Camping In The Clouds

Whenever we can manage it, Steve & I take off and head to the high peaks of the Gila Wilderness. On really great trips, we can stay out for a week or more…on absolutely fantastic trips, we don’t see any other humans for the entire week…

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I grew up in these mountains; I never missed a fishing or hunting trip…not because I was a fan of fishing or hunting – but because I was a fan of spending days on end out of doors with so many trees, flowers and rocks to get acquainted with. The terrain in these mountains is incredibly varied…from low lying desert dunes, foothills with barely enough scrub oak to pitch a tent under…all the way UP, UP, UP to the sky where you can dance across dew-covered meadows and quite literally, kiss the clouds that roll by.

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This is a slice of heaven…this is where everything makes sense and where everything is exactly as it should be.

From the tallest trees…

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To the tiniest drop of dew…

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There is nothing but natural perfection & grace…even in death -

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And no matter how long I stay, it is never enough. I am never ready to come back down from the clouds. I just want to snag a small patch of land, grab Steve (and the dogs & the hens, of course!) & run like hell until we are safe and snug and sound in a little dream place like this!

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“A Carpenter’s Cabin”

Scientists “Investigate” Geo-engineering Methods

Scientists are only “investigating” some of these ideas, eh? If that is really true then I cannot help but wonder who exactly is behind spraying the sky over my head several times a month? And if the spraying has nothing to do with geo-engineering, then what the hell is the purpose of it? If it is part of the ‘investigating’ then I resent the hell out of possibly being used as a human guinea pig – without my consent and with zero power to opt out of the program.

The sky over S. NM Friday afternoon (April 13,2013)

The sky over S. NM Friday afternoon (April 13,2013)

ABC Science – “Scientists and engineers are now investigating methods to manipulate the Earth’s cloud cover, change the oceans’ chemical composition and blanket the planet with a layer of sunlight-reflecting particles.

Geoengineering — deliberate, large-scale intervention in the climate system designed to counter global warming or offset some of its effects — is commonly divided into two broad classes.

Carbon dioxide removal technologies aim to extract excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it somewhere less dangerous. This approach is a kind of clean-up operation after we have dumped our waste into the sky.

Solar radiation management technologies seek to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet, thereby reducing the amount of energy trapped in the atmosphere of ‘greenhouse Earth’. This is not a clean-up but an attempt to mask one of the effects of dumping waste into the sky, a warming globe.

Diligent contributors to Wikipedia have listed some 45 proposed geoengineering schemes or variations on schemes. Eight or ten of them are receiving serious attention. Some are grand in conception, some are prosaic; some are purely speculative, some are all too feasible; yet all of them tell us something interesting about how the Earth system works.” Full Article

Geoengineering, Runaway Climate Change, And The Poisoning Of Life On Earth (zengardner.com)
The Truth About Geoengineering (lookingbeyondborders.com)
Geoengineering is a dangerous solution to climate change (climate-connections.org)
CFR admits: chemtrails are real (oneworldchronicle.com)
Anyone can geoengineer: should we try to stop them? (theconversation.edu.au)
Top News: Earth-cooling schemes need global sign-off, researchers say (guardian.co.uk)

 

Genetic Roulette: The Gamble Of Our Lives

“Eating genetically modified food is gambling with every bite.”

ModifiedFood

RawForBeauty.com

“Never-Before-Seen-Evidence points to genetically engineered foods as a major contributor to rising disease rates in the US population, especially among children. Gastrointestinal disorders, allergies, inflammatory diseases, and infertility are just some of the problems implicated in humans, pets, livestock, and lab animals that eat genetically modified soybeans and corn.”

Seed, Sun, Real Dirt & Bees

Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us? 

 ”QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from Taggart Siegel, director of THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world including Michael Pollan, Gunther Hauk and Vandana Shiva. Together they reveal both the problems and the solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature.”

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Official Film Website: Queen Of The Sun

“Our experience filming honeybees, pollinators and the incredible beings who care for them has led us on a new odyssey to investigate where it all begins: the seedSEED will be the final film in a trilogy that began with the Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us? and Real Dirt on Farmer John. SEED will investigate the dramatic story of seeds, the basis of life on earth. The film will unveil a David and Goliath battle for the future of our seeds. As many irreplaceable seeds are nearing extinction, SEED follows heroic biodynamic farmers, scientists and seed collectors, who are working tirelessly to preserve agricultural security and seed diversity in an uphill battle against high-tech industrial seed companies and an impending global food crisis.”

“SEED will reveal the awe, wonder and hidden beauty of seeds. We will unearth the resilience and power that all seeds have to sustain, enliven and enrich our humanity. We hope SEED will ignite the imagination of audiences, inspiring them to be part of a new movement to help sustain seed diversity.”

I am not able to find a trailer for SEED that I can embed here so if you’d like to check it out, you can do so Here.

Joel Salatin: “What You Can Do”

Joel Salatin holds a hen during a tour of Poly...

Excerpt, Wanderlust Festival – (Emphasis mine) “What do you mean, “what can I do?”  You can participate.  You can connect.  You can get actively involved in the process of turning that beet into Harvard beets.  Yum.  You can turn off the TV.  You can cancel the Disney vacation and buy bushels of tomatoes to can or turn into salsa.  You can get some pots and grow a pot garden . . . of vegetables.  You can put a beehive on the roof of your house, two chickens in the foyer instead of that aquarium or parakeet cage.

Just like today–whatever today looks like–is the manifestation of billions of individual decisions accumulated over time, tomorrow will be too.  And if you, I, we don’t start making different decisions we will end up where we’re headed, only it may be worse because we’ll be farther down the wrong road.

We must stop this incessant victimhood mentality.  Somebody else will not fix things.  Somebody else will not make me healthy;  somebody else will not make me happy.  These things are my responsibility. Not the neighbor’s, not the government’s, not the church or civic club.  If I don’t know what to do with a beet, I need to find out.  Knowing what to do with a beet begins a long chain of events that ends up creating a soil in which earthworms happily procreate.  And that is a good thing…” Full Article Here On Wanderlust Festival

Joel Speaking at Wanderlust Festival 2012 -

Want to hear more from Joel Salatin? Joel himself hosting a Q&A right here on this Wanderlust Journal blog page on Wednesday, April 10 at 1pm EST. Post your questions for him at that time and the man himself will answer your questions!

Final Project: Joel Salatin, A Local Hero (grantklover.wordpress.com)
Joel Salatin On “Illegal Everything” (familysurvivalprotocol.com)
Joel Salatin Workshops In Kiama! (green-change.com)

Joel Salatin On “Illegal Everything”

An ‘oldie but goodie’ video…well worth the watch time for those not already familiar with the ever-expanding laws that restrict our freedom to decide what foods we can put in our bodies.

Joel Salatin speaks on John Stossel’s segment, “Illegal Everything,” about raw milk, farms, and food freedom. Interview is from 2012.

Raw Milk Sold Legally In Arkansas…Maybe? (roninsjourney.wordpress.com)

Iowa on Verge of Legalizing Raw Milk; Resistance to Food Tyranny is Rising (theintelhub.com)
Final Project: Joel Salatin, A Local Hero (grantklover.wordpress.com)
Jury Nullification: Farmer Found Not Guilty in Raw Milk Case (silverunderground.com)
Flawed Government Report Used to Block State Raw Milk Freedom (secretsofthefed.com)
‘Acute’ retail pressure hurts food producers: Salatin (smh.com.au)

 

Terra Haute Officials Force Family To Give Up Pet Chickens

I must confess that I never bothered to even look and see if our city has an ordinance against having hens before getting our girls a few weeks ago…I honestly don’t care what officials have to say about it; they have no right to dictate what I do in my yard s’long as I am not bothering or harming anyone… and should a problem arise, I will fight to keep my hens…and my personal freedom. 

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My happy girls, Radley & Boo taking a break on my lap…

(WTHI) – “When you think of family pets, usually a dog or cat comes to mind, but for one Terre Haute family they say their life isn’t complete without the family hens. The only problem is their pets are a violation of city code.

It’s the kind of after school activity you see on a farm, collecting the eggs from the hen house.

“The prices (of eggs) in the store are almost two dollars a dozen with the exception of the holiday,” Kevin Levesque of Terre Haute said.

But the hen house we encountered is located on a backyard farm. Kevin Levesque’s in the city of Terre Haute.

“That was the baseline for it pretty much for more eggs and to teach the kids a little more than just a dog and a cat,” Levesque said.

But a few weeks ago the Levesques were told their hen house pets are a violation of city code; for having farm animals in a residential zone.

“If you look up the definition of farm animal at USLAW.org it doesn’t include chickens,” Kevin said.” Full Story Here

Excerpt from the Change.org Petition to help the Levesque’s in the fight for food freedom:

“For two years, Various city officials would tell people that as long as no neighbors complained, there was no ordinance against it. Now in 2013, we are suddenly being told that there are such ordinances disallowing chickens and that after 2 years we must now find another place for them. Meaning we must get rid of our family pets that our children have raised from 2 days old and grown to love.

We want the government to realize that chickens are important many citizens of Terre Haute. Major cities across the United States are coming to realize that chickens bring a Green initiative to their cities. Raising local chickens increase food awareness, reduce transportation cost, and supply the community with a level of sustainability. One example of this would be during emergency situations where government assistance can focus on other pressing issues as was the case in 2005 with the massive flooding that decimated so much farm land along the Wabash River and dislodged so many local citizens.

Chickens aren’t farm animals they are beautiful and entertaining pets that provide many benefits. Homegrown eggs are without hormones or chemicals, are higher in nutrients, lower in cholesterol, and taste 10 times better that store-bought. Chickens will eat anything that moves, meaning they eat ticks (that carry lyme disease), fleas, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, stink bugs, slugs, and even mice, baby rats, and small snakes. Chickens are fun, loving, and really should be considered domestic pets…”

Read More & Sign The Petition

The Difference Between You & Me

“The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”

Marjane Satrapi, Author

Marjane Satrapi

Human Tissue Found in Meats

 - But Eating It Is “No Threat”

Yegads…is there ANYTHING left in our world that is safe to consume, I wonder? Most of our veggies are now genetically altered and filled with pesticides….milk is full of steroids and soon, aspertame…and almost all of our meat is either contaminated in one form or another…or on its way to being as genetically modified as our crops. What in the HELL are we doing to ourselves…to our children…to the entire planet???

“The horse meat fiasco in Europe has prodded scientists to look a bit deeper into what else we might be consuming. A team of South African scientists have just found traces of human tissue in meat meant for public consumption from 9 provinces.”

Activist Post - “The horse meat fiasco in Europe has prodded scientists to look a bit deeper into what else we might be consuming. A team of South African scientists have just found traces of human tissue in meat meant for public consumption from 9 provinces.

The issue was revealed to parliament, almost as a side note, during meat inspection briefings on Tuesday.

A University of Stellenbosch scientist and his team conducted a microbial analysis that revealed traces of human elements, but said that slaughterhouse workers sometimes cut themselves . . . or other things . . . which could lead to the findings.

If I walked into a factory and the sample I randomly selected to test was a meat sample of which the person de-boning the meat had just picked his nose and then touched the meat, I would get a totally different microbial reading,” he said.

Delicious. Beyond the findings themselves, it brings up the global hot-button topic of the moment: food labeling. How much should we know about what we are consuming?

In addition to the troubling statements above, scientist Louw Hoffman noted that only 15% of the meat being sold in South Africa is correctly labeled, revealing other potentially harmful attributes of which consumers are currently unaware:

“In the labelling regulations it clearly states that allergens have to be mentioned and noted,” said Hoffman.

Allergens like . . . other people’s genetic signature?

Yet, Hoffman and his team of scientists concluded that the incorrect labeling poses “no threat” to the consumers who eat it, despite some more gems uncovered:

Meat Musical Chairs

Briefing parliament’s portfolio committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries, University of Western Cape forensic scientist Dr Eugenia D’Amato said nearly 43% of samples she had tested which were labelled as game, were, in fact, beef. 

D’Amato said horse meat had also been used as a substitute for springbok in biltong, and pork was found in ostrich sausages. 

There was also a smaller proportion of kangaroo in samples.

Despite the overall findings that consumers have absolutely no idea what they are eating – including human remnants – in 85% of the products, SA’s Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries deputy director-general downplayed it by asserting that we are not becoming unwitting cannibals:

It is possible that (if tested) we could find traces of human DNA in meat. However, even if we do find human DNA, it does not mean we are eating human flesh.

Great. Unfortunately, we are evidently eliminating healthy microorganisms in the processing of foods, but since there is an acceptable standard of nasty foreign entities, thanks to our regulatory agencies – we have introduced a variety of contaminants into now weakened guts and immune systems.

We’d like to think that these food scandals are safe from us – overseas, it’s their problem. But, big problems are usually systemic and many of the developed nations are on the same platform. As with most food scandals, they go on for years unnoticed before the beans are spilled.

It doesn’t sound like anyone’s literally being run through the meat grinder just yet, but it’s a startling fact that we don’t know much about what our food comes into contact with. And we have scientists and regulatory agencies continually asserting how safe our food supply is.

Are you unsettled at the prospect of ingesting someone else’s particles and blood? Do you wonder what else will be found when the next scientific investigation is conducted in your country?

Perhaps we should be asking ourselves before each meal, “Hey, who’s in there? How’d they get in there? Anyone missing?”

Sources:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/03/27/human-tissue-in-my-beef-stew
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/387383/Could-HUMAN-DNA-be-in-our-food-Quite-likely-claim-experts
http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/525/91240.html

Checkpoint Resistance

These checkpoints are on every road leading out of Lost Causes. They are intimidating as hell; more often than not you feel like you’re getting swarmed as one agent leans in your window to question you and others run drug dogs and mirrors around your car. I’ve watched them grow from porta-potty sized outposts that were almost never open and usually manned by a single agent into something akin to the checkpoint you’d expect entering prison grounds. Millions and millions of dollars have been spent building these places up into outright terrifying and militarized monstrosities. 

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DEA cameras line the exit into the DHS checkpoints…

Checkpoints (some would say illegal checkpoints) have been popping up quite frequently in the USA. As you see in this video, you DO NOT have to comply with their question’s or demands. Don’t forget, you have rights.

A note of caution to folks who are not accustomed to the checkpoints or who may not be aware of the consequences of what can happen if they decide to challenge the agents…

Agents are armed. They have police dogs, tazers, pepper spray and of course, guns. LOTS of guns. Some seem to be young kids who either piss themselves…or overreact with attitude when their authority is challenged. Others are older men with a real abrasive attitude that jump on every word you say to screw with you. A few are polite and one or two have seemed apologetic for what they’re doing. It’s a game of roulette as to which type is likely to be pushing themselves into your space to question you so be prepared for anything. Agents assume innocent things are a sign of guilt – don’t remove your sunglasses? They assume you are hiding something and react accordingly. Don’t mute your stereo because you’re jamming to your favorite song? You’re a punk and probably have drugs. Smile and be too nice? You are a suspicious hippie bastard, better check you out.

I have seen people cuffed and down on their knees on concrete in the blazing sun…and I’ve seen cars being dismantled – and if I understand correctly, once they have turned your car into a completely disassembled scrap heap, they are under no obligation to RE-assemble the vehicle. Call a tow truck, the bill is on YOU even if you are 100% innocent of any wrongdoing. Keep that in mind if you’re asked to pull over into a secondary lane…once they get you there, you are pretty much screwed.

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What Did You Learn In School Today?

What did you learn in school today,

Dear little boy of mine?

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I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody’s free.
And that’s what the teacher said to me.
That’s what I learned in school today.
That’s what I learned in school…

I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.
That’s what I learned in school today.
That’s what I learned in school…

I learned our government must be strong.
It’s always right and never wrong.
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.
That’s what I learned in school today.
That’s what I learned in school…

I learned that war is not so bad.
I learned of the great ones we have had.
We fought in Germany and in France.
And some day I might get my chance.
That’s what I learned in school today.
That’s what I learned in school…

Written by Tom Paxton, performed by Pete Seeger.

Prisons of Poverty

“Raymond V. Liedka, of Oakland University in Michigan, and colleagues have found that the crime-fighting effects of prison disappear once the incarceration rate gets too high. “If the buildup goes beyond a tipping point, then additional incarceration is not going to gain our society any reduction in crime, and may lead to increased crime,” Dr. Liedka said.”

There is nothing unintentional about what has happened with our incarceration rates and prison system in this country over the past 2 decades or so. Since the latest scheme of enslaving people has taken root in this country, everything has gone exactly according to the plans of the slave-owners, a.k.a. the private prison industry- which is supported and funded by the very legislators we elect.

To call the current system a ‘poverty trap’ is an understatement…it isn’t an accidental trap; it is intentional and well planned. Every time something is proven to reduce recidivism rates, that *something* is magically removed from the equation. Strong outside ties help prisoners? Well then, let’s move prisoners farther from home, charge outrageous rates for phone calls and then…ah yes…let’s go ALL out and mandate that prisoners only be allowed to receive 1 postcard a month instead of long letters from home…

And if poverty increases incarceration rates well by all means…let’s make it impossible for anyone even arrested to ever rise above the poverty and earn their way out of the system via legal employment. There is no profit to be made by allowing people to serve a short, fitting sentence for actual crimes (vs non-crimes such as drug use) and then letting them return to the free world and get on with the business of earning a real living wage and becoming part of productive society and our legislators (you know, those folks who own stock in prison companies or at the very least, accept bribes campaign contributions from prison companies) damn well know it.

US incarceration timeline

US incarceration timeline (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Excerpts, NYTimes- “The shift to tougher penal policies three decades ago was originally credited with helping people in poor neighborhoods by reducing crime. But now that America’s incarceration rate has risen to be the world’s highest, many social scientists find the social benefits to be far outweighed by the costs to those communities.

“Prison has become the new poverty trap,” said Bruce Western, a Harvard sociologist. “It has become a routine event for poor African-American men and their families, creating an enduring disadvantage at the very bottom of American society.”

Among African-Americans who have grown up during the era of mass incarceration, one in four has had a parent locked up at some point during childhood. For black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is so high — nearly 40 percent nationwide — that they’re more likely to be behind bars than to have a job.

No one denies that some people belong in prison. Mr. Harris, now 47, and his wife, 45, agree that in his early 20s he deserved to be there. But they don’t see what good was accomplished by keeping him there for two decades, and neither do most of the researchers who have been analyzing the prison boom.

The number of Americans in state and federal prisons has quintupled since 1980, and a major reason is that prisoners serve longer terms than before. They remain inmates into middle age and old age, well beyond the peak age for crime…

…Epidemiologists have found that when the incarceration rate rises in a county, there tends to be a subsequent increase in the rates of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy, possibly because women have less power to require their partners to practice protected sex or remain monogamous.

When researchers try to explain why AIDS is much more prevalent among blacks than whites, they point to the consequences of incarceration, which disrupts steady relationships and can lead to high-risk sexual behavior. When sociologists look for causes of child poverty and juvenile delinquency, they link these problems to the incarceration…” Full Story Here

Restoration vs Revenge

~ HT to Prison Photography for the link to Unlikely Friends ~

The world needs more thinking and more medicine like what is accomplished with projects like Unlikely Friends.

Restorative Justice instead of Revenge-based Justice. 

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“The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world with one out of 32 Americans under criminal justice supervision. The rest of the world is intrigued by the paradox that the leading democracy in the free world imprisons so many of its citizens, 25% of the total prisoners worldwide.

UNLIKELY FRIENDS documents victims of brutal crimes who, through forgiveness, unexpectedly become friends with their perpetrators.

Finding a criminal justice system that has left them empty and unsupported, these victims of unspeakable crimes forgive out of a deep need to heal themselves, which in turn motivates the perpetrator to fully account for their actions and thereby begin the process of true rehabilitation.

These relationships, so unfathomable for most of us, open our thinking to new possibilities of how to transform a system ensconced in punishment and retribution to one of restorative justice that is based in humanity.”

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Hate begets hate; healing begets healing…it is not a difficult concept to grasp but it isn’t one that is promoted nearly enough. All of the ridiculous fear-based propaganda like “TOUGH ON CRIME” has taken root in our society’s thought process and we are just now beginning to see and feel the ramifications of that school of thought…More prisons, more abuses, more crimes, more violence…more, more and more of everything that is unhealthy and damaging to us all. 

Politricksters who stand to profit from the private prison industry have no reason to reverse anything they have accomplished so it is once again up to US – The People – to instigate the change. I don’t care if you are a ‘bleeding heart liberal’ that thinks we can abolish prisons entirely or an ‘uber-conservative rightwinger’ that is simply fed up with the exorbitant amount of your taxes being spent on prisons…it behooves all of us to do whatever is necessary to halt the revenge-based and profit-driven prison system from rooting itself even more deeply into our societies. (Yes, plural…ALL societies are at risk of being over-run and destroyed by this cancerous growth; it is NOT just an American problem.) 

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Proliferation, Paul Rucker

 Animated mapping of the US Prison system set to original music.
Timeline:
Green Dots: 1778-1900
Yellow Dots: 1901-1940
Orange Dots: 1941-1980
Red Dots: 1981-2005

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The only way to make an idea take hold and start to grow is to keep promoting it so please help spread the word (Loudly, repetitively and often!). The intent of this project is health-based and healing-based…but unless more people hear about it, there is little hope of the spark becoming a wildfire. If you also think it is time to stop the hate and turn towards true healing then fan the flames of forgiveness and share the message(s) and help promote projects like Unlikely Friends as much as you can…social media is our most powerful tool right now, I think and here is another opportunity to use it for good!

Connect with and support Unlikely Friends -

On Vimeo

On Facebook

On Twitter

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The “Creeping Crud” & Meditation

It seems that I may have shared my happy peace-pipe with someone I should not have over the weekend and caught myself a nice case of what my mother always called, “The creeping crud”. I’m not deathly ill but I know if I don’t rest, I could end up that way. I know that I’m behind on replying to several comments and emails that have accumulated over the weekend and promise I will get to them as I can…for right now I just go with the flow of short energy bursts doing what I can while it lasts and then falling back over into bed into oblivion when the energy fades.

Before I head back into oblivion for the night, here’s a bit of Tomas Walker’s flute meditation to help wash away whatever muck floated at you today…

~ Peace ~

Like A Phoenix: Power Beyond The Fall

So…you want a revolution, eh? Pissed off…fed up…you know bad things are going bump in the night but don’t know which way to turn for help when officers are murdering people – and pets – all over the place. Your government representatives have gone deaf and blind. Your online activity is not only not private, but can and will be used against you in court…doors are getting bashed in, your milk is no longer legal, your neighbors can vanish and be indefinitely detained & families are being terrorized by armed and masked SWAT men in the middle of the night…

It is time to do something…NOW!!

Enough is enough!! Our founding fathers would not have stood for this and neither should we!! 

The time for a revolution is at hand…!

Or is it..?

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No one can deny that we are in dire straits both as a nation and as part of the global community of human beings…things are not good and changes absolutely must be made before we all end up in darker times and conditions than most of us could ever dream of living in – or even surviving. But…since it is premature to jump into a revolution…and it is obvious that we cannot continue on the path we’re on without serious negative consequences, where does that leave us? 

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I wish I could drop a big, happy rainbow here and say that there is no reason to worry, our leaders will all come to their senses soon and everything will be hunky-dory. I’d be a liar if I did. I honestly don’t think that things are going to be “okay” in the sense that we want for a long time to come still. The price of…everything…has risen so it seems. It’s not actually that prices are any higher – it’s that the dollar is lower, worth less…bottom line either way is that you get fewer items for more Monopoly Money than ever before. There is no denying the rise of the police state and ever tightening laws that are strangling us on every level from personal to business. The war machine is rolling over countries left, right and sideways; it is the Hexxus of Fern Gully, out of control and oozing death and destruction everywhere it goes. We find it acceptable to imprison citizens in order to satisfy corpo-political pigs and keep them all feeding at the trough of profit via human slavery…

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The Relentless March of the U.S. Police State

Riot police
Excerpt from The Independent Institute – By  

Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, wrote recently:

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will. . . . Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

Turley does not say much in this article about the other rail of the Police State Railway that Americans are riding to hell: the drug war, with its massive arrests, prosecution, and imprisonment of people charged only with victimless crimes and its militarization of the state and local police all over the country. (On the militarization of the police, see especially this research paper, a revised version of which will appear in the spring issue of The Independent Review.) This massive bloating of police power and legalized oppression and the corresponding suppression of individual rights have brought down to the lowest level the threats to life, liberty, and happiness that the war on terrorism has created in what most people view as a more remote and less threatening venue—”out there” somewhere, in drone-istan.

Each day, the U.S. police state grows larger, more powerful, more pervasive, and more menacing. When will the majority awaken to the realization that this threat has nothing to do with party politics, that it makes no difference whether a Republican or a Democrat occupies the presidency while our freedoms are demolished? Read Full Article Here

A Moment Of Clarity by Lee Camp…

How To Combat Modern Slavery

“If the rule of law is sound, it protects the poor and it protects the vulnerable. But if corruption creeps in and people don’t have the opportunity to have that protection of the rule of law, then if you can use violence, if you can use violence with impunity, you can reach out and harvest the vulnerable into slavery…”

In this moving yet pragmatic talk, Kevin Bales* explains the business of modern slavery, a multi-billion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground research — and names the price of freeing every slave on earth right now.

Highlights from the transcript which can be viewed in full Here on TEDTalks

“So, I began to do a research project of my own. I went to five countries around the world. I looked at slaves. I met slaveholders, and I looked very deeply into slave-based businesses because this is an economic crime. People do not enslave people to be mean to them.They do it to make a profit. And I’ve got to tell you, what I found out in the world in four different continents, was depressingly familiar…

…And I want to be very clear. I’m talking about real slavery. This is not about lousy marriages,this is not about jobs that suck. This is about people who can not walk away, people who are forced to work without pay, people who are operating 24/7 under a threat of violence and have no pay. It’s real slavery in exactly the same way that slavery would be recognized throughout all of human history…

…We’re also particularly interested and looking very carefully at places where slaves are being used to perpetrate extreme environmental destruction. Around the world, slaves are used to destroy the environment, cutting down trees in the Amazon; destroying forest areas in West Africa; mining and spreading mercury around in places like Ghana and the Congo;destroying the coastal ecosystems in South Asia. It’s a pretty harrowing linkage between what’s happening to our environment and what’s happening to our human rights.

Now, how on Earth did we get to a situation like this, where we have 27 million people in slavery in the year 2010? That’s double the number that came out of Africa in the entire transatlantic slave trade. Well, it builds up with these factors. They are not causal, they are actually supporting factors. One we all know about, the population explosion: the world goes from two billion people to almost seven billion people in the last 50 years. Being numerous does not make you a slave. Add in the increased vulnerability of very large numbers of people in the developing world, caused by civil wars, ethnic conflicts, kleptocratic governments, disease … you name it, you know it…”

Kevin Bales is the co-founder of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25 years.