Category Archives: Global Protests

A Call To Action: Join The Fight For Food Freedom

Last week, I shared a story about the Levesque family in Terra Haute, Indiana who were forced to give up their pet chickens after the city abruptly decided that chickens are farm animals, not pets. Their story is both heartbreaking and infuriating and I’d like to ask the WordPress community to please support the Levesque’s as they fight to stop something like this from happening to other families – and to preserve their right to provide food (and education!) to their kids. Please take a moment to sign the petition below and then pass it around, email it, link it and share it as much as possible…

SIGN PETITION HERE

Connect With Simpler Times Homestead on Facebook

This fight isn’t just about one family in one city…laws and ordinances that restrict our ability to produce/grow our own food supply are popping up all over the place. If we do not fight them now, we will all pay the price (literally, at grocery stores when they are the only food source left) if we don’t stand up for ourselves – and each other – NOW.

Thanks in advance for any and all help you can give! 

Related Content -

Belle Plaine Discussing Urban Chickens (kcrg.com)
Connellsville Health Board cries foul to chicken farms in city (triblive.com)

More chickens allowed in Orlando (clickorlando.com)
Urban Chicken Bi-Laws in Winnipeg: What the CLUCK?! (mbfoodgeographies.wordpress.com)
Virginia government prosecutes homeowner with criminal charges for backyard chickens (secretsofthefed.com)
Hopewell’s growing backyard chicken business spurs “chicken chat” gatherings (nj.com)
Young Girl Rescues Family By Farming Chickens (nextworldtv.com)
Terra Haute Officials Force Family To Give Up Pet Chickens (misbehavedwoman.wordpress.com)
Is it cheaper to keep chickens or buy eggs? (chickentales.wordpress.com)

Hundreds of Children Detained, Tortured

I swear…the whole fucking world has gone insane…absotively, posolutely, infuckingsane.

Why do we hate children so much? (Or hate each other so much, for that matter?)

Torture? Imprison? Hang? Electrocute?

CHILDREN??

Here, there and everywhere – humans seem to have lost all ability to reason or feel compassion.

Why…just…why?!

There is no reason for this; no reason for so much of what is going on in this world that rattles my brain so hard I swear it is going to scrape it’s way out of my skull and run away screaming…Ugh.

Here’s the story from The Independent

“Almost all the children I know of who were arrested after 25 January have been tortured…”

“Hundreds of children – some as young as nine – have been illegally detained and in many cases tortured by the Egyptian police following the protests which erupted after the second anniversary of the 2011 uprising.

In what lawyers and activists say is a retrenchment of state brutality akin to the worst abuses of power during Hosni Mubarak’s regime, large numbers of children have been unlawfully imprisoned in camps used by Egypt’s central security forces.

Rights groups say that many of those detained have been subjected to cruel mistreatment, including beatings, electrocution and “hanging” torture. Others were forced by their tormentors to strip naked before being drenched with cold water.

One lawyer said he believed that up to 400 children, many of them barely teenagers, may have been rounded up during police operations following the outbreak of street clashes on 25 January, the anniversary of Egypt’s rebellion two years ago.”

If you can stomach it, the full story can be found Here.

1,500 Colonies of Honeybees Die After Fumigation of Monsanto Fields

1,500 colonies of honeybees, from a community in Hopelchen, Campeche, died this February 6 from the fumigation of Monsanto’s GMO’s in a nearby area.

Genetically Modified Food

Genetically Modified Food (Photo credit: Peter Blanchard)

Yucatan Times – “This has directly impacted more than 50 impoverished families, who recently suffered a poor corn crop due to drought. The community was relying on their sale of organic honey to compensate for the lack of maize. The current honey left by the bees is also lost due to the contamination of pesticides and transgenic pollen.

Alvaro Mena, a mayan farmer from Hopelchen and member of the Network in Defense of Maize, estimated losses at nearly 10 million pesos and is the equivalent of one year’s worth of corn and honey production for the community.

Fumigation has intensified where GM crops have been planted in Mexico. GMO’s are known to be resistant to pesticides and are planted in large monocultures, applying huge amounts of Roundup. It is no accident says Mena: it is the toxic onslaught that comes with GM crops and the threat of allowing millions of acres of GM Maize to be planted.

Mena attended the debate at which officials failed to attend and began with his witness of GMO’s. Thousands showed up to participate in the debate on GM maize on Thursday, February 7, in a packed auditorium of the Faculty of Science, organized by several networks, including #YoSoy132 Environmental Via Campesina Popular Urban Movement, and the Network in Defense of Maize…

…At the debate, the convening organizations, including urban, rural and students expressed their critical views on GMOs from their perspectives. They manifested their intent to stop the planting of GM maize and will continue through all struggles and will do all that they can to not allow the government to impose, against the interests of the vast majority of the population, GM Maize for the benefit of Government and a few multinationals. They agreed to promote further discussions, forums and activities, and strengthen the links between the organizations to avoid GM foods and crops. Also they will promote the widest possible participation in the pre-hearings on Corn and Food Sovereignty of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal, which among other topics will hold a pre-hearing of scientific evidence on GM and failures and corruption of the biosecurity system in the country…” Full Story on Yucatan Times

Related articles

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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Activist Investor to Challenge Monsanto CEO

CREVE COEUR, MO – On Thursday, January 31, 2013, the Monsanto Company officers and shareholders will vote on a shareholder proposal to create a study of “material financial risks or operational impacts” associated with its chemical products and patented genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Activists in favor of the measure will demonstrate outside the meeting to raise awareness that the public does not currently have the right to witness what will be the only democratic vote of accountability on Monsanto’s leadership because the company bans cameras inside their Annual Shareholder Meeting.

WHO: Anti-GMO Food Activists, Adam Eidinger, Monsanto Shareholder

WHAT: Protest at Monsanto Annual Shareholder Meeting

WHERE: Monsanto Global Headquarters, Creve Coeur, MO, East Campus Entrance on Olive Blvd.

WHEN: Thursday, January 31, 2013, Noon to 3:30PM

“Monsanto pledges transparency, but provides very little,” says Adam Eidinger, an organic food activist and Monsanto shareholder who organized a march from NY to Washington, DC on behalf of honest food labeling in 2011. For the second year in a row, Eidinger will present a shareholder resolution on behalf of Napa, California-based Harrington Investments (HII) with help from the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA).

“Companies like Starbucks, Walmart, The Washington Post, Oracle, Apple and Coca-Cola among many others provide the public and media access to their shareholder meetings in one form or another, but Monsanto, a company who’s patented genetically engineered products are in most people’s food, meets in secret,” says Eidinger.

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The Fuck-It Point; When Is Enough…Enough?

The video below is a short and very powerful film about the darker side of life inside that which we call ‘civilization’. I wonder how we can consider ourselves civilized when our lives are so permeated with death, violence & destruction? Is it civilized to stomp out any and all life forms that happen to either provide something we need or stand in the way of the things we want?

Are we truly enlightened beings if we are willing to obliterate any culture or way of life that is not the same as ours? I don’t think we really are. We say we have ‘advanced’ as a species but is this REALLY true? Would beings who have truly advanced be willing to live inside a bubble that enslaves them? Enslaves others?

Most importantly, would advanced and knowledgeable beings continue to build, live inside of and participate in a system that guarantees their own destruction and the destruction of their entire life support? Doesn’t it seem odd that this is exactly what we do? We act more like spoiled children – taking, taking, taking and throwing temper tantrums & lashing out at anyone who dares to take our toys – than any kind of being with enlightened or advanced way of thinking/acting. What are we going to do when we’ve not only broken all of the ‘toys’ but completely obliterated the toy factory as well?

While I don’t believe in climate change the way it is being sold to us right now, to deny that we are not doing irrevocable damage to every part of this earth is both naive and dangerous. Just as we cannot cure our diseases with medicines that cause even more illness and disease, we cannot continue to mend the damage of technology and machines by creating still more machines and technology.  Spraying pollutants into the sky which interfere with our weather patterns in the name of saving us from ‘climate change’ (re: changing weather patterns) is insanity, pure and simple. And yet, that is exactly what we do…

So when will enough be enough?

 Would you defend your children from harm? If so, then isn’t preventing them from living on a destroyed and desolate planet filled with hunger and hardship, defending them from harm?

What lengths would you be willing to go to in order to preserve ALL life and leave it intact for future generations?

Have YOU reached your Fuck-It Point?

Silencing The Dissent In Mexico

Look closely and you might see that the differences between the United States and Mexico are not as great as mainstream media outlets might lead you to believe. Corrupt politicians; violent acts against citizens…fixed elections and leaders who no longer give a damn about what citizens want or think. The same words could be used to describe the situation on one country as well as the other, couldn’t they?

And it seems that the media coverage in both countries is about the same as well. Mass protests have been ignored across the board and in their place, the usual non-headlines and circus stories get full and extended coverage.

In spite of the protests and outrage of citizens in Mexico, President Obama just smiled and congratulated Pena Nieto on his newly won position. No call for investigation, no hesitation or desire to wait to see if the power of the citizens is strong enough to undo the fixed results.

And why is our president so quick to support an illiterate, unqualified and monstrous leader such as Nieto?

I guess it makes sense that two men with the same morals would work well together. Maybe there’s something that bonds men responsible for the murder of innocent people together that I just don’t quite understand? Or perhaps, it is just another example of two puppets dancing together on stage to promote a common agenda…

“Note that the human rights violations committed against the people of Atenco, including imprisonment, unjust persecution and sexual torture, reflect the “man repressor” which is Peña Nieto and who does not mind repeating a similar conflict.”

Read More On Proceso

Excerpt from YT – “Police abuse and represion in San Salvador Atenco in Mexico by the Governor Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI) with help of President Vicente Fox (PAN) that wanted to confiscate ancient lands to the citizens of Atenco and pay them at 5 cents of a dollar per square meter to build a private airport for the 20 whealtiest families of México.

As you can see in the images, the strategy of the goverment was first to provoque this brave people and then brutally hit them, you can see that even in the ground police keep hitting with the batons.

Woman arrested were subjet to violations by inserting the police fingers in their vaginas. Even dogs in streets were hitted by police and private house searched. The Mexican constitution explicitly prohibits any autority to enter into a private house without a judge court order but police invade private homes to take all man and woman of a certaing age into custody…”

And don’t get me wrong – I’m not singling Obama out…Bush, Romney, Clinton…any or all of the Puppets would have congratulated Nieto, too. Crooks of a feather flock together? Meh, something cheesy like that.

Meanwhile, as the media in both countries turns a blind eye, citizens of Mexico are continuing their fight to throw off the corrupt system that has overrun the political offices of their country.

May the voices of their citizens grow ever louder & never be silenced…

Excerpt & Image from, Neglected War -”There are also preliminary discussions of establishing a new federal law enforcement branch. With the constant risk of corruption and ties of officials to cartels such a plan may be flawed from the start.

The Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (Special Forces Airmobile Group, GAFE) is a special operations group that has received training from the U.S. Despite its accomplishments highly trained special operation soldiers deserted GAFE in the late 1990s and founded the Los Zetas Cartel, now the second biggest cartel in Mexico.

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Journalists’ Syndicate Threatens to Suspend Publishing to Protest Violence

CAIRO: The Journalists’ Syndicate threatened to suspend publishing newspapers in response to increasing attacks on journalists covering the ongoing clashes between police and protesters.

“If these brutal and deliberate attacks increase, we will agree with editors-in-chief of newspapers to suspend [publishing]” and make a collective statement, Gamal Fahmy, member of the syndicate’s board, told DNE.

Yehia Qallash, member of the syndicate’s General Assembly, said this measure was used more than once during Mubarak’s reign.

“It is the strongest way to deliver a message but it is a weapon that should be used as a last resort,” he added.

via Journalists’ Syndicate threatens to suspend publishing to protest violence.