Truthout Daily Digest | Friday, 30 January 2015

An Explosive Crisis: Government Bickering Clouds Cleanup Effort at Camp Minden

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: An explosion two years ago led investigators to 15 million pounds of hazardous and potentially explosive munitions waste, illegally stashed in northwest Louisiana, but cleanup is once again unclear as federal regulators haggle with an angry public and the Jindal administration.

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Rep. Keith Ellison: Postpone Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress

Robert Naiman, Truthout: Reps. Keith Ellison, Steve Cohen and Maxine Waters are circulating a letter to Speaker Boehner, asking him to postpone the invitation until after the Israeli election and after Congress has considered the issue of Iran sanctions.

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Shedding Light on Three Big Lies About Systemic Pesticides and Bees

Maryam Henein, Truthout: Ridiculous misinformation is being planted in the media about honeybees and the systemic pesticides killing them. This begs the question: To what extent does Big Agriculture influence the way science is researched and reported to line its pockets and benefit its corporate agendas?

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Progressives Have Hope; Just Don’t Ask Jonathan Chait About It

Lisa Factora-Borchers, Truthout: To overlook writer Jonathan Chait’s self-appointed superiority complex as the work of one anachronistic guy would be to ignore the growing litany of complaints emerging from straight White men – claiming their own marginality.

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Why Is Marissa Alexander Still Being Punished for Fighting Back?

Victoria Law, The Nation: On Tuesday, January 27, Marissa Alexander walked out of jail, but not as a free woman. As Alexander leaves prison for house arrest, it’s time to question the system that turns women into criminals for trying to stay alive.

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Laura Flanders | Moving Your Money: An Interview With Finance Expert Michael Shuman

Laura Flanders, GRITtv: Why is it so hard to invest your money locally? Grassroots activists trying to build economic alternatives in the United States encourage investing in the businesses in your neighborhood, instead of in far-off corporations. It turns out that it’s not so easy to move your money; there are even laws against it in the United States.

Watch the Video and Read the Article

The Invisible Man: Jeffrey Sterling, CIA Whistleblower

Norman Solomon, Expose Facts: The mass media have suddenly discovered Jeffrey Sterling – after his conviction Monday afternoon as a CIA whistleblower. Sterling’s indictment four years ago received fleeting news coverage that recited the government’s charges. From the outset, the Justice Department portrayed him as bitter and vengeful.

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Community-Owned Energy: How Nebraska Became the Only State to Bring Everyone Power From a Public Grid

Thomas Hanna, YES! Magazine: In this red state, publicly owned utilities provide electricity to all 1.8 million people. Here’s how Nebraska took its energy out of corporate hands and made it affordable for everyday residents.

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Trouble Already Brewing for Saudi Arabia’s New King

Lizabeth Paulat, Care2: The death of Abdullah bin Abdulaziz last Friday marked a passing of the torch in Saudi Arabia’s kingdom. His replacement – and brother – Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud has come at a tenuous time, with people now questioning his involvement in terrorist organizations and the country’s shaky human rights record.

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Fudging the Future

Emily Schwartz Greco, OtherWords: How precise is energy forecasting? To put it politely, the experts who get paid to predict these things aren’t the most accurate arrows in the quiver. Take the still-unfolding crude crash. Its cause boils down to one simple fact: The industry is producing way more oil than consumers want.

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Richard D. Wolff | Economic Update: Economics and Revolutions

Richard D. Wolff, Truthout: This episode provides updates on political corruption, the Greek election results, Social Security taxes, debt jubilee, union membership and the lessons of revolutions.

Listen to the Audio Segment

BuzzFlash

Romney Is as Credible a Poverty Fighter as Kochs Are as Advocates of No Campaign Spending

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: The statistical economic facts have shown that the trickle-down paradigm is a hoax: It has led to the greatest redistribution of wealth – from the poor and middle class to the rich – in US history.​

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“Viper” Alert: Citizens United’s David Bossie Is on the Prowl

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Mitt Romney Will Not Run for President Again

Read the Article at The Washington Post

CIA Interrogations Took Place on British Territory of Diego Garcia, Senior Bush Administration Official Says

Read the Article at Vice

Manufacturing Terror: How the FBI Invents Some Plots and Ignores Others in the “war on freedom”

Read the Article at Occupy.com

Texas Legislature Introduces Bill Allowing Teachers to Shoot Students

Read the Article at Crooks & Liars

Air Pollution Actually Messes With Your Genes

Read the Article at Grist

One of the World’s Biggest Lakes Is Dying, and We’re to Blame

Read the Article at Mother Jones

Preserving our Future: World Wetlands Day 2015

Thank you for sharing this! I did not know about world wetlands day. How appropriate that the day to celebrate wetlands which are the world’s nurseries falls on Imbolc the holiday to celebrate the spark of life yet hidden, that will expand and be fully born into the world in Spring.

Serenity Spell

A million HELLOS to the blogging community!

And happy early World Wetlands Day!It’s hard not to be passionate about the celebration of such an event, since all of what you see here —the unique landscapes and its wonderful critters — are dependent on wetland ecosystems. Officially February 2, World Wetlands Day is an international celebration of the planet’s marshes, swamps, and bogs. It marks the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands, called the Ramsar Convention, on February 2, 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar. World Wetlands Day was first celebrated in 1997, and since then government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and citizens all over the world have aimed to raise public awareness of the critical value and intrinsic benefits of wetland ecosystems.

Despite the growing awareness of this unique ecosystem, there are sobering threats facing the survival of our wetlands:

• A 2011federal studyestimated the U.S…

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“Get yourself in alignment with the quantum field and you’ll beam like the sun.”—Russell Brand

The trick to changing unhelpful beliefs imprinted on your nervous system in childhood is to create “imprint vulnerability” and then reprogram your mental and emotional software. Robert Anton Wilson explained this thoroughly in his wonderful book “Prometheus Rising”. NLP is a modern method for doing so, as, I believe Silva also is.

When we keep attracting more of what we don’t want, I believe the culprit is often our “hardwired” imprints unconsciously keeping beliefs we no longer agree with active. There’s no point in beating ourselves up over it, just find a better tool to overwrite the “program” with.

Pam Grout

“Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself and thus make yourself indispensable.”—Andrew Gide

It’s your lucky day, boos. Another great blog post from my buddy, Greg Kuhn. Take it away, Greg:

Why Being Useful Almost Always Guarantees You Success and Happiness

The energy of “you” (who you are) forms coherence with the energy of the quantum field. Becoming coherent with the energy of the quantum field means that like-energy from the quantum field becomes in-synch with “you”. And, once in-synch, the energy of the quantum field forms a material reality which matches (or is in alignment) with “you”.

A more common phrase we use for the energy of “you” is “your beliefs”. Your beliefs are who “you” are and they are the “you” that the quantum field becomes coherent with.

Furthermore, the vehicle with conveys the energy of your beliefs (or “you”) to the quantum field are…

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What is action? | Charles Eisenstein

One thing I love about the present time is how SO many people are aware. So many people have awakened or are in the process of doing so. Those who have been doing this for decades are no longer feeling like lone voices in the wilderness of colonized post industrial dystopian society.

So much that got me labeled as crazy, ignored, mocked, shunned etc for most of my life has now become central to global intellectual discourse. People are coming together to learn, grow and actively solve the truly huge problems facing humanity and our beautiful planet.

I’m so grateful! It’s also a novel but wonderful feeling to be a part of the zeitgeist, thinking about and discussing the same range of issues and ideas.

I bet a lot of you are also feeling this sense of amazement and relief- “I’m not alone!”. We are all facing these big problems together.

I have long appreciated Charles Eisenstein’s perspective and writing. I think his essay today is particularly relevant to the theme of Spirit In Action.

I started this blog to share my perspective that spiritual growth and political activism are both necessary but not sufficient to solve the vast mess our species currently faces.

I hoped others would appreciate the idea. I also hoped I would meet people who share this perspective, which seemed somewhat unpopular with both groups(spiritual seekers and political activists), except for Starhawk, ReClaiming Covens, a lot of Native activists, and a scattering of others from various other groups.

I believe that when enough people act decisively on both sides (ie personal/internal spiritual work along with political activism, collective action) the seemingly intractable problems of our age will rapidly become solvable.

If you search for Charles Eisenstein on this blog there is a link to his book Sacred Economics free to read online, or download. A full internet search on him should provide a veritable feast of interesting stuff.
Blessings,
ohnwentsya

What is Action?It seems that a few people misread my catalog of the “jaded activist’s” dismissals of various tactics as my own personal disapproval of those tactics. That was not my intent. I especially value the tactics that disrupt the governing stories of our society, and unravel the narratives that underlie oppression and ecocide. The point I was trying to make is that for any “action” one proposes, there is always a reason why it won’t work, why it won’t be enough, why it is a drop in the bucket, why it won’t bring deep enough change… why it is all hopeless. Personally, of all the tactics I enumerated, I tend to favor civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action the most highly, but even petitions and orderly, permitted protest marches can sometimes be useful. Just setting the record straight here: Charles is not telling everyone to sit at home “being the change.” On the other hand, I also want to expand the scope of what we consider to be “action.” Conditioned by the ideology of instrumental utilitarianism, which values actions according to their calculable, measurable outcomes (and which is the essential mindset of the investor), we tend to value the big visible actions more than the private, invisible ones that actually take just as much courage, or even more. For every big-name climate activist out there, there are a hundred humble people holding society together with their compassion and service. I cannot emphasize this point enough. I refuse to accept a theory of change in which the humble grandmother taking care of a terminally ill little boy is doing something less important for our future than, say, Bill McKibben. This is one of my core beliefs: that every act sends ripples out through the matrix of causality; that every act has cosmic significance. Yet I am not offering these small acts as substitutes for political engagement. I believe that a well-rounded person will engage on many levels, and that when the moment comes, the courage cultivated on the intimate level will translate into the courage to step in front of the riot police. Both come from the same place. According to our personal qualities and life circumstances, different kinds of action call to us at different times. I want to expand our understanding of what “action” is, to support people in trusting this call. Because our deep mythology valorizes certain kinds of actions, we are often left with the feeling that we are not taking significant action. Furthermore, even those who attempt the actions that are most strongly validated by our dominant theory of change often feel like they aren’t doing enough. Is the state of the environment better or worse than it was 40 years ago? Is transnational finance stronger or weaker? How about the military-industrial complex? The agrochemical industry? Many activists are coming to believe that more of the same is not enough; that we need to act from a different place — and that requires inner work and interpersonal work. i think many common tactics used by environmentalists and political progressives are actually counterproductive — not because they are insufficiently clever, but because they encode some of the same deep worldview from which ecocide and oppression arise as well. I won’t go there now though. When someone focuses on one level of service to the exclusion of the rest for too long, the result will be a growing dissatisfaction and a desire to grow. One way that growth happens is through the broadening of the scope of one’s vision: for example, to learn about the web of economic and political relationships that is driving ecocide, or to become aware of oppression within one’s own organization, or to recognize one’s own self-delusion, sanctimoniousness, or violence. As we grow, the natural object of our care grows too, and there may be a shift in what calls to us. Someone unaware of climate change isn’t going to do anything to stop climate change. I think the discomfort that some of the commenters have expressed with the idea of sitting in retreat (and believe me, their discomfort echoes my own) comes from two sources. One is the feeling I referred to above, that “I’m not doing enough.” I’m not doing enough and I can’t do enough and perhaps if I make myself uncomfortable enough about it, I can goad myself into greater efforts. The second is the natural discomfort that arises when the time to grow, to move, to expand is upon us. I suspect I am not the only one who is in the Space Between Stories, not the only one who feels the call to deeper and more effective service. Nor am I the only one who doesn’t have a clue what that looks like. The caution I am offering (to myself mostly) is not to temporarily alleviate that discomfort by reflexively adopting familiar or prescribed kinds of action, just so I can assure myself I’m doing something. Maybe something new wants to emerge. Maybe I need to stop all this traveling and speaking. Maybe that’s getting in the way of my next step. Maybe I need to get my hands in the soil more. Maybe I need to drop my knowledge for a while and learn something radically new, which will then integrate with my old knowledge in ways I cannot imagine.