To experience, and thus prove on a personal level, a single miracle seems to offer the benefit of proving the existence of them in a broader sense. Although, if they exist at all, there may be many different kinds of miracles, there is one form that occurs frequently enough as to be useful to prove the point.

Do you believe in miracles? What if you could learn something that totally shifted your perspective and you began seeing things, the world, completely differently? Would you be open to that? What if the most intractable problems of the world, like hunger and poverty, melted in the face of such a miracle? Could you even accept that?

The bumper sticker on my car is a saying from Chief Joseph, the renowned Nez Perce humanitarian and peacemaker, “It does not require many words to speak the truth.”

Chief Joseph from 1889

Academic and author Michael Parenti gave a talk in 2007, recently aired on Free Speech TV entitled Lies, War and Empire. In this talk, Parenti makes the point about policies of organizations like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization that, despite their stated good intentions, fail to provide fundamental improvements to persistent issues of social and economic justice, hunger and poverty. He suggests that all great empires, including the current empire of the United States, are intentional. Although often characterized as accidental, or the result of divine providence, in fact empire derives from imperialism and it is a conscious intentional activity.

It is frustrating to observe the efforts and money directed toward policies that have on their face the stated purpose of solving problems of suffering in the world only to have those problems persist and grow. There is something counterintuitive about this lack of traction.

Yet, miraculously, as Parenti instructs, if we begin to view the lack of success of failed policies, such as those aimed at creating economic justice, as deriving from an underlying intention to exploit and profit from those very same people at whom the policy is directed, an inherent truth makes itself known. When we concede the point that a very tiny strata of super wealthy, powerful and influential people and organizations have clearly and materially benefited from these same policies, it makes even more sense.

That this makes sense is revealed not just through the rational pieces of the puzzle falling into place, but also through a feeling sense, a certain intuitive order that accompanies the emerging logical construction. Together these elements form a powerful, paradigm shifting perspective.

It is in this shift that the miracle is contained. What were once perceived as difficult, virtually unsolvable problems can now be seen as symptoms of shadow characteristics of our institutions and culture. Truly, these are aspects of our self. Hope and beauty, compassion and fire spring forth from this realization.

The miracle of solving the world’s problems is not an easy one to tackle, let alone describe or convince another to buy into. Yet if just a measure of the experience can be conveyed, if a door can be opened in which the miracle of a shift in perspective in any arena of life can be offered, there remains the possibility of an expansion of the dawning awareness. And if it can be done for one, it can be done for many.

For the world’s problems can, thus, be seen as solvable. We can reveal to ourselves all that would hold us back. We can use this consciousness to illuminate a choice, an opportunity to choose the world, and our own lives, as we would have them. The miracle becomes the fact, born of dream and fantasy, yet just around the corner in our physical existence that we can have and be anything we choose if only we allow for the certainty of miracles.

Earlier this week, President Nasheed–the leader of a low-lying nation faced with the very real threat of imminent extinction due to rising seas–delivered a powerful speech and called for a “survival pact.” Now, with just a month to go before the UN talks in Copenhagen, we must stand together.  All of us, from presidents and politicians to scientists and citizens, must seize this moment and take this movement for survival to the next level.

President Nasheed’s Powerful Speech

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

We gather in this hall today, as some of the most climate-vulnerable nations on Earth.

We are vulnerable because climate change threatens to hit us first; and hit us hardest.

And we are vulnerable because we have modest means with which to protect ourselves from the coming disaster.

We are a diverse group of countries.

But we share one common enemy.

For us, climate change is no distant or abstract threat; but a clear and present danger to our survival.

Climate change is melting the glaciers in Nepal.

It is causing flooding in Bangladesh.

It threatens to submerge the Maldives and Kiribati.

And in recent weeks, it has furthered drought in Tanzania, and typhoons in the Philippines.

We are the frontline states in the climate change battle.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Developing nations did not cause the climate crisis.

We are not responsible for the hundreds of years of carbon emissions, which are cooking the planet.

But the dangers climate change poses to our countries, means that this crisis can no longer be considered somebody else’s problem.

Carbon knows no boundaries.

Whether we like it or not, we are all in this fight together.

For all of us gathered here today, inaction is not an option.

So, what can we do about it?

To my mind, whatever course of action we take must be based on the latest advice of climate scientists. Not on the advice of politicians like us.

As Copenhagen looms, and negotiators frantically search for a solution, it is easy to think that climate change is like any other international issue.

It is easy to assume that it can be solved by a messy political compromise between powerful states.

But the fact of the matter is, we cannot negotiate with the laws of physics.

We cannot cut a deal with Mother Nature.

We have to learn to live within the fixed planetary boundaries that nature has set.

And it is increasingly clear that we are living way beyond those planetary means.

Scientists say that global carbon dioxide levels must be brought back down below 350 parts per million.

And we can see why.

We have already overshot the safe landing space.

In consequence the ice caps are melting.

The rainforests are threatened.

And the world’s coral reefs are in imminent danger.

Members of the G8 rich countries have pledged to halt temperature rises to two degrees Celsius.

Yet they have refused to commit to the carbon targets, which would deliver even this modest goal.

At two degrees we would lose the coral reefs.

At two degrees we would melt Greenland.

At two degrees my country would not survive.

As a president I cannot accept this.

As a person I cannot accept this.

I refuse to believe that it is too late, and that we cannot do any about it.

Copenhagen is our date with destiny.

Let us go there with a better plan.

Ladies and gentlemen,

When we look around the world today, there are few countries showing moral leadership on climate change.

There are plenty of politicians willing to point the finger of blame.

But there are few prepared to help solve a crisis that, left unchecked, will consume us all.

Few countries are willing to discuss the scale of emissions reductions required to save the planet.

And the offers of adaptation support for the most vulnerable nations are lamentable.

The sums of money on offer are so low, it is like arriving at a earthquake zone with a dustpan and brush.

We don’t want to appear ungrateful but the sums hardly address the scale of the challenge.

We are gathered here because we are the most vulnerable group of nations to climate change.

The problem is already on us, yet we have precious little with which to fight.

Some might prefer us to suffer in silence but today we have decided to speak.

And so I make this pledge today: we will not die quietly.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I believe in humanity.

I believe in human ingenuity.

I believe that with the right frame of mind, we can solve this crisis.

In the Maldives, we want to focus less on our plight; and more on our potential.

We want to do what is best for the planet.

And what is best for our economic self-interest.

This is why, earlier this year, we announced plans to become carbon neutral in ten years.

We will switch from oil to 100% renewable energy.

And we will offset aviation pollution, until a way can be found to decarbonise air transport too.

To my mind, countries that have the foresight to green their economies today, will be the winners of tomorrow.

They will be the winners of this century.

These pioneering countries will free themselves from the unpredictable price of foreign oil.

They will capitalize on the new, green economy of the future.

And they will enhance their moral standing, giving them greater political influence on the world stage.

Here in the Maldives we have relinquished our claim to high-carbon growth.

After all, it is not carbon we want, but development.

It is not coal we want, but electricity.

It is not oil we want, but transport.

Low-carbon technologies now exist, to deliver all the goods and services we need.

Let us make the goal of using them.

Ladies and gentlemen,

A group of vulnerable, developing countries committed to carbon neutral development would send a loud message to the outside world.

If vulnerable, developing countries make a commitment to carbon neutrality, those opposed to change have nowhere left to hide.

If those with the least start doing the most, what excuse can the rich have for continuing inaction?

We know this is not an easy step to take, and that there might be dangers along the way.

We want to shine a light, not loudly demand that others go first into the dark.

So today, we want to share with you our carbon neutral strategy.

And we want to ask you to consider carbon neutrality yourselves.

I think a bloc of carbon-neutral, developing nations could change the outcome of Copenhagen.

At the moment every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible.

They never make commitments, unless someone else does first.

This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide.

We don’t want a global suicide pact.

And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.

So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.

We are all in this as one.

We stand or fall together.

I hope you will join me in deciding to stand.

We owe our deepest thanks to those representatives in the House of Representatives that passed HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. While this is far from a perfect bill, it is a giant step forward upon which we, as a society, must now build toward a more equitable, just and compassionate future. The trends of our current systems and institutions make clear the need for the US and the world to move in this direction as we face peak resource constraints, especially fossil fuels, climate change and mass species extinction. Health care is but a proxy for our ability to create a different paradigm of life and society, one that values our integration and cooperation with the ecological web of life rather than our command and control of it. The long-term effectiveness of the latter approach, something we have been trying for some 5,000 to 10,000 years is becoming clear, and it is clear that this approach has failed.

As a resident of Connecticut, I especially want to thank Representative Joe Courtney for standing up for principles that align with where we need to go and what we need to do. He as been clear all along about the need to fix the inherent injustice in the current system. He has been a leader in the house, moving HR 3962 along and voting for it. We owe him a debt of gratitude and heartfelt encouragement to continue with the job.

The fact is, we really need a single-payer system to cover everyone – including so-called illegal aliens – anyone in this country – that offers the economy of scale needed to provide the best health care possible, at reasonable costs; certainly much more reasonable than the profit-motivated current system can offer. More over, as we move into this new paradigm away from profit and toward genuine caring, we will focus on health and not just health care, wellness not insurance against the diseases that result from environmental degradation and stress-related syndromes attributable to our fascination with competition as the sole decider of what works and what is good. Our addiction to the self-flagellation of full-time jobs so we can lose our retirement nest egg at the hands of Wall Street roulette players and buy more stuff that we don’t need and that offers the slimmest shred of life satisfaction, and certainly none of the genuine connection we truly long for, is just plain silly and we can do better.

Instead, we can choose life and health as our natural legacy, integrating our selves beneficially into the wider world, hopefully before it is too late.

Consistent with these ideas is the fact that our new single-payer system can easily and must be funded through cuts to the military budget. It is time we wake up to the inherent violence of our society and change that fact. A giant step in this direction would be the creation of a Department of Peace and I urge the Obama administration to take this on now. In fact, I see enough correlation  between the issues of health and peace that I believe it would be natural to have our single-payer system administered through the new Department of Peace. We can start fresh with this new department, establishing a culture of integrity and justice that is so sorely lacking in so many other aspects of our ‘grow-or-die’ economy-oriented culture.

The time is now for all of this. There is no other course that will provide for the future of human-kind and I, for one, would not wish the coming difficulties of resource depletion, climate change and struggle for the necessities of life on my child or the children of anyone without first using the gift of new awareness to do the very best we can to change the course of our current destiny.

Let us tell our senators and representatives loud and clear what the world needs now, and hold them to it.  -

Is it a travesty that Rep. Weiner of NY was pressured to pull his single payer amendment from the health care bill, up for vote today had he not? Or is it a smart political move so we can actually get something accomplished? To the first, I suggest we need to delve into our feelings and let our selves feel as we must feel, and decide from there. I, for one, am deeply saddened and grieved at this loss of opportunity. I am sick and tired of so-called pragmatism trumping idealism until the human race destroys the planet and we perish as a species. Because that’s where its going. Idealism will return, with a vengeance (no there is no such thing, I know, its semantics, an artists license).  If I use words like that, does it move you at all? What are you feeling about this? Maybe it is relief?

Maybe you are concerned with how much a single payer system would cost. Thus you are relieved that it is off the table? Is that a good criteria? Cost? Is there not a deeper value not being served here? Does the human race evolve? Do our societies evolve? Does our consciousness? Is our technical proficiency to provide the necessities of life and have some time and energy left over to philosophize suggest that we can use this consciousness to direct this excess energy toward taking care of everyone? Toward taking care of the planet? What if the implications are that, in not doing so, we are going to lose everything?

Because that is what is happening.  What if we realized this was happening (as we do)? Is that an evolution in consciousness? Yes, of course it is. What if we acted on this new awareness? Is that an evolution in consciousness? What if we acted on this new awareness and got some new information as a result? Errrr, what would you call that? In addition to continued evolution?

Ahh, a process. Yes, that’s where I was going with this. I guess. I’m just the scribe, but there is a pattern here. Open up to deeper values. Let go of the obsession with symbols. Money is a symbol. Remember? It’s not the real thing – it only is used to facilitate the creation of the real thing – food, shelter, health, love – life. Think about it.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/statement-on-the-withdrawal-of-rep-weiners-single-payer-amendment-to-house-bill/comment-page-1/#comment-5306

The science of 350

Dear Friend: I would like to propose our own local 350 Day of Climate Change Awareness right here in East Haddam. 350 refers to the upper limit, in parts per million of carbon, of the atmosphere to sustain life on earth as we know it. Oct. 24 is an international day of action to help spread the word about this vital information.
Will you help with this?  350.org are the organizers of this global action. If you don’t understand the significance of 350, the invitation and their website are the perfect place to start.

Here’s my proposal for right here, where we live:
Let us assemble in the parking lot behind the Goodspeed Theater, down by the river.
Let us assemble 350 helium balloons that can be tethered to our site as a visual cue, seen widely, that something is happening.
Let us form a drum circle at the base of the balloons that will drum for non-stop for 350 minutes (5.8333 hours)
Let us begin at noon and end at 6 PM.
Let us have enough people coming and going that no one gets tired from drumming for too long.
Let us have signs promoting our own special theme: “It’s all connected: Climate Change  Capitalism  Universal Health Care  Peace”
Let us have some donations to pay for the signs and balloons.
Let us have volunteers to help with all this.
Let us have the name of your group, organization, enterprise clearly displayed.
Let us have the media invited and in attendance.
Let us take prudent actions to obtain pre-approval from the Town, Goodspeed and the airport to do all this.
Let us not be dissuaded from this action by folks having a different opinion and being in a position of power to keep us from voicing our opinion and having this action.

Amen!
Please circulate this widely and send me your commitment to help now – including the area of responsibility you are willing to engage with.

Thank you!

Mike

We need a universal health care plan and we should drastically cut military spending to achieve it.

Dear Senator Lieberman:

Thank you for writing to me. I strongly disagree with your reluctance to endorse a public plan option (“While, in general, I would prefer not to see a public plan option…”). I urge you to reconsider this stance and suggest it suffers from poor judgment, a lack of compassion and an attachment to a failed status quo. I believe you have increasingly been demonstrating a lack of compassion with your policy stances. You need to know this. I do not believe such a lack belongs in public office.

You have been demonstrating an attachment to a failed status quo that is dangerous to the well-being of the country in that it promotes war, imperialism and corporate dominance while ignoring epochal turning of resource depletion, peak oil, debt accumulation, currency failure, species extinction, climate change, fisheries failure, and clean water and air loss (to name a few). The fact is, and everyone in your level of government knows we are in for profound changes over the next few years, as well as for decades to come. It is time to stop denying the trajectory of our current society and the Earth and imperative that we move creatively forward into a positive future. Please avail yourself of, for example, the fine work of Yes! Magazine and David Korten (‘Agenda for a New Economy’, ‘The Great Turning’, ‘When Corporations Ruled the World’).

I am, to say the least, extremely disappointed in you as a senator – and it is not just because of your clear support of war and violence. I ask that you try to raise your awareness – as we all must – for that is the only thing one can do in the face of massive, converging trends that reflect the normal outcome of long-term, exponential growth inside of constrained systems. Moreover, our society offers devastatingly poor effectiveness with regard to social and economic justice. Our attachment to technologies and behaviors that will affect countless generations to come is unacceptable (and barely forgivable unless we learn something from it and soon).

Health care is a proxy for a broader agenda that has reached emergency proportions; an opening with which we are now presented to step into the intentional creation of a positive future. You are capable of understanding (and acting) on this truth.

I urge you to step through the doorway into a realm of greater, more compassionate awareness – endorse a universal health care plan funded through reductions in military spending.

Michael Harris

East Haddam

“Keith Olbermann to Expose Congressional Opponents of Universal Health Care Tonight!

I’m sure it is not the best or even right solution that is proposed by the-not-much-different-than-their-republican-brethren, but it is a step in the right direction. The moment (and the month) to speak out for a more compassionate society, by advocating health care reform, is now (August 2009).

See below my hero Michael Moore passing along some great news about some reasonably progressive mass media coverage of the issue.

As a way to advocate speaking up for progress, moving away from denial, and becoming conscious of the dire need to choose the path of a new, more just, interconnected, compassionate, ecological culture, would you consider passing this information along to five friends and asking them to do the same (and so on)?

This may be a first step to a real focus on health and wellness that would necessarily have to reveal (much more fully and to many more people and institutions) the deep implications of the environmental crisis on the health of all life on the planet and our interconnection, physically, psychically and psychologically, with the earth. That would be a good thing.

Oh, and if you don’t subscribe to Michael Moore’s email newsletter, you should – it’s a hoot!

From Michaelmoore.com:

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

We’ve just received an advance transcript of tonight’s Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on his MSNBC show. It is nothing short of brilliant — and if all of America were to hear what he is going to reveal tonight, we are certain the vast majority of Americans would be on the phone to their elected representative immediately, calling for an end to the private, for-profit, rip-off health insurance companies who have wrecked our country.

Here’s a brief section of Keith’s editorial tonight:

“Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas. Leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You’re the guy demanding a guarantee that Reform won’t add to the deficit. I’m guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq. You’re a Democrat, you say, Congressman?

“You saw what Sandy Barham said? Sandy Barham is 62 years old, she’s got a bad heart, and she’s hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can’t afford insurance. Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross.

“And why should you give a crap? Because Sandy Barham’s restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Café, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas. Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross. Your home town. You are Sandy Barham’s congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross’s and Blue Shield’s, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you.”

And here’s what Keith has to say about Senator Thune:

“Senator John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President’s weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats’ plan was for ‘… government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.’

“That’s a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you’re a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered by… your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats.”
Don’t miss his show, live at 8pm ET. Rebroadcast at 10pm and 1am.

Webmaster
MichaelMoore.com”

According to the awful news on TV, August is shaping up for a push in the health care reform argument. I say awful because I can barely sit through the absurd frames that are thrown at us constantly by the mass media. Nobody on TV gets it. We aren’t in a recession – it is not a recession. Recession implies some sort of ‘come back’ or ‘bounce back’. There won’t be such a thing. We are on a collision course with cultural upheaval and change. There will be a new culture that emerges and, sure, its hard to image what that will look like because we are so used to the one we’ve got. The fact is, it will look like what we make of it. What we make of it is partly reflected in how we handle the debate that is currently being had over health care and health care reform.

Let’s start with the basics. This ought to be about health. Instead it is about fearful people in power trying to hold on to what they’ve got – power over our health and the money associated with maintaining this so-called health. The fact is, we don’t have health at all. We have a strange, dream-like trance, a numbness from life and from ourselves from which all manner of odd physical manifestations spring, many caused by our reduced resilience to ward off immense environmental stresses. These stresses are caused by the consumeristic mentality that we are taught is needed to build more satisfactory lives. It is an endless search to fill the void resulting from each and every one of us not living – dying on behalf of a culture that believes it must overcome the threats of nature, a nature from which we have divorced ourselves and now are destroying. A nature that is in itself a healthy web of interrelationships, but from which we have pulled away. Thus, in this disconnected state, we do not have health – we are in a word, dead. We spiral down into an abyss of striving, searching for that which will make us whole, complete and satisfied.

“If the dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relationship to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance form the very structure and functioning of the universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.” Thomas Berry

But of course, it is not there and the system is perpetuated. Yet, at the same time, we consume the very web of life that sustains us. We eat ourselves – the tapeworm effect.

So health care reform  goes to the deepest roots of our problems. It is not a lever with which we will devise solutions to today’s calamities. Those will take care of themselves as everything man has believed to be true for the last 10,000 years is shown to be a dream and we are droppped back into that web of life; a web of life vastly diminished in its capacity to sustain.

Yet health care reform is the moment we have now to step toward remembering a way of living in relationship with each other and the rest of the web of life. It is a way to reawaken from the dream we have been stuck in. Though it is a 10,000 year dream, remember we lived for a million years prior to that in small, collaborative, vastly diverse tribes. That is where we are going again.

“The Takers therefore began to see themselves as the only type of human beings in the world, and when they wrote their history saw it as the history of all humankind, not just the history of one particular culture, which it was.  They saw their culture, which was becoming more and more complex and “civilized” (bigger towns and cities, more laws), as the natural destiny of human beings, the only way humans were meant to live.  This was the beginning of what might be called the Great Forgetting, where the memory of true human history—the thousands of tribes who had lived in a very different way for over a million years before, with rich cultures and traditions—faded away.” Pete Shoemaker

The question is, can we bring any wisdom with us? I believe the answer is yes as we spiral forward in the great evolutionary play of differentiation/integration. Our great experiment of separation has lead us to incredible, reductionist technological prowess. Can we apply this intelligence holistically? The pendulum is swinging back, as it always will, though spiraling forward into new manifestations at the same time.

Let us test our common voice around the theme in front us for the month of August. I don’t know if health care is a basic human right, but I do know that human health is, just as the health of the entire web of life is a basic, inevitable right. It is a condition to which the earth will return with or without humankind as we currently know it.  When we argue for health care reform, we facilitate the inevitable shift away from our old culture of domination, separation, fear and death. We begin to get congruent with the web of life and the rest of the universe and its inexorable progress, where we reassert a knowledge of our place in the cosmos – as participants, co-creators even, but not dominators.

“Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.” Howard Zinn

James Howard Kunstler sums up what we need to do beautifully, as always: “We have to work very hard to reconfigure the physical arrangement of life in the USA, moving away from the losses of our suburbs, reactivating our towns, downscaling our biggest cities, re-scaling our farms and food production, switching out our Happy Motoring system for public transit and walkable neighborhoods, rebuilding local networks of commerce, and figuring out a way to make a few things of value again.” Read this weeks Kunstler blog, and then read all the others. You’ll be smarter for it.

My last car had one of the best bumperstickers I’ve ever come across: “Speak Your Mind, Even if Your Voice Shakes”.  This is true for bloggers and letter writers too. The message of this post, despite any other minor details you might stumble over here, is exactly what the bumpersticker says: Raise your voice!

There is currently a tremendous outcry over a bill presently working its way through congress. This bill, HR 875, has the title of Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. Click on the link and read through it. Then make up your mind how to respond – and then do it!

The fact is, the furor over HR 875 may be a bit overdone. But I am not one to suggest we shouldn’t be asking a lot of questions and expressing concern. And, the bill does provide for frighteningly sweeping powers and is vague in many of its definitions that would limit the application of the provisions and reduce administrative costs.

Also disconcerting is one particular argument for relative calm that I’ve been coming across. This argument states that the bill is poorly written and won’t even make it out of committee. This line of reasoning does not seem reliable.

There are other bills, namely HR 759, that may pose a more onerous threat to food choice than 875. This article in GRIST is reasonably balanced in my opinion: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-06-2009-catching-up-on-food-news.

There is a lot of conflicting information propagating on the internet about this. At first I felt plenty angry about allegations that the lead sponsor of the bill, Connecticut Rep. Rosa Delauro is married to a Monsanto executive. Actually, he is a pretty liberal, democratic strategist and CEO of his own firm. Here is a blogsite with some additional, clear-sounding information: http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/monsanto-and-hr-875-take-two. Note though, that Greenberg’s firm has worked for Monsanto – there is no doubt about that, and elements of concern exist with regard to the very tight little circle of influential elite that seem to continue to come into focus the more one looks into this bill.

I’m not saying which information is accurate. The fact is, I don’t really know. But I encourage you to investigate for yourself. I don’t think there is anything wrong with expressing concern about this bill or any other matter that concerns people. If you are treated with anything but respect and deference, then complain about that too – we pay for this representation and it needs to be sensitive and responsive.

Another good place to look might be FactCheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/would_a_new_bill_in_congress_make.html. They’ve looked at this and also conclude that there is a lot of misinformation being promulgated. They also referred to this website: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/foodsafety/background-on-h-r-875. This website suggests that HR 759, may pose more of a threat to local food.

Despite any misinformation, let’s be clear about one thing: regulating food is a deeply disturbing concept and something that we need to be able to understand and react to cogently.

For the record, the following are sponsors of HR 875:

Ms. DELAURO (for herself, Ms. ESHOO, Ms. DEGETTE, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. ENGEL, Ms. CASTOR of Florida, Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut, Ms. SUTTON, Mrs. LOWEY, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. SCHAUER, Mr. NADLER of New York, Mr. BISHOP of New York, Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. RYAN of Ohio, Ms. GIFFORDS, Mr. FILNER, Mr. HALL of New York, Ms. LEE of California, Ms. PINGREE of Maine, Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin, and Mr. DEFAZIO) introduced the following bill;

Want to know more about Monsanto ties to the federal government? Check out this site: http://members.aye.net/~hippie/monsanto.htm. Despite some mistakes that may or may not have been made with regard to reaction to this bill, the ethical foundations of the corporate/regulator revolving door are not sound.

Also for the record, here is a rebuttal from Monsanto: http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto_today/for_the_record/hr875_monsanto_dream_bill.asp in which they state that Stanley Greenberg is not an employee, but only consulted for Monsanto more than ten years ago.You might also check out Monsanto’s entire blog, dedicated to ‘debunking’ all the biased information about them. According to their blog, they are not as bad as people make them out to be. Go figure! I understand that playing Obama’s phrase, “We can do it” backwards yields “thank you Satan”. If this is true, where does that put Monsanto?

Try this Monsanto blog on for feel, it might be instructive: http://blog.monsantoblog.com/2009/04/01/gmos-improving-nutrition/. This is where they offer ‘10 Reasons We Do Need GM Foods’. Only there aren’t, like, ten reasons even listed and the argument is paperthin and dripping with spin.

I’ve written several times, and made numerous phone calls, including to our beloved Rosa DeLauro, expressing outrage about HR 875. Am I a little embarrassed? Yes, I suppose. But, still, its good practice: Raise your voice, it may count sooner than you think.

So after doing some more research and writing this blog post, here is the final version of a message to my representative, Joe Courtney. A bit shallow, I admit, but not nearly as headstrong as the first version. I think the point here, is to use these instances to get better at articulating that which you are for – what kind of world do you want? What are the real issues, not those put forth on the TV, but the underlying values, ideals, behaviors and ways of thinking that support that most flawed aspects of our society?  Are you willing to uncover them and look at them? Are you willing to raise your voice in favor of something better? Too much goes unspoken, unnoticed in our society. We live in a smoke screen, cover your ass culture that reinforces denial and repression rather than truth and ideals. We can’t afford this kind of behavior another moment. As I write this, I have the distinct feeling that our much admired President is, too, succumbing pragmatic pressures that are leading him away from his, and our, ideals. Or is it that he doesn’t think we can handle the truth – the truth that elements of our society are deeply flawed and need to change or we are all, literally, cooked? Let him and every one in a leadership position, including your own Mayor or First Selectman, know that you are in favor of transparency and ideal-driven policy including the elimination of corporate influence on food policy.  I know this may sound hopelessly idealistic, but why can we not expect our senators and representatives to respond to well articulated values that we, the people, offer up? Here’s a copy of my message to Rep. Courtney:

“I am writing to express my deepest concern about bills currently being considered with regard to food safety. One such bill is HR 875, over which there has emerged a lot of internet protest. But more importantly, I think the level of rhetoric needs to lead to a deep review of all food related bills including HR 759, which may be more onerous than 875.

The fact is, we need to support local food now, as fossil fuels diminish. We need to admit that world population is out of control and we need to show leadership in true sustainability: an ecological approach to life in this country that unwinds the growth-requirements of our money system and recognizes the immediate need to operate within the real limits of our planet.

Let’s take a step back from all of the food bills and fix the underlying assumptions. That would be true leadership, and we are relying on you!”