why would we send our precious children to school?

it never fails to impress me just how much children learn when they aren't shackled to a school desk all day long busy not learning

there is nothing more necessary to a healthy society than raising children. this society, being unfriendly towards the work that mothers do, keeps itself sick by raising children in sick institutions instead of at home. just because we were all sent to school and institutionalized at a very young age, doesn't mean we should do that to our own kids. we know better, we can do better. they deserve better than that. the future of our world depends on it.

unless, of course, you are okay with raising yet another generation of brainwashed thugs. i'm not.

keyboard sputum

i'm just dumping my words here where i might can find them again easier than digging through thousands of status updates at facebook... :-)

do you find people acting defensive around you all the time? maybe if you stopped attacking them, they wouldn't feel a need to defend themselves. did that never occur to you? did you think you were helping them? you were wrong. telling other people what they should do is not help, it's just bossy and mean. and you think of yourself as being soooo kind, don't you? i hate bullies.

and to everyone else, those who, like myself, are always being accused of being too defensive, standing up for yourself is not a bad thing!! your voice counts, too.

there are so many different bob dylan lyrics i could start to sing right now. what makes anyone any sort of authority over anyone else? when you assume authority over someone else's actions, thoughts, beliefs, etc, that is the same as tel...ling them they are beneath you, that you think you are somehow better qualified to make their decisions for them. that is the greatest insult of them all. and when it hurts their feelings to be so insulted, constantly, by those who think they are superior in some way or another, those bullies blame us for it, it's our fault for being too sensitive, they were only trying to help. BAH!

the divine right of kings is a lie. the only thing they were born with that the rest of us don't have is money.

and the money system is collapsing along with the other controls, as freedom draws near. now the money is nothing more than numbers in computers. that's all it is. used to just be numbers on paper, but we've "progressed" and the lie is m...ore evident to those who wish to see it for what it is. how is it that those numbers in those computers controls everything you do? where does this power come from? it certainly didn't come from the gods i believe in. it comes from fear. we are taught to be afraid so that we may think we want to be controlled. who puts this fear in our hearts? it does not come from within. who are the real terrorists?

and since i enjoy answering my own questions (even if i might be wrong) i'd say the real terrorists are the bullies, the ones who think they know what's best for other folks.

the ones who claim to be "protecting" us from some threat, real or imagined doesn't matter which, so long as we buy into the fear that allows such abuses to continue.

********

oh but there are different rules for the super-wealthy than for the rest of us. you know why. it's because they are the ones making up the rules as they go along!

who tells governments what laws to pass? chatham house does. who gets invited to meetings at chatham house? not people like me, certainly. not people like you, either. only the very very very rich and powerful get to go to those meetings, where they decide policy that affects all the rest of us.

http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/13276_270109miliband.pdf "managing global insecurity" (in other words, manufacturing fear)

"they will come for you anyway"

http://www.tpuc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=324&p=2393

that very well may be. threats of horrible punishments cannot turn me into a docile sheep, or quiet my voice, because that is in contrast to what my inner spirit tells me i must do. if they wanted me in jail, or dead, for that matter, i'd already be there. and what good would it do their cause? to get rid of some housewife in tennessee that isn't bothering anyone. imagine some faceless army marching up the street bearing machine guns, coming to take me and my children away, what a joke! how could they possibly spin that into anything other than a hollywood fairy tale that the public would never buy. it is not my decision to make, what anyone else might choose to do. what is my responsibility is to decide for myself (without fear of any threats) whether to continue to live in fear and remain silent, or to speak out, at the top of my lungs, if i have to. i choose to believe that i am making a difference, not by giving my power to some group in the hopes that the group has my best interests at heart, but by standing alone and using my power to change my world in a way that benefits everyone, and not just a select few who are members of the right group.

the group has only the "good of the group" as its goal and purpose. that is how the groupthink mindcontrol works. and we don't like those words, do we? no, we don't. words like that makes us cringe, makes us cower in fear, don't they? the group tells you that individually, you are weak and pitiful and you need someone else to help you, to teach you, to lead you, to give you the right answers, because you aren't worthy of making any decisions for yourself. when you join the group, you give up your right to disagree with the majority, regardless how foolish it might be what the majority thinks. my version of anarchy is the opposite of that. it's each individual human being, no matter who they are, believing in themselves. freedom means that we get to make our own decisions for ourselves. autonomy. it means that no group, no organization, be that in the form of church or state, has higher authority than each individual's own innermost guide.

and society tells us we are wrong to believe in ourselves. we need the system. we have been so sorely abused by authority that we lose touch with that inner voice, we forget how strong we are. but there's lots and lots starting to remember. because the only way world peace will ever happen is for all of us to stand up, alone, individually, for everyone else's right to do the same.

...

problem is, the political system does not work. it never has, except to benefit the few at the very tippy top of that pyramid. we want to think it works, don't we? we want to believe in the "american dream" (sure you all have something similar on that side of the pond, don't you? that if we play their game well enough, we can come out on top ...well, never all the way to the top, but we can "succeed" - we can rise above).

so we are divided up into groups, building blocks, as it were, to support the pyramid, the heirarchy of power and control. and the higher up that pyramid we go, the more people we step upon for personal advance, the more we think we are better than them, those who are "beneath" us. a pyramid made entirely of sand would never support its own weight. the sand has to be mixed with lime and aggregate, made into concrete first. and how is this accomplished? mostly with what is popularly known as "education" - indoctrination into the system of control and abuse. and we are told that we should believe the good of the group comes first, and our individual freedoms matter not.

coal ash

the water filter that would usually last a few months, is clogged after having been replaced just a few weeks ago. the water smells funny, and there’s this light-colored powdery substance left behind…. ick



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98857483

Tennessee Spill: The Exxon Valdez Of Coal Ash?

by Elizabeth Shogren

Morning Edition, December 31, 2008 · There aren't a lot of answers yet about what caused the catastrophic Dec. 22 spill of coal ash from a Tennessee Valley Authority plant near Knoxville. But the disaster has raised lots of questions about whether regulations of coal ash are strict enough.

Coal ash is the stuff that's left over after coal-fired power plants generate electricity and strip out pollutants. Plants produce about 130 million tons of it every year.

"That's enough to fill a line of railroad boxcars stretching all the way from the U.S. to Australia," says Eric Schaeffer, head of a watchdog group called the Environmental Integrity Project. He says he's been watching the growing heaps of coal ash stored at 440 electricity plants around the United States.

In the case of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, the waste had been accumulating for half a century. The mountain of sludge covered more than 100 acres and rose 65 feet into the air before an earthen dam burst, spilling 5.4 million cubic yards of ash that fouled homes and about 300 acres, as well as a river.

Glen Pugh manages solid waste for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and is in charge of regulating the landfill. He says that despite the accident, the regulations were adequate, and TVA was following them.

"I do think our regulations provide for the proper checks and reviews and evaluations," Pugh says. "Something happened here that was unexpected."

Schaeffer says the accident came as no surprise to him.

"We saw this several years ago in Pennsylvania. A little town named Forward Township got buried in a landslide of fly ash," he says. "We went in and tested the ash, and it turned out to be toxic, also full of arsenic just like the TVA site."

Schaeffer says disasters are waiting to happen in other places because coal ash isn't subject to strict federal regulations that govern hazardous wastes. Instead, it's up to states to regulate it — and some don't. Most treat coal ash as though it's not toxic.

"The prevailing myth is that it's safe," Schaeffer says. "We have EPA buying into that for years and really refusing to regulate this material for what it is, which is highly toxic ash that leashes metals like arsenic, cadmium and mercury into drinking water and rivers and creeks."

In 1980, Congress asked the Environmental Protection Agency whether coal ash should be regulated as a hazardous waste. The agency said no in 1993, but kept researching the question. In 2000, the EPA said it should be regulated, but as a nonhazardous waste. So far, however, the agency hasn't produced any rules.

Matt Hale, head of the EPA's solid waste office, says the agency has been studying the problem for 28 years. It's taken so long because, he says, "there's been a significant amount of technical work. Simply, the process has required this amount of time."

Some people think federal oversight is unnecessary. Jim Roewer of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group says states are doing a fine job of regulating the hundreds of ash pits around the country.

"I think that we've only seen four of these rather spectacular events over the last 50 years would underscore the fact that this really isn't an epidemic problem or trend that would call for federal intervention," Roewer says.

But environmentalists say the TVA ash slide will become the Exxon Valdez of the coal industry — and force government to finally regulate coal ash storage.

how much??

good gawd! and just how many bowls of hot soup would that buy for those who don't have enough to eat this winter? how many blankets would that buy for those who are cold? and why do some people still think any politician actually cares about them?



WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama, who is on track to spend a record $230 million on television advertising, will punctuate his broadcast strategy Wednesday with prime-time commercials on CBS, NBC and Fox.

Senate Slips Huge $488 Billion Pentagon War Funding Bill in Under The Radar

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14967.cfm

Senate Slips Huge $488 Billion Pentagon War Funding Bill in Under The Radar

• Senate Slips Huge Pentagon War Funding Bill in Under The Radar
  By Tommy News
  OpEd News, October 1, 2008
  Straight to the Source
  
  

The Senate has acted against the will of the American people and caved to the Bush Administration yet again. US Senators donned their Harry Potter invisibility cloaks and under the cover of darkness late Saturday night, with the smoke and mirrors distraction of the Wall Street bailout, quietly voted on and passed a huge, outrageous spending bill that gives an additional $488 Billion dollars to the Bush Administration and The Pentagon for funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There has been a near media blackout of this vote, and we need to get the word out that this outrageous warfunding is quietly continuing while the news media is being distracted by the gigantic and horrendous Wall Street bailout bill.

While we have all been preoccupied with the staggering $700 billion bail-out of wall street, boggled with the size of the dollar amount, having to raise the National debt limit and borrow money from foreign nations to fund it, late Saturday night the Senate passed a bill of a comparably huge dollar amount which made little news, but gives $488 Billion to the Pentagon for the continued funding of the the war, There has been a near media blackout of this vote, and we need to get the word out that this outrageous warfunding is quietly continuing while the news media is being distracted by the gigantic and horrendous Wall Street bailout bill.

The Pentagon is in line for a record budget. In addition to $70 billion approved this summer for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department would receive $488 billion, a 6 percent increase. The spending bill was bundled in with a bill which also offers aid to victims of flooding in the Midwest and recent hurricanes across the Gulf Coast. The total cost of the spending legislation exceeds $630 billion.

Such a huge bill usually would dominate the end-of-session agenda on Capitol Hill. But it went below the radar screen because attention focused on the congressional bailout of Wall Street.

The bill was quietly rushed to Bush's desk to be signed into law, and John McCain rushed quietly back out of Washington and yet again avoided having to vote on another controversial spending bill. When the roll call on final passage occurred, McCain was at his campaign headquarters in Crystal City, Va., only five miles from the Capitol. McCain has missed a staggeringly huge number of Senate votes.

With the election fast approaching, I want to give you a breakdown of the 78-12 Senate vote as recorded in the Congressional Record. I urge you to take this outrageous spending vote into strong consideration when you cast your votes on November 4th.

*From the Congressional Record:*

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00208

mass hysteria

so our local news created a panic yesterday. there was a run on gas. hardly any stations had any gasoline left in their tanks, and there were long lines last night, people going crazy, getting bent out of shape, about to fight each other.

link one

link two

it's the same thing they do when the weather looks like it might snow, everyone rushes to the grocery store and buys up all the bread and milk. it is somewhat frightening to see how easily my neighbors are manipulated by what they see on the teevee.


update: as of noon today, everything seems back to normal. i noticed the price had gone up 40 cents since i filled up the tank two days ago. there were lots of cars at every station, but no lines.

life of work

Longest Walk 2

Hello Friends, Supporters, Colleagues and Walkers –

LONGEST WALK 2: The Final Stretch Into D.C.
by Tashina Banks Moore, National Coordinator
June 12, 2008

Hard to believe it’s been four months of walking already! To date, The Longest Walk 2 northern and southern routes have covered over 6,000 miles through 17 states with less than a month to go to reach Washington , DC on July 11, 2008. We need your support. We INVITE YOU TO JOIN US IN D.C. on July 11, 2008 as we take the last steps of The Longest Walk 2 journey and the first steps on our next – taking our concerns to an International audience. JOIN US on July 11, 2008 to send a powerful message to the lawmakers of this country that we have a message to deliver and we seek accountability from our government.

Sponsors needed for Welcome Celebration on Washington , DC . As we prepare for the Welcome Celebration on the National Mall at Washington Monument July 11-13, we are seeking sponsors to support the celebration expenses such as sound, lighting and travel expenses to help bring in Native American artists and performers.

Tentative Schedule of Welcome Days in Washington, DC.:

July 7 – 10: Cultural Survival Summit at Greenbelt Park, Maryland (National Park Service)
July 11: Longest Walk 2 Final Leg Into Washington, DC - meeting point: TBD / Press Conference
July 12 & 13: Welcome Celebration – Washington Monument

Dennis Banks, my father, has asked the national committee to put a CALL OUT FOR BIKERS. The Longest Walk invites bikers from around the country to join us as we enter D.C. A motorcade of 1,000 bikers to open the path for the Walkers would make a powerful statement!

Please spread the word and send this email to anyone who wants to join The Longest Walk as we walk into Washington , DC .

SHORT TERM SUPPORT ALSO NEEDED: both routes are in need of funds to get them through the last days – gas prices are over $4/gallon and food costs are also rising. We ask you to please go to www.longestwalk.org and make an online donation if you can - $5.00, $10.00, $100.00, $1,000.00, $10,000 whatever you can afford.


Tashina Banks Moore
Volunteer
National Coordinator
LONGEST WALK 2008
www.longestwalk.org
www.myspace.com/longestwalk

Little Cedar Mountain

for the "official" TVA government line of bullshit, click either of these links:

http://www.tva.gov/environment/reports/littlecedar2/index.htm
http://www.tva.gov/environment/reports/littlecedar/


From local Channel 9 website:

http://www.newschannel9.com/news/tva_968032___article.html/cedar_mountain.html


TVA Discusses Management of Controversial Little Cedar Mtn. Land

April 18, 2008 - 10:21AM

Richard Simms

TVA officials will be holding a public tour of a new interpretive trail at Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area and TVA's resource management plan for the Lower Nickajack Properties.

The area has been the subject of much controversy in recent years as developers sought more than than 600 acres of public land for an exclusive golf course and housing development. (link - s)

The TVA Board finally voted to sell the land to developer John Thornton in a trade-off deal after Thornton purchased several other tracts of lakefront property to offer in a barter deal for the Little Cedar Tract.

However TVA retained ownership of the area known as Little Cedar Mountain just South of I-24 at the Nickajack Dam Exit where the public interpretive trail will be located.

In addition, TVA is making plans for the future management of other tracts obtained in the deal known as Burns Island, the Boyd Farm and Big Cedar Mountain.

DETAILS

WHAT:
Discussion and tour of new interpretive trail at Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area and TVA's resource management plan for the Lower Nickajack Properties.

WHO:
TVA Endangered Species Biologist Hill Henry and TVA Watershed Team Representative Andy Lawson

WHEN:
10 a.m., Tuesday, April 22 (please note the date this story was aired - s)

WHERE:
Meet at Nickajack Dam

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
TVA has received inquiries from several organizations and the public regarding the strategy for using property acquired during TVA's Supplemental Environmental Assessment at Little Cedar Mountain in Marion County, Tenn. TVA is developing a comprehensive resource management plan on four parcels in the vicinity of Nickajack Dam -- collectively referred to as the Lower Nickajack Properties. They include Boyd's Farm, Burn's Island, Cedar Mountain tracts and TVA's Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area. The plan being developed defines proposed management goals, objectives, and activities designed to protect cultural and natural resources and improve public access on each tract.

Hill Henry and Andy Lawson will conduct a guided tour of the new interpretive trail at Little Cedar Mountain Small Wild Area, discuss stabilization of Burn's Island and plans for the use and access of the Boyd's Farm property.

The activities will occur rain or shine.


(also please note the lack of any mention of Native American artifacts, including bones and human remains, that have been found in the area. Also the lack of mention of any concerns regarding such artifacts. - s)

ignorance

tell the EPA to stop allowing factory farms to poison the air

ALERT OF THE WEEK:
EPA GIVES FACTORY FARMS RIGHT TO IGNORE POLLUTION LAWS

The EPA is accepting public comments until March 27, 2008 on an outrageous proposal to eliminate clean air standards for factory farms. Federal laws currently require industry of any type to report hazardous substances they are spewing into the atmosphere, but according to the EPA, factory farms should be exempt so as to "to reduce the burden on the regulated community." It's time to tell the EPA to stop allowing factory farms to poison the air in our rural communities. Learn more and take action:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10380.cfm

"Subdue yourselves to the federation of the world, or else"

H.G. Wells:
Subdue yourselves to the federation of the world, or else
Old-Thinker News Feb. 7, 2008

By Daniel Taylor

H.G. Wells is perhaps best known for his status as the father of science fiction and his "War of the Worlds", which was recently transformed into a modern Hollywood production. Unknown to many, Wells penned several other books and essays which were not of the science fiction genre. The "New World Order", and the "Open Conspiracy" are two notable pieces that Wells produced.

Wells wrote the first edition of "The Open Conspiracy" in 1928. This book details what Wells called the "Open Conspiracy" among intellectual elites who despise the old order of things and desire to work towards a grand world directorate, a global society in which individuals no longer hold fast to tradition, but yield themselves willingly to the world state for the good of all. The Open Conspiracy utilizes propaganda, educational and governmental reform, and other forms of influence to achieve its goals. The scientific management of the world is at the heart of the open conspirators agenda. Of course, this tight management is sold as being for the benefit of all.

Population control is named by Wells in the Open Conspiracy as a "primary condition" of the world directorate. Wells writes,

"There is a clear hope that, later, directed breeding will come within his [mankind's] scope, but that goes beyond his present range of practical achievement, and we need not discuss it further here. Suffice it for us here that the world community of our desires, the organized world community conducting and ensuring its own progress, requires a deliberate collective control of population as a primary condition.

Very slight adjustments in social and economic arrangements will, in a world of clear available knowledge and straightforward practice in these matters, supply sufficient inducement or discouragement to affect the general birth rate or the birth rate of specific types as the directive sense of the community may consider desirable.

We want watchful and understanding guardians and drivers of complex delicate machines, which can be mishandled and brutalized and spoilt all too easily. The less disposed these masters of our machines are to inordinate multiplication, the more room and food in the world for their ampler lives. Even to the lowest level of a fully-mechanicalized civilization it is required that the human element should be select."

A concise and bluntly stated summary of Wells' idea of a federation of the world can be found in the introduction that he wrote for prominent eugenicist Margaret Sanger in her book "Pivot of Civilization", written in 1922. Wells speaks with an authoritarian and elitist voice condemning the world for misusing the "gifts" that the elite have so kindly presented to mankind. He writes these chilling words,

"The New Civilization is saying to the Old now: "We cannot go on making power for you to spend upon international conflict. You must stop waving flags and bandying insults. You must organize the Peace of the World; you must subdue yourselves to the Federation of all mankind. And we cannot go on giving you health, freedom, enlargement, limitless wealth, if all our gifts to you are to be swamped by an indiscriminate torrent of progeny. We want fewer and better children who can be reared up to their full possibilities in unencumbered homes, and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict upon us."

With this one paragraph, Wells succeeds in presenting the full intent of population control: total domination.

See more on this in an upcoming report:
An Introduction to The Open Conspiracy - Utopian Dreams of a World Scientific Dictatorship
Preview:

"The world is shifting to a globalized structure. The infrastructure of world governance is nearly complete. Proclamations of a "New World Order" herald the emergence of a new global order of nations, once sovereign but now interlocked with international organizations and bound by allegiance to the world state. Is this the natural trend of governance and human affairs, as some would say, or a deliberate, systematic, scientific attempt by the elite of the world to forge a new global order?"

http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker%20news/hg_wells_subdue_yourselves_to_the_federation.htm

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK CAPTURES 53 OF AMERICA'S LAST WILD BISON

BUFFALO FIELD CAMPAIGN (BFC)
P.O. BOX 957
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

* PRESS RELEASE*
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK CAPTURES 53 OF AMERICA'S LAST WILD BISON

Park Intends to Slaughter Without Testing; Calves May Be Sent to Experimental Quarantine Facility

For Immediate Release, February 8, 2008
Contact: Buffalo Field Campaign,
Stephany Seay 406-646-0070

GARDINER, MONTANA - Yellowstone National Park officials captured 53 wild American bison this morning inside the Stephens Creek bison trap located within Yellowstone National Park's borders. The captured bison are members of the last wild, genetically intact population existing in the United States, and number fewer than 4,600. Most, if not all, will be sent to slaughter without being tested for brucellosis antibodies.

"The National Park Service is caving in to the unreasonable demands of Montana's livestock industry at the expense of an American icon, our national heritage," said Stephany Seay, media coordinator for Buffalo Field Campaign.

The bison were captured for following their natural migratory instincts and walking onto habitat that is privately owned by the Church Universal & Triumphant (CUT). CUT land hosts fewer than 250 head of cattle. Wild bison are also refused access to publicly owned Gallatin National Forest lands adjacent to Yellowstone National Park and CUT property. In the winter months, grasslands in the Park are obscured by deep snow and bison and other wild ungulates venture to lower-elevation habitat where they find critical forage necessary for survival.

Yellowstone National Park officials said they will send the adult bison to slaughter without first testing them for exposure to brucellosis.

Bison calves may be tested for brucellosis antibodies. If testing occurs, those testing negative for antibodies will be sent to a state-federal quarantine feasibility study facility, while the rest will be slaughtered. More than half of the calves previously captured and quarantined by the government have been slaughtered, while the rest are being raised in pens like livestock.

Cattle interests claim such actions are necessary to prevent the spread of brucellosis, a livestock disease introduced to native wildlife in the early 20th century, from wild bison to cattle. However, there has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to cattle.

"In one day the National Park Service is sending more than half as many bison to slaughter as have been killed during Montana's entire three-month bison hunt," said Mike Mease, co-founder of Buffalo Field Campaign. "When will the Park Service understand that they are in charge of protecting our wildlife, not protecting cattle interests?"2,120 wild American bison have been killed or otherwise removed from the remaining wild population since 2000 under actions carried out by the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP), as well as state and treaty hunts. The IBMP is a joint state-federal plan that prohibits wild bison from migrating to lands outside of Yellowstone's boundaries.

Wild American bison are a migratory species native to vast expanses of North America and are ecologically extinct everywhere in the United States outside of Yellowstone National Park.Buffalo Field Campaign strongly opposes the Interagency Bison Management Plan and maintains that wild bison should be allowed to naturally and fully recover themselves throughout their historic native range, especially on public lands.

Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field, every day, to stop the slaughter of the wild American buffalo. Volunteers defend the buffalo and their native habitat and advocate for their lasting protection. Buffalo Field Campaign has proposed real alternatives to the current mismanagement of American bison that can be viewed at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/solutions.html
For more information, video clips and photos visit: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

- 30 ---

Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

BFC is the only group working in the field every dayin defense of the last wild buffalo in the U.S.

The Longest Walk 2

The Longest Walk 2 (if link doesn't work, make sure the www is in there)

On Feb. 11th, Longest Walk participants will embark on a 5 month journey from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. arriving on July 11th. The Longest Walk south route is being led by AIM co-founder Dennis J. Banks. It is an extraordinary grassroots effort on a national level to bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother Earth, sacred site issues, and to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original longest walk.

...

The Longest Walk is open to people of all nations and cultures. You will be asked to fill out a registration form and abide by the code of conduct/guidelines/principles of unity.

The Longest Walk 2 – Southern Route is being organized and led by American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis J. Banks, elders and original 1978 Walkers. Communities welcoming the Longest Walk 2-Southern Route are: Rumsey Wintun, Three Rivers, Santa Rosa Tachi, Mojave, Chumash, United Farm Workers, Navajo Nation, Houma Nation and the Choctaw to name a few. The Nipponzan Miyohoji Buddhists from Japan will be joining The Longest Walk 2 - Southern Route.

The purpose of the Southern route is to continue and carry the message from the Longest Walk of 1978: "The Longest Walk is an Indian spiritual walk, a historical walk; and it is a walk for educational awareness to the American and the world communities about the concerns of American Indian people." The Longest Walk 2 is walking to create awareness about the environment. We are walking to protect sacred sites in our country. We are walking to promote positive change in our world.

The Longest Walk 2 is a peaceful, spiritual effort to engage with the public about restoring harmony with the environment by leading an effort to clean up the lands surrounding our highways. We will be launching The Clean Up Mother Earth Campaign where our Longest Walk participants will work together to clean up our country's highways and roads by collecting debris found along the Longest Walk route. This monumental task will engage Walkers in a global effort at a grassroots level to promote harmony with our delicate environment. A rotating team of walkers will pick up trash along the way with trash pokers leaving a healthy trail in their path.

We take up this task to walk in a manner befitting our nations. We shall walk for the Seventh Generation, for peace, for justice, for healing of Mother Earth, for the healing of our people suffering from diabetes, heart conditions and other diseases.

We are Cleaning Up Mother Earth mile-by-mile, village-to-village, city-to-city, state-to-state and shore-to-shore from Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C. We walk with the message: All Life is Sacred.

...

If you are interested in walking please be sure to read the following pages on our website:
FAQ's
Walker Resources Page
First-Aid Zine for Walkers (Right Click to download 1.4mb pdf)
If you do decide to register for the walk you will receive an orientation packet upon completion of your registration. Currently we are registering only volunteers, who can walk the whole way as well. You can fill that out online here.
Here is a Link to the Northern Route Overview

quotes for today

"Farmers are seeing little of the huge profits ethanol refiners like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are banking... ADM will earn an estimated $1.3 billion from ethanol alone in the 2007 fiscal year."
From New York Times article: "How ADM makes a killing on ethanol"

"The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before."
Economist Lester Brown speaking to the Des Moines Register 1/25/2008

http://www.organicconsumers.org/

on freedom, revistited

would like to share with you all a little something I posted here:
http://friendstacy.gaia.com/blog/2008/1/from_lakota_oyate_with_comments

Greetings, everyone. I have many new friends here, you might not have read much of what I like to blog about. I'm an anarchist. I don't believe in governmental rule, period. This is how I interpret those truths revealed to me by my ancestors when I seek within for the answers. My ancestors, for the most part, are Lakota. I have to believe that there are other people in this world that share my viewpoint, but I can only take it on faith that they do, as they never replied when I asked for their assistance in the past. So this is my own personal truth, truth I found when I look within for answers. It does not come from the teachings of any human person, any book of ancient wisdom, any religious doctrine or political treatise.

I speak only for myself, from my heart. A very human heart. I believe in freedom. I believe it can really work, people can be free if they so choose to be. It is up to each individual person to make that decision, it cannot be made for them by others. THIS is my big problem with the world we live in today. Our decisions are all pre-made by those in control. We aren't granted autonomy, but sometimes the illusion of a choice is offered us. That makes people feel a little better and helps them sleep at night. I feel this current situation is unacceptable! I don't want the illusion of choices between options which represent false distinctions and are really all the same.

so, given the choice between Russel Mean's REPUBLIC and Bush's tyranny, who can possibly choose Bush? wrong. a new republic means nothing changes. a new republic means that Plato's plan for humanity is still in place. Government control of the people is not an option, no matter how sugar-coated it might be. In order to explain myself, I have to start with Plato. and we have to look into conspiracy theories that might make us uncomfortable. We have to learn about the globalist ruling elite, those few who run the whole show. And we have to search for truth in history, because most of it is lies. But most importantly, we have to break free of the operant conditioning from the indoctrination centers we know as schools and church.

We have to question our education first of all!! We must question all of it, every thing we hold to be true. We must ask "why do I believe this is true?" and if the answer is only because they told me to believe it, or if they threatened me with horribleness if I chose not to believe it, that means there are more questions that need to be asked.

My quest is not one for answers, but rather one for QUESTIONS!! I'm nowhere near learning Truth and Wisdom, or reaching some imaginary "enlightenment" - not me!! I'm still tearing down the false ideas I always thought were true. Things I was misled to believe. And as the lies crumble down, truth is left standing tall and strong and permanent.

Problem is, where those lies originated. The lies are told by those who seek to rule. They must lie to us in order to make us believe we want to be ruled. the parallels between politics and domestic violence are horrendous. They tell us we are stupid. They beat it into our brains with television and the non-stop onslaught of advertisements telling us to buy something. What they want us to buy aren't just the crap goods made by child slave labor in countries far far away. What they want us to buy is the whole package, this system that makes us slaves to the few in charge. and they're real good at it, too. Been doing it this way over 2000 years!

They make all decisions for us. Here are your rules, The Law. OBEY. Do not question authority, ever! If you do, horrible horrible things will happen to you. You might even spend eternity burning in hell. Plato planned it all out this way, check it out. The Republic isn't a difficult read, and you can find it online for free or at any public library. Plato's plan was to make the idea of the "good of the group" more important than anything else in society. this is how they get us to choose not to decide. Yes, it is a choice we make when we give the power to make decisions over to an authority. And I'm not saying that is always wrong. What I'm saying is that it is wrong when we are lied to in order to get us to make that choice. I'm saying it is wrong when someone chooses to rule others. What needs to happen is each person needs the freedom to make their own decisions, including the decision to follow any given leader at any given time for any given reason of their own. What needs to happen is for people to just simply start making their own decisions.

I do very strongly believe that people have the ability to be self-governing and not need government rule. Lots of other people have believed this throughout history, too. Lots of very intelligent, very highly respected people. Why is it that we still have government? What are we so afraid of that we can't trust ourselves and our fellow humans?

and back to Plato, just one last time. He left us a way out. Not by what is in The Republic, but what is missing from it. There is no mention of Socrates' Daimonion, his inner guiding voice, in all of The Republic. But it is a major part of most all other Socratic dialogues. This is our way out!! All we gotta do is listen to that inner voice that tells us right from wrong. The answer is right before us, ALL of us, each and every one! The only possible place you will ever find Truth, is from looking within. It's not from following the right poitician who claims to be fighting the corrupt system that supports his own extravagant way of life, or the right general into battle. It's not from listening to the right guru or believing in the right god. It's not from praying the right way or meditating on the right mountain or with the right people. It's something each person must decide for themselves.

It's up to you. What kind of world do your children deserve to inherit? Make it happen. Don't do what anyone else tells you to do, do what your heart says is right.

Lakota Oyate

lakotahoyate.net

Lakota Oyate represents the voice of the free Lakota oyate (people) from what was known as the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota,South Dakota and Montana. In our freedom, we reject the colonial apartheid system that has caused genocide to our people, and to all Indigenous peoples.

Lakota Oyate emerges from the work of the Lakota Freedom Delegation. Now that we have returned from Washington D.C., we work to ensure the voice of the oyate - the Elders, children and all people - are respected and heard in the rebirth of the Lakota Nation.

We do not represent those BIA or IRA governments beholden to the colonial system, but we encourage all people to reclaim their freedom. We do not support the imposition of the "Republic of Lakotah" or its so-called "provisional government" which does not represent the will of the people nor the spirit of the Animal Nations which survive within the Elders and children.


http://lakotahoyate.net/portfolio.html

http://eeng.net/CS/blogs/smileycoyote/default.aspx


there's a lovely discussion at my zaadz blog on this topic

any additional resources that you know of, please post links in the comments!


lakotafreedom.com now redirects to republicoflakota.com
if you've been reading my blog, like ever before, you know I gots big BIG problems with Plato's Republic and any government based upon rule by an elite class of people who are somehow better suited to govern (control) us than we are ourselves and based upon the good of the group rather than what's good for each and every individual person.

The Lakota "Indians" Secede from the Union!!

Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US



WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.

The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.

Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.

"This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.

"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.

"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA

Robert Anton Wilson

loved his books in the way back. hadn't thought of him in ages until I came across this article and after reading it, surfed around a bit.

"The worst thing about hospitals," says Wilson, who was rescued when his daughter managed to break into the apartment, "is that all the rights guaranteed in the first 10 amendments are immediately canceled. You have no civil rights whatsoever. And the second thing is, all the ordinary rules no longer apply--you are no longer a person deserving of kindness, you're a disobedient child who has to be reprimanded and herded around. My God, I don't know why people put up with such treatment." Wilson, we can presume, doesn't particularly like being told what to do.

"Not by people who treat me like an idiot. Not when I'm 73 years old, I have 35 books in print, I supported a wife and four kids for most of my life. I do not appreciate being treated like a disobedient 4-year-old, the way they treat everybody in the hospital."

Of course, you don't have to go to a hospital to be treated like that, but Wilson's on a roll ...

"I was an editor of Playboy, for chrissake," he cries, as though that, if nothing else, should carry some weight in this culture. "I've had plays performed in England, Germany and the United States; my books are in print in a dozen countries. Why the hell do they treat me like a child? I refuse to tolerate it. If they won't treat me with dignity, I won't go anywhere near them, especially with all the goddamned germs they got floating around there. CNN did a report on it -- the number of people who are killed by diseases picked up in hospitals is much greater than the number who are killed by cars.

"I'm never going to a hospital again. Never, never, never, never! I will lie on the floor and die before I go back to a hospital."

link