.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Capitalism
Oligarchy
Sep 18th
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Recognizing Reality
Nov 25th
Question Beliefs
“We live in a culture that is embedded in unquestioned beliefs passing as truth. These beliefs are the source of our current crisis. We attempt to solve the problems of degradation of our environment and climate disruption, but we do not look at these core beliefs. We hold on to the idea that capitalism is the only right way to organize an economy, that democracy is essential to our freedom, that freedom itself is a core ingredient to our happiness. We believe corporate slogans such as “Progress is our most important product” (General Electric), and subscribe to the belief that technology will solve whatever problems we have, even the ones caused by technology.”
The Need for a Greater Vision: Recognizing Reality
By Norton Smith, originally published by Resilience.org
November 19, 2019
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-11-19/the-need-for-a-greater-vision-recognizing-reality/
Beliefs can go stale. A belief that one incorporates at one stage of intellectual/spiritual development may not serve a person as they grow older and perhaps wiser. That’s why beliefs should be reviewed from time to time. No need for a schedule, just practice staying in the present and one may find an uncomfortable feeling with a particular behavior. That’s the trigger to question the belief structure behind the action. We are creatures of habit and may find that we have become a slave to a few unquestioned behaviors that do not serve us any longer. No good blaming the devil!
Tearing Down the System
Nov 22nd
“In a nutshell, American politics have tilted our economic system so far in favor of wealthy elites—and this has been by and large a bipartisan project—that establishment lawmakers are really the ones guilty of “tearing down” a modest (if flawed) system that once upon a time distributed riches more fairly. When Americans—the vast majority of whom are not millionaires—read reports like this one showing that “[f]or the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year,” for Obama to ask us to not tear down the system is deeply insulting. The system has already been destroyed—by billionaires and their backers in Congress and the White House, including Obama.”
Sonali Kolhatkar is a columnist for Truthdig. She also is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV,
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ok-obama-its-time-to-cancel-centrism/
Ships fitted with ‘Cheat Devices’ to Divert Poisonous Pollution into Sea
Oct 6th
Ships fitted with ‘cheat devices’ to divert poisonous pollution into sea
Wil Crisp The Independent
“Global shipping companies have spent billions rigging vessels with “cheat devices” that circumvent new environmental legislation by dumping pollution into the sea instead of the air, The Independent can reveal.
More than $12bn (£9.7bn) has been spent on the devices, known as open-loop scrubbers, which extract sulphur from the exhaust fumes of ships that run on heavy fuel oil.”
Is this the result of a mature capitalism? If so, then these kinds of actions reveal a severe mental illness.
Greta Thunberg’s defiance upsets the patriarchy
Oct 3rd
Greta Thunberg’s defiance upsets the patriarchy – and it’s wonderful
“She is a 16-year-old, and these are grown men. And they are terrified. Wonderful. Who knew you could shake the patriarchy simply by refusing to smile for it, dress for it or demur to it? A refusal to acquiesce to the male gaze has these dinosaurs squirming.
Greta, you teach us about more than one kind of climate. Thank you.”
- Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist
Greta Thunberg’s Speech
Sep 25th
Greta Thunberg’s Speech
Greta Thunberg’s Speech at the UN Climate Action Summit
By Greta Thunberg, originally published by PBS News Hours
September 24, 2019
“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
“How dare you pretend that this can be solved with business-as-usual and some technical solutions. With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than eight and a half years.”
“There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today. Because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.
You are failing us. But young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.
We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
It takes courage to tell it as it is. It takes courage to speak out when your neighbours are speaking with their heads in the sand. Our exploitative economic system sucks us into such a subservient system – a “company store” – binding that we are compelled to shut up and put up. The ecosystem is still a misunderstood theory to many, boundless, loving Earth energy is credited to God and disaster is too often credited to God’s will. The environment is understood by many to be something “other” than us that we are at the mercy of. Many pray as if they think that the creator needs our praise and dishes out favours to selected followers. Some, hopefully a growing number realise that we “are” the planet. Thus, as the planet suffers so do we.
“It is not a matter of being “close to nature.” The relationship is more one of identity, in the mathematical sense, than of affinity. The Earth is, in a very real sense, the same as ourself (or selves), and it is this primary point that is made in the fiction and poetry of the Native American writers of the Southwest.” Paula Gunn Allen. Maybe that’s why a homespun, behavioural, saying goes: You must love yourself before you can love others.
As long as we see the Earth as “other” there is very little chance that we will change our behaviour or our destructive lifestyle.
Flight Prices
Sep 24th
Thomas Cook customers in shock over flight prices
By Katie Hope Business reporter, BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49805534
“Thomas Cook customers have accused airlines of cashing in on the holiday firm’s demise after being faced with high bills to book replacement flights.
People who booked flights with the company, now trying to find replacement deals, told the BBC that in some cases prices for the flights have tripled.
Holidaymaker Angela Mills said a flight from Glasgow to Rhodes, Greece, was £280 on Sunday, but was now £1,000.”
This is full on exploitation and seems to be the behaviour of an economic system that has reached maturity. For instance, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, there is an annual balloon festival lasting for a week. For many years, almost all Albuquerque motels raise their price significantly, some nearly double, for that week. Two years ago, I only found one motel, where I stayed, that did not raise their price. last year, that motel followed the rest. For many miles around Albuquerque, prices were significantly higher. In California, south of San Jose and down to at least San Luis Obispo, motel prices nearly double every Friday and Saturday nights. The answer to how much is your house worth? Is what somebody is willing to pay. The principle, of course falls under the subject of supply and demand. Notice the screaming absence of cost of production here. In many restaurants in the UK, the cost of a couple of the cheapest vegetables on a plate is right up there with the cost of a plate of 1 veg, a roast potato and roast beef. So, actually you pay for the room you take up in the restaurant.
No wonder Russia finally adopted capitalism!
“John Strickland, an airline analyst at JLS Consulting.”
“If the airlines don’t make profits where they can on a minority of flights then they don’t stand a chance of surviving.”
America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies
Aug 1st
America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies. Abolish them
While we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, America is giving the fossil fuel industry billions to extract more
Dana Nuccitelli
Mon 30 Jul 2018
“The OCI report noted that the Obama administration actually proposed to eliminate 60% of federal fossil fuel industry subsidies, but that proposal went nowhere for one obvious reason:
In the 2015-2016 election cycle oil, gas, and coal companies spent $354 million in campaign contributions and lobbying and received $29.4 billion in federal subsidies in total over those same years – an 8,200% return on investment.”
Jacksonville’s Poorest Residents Live in the Worst Flood Zones
Nov 18th
Jacksonville’s Poorest Residents Live in the Worst Flood Zones
Capitalism at it’s worst
MEREDITH RUTLAND BAUER NOV 15, 2017
“We are okay with those areas being a danger and a disaster waiting to happen.”
“What these buyers didn’t know—or what they chose to risk—was that these neighborhoods were cheaper because the homes were built in a flood zone without underground drainage or nearby retention ponds, which state law didn’t require until the early ‘80s.”
“Nationally, areas with known flooding—which, like the Northside homes, were usually built half a century ago—are going to be valued much lower than areas with proper drainage and flood protection. Residents who settle there “don’t have other options,” Dickerson said. This cheap property comes back to bite residents when a storm comes knocking. “There’s a lot of people on the Northside who need a lot of help,’ Washington said. “A lot of these people just did not know they were in flood plains. A lot of them didn’t have flood insurance because they just did not know.’”
Has anything changed since John Steinbeck wrote “The Grapes of Wrath”?