on a metaphorical cliff back in 1986. By 1994, Equal Exchange was a worker-owned cooperative with 20 members." -look for their coffees in health food stores near you - http://www.equalexchange.com/story , www.fairtradenyc.org , www.coopdirectory.org , www.coopamerica.org, www.ecomall.com , www.buyblue.org ; http://www.usworker.coop/ , www.ica.coop , www.eco-bank.com , www.greencenturyfunds.com
"You can have great concentrations of wealth, or you can have democracy, but you can't have both" - Justice Brandeis
"Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship." -A. Philip Randolph
"Bush Vows Oil Independence by 4920. - 'By 5530 it may too late!' says Bush." - The Onion
"CEO Barbie Criticized for Promoting Unrealistic Career Images" - the Onion
"Laid-off Ford Employee Decides To Start Own Car Company" - the Onion
"Nation Sickened by Sight of Happy Couple" - The Onion
"Uncontrolled competition, like unregulated liberty, is not really free."- Philander Knox, attorney general of Theodore Roosevelt, and after reading Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution
"At New Lanark, Robert Owen fashioned the mill town into a community with non-profit stores that thrived. He wrote New View of Society and advocated a society based on cooperation."
"Who Would Jesus Bomb?" And would Mary Magdalene approve?
"It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation." - Joseph Campbell
"This astonishing and instructive experiment served as my model. I decided to start from the assumption that my patients knew everything that was of any pathogenic significance and that it was only a question of obliging them to communicate it." - Sigmund Freud, MD in 1896 before fabricating the Oedipus Complex under peer pressure
"We can see now that archetypal symbols have an enormous impact on the individual, forming his emotions and his ethical and mental outlook, influencing his relationships with others, and thus affecting his whole destiny." M.-L von Franz, on Carl Jung, MD
"(Demystification is about coming out of our self-to-self trance and owning the five freedoms)" - John Bradshaw
(Organizations are functioning like active addicts; individuals and systems can and do begin processes of recovery that do result in better health and functioning)- Anne Schaef
(Our institutions reflect Maslow's hierarchy of needs for humans, from breathing air to spiritual needs.)-Thom Hartmann
"I had no doubt that, given time, we humans were capable of creating a moral society. The trouble was, as I knew only too well, time was running out." - Jane Goodall
In 1889 (Jane Addams) and Miss Starr leased a large home built by Charles Hull at the corner of Halsted and Polk Streets. The two friends moved in, their purpose, as expressed later, being «to provide a center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago»1. Nobel Prize website
When the SNCC members asked for volunteers to go to the courthouse to register to vote, (Fannie Lou) Hamer was the first to raise her hand. This was a dangerous decision. She later reflected, "The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember." www.ibiblio.org
"These signs will accompany those who believe: they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." Jesus/ Mark 16
"At that time, Jesus and his disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.... The Pharisees condemned them. He said to them, "If you knew what this meant, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned these innocent men." Jesus/ Matthew 13
"At Lystra there was a crippled man, lame from birth, who had never walked. He listened to Paul, who looked intently at him saw that he had the faith to be healed... He jumped up and began to walk about." Acts 15
"Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias is the record of a series of visions concerning the relation between God, humanity, and the cosmos.... as emanations from God's love, "living sparks", (ruptured by sin and redeemed through a drama. God is 'Living Light', and Viriditas or 'Greenness' is the animating energy or grace of God)." Robert Ellsberg
In spite of all the money made by corporations, reality really doesn't work on the basis of profit calculations as originally conceived. Corporate society has lost touch with reality, and to those outside its churning gears looks a little like other systems we thought we had only heard about in history books: aristocracy, extremist theocracy, fascism, and communist dictatorship. Worse, they are often oblivious to the increasing crisis. It just hasn't gotten bad enough for them yet.
Their propaganda, their hype, their profiteering try to create a hypnotic, intimidating environment. Sorry. Informed by Nature, the Science of Biology, the Social Science of Anthropology, and Psychology lead to a holistic experience of Reality that is a splash of cold water. Legitimate science, the verifiable logic of modern education, and honest spirituality are not for sale, and keep our souls and minds healing and learning, and assuming our rightful places in positions of power. Reality will not support a lie for long, and Corporate Lies won't last. Let's wake up democracy and make it last. Such as it is, it got us this far.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/ 
CLIMATE CHANGE - World Wildlife Fund monitors and participates in national and international policymaking related to global warming. LEARN MORE
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/ ;
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A/RES/37/7
48th plenary meeting
28 October 1982
37/7. World Charter for Nature
The General Assembly,
Reaffirming the fundamental purposes of the United Nations, in particular
the maintenance of international peace and security, the development of
friendly relations among nations and the achievement of international
co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social,
cultural, technical, intellectual or humanitarian character,
Aware that:
(a) Mankind is a part of nature and life depends on the uninterrupted
functioning of natural systems which ensure the supply of energy and
nutrients,
(b) Civilization is rooted in nature, which has shaped human culture and
influenced all artistic and scientific achievement, and living in harmony with
nature gives man the best opportunities for the development of his creativity,
and for rest and recreation, . . .
http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/37/a37r007.htm
... is a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century. Created by the largest global consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The Earth Charter is an expression of hope and a call to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history.
Take a look at www.globalwarming.org to see how oil companies paint the global warming issue. The ads are particularly charming. They call themselves the "Cooler Heads Coalition". Cooler Heads Making Money Hand over Fist off of the current situation is more like it. Then take a look at www.exxonsecrets.org and www.uspirg.org to get another look at where the money is coming from, and how the issue really looks. For a laugh, get a look at the nuclear industry's approach- how nuclear power addresses global warming!
For a look at a sustainable economy, check out the following sites:
1) Global Wind Energy Council: http://www.gwec.net/
2) American Wind Energy: in New York: www.nypirg.org ; Nationwide: www.sterlingplanet.com ; American Wind Energy Association: www.awea.org
3) Environmental Banking (Shorebank Pacific): www.eco-bank.com ; Shareowning: www.greencentury.com ; www.newalternatives.com
4) Food Cooperatives Nationwide: www.coopdirectory.org
5) Green Businesses: www.ecomall.com ; www.coopamerica.org ; www.buyblue.com
b. Ecological Internet: www.redjellyfish.com ; Google's eco-Search Engine (a partnership where websearches fund the eco-website partner): www.care2.com , etc.; Icon clicks (which send funds to non-profits): www.ecologyfund.com and www.clickandsave.8k.com ; Free email site: www.planet-save.com ; www.care2.com ; www.ecologyfund.com
6) Start a Business of your own in NY:http://www.dos.state.ny.us/corp/corpwww.html
In any case, get angry enough, or just laugh at the greedy suits who don't want to change, and put your mind at ease for your friends and family, and anybody else you like on the planet, and for that matter, the planet itself, and jump right in. Reach me at mrmtaichi@ecologyfund.net
Bush Vows Oil Independence by 4920 "By 5530 it will be too late," the President says. - The Onion Satire www.theonion.com
Like Al Gore describes in Earth in the Balance, and Gloria Steinem in The Revolution Within: Pollution. Exploitation. Oppression. Corruption.
Things will never change. Nobody loves me.
Think again. And take action.
Corporate Social Responsibility. Sustainable Development.
Public Interest. Accountability. Might Makes Right.
After all, Who Would Jesus Bomb? From the view of his teachings of discretion, the answer is, "He wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place, since he didn't have dollar signs in his eyes".
Greenpeace
USPIRG (The US Public Interest Research Group): www.uspirg.org
NOW(The National Organization of Women): www.now.org
ACLU(The American Civil Liberties Union): www.aclu.org
AFL-CIO (A Major Union): www.aflcio.org
These groups and more are acting in the Public Interest, in Your Interest, and watching Congress and the President like hawks. They sponsor letters on-line constantly. Click FAVORITE LINKS to reach the Action Center Page. The rest of the site explores information and holistics, to broaden the possibilities.
Let us know about anything else you may know of at mrmtaichi@ecologyfund.net . Thank you for visiting and participating. This world is yours, mine, and all of ours to preserve. See the Links Page for Events and Actions.
Al Gore in his book Earth in the Balance, "French scientists recently concluded that the explanation for the growing number of dead dolphins washing up along the Riviera was accumulated environmental stress, which, over time, rendered the animals too weak to fight off a virus."
He also points out that the normal amounts of CO2 in geologic time range from 200 parts per million to 300 ppm. The concentration now stands at 360 ppm and shooting higher all the time geometrically towards 600 ppm and beyond. (also see Clive Ponting's A Green History of the World). In 2000, 604,000 megawatts of electricity were produced in the U.S., 43 % coal 261,000MW, 19% Gas 118,000MW, 14% nuclear 86,000MW , and 12% renewable 74,600MW , 7% petroleum 41,000MW (global photo gallery site: http://www.industcards.com/ppworld.htm) . 600 power plants are still producing smoke with equipment that precedes the Clean Air Act of the 1970's.
Clive Ponting describes that "in 1875, Queen Victoria compained that the ammonia fumes from the local cement works were making Osborne House, her residence on the Isle of Wight, uninhabitable, but government inspectors found that they had no powers to close down the works." In the 1980's, there were some 70,000 chemicals in use, and more every year. The vast majority are toxic.
In the 1940's, the U.S. produced some one million tons of hazardous waste. In the 1980's that number was up to 250 million in the U.S. of A., and about 375 million tons worldwide.
Isn't the Earth big enough to take all this, and more, so our families will keep doing this forever? It will never change, never! No reason to think twice.
Enron, Arthur Anderson, and WorldCom are recent examples of company's who have combusted as a consequence of corporate irresponsibility. Erin Brockavitch and A Civil Action are recent movie portrayals of true stories of communities stung badly by chemicals and company behavior. The Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Union Carbide in Bhopal, Big Oil in Nigeria, the non-executive working people, and the Executives who have not lost their soul's to privilege, from Al Gore to Howard Lyman.
Millions of people are buying organic food and natural products. Ray Anderson, CEO is cleaning up Interface Carpets in Georgia. Anita Roddick gave The Body Shop to the world. Switzerland's Ciba Geigy's Chemical's people let Designtex's Michael Braungart research their stock. Out of 60 companies, one agreed to their request to evaluate their stock. Out of 8,000 chemicals in Ciba-Geigy's repertoire, 7,962 were toxic. However, out of the 38 clean and pure ones, Design Tex could make the fabric it wanted. When the effluent inspectors stopped by, they thought there was something wrong with their equipment when it did not register any toxins in the waste water. Can somebody role the soundtrack, first Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like An Eagle", then Kirk Franklin's "Revolution", Dave Matthews' "Everyday", Michael Franti's "Rock the Nation", Rage's "Mic Check", Metallica's "Enter the Sandman", Alanis' "All I Really Want", and Tracy Chapman's "Mountain's o' Things".
Suggested Reading For Thoroughly Understanding The Reformation to a Progressive Society: 1) The Greenpeace Story by Michael Brown, they describe the impact of civil disobedience, direct actions, and boycotts. 2) Nader: Crusader by Justin Martin 3) Anita Roddick in Body and Soul, describes how she and husband Gordon used The Body Shop to bring consumers closer to social justice campaigns through their work with Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth. 4) Getting Well Again by O. Carl Simonton MD 5) You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay 6) Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw 7) Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain 8) Meditations and Blessings by Nathaniel Altman 9) Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins 10) The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell 11) The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron 12) Communication for Couples by Jonathan Robinson 13) The Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman 14) Beyond Codependency by Melody Beattie 15) Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg 16) Infinite Power for Richer Living by Joseph Murphy 17) The Child's Conception of the World by Jean Piaget 18) Readings in Developmental Psychology by Judith K. Gardner 19) Superlearning 2000 by Sheila Ostrander et al 20) Michael Silverstein writes in The Environmental Economic Revolution, there is a "synergy between business practices that generate wealth and those that protect the natural order".
Thank you to everyone who has inspired me! You rock and I love you for who you are, and also the simple brilliance, humor, and loving warmth you share with me. The likes of whom include WE, THE WORLD (WETHEWORLD.ORG) and Rick Ulfik, Atila, meus primos em Brasil, Marcel und Toro in Deutschland, Shorebank Pacific the Environmental Bank (eco-bank.com) and Laurie, Non-Violent Communication (NYCNVC.org), Spiritual therapeutic Support Groups everywhere, girlfriend-partners, good pals, the Walimu of Kenya, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop-Shopping, NYC Fair Trade Coalition and the folks there, the Park Slope Food Coop, Christian Science, The Holistic Open Center, Landmark Education, the PIRG's, Harvard University, Dave Matthews, Rage, Alanis, and The Revolution Within by Gloria Steinem, Mom and Dad, Bryan and Marcy, Nate and Cathy, Jazzy J, Pappy, Libby, Andrew C, Julie G, Julia G, Rose W, a familia em Brasil, Die Familie in Deutschland, and too many good friends and good people to mention.
While Congressmembers might be heavily influenced by corporate Big Business and special interest lobbyists, the little guy is not left totally unprotected. Public Interest lobbyists are in many corners, and have made a place for themselves, from the ACLU to the Sierra Club to NOW to the NAACP to Public Citizen and USPIRG.
Take a look at the Links page, and the About page. Come back for more whenever you like. We'll be here.
If you have any interest in the psychological and spiritual dimensions, you might like this account.
They say "Money Doesn't Grow on Trees" when they mean that you don't want to spend money you don't have, and you need to spend your cash to pay the bills. However, in the larger picture, Money can be really be said to grow on trees. The oil in the ground literally came from trees. The meat on someone's plate ate plants. When Gold buys Weapons, they are only as deadly as the hearts and minds that are involved with them, and those hearts and minds ate plants or meat. The implications of this causal chain and the psychology of it are profound. There are many great stories to empower us all. Take Louise Hay in her book You Can Heal Your Life, and her story of her curing her own cancer through actions to love and nurture herself. That includes the message, "I am stepping into the Winner's Circle, and am always Divinely guided and protected." If that encouragement and vision goes for me, I affirm it for you, them, and the rest of us who want social responsibility.
Dr.'s Barry and Arnold Fox in their book Boost Your Immune System Now talk about meditations, exercise, nutrition, and affirmations like "I have all the clients I can handle." which worked spectacular results. John Bradshaw, in his book Healing The Shame That Binds You takes the spirit of the men's movement and Robert Bly in the same direction as the Foxes. He discusses the deeper psychotherapeutic feelings and meditations to help us heal and stay psychologically sensitive, strong, and prosperous. Like with Anita and Gordon Roddick, founders of the Body Shop and her book Body and Soul when she describes her innovation with natural creams and lotions, and the arduous labor and fun she had opening a shop of her own. A humble start to a multinational business. The story of Rapunzel foods is also inspiring, in that three friends began in Europe in the 1970's growing organic food, and now operate internationally with Fair Trade to boost the salaries of employees. Along with an abundance of other efforts like those of Ray Anderson, CEO to make Interface Carpets a green machine, Toyota and Honda with Hybrid engines, and Apple Computers recently to recycle iPods, the link between healthy thinking, healing, and prosperity is growing stronger in spite of the pollution and warmongering that still prevails.
Here are a few sacred stories from the literature:
I was in a state of emotional desperation. I was having some fun, but felt much lack of direction, sadness, fear, anger, and confusion.
One day I prayed for some sort of way out of this, and very soon afterward someone who believed that a spiritually-minded sort became my roommate. As I started reading and talking with this person, I began to see that responsible sex was a priority. So were respectful relationships. I learned that no person could rule my mind or body, and that our relationships with each other are happy only as we understand our individual relation to God.
In a few months I met my life partner in a most natural and expeditious way. He valued the same kind of stable family life I desired. We both have found enormous blessing in our relationship, and continue to grow.
July, 1995
Recently I went on tour with a band through Central America. During our off time we often had the chance to do other activities, which allowed us to take advantage of the area.
One day early in the tour, some of us were snorkeling off the Atlantic coast of Panama, when I was stung by a Portuguese man-of-war. A split second later one of my friends was stung by the same one. Some people who lived in the area for some time began to warn us about the danger of these stings.
The excruciating pain made it hard for me to think as we made our way slowly back to shore. Yet I held to the very simple, profound idea that God alone is power. The pain was spreading, and I knew I must use what I had learned to prove that the law of God includes perfect health. Once on shore, I walked off alone, and prayed first to (manage) my own fear. Right at the moment, when it seemed that some venom could harm me, an idea from Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health brought me comfort, that regardless of the disease, if you silence the fear, and understand the spiritual reason why you have freedom from any hurt, the illness is (removed), and in essence, destroyed.
I continued to pray. My fearful thoughts evaporated in the light of this prayer. The pain lessened, and within minutes was virtually gone. I then returned to the rest of the group. The friend who had also been stung was on a stretcher, having intravenous aid from paramedics who were attending him. They had called a helicopter to come and fly him to a hospital. I then realized I could provide assistance by understanding all men as immune from evil, not just myself.
I walked off again, quietly declaring the truth about man and his relationship to God. I knew that regardless of religion, race, or any other human classification, God envelops each of His children in love. In regard to both of us, I declared that right where a poisonous substance had appeared to do harm, there was only God, Spirit, whose specific love for each individual included all good and nothing harmful.
I was relieved when I returned fifteen minutes later to find that he was recovering. The helicopter was later called off in midflight.
The remainder of our trip was terrific.
Blake Elliott Windal, Los Angeles CA, 1994
Before I became a detective I was a patrolman for a little short of seven years. When I had been on the force only nine or ten months, I was working in a very rough area of town. Officers in another patrol car came on the radio with a report that they had discovered a stabbing incident. They asked the fire department to treat the wounded victim, and they radioed they had made an arrest. We believed they had captured a suspect; there seemed to be no point for us to go into the area.
When the call had first come out, I had started to pray. The thought came to me "turn left."
I turned left and drove down a few more blocks. I felt it was right to come to a halt at the curb in front of an alley. I remember not knowing why I was there, because the street was practically deserted. This was very late at night. Then a man ran out of the alley in front of our headlights with a knife in his hand. We jumped out of the car and chased him. After a standoff of a minute or so, he put the knife down. We captured him and made the arrest. We discovered that this was the man who had done the stabbing reported by the other unit. The others had not captured the right person. 1991
adapted from Healing Spiritually ed. The Chrisitian Science Publishing Society
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