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In the beginning…there was just this little squirrel

So where does one start?

Start what you ask!? Well, as an overly-concerned citizen, one who spends way too much time in what talking heads are calling the media ‘Echo Chambers.” I’ve been asking myself much more frequently in the last few months; ‘how do I contribute?’ is there really anything of significance one squirrel can do to stop what millions of us see as the largest existential problem in the history of humanity?

END of Humanity

Yes, I’m talking about all of the paths we are currently heading down, that if not radically altered, are going to come together in one large catastrophe. Most likely a spectacular cascade of major natural and mostly man-made disasters.

Climate Change

Yea, this is the big one and there is no shortage of crazy solutions, mostly for profit (will get back to this path in a moment). Everything from the most controversial ‘chem trails’ to growing trees to burn for electricity! We’ll probably get to these soon on this blog site-let’s just say they’ve talked about it, plans for massive plantations of genetically engineered trees and geoengineering, so far not yet but we shall see if we can stop all of this before it gets started~

Since the industrial revolution, two centuries ago, mankind has contributed nothing but a steady onslaught of filth, poisons, and garbage. Our air, lands, even our oceans are suffering the blight of over consumption. Black smoke billowed from smokestacks a century and a half before someone made the connection between oily, black, noxious fumes and human diseases. Imagine that! Why did it take until the early 1980s to connect these dots? It might have been that the people suffering the most were thought of as property/chattel/expendable and explains why it was the NAACP folks that began that conversation.

We’ll be expanding on history later, but for now let us ponder the reason that the Trump administration is systematically ridding themselves of the “business killing” regulations that were put in place BECAUSE corporations needed to be forced into NOT polluting with abandon! Remember those nasty regulations and the agencies created to ENFORCE said regulations are now being largely run by “ex” corporation CEOs who did as they pleased and are still pissed when they are made to comply with the LAW! So now THEY are the ones running those agencies and step by step ridding themselves of these “restrictions” that make it harder for them to poison our world! Also, these agencies have serious employee shortages-from assistants at the State Dept. to analysts to life-long career diplomats that hold invaluable knowledge that helps to shape future policy.

You can scoff and people can shout ‘drain the swamp’ all they want. The truth is all this stuff counts in maintaining peace-as tentative as it is right now, we need all the experience we can muster. Stay tuned…

GREED? The Hell you Say!

I know, at the moment I’m writing this, it seems like cheaters are winning. It’s happened before – well, throughout most of history, at least in Europe and parts east. From the time of kings, pharaohs, emperors and monarchs there has always been those who were subjected to the whims and wishes of a ruling class and most of the time that meant poverty, suffering, death for a majority. There have been peaceful times, good times for the People, kind leaders who dedicated their lives as ‘first servants’ of the people they swore to protect and care for. There’s a history of this in the Western Hemisphere – Europe/Asia/Africa, not so much! We can argue about that later but verified facts will be backed up by documentation.

Moving on…. when those in power, in all cases, were consumed with greed, ego, and lust for ultimate control the people suffered. Period.

Is it different now? We know from facts / statistics that 2% of the population of the world own 90% of the world’s wealth. What is the state of the U.S. right now? Is the middle class thriving or are they holding on to what little quality of life they still possess but with far less success?

What major issue is hovering ominously over Trump and his administration and those who worked on his campaign and transition team? Yes, Russia but why Russia? Simple – MONEY! Greed! This can be proven, and I believe that all the bragging and bluster about his billions and billions of dollars and what a success he is – “never been anyone in all of history more successful” – blah ditty blah ditty YAK – will be proven false. So yeah, it’s about money he owes to foreign governments. Probably not just Russia. Lies you say? We could clear all this up if he would release his taxes.

That pitiful attempt at “leaking” those two pages from 1995, was all too obvious, even more obvious than that John Miller character he tried to make people believe was his “publicist.” Let me stop here for a minute and ask another obvious question: WHO the hell didn’t say to themselves; “self?” Is this someone we could trust with our lives? Someone we could trust to have OUR best interests in mind when he made a decision?

Here’s just ONE example of how he is going to provide PROFITS for his friends:

Again, moving on…

Money! Since apparently he’s not going to release his taxes, we have no way to prove or disprove one way or the other, at this moment anyway, whether he is telling the truth about his ‘fortune.’ What we can also surmise is, since he has NOT DIVESTED from his businesses, that he IS raking in millions of OUR TAX DOLLARS! Weekends that he stays at one of his properties the U.S. government shells out millions for security. Secret Service agent salaries, rooms and food are billed to the government and they pay these from the money WE provide. Tax payers foot the bill for Air Force One, and pay for Melania to stay in NYC, golf games, whatever, it’s all going back into HIS pocket. And we’ll examine this too, but all those agents, time and resources takes away from their other duties to track down and prosecute financial fraud cases. Hmmm, wonder why that would be something this administration would like to stonewall? I digress, again…

What part of any of this do the people who defend him daily-not the billionaires/millionaires, every day schmucks in Po-dunk WV who scrape by day after day just to put food on their tables, are they okay with? No other president EVER had this scam going!

So greed is driving industry that is driving pollution and climate change – two dots connected.

Industrializing Life

At one time, in this country communities supported themselves. Then large cities cropped up and those small communities began providing food/commodities to those larger urban centers. The robber barons of the railroad, steel, lumber, coal industries saw the opportunity in expanding their empires to include absorbing these smaller enterprises. Soon farmers, the small to medium sized operations were driven out of business by manipulation – various forms of pressure to give up, sell out, and join the ranks of city dwellers.

Okay this is way over simplified and there’s lots of history about when, where how, but reality is that almost EVERY aspect of your life is connected to the industrial global conglomerate. This includes the ‘military industrial complex’ and global trade and economics. No longer do most people in developed countries rely on only local resources – food, clothing, do-dads, whatever. It wouldn’t take much to stop the conveyor that supports all this world’s trade. If it broke down either by chance or purposely stopped, millions of people here in the states could experience an epic food shortage. How about if a central water source was poisoned? Charleston or Flint ring any bells? Heaven forbid all our modes of communication would somehow fail – what would we possibly do without Netflix after dinner? I jest but any such scenario, if you ponder it for more than a few minutes, is terrifying.

There is ONLY one way we can rebuild food security- build up, build out, support local food production and the dedicated individuals who do some of the hardest work in this country. Really that is the most important – but along with food, there’s opportunity to dial back consumerism and rely more on cottage industry. Look at the natural health/personal products as an example – there’s been a wonderful, albeit a bit chaotic, explosion of small producers, most from their own kitchens. Speaking of kitchens, the craft food and beverage market has grown exponentially and it’s even started to grow in places like “Po-dunk WV.” Microbreweries, bakeries, restaurants, and even family entertainment is growing as clever and ambitious entrepreneurs are seeing the need and filling it.

Look, it’s not hard to see the industrialization of everything has caused world-wide air pollution, poverty, injustice. We’re tied into an aging and failing energy grid, transportation and health care systems. As stated in the beginning of this rant, 2% of the people on this planet control 90% of the wealth. A global market is eventually unsustainable in any scenario. We’re under the assumption that any resource should be or can be consumed by everyone in the world. Well, that’s what those that control 90% of the wealth would like you to believe.

Back to climate change…

Fossil fuels are the base for countless products we use every day – Almost all modes of transportation, communication, education, health care, food distribution and countless other services we truly depend on. How long will it take for your household to run out of food, water, medicine, light, heat if just one major element of the global system broke down? Now, this isn’t to get anyone off the couch and start prepping – it’s to get you to ask yourselves these questions. Look around you and ask your family, friends to think about consequences of another war – only this time a huge world war fought on many fronts. Don’t dwell on it too long, but it’s happening…. what do you think the war on drugs is? War on terror?

The people who are controlling the narrative in government are counting on you being confused and helpless – but we aren’t – we are blessed, still, even with the chaos building, with some of the most level headed, brilliant minds and those with powerful leadership skills. The new administration is also counting on and working to keep us divided and climate change is one of the most contentious at the moment. This issue influences all others, from economics to human rights.

Can we count on governments or industry to do anything of significance? Is it possible they will do an about face and work to localize the systems that sustain us? Probably NOT! We are going to have to do it ourselves, individuals making commitments to first AND MOST IMPORTANT to use less… use all that you take – reuse/repurpose – drive less – travel less – buy less…. All about less is more…

For now this little squirrel has way more questions than answers – the answers aren’t for me to solve – they are for you, your family, community to ponder and commit to working on. “Vote” with your money. Boycott? Maybe especially if that’s the only way they will listen. Whatever you do, just do something because if we don’t at least try…well, not going to think that way yet!

BJ Squirrel Out!

LINKS*

What is Environmental Justice?

Environmental Justice History

 

 

*Because I  don’t trust the gov’t right now!

Wealth Care! Yeah – It’s NOT health care!

The following is a comprehensive-easy to understand explanation of what the Republican plan is all about and what it ISN’T about too…

Thank you George S Leyard for spelling all this out for us!

Here is the opening and another link:

The GOP Health Care Scam – All Smoke and Mirrors

GOP Fiction:
The AHCA will reduce premiums.
It will not reduce premiums. Not really. This is a smoke screen. It is a cynical attempt to dupe the public by shifting costs to where they are less obvious.
First, the plan will push tens of millions of people out of coverage. These would be the most expensive consumers of health care, those with chronic condition and the poor. This would result in a return to the pre-ACA days of millions simply using the emergency medical system, as their primary care providers. This is massively expensive and those costs get passed on to consumers one way or another, just less obviously.
Second, the plan ends the very unpopular “individual mandate”. This allows people to forego health insurance entirely if they wish. The GOP justification is that it is wrong to force people to buy insurance if they do not feel they need it. Young people especially fall into the very low risk category and often would rather use their hard earned dollars elsewhere. Sound reasonable?
The cold hard fact is that insurance is about spreading the risk. Period. That’s how it works. If we allow those that are least at risk to opt out, there is only one possible result for those that are still in the system… higher premiums. That was the whole reason that we had the “individual mandate” in the first place. The mandate was essentially about “paying it forward”. You buy insurance when you are young when you need the least care. You are supporting the system for all the others who are older, less fortunate, or have chronic conditions. And then, at some point, you get old yourself. At that point your likelihood of incurring medical costs goes way up. So, it will be the young and healthy who are supporting your own care.
If we allow the young and healthy to opt out of the risk pool. Then the ONLY ALTERNATIVE is vastly higher premiums for the older, higher risk folks. This will be true at precisely the time in their lives when they can least afford it, at retirement when they are on fixed incomes. This is how insurance works. It isn’t magic. It’s a numbers game. Click here to read more.

GE Trees – Clear and Present Danger you never hear about: