Thank you Denise! It really can be a huge effort to stay on track when such attacks are ongoing. I love your explanation of it as Initiatic and alchemical. Their attacks imho actually drive us harder toward ascension because of the natural desire of every living being to escape from suffering.
Daily Archives: November 22, 2014
Truthout Daily Digest Friday, 21 November 2014
School of the Americas Morphs Into US Training Industrial Complex
JP Sottile, Truthout: Twenty-five years after an infamous massacre of six Jesuits at the hands of its graduates, activists still demand closure of School of the Americas (SOA). Yet, since SOA was “officially closed” and reopened the next year with a new name, a worldwide US network of training that amounts to a vast satellite campus system of military influence and power is the “new” School of the Americas.
Obama Announces Order Allowing Millions of Undocumented Immigrants Safety, for Now
Bethania Palma Markus, Truthout: President Obama announced Thursday he’s issuing an executive order that will allow some 5.2 million immigrants the right to live and work legally in the United States by expanding a program and extending protections to parents with children who are US citizens or green card holders.
Utah Tries Where Congress Fails to Keep NSA Within Constitution
Michael Boldin, Truthout: A Utah state representative is fed up with waiting for Congress to stop NSA snooping and is pushing a bill to halt operations at its recently opened Bluffdale facility by cutting off water.
On Modernizing the US Nuclear Arsenal
David Krieger, Truthout: Why modernize the US nuclear arsenal? The US government should instead fulfill its legal obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and end the nuclear weapons era through diplomacy and negotiations.
Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson, OtherWords: Hiding profits in tax havens is one of the most common ways large corporations avoid paying their fair share to the IRS. And indeed, the 31 firms who paid their CEOs more than Uncle Sam operate 237 subsidiaries in low- or no-tax zones. But that’s just one tax-dodging trick.
Edelman TransCanada Leak: Aggressive PR for Keystone Alternative
Lisa Graves, PR Watch: Leaked documents expose a plan by Edelman for TransCanada to launch an “aggressive” US-style politics PR campaign to persuade Canadians to support a Canada-based alternative to the stalled Keystone XL pipeline to get controversial tar sands oil to refineries in eastern Canada for export.
Elizabeth Warren: “Enough Is Enough” With Obama’s Wall Street Appointees
Richard Eskow, Campaign for America’s Future: Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been talking about President Obama’s economic appointees, and it sounds like she’s pretty fed up. The White House has begun blocking tax inversions and has publicly denounced the practice, but its position is undercut when it appoints someone like Antonio Weiss.
Fossil Free Canada Convergence Deepens an International Movement
Kate Aronoff, Waging Nonviolence: Last weekend, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition hosted the first-ever Fossil Free Canada Convergence. Held at Concordia and McGill Universities in Montreal, the convergence brought together 80 youth organizers from around the country.
Secret Tapes Hint at Turmoil in New York Fed Team Monitoring JPMorgan
Jake Bernstein, ProPublica: Revelations of internal strife add new details to the summary of an investigation by the Federal Reserve Board’s inspector general into the New York Fed’s supervision of JPMorgan before the “London Whale” trading scandal.
Paul Krugman | Anxieties Over Interest Rates
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: Let us celebrate the IMF’s willingness to look honestly at its own record and learn from it. Taking responsibility for your actions and statements is all too rare in modern economic discourse. The Fund, it turns out, is better than that, and deserves praise.
Latin America Moves Towards Decarbonizing the Economy
Fabiola Ortiz, Inter Press Service: When the advances made toward curbing global warming are analyzed in the first 12 days of December in Lima, during the 20th climate conference, Latin America will present some achievements, as well as the many challenges it faces in its “decarbonizing development.”
BuzzFlash
The BuzzFlash Commentary will return soon.
Kansas GOPer Wonders if Hispanic Majority Would Conduct “Ethnic Cleansing” in US
Read the Article at Right Wing Watch
Newtown Shooter’s History Reviewed in New Report
Read the Article at The Associated Press
GOPer Sees Obama Impeachment, Jail Time Over Executive Action
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo
Ten Fun Facts About the Student Debt Crisis
Failing to Indict Darren Wilson Won’t End the Movement Against Police Violence
Read the Article at The Nation
We Just Had the Hottest October on Record
Read the Article at Mother Jones
The Undoing of Bill Cosby
New post on HighHeartLife – November 17 through 21, 2014 Update | Denise le Fey
This is beautiful. Denise, like Aisha and others this week is so reassuring to me.
We are all experiencing varying levels of this newness, disorientation, feelings of struggle or discomfort. It’s not you-it’s not me-it really is the Spirit of the Age moving us all in new ways.
For me, it has been a lot of practice in simply accepting where I am in each moment; learning to laugh at the unkind, criminal and just plain mean instead of taking it personally; learning to flow with the energy moment to moment-ie eat when hungry, sleep when tired, rearrange to do list when sleeping overtakes the schedule for days in a row.
It’s like the energy these days is a teacher from a kung fu movie-if we don’t learn to be in the moment, it gets progressively more uncomfortable until we have that “aha!” moment.
But the best thing has been this growing awareness of all of you and our collective connection across all the old boundaries of time, distance, language, age, political and religious beliefs etc.
It feels like the collective consciousness of Earth is waking up. As I send my prayers, reiki and intentions out toward comfort, healing, safety and peace for all those in danger zones whether of war, illness or climate problems; others are also doing so and the energies take on a life and mission spiraling out from us, multiplying-and like the butterfly wings and the hurricane-creating something far beyond our individual abilities to do.
Conversely, I also feel the energy spiraling in from those who pray for healing for the ill, bringing me new hope for my own individual future.
As the old saying goes-The Goddess is alive, and magic is afoot!;-)
Blessings to you all,
ohnwentsya
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Clayoquot Sound 2.0: In Praise of the Climate Warriors of Burnaby Mountain | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
Published on
Friday, November 21, 2014
by
Ricochet
Clayoquot Sound 2.0: In Praise of the Climate Warriors of Burnaby Mountain
Echoes of 1993 as protesters lose the battle, but prepare to win the war
by
Ethan Cox
‘To the warriors of Burnaby Mountain,’ writes Cox, ‘I salute you.’ (Photo: Ricochet Media)
“It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here, what better time than now?” – Rage Against the Machine
Late Monday afternoon a court injunction came into effect that made lawbreakers out of those assembled on Burnaby Mountain. Supported by the City of Burnaby and the broader community, these are not radicals, nor is their position a minority one. Quite simply, they are the warriors of their community, putting their bodies on the line to stop outside intruders from doing harm to the land they love.
I can’t help but imagine the spirits of their ancestors among those trees, proudly watching their descendants protect the land — a sacred duty passed down from generation to generation since the dawn of our species.
Some are Indigenous; many are not. In either case, I can’t help but imagine the spirits of their ancestors among those trees, proudly watching their descendants protect the land — a sacred duty passed down from generation to generation since the dawn of our species.
In 1993, in the forests of Clayoquot Sound, the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history to date was unfolding. I was ten, and on the other side of the country, but I remember the confrontation vividly. It captured the public imagination and led to a resurgence of environmental activism.
In those woods, in that year, 963 people were arrested, 860 of whom were found guilty of criminal contempt of court. Some went to jail, for as long as six months. But they won, as surely as the protesters arrested atop Burnaby Mountain yesterday will win.
Foreign logging companies were driven out by public pressure, with ownership of the existing logging concessions transferred to Indigenous-owned companies. In 1995 all 127 recommendations made by the scientific panel on Clayoquot Sound were implemented by the B.C. government. In 1999 a memorandum of understanding was signed that barred logging outside of those areas that had already been logged, and in 2000 the entire Sound was designated a biosphere by UNESCO.
I’m not the only one with Clayoquot on the mind, as image after image of proud protesters led away in handcuffs scrolled through my feed. I’ve seen the parallel drawn a half dozen times, and little wonder — it is an apt comparison.
Then as now, history is on the side of the protesters.
I’m struck by their eyes. In image after image, protester after protester stares back at the camera. Not in defiance, because they are not losing, but with the pride of a people who have found their purpose. Today, they have lost the battle, but it is only a temporary setback in a war that will be won by the side with love, hope and community on its side, not the one with the money. And they all know it.
“Don’t worry, we are winning,” said Tamo Campos, grandson of David Suzuki,as he was led away in handcuffs.
“Don’t worry, we are winning,” said Tamo Campos, grandson of David Suzuki,as he was led away in handcuffs.
Coming from Quebec, there is something special in watching the struggles we are fighting reflected in those on the opposite side of the country. Sometimes fighting climate change feels like one big game of whack-a-mole — no sooner have we beaten back one pipeline project than another springs up to take its place.
But it’s a war we are winning, from the westbound Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan projects to the southbound Keystone XL and the pipeline my province is preparing to fight, Energy East. All roads lead back to the tar sands, and only by shutting them down can we save our climate and our planet.
The extractive industry is in its death throes. If that isn’t clear now it will become so in the coming years. The consensus of over 97 per cent of climate scientists, as articulated by the Nobel-prize winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is clear: if we don’t leave most of the tar sands oil in the soil, we will face “severe, widespread and irreversible” effects from climate change.
The extractive industry is in its death throes. If that isn’t clear now it will become so in the coming years.
Just this week, the United Nations Environment Programme released a new report arguing our CO2 emissions must fall to zero by 2070 to avoid this fate. This logic is based on the idea that we have a finite carbon budget, and we’ve already spent most of it.
Quoted in the Guardian,UNEP chief scientist Jacqueline McGlade articulated the challenge ahead:
“The big uncertainty is whether you can put enough policies in place from 2020-2030 – in the critical window – to allow the least-cost pathways [to lower emissions and temperatures] to still stand a chance of being followed. The uncertainties have shifted from the science to the politics.”
There are those who argue that the rhetoric around climate change is overblown, and the sense of urgency exaggerated. Notably, few if any of those people are scientists.
As a society, we have spent most of our recent history developing a culture of science and objective reason. Some now seem to be embracing its unravelling with reckless abandon, as though we were plugging our ears and chanting “na-na-na-na, we can’t hear you!” at the chorus of scientists warning of our impending demise.
But we do hear, and we are acting, even if our governments are not. Our leaders have failed us, and that fact must be made plain. But in the vacuum of their failure, our communities, our friends and parents and children have taken a stand from one corner of this planet to the other.
To the warriors of Burnaby Mountain, I salute you. And may we all stand behind you.
© 2014 Ricochet Media
Ethan Cox is a journalist, editor and political commentator. A co-founder of Ricochet, his writing has appeared everywhere from theNational Post to The Tyeeand from the Toronto Starto Al-Jazeera America. He is a political analyst for various television networks and a regular on Montreal radio.
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