Who's Selling What?

During a visit to a doctor’s office, I was witness to an incredible phenomenon that reminded me of all the layers of assumptions we make every day about how our world works. I was in the office waiting for a friend for nearly 2 hours. On the table with the magazines, I noticed a tissue box that looked odd. Upon closer examination, I realized that the box was covered with advertisements from a drug company! That was just the beginning of an eye opening experience.

While sitting in the waiting room, working on my laptop computer, no less than 8 people representing 6 pharmaceutical companies came into the office. Every 15-20 minutes, a gift was given to the staff and armloads of free prescription drugs were given away.
When I asked about these visits, the receptionist confirmed that this happens all through the day, every day! I could not believe what I was seeing. During my short stay in the office, I observed:

1. Elaborate, polite bantering by one rep as she introduced her new replacement. “Oh, you’ll have to come visit us again,” the reception said to the woman who had been the rep assigned to the office. Then, the new rep got out her datebook and set up a time when she could take the staff out to lunch, “you know, like we did for you last Thanksgiving.” Then, they handed over four or five cartons of drugs.

2. Another rep walked up to the counter, very business-like, and handed a brightly colored plastic box containing candy to the receptionist. There were no words exchanged, no greetings. It was a ritual, acted out every week by this rep and the doctor’s staff. While the box was passed around, the rep handed over boxes and boxes of free drugs.

3. The next rep’s ritual involved cookies and she handed over a large tray, brightly wrapped with multi-colored cellophane. It was so odd to see such an elaborate gift given with no words exchanged, no “oh, I brought something for you” or “thanks!” Each was simply doing what was expected of them. Then, after handing over the boxes of her company’s drugs (at least 100 small boxes), the rep left the office to visit the next office, brightly colored cellophane trailing behind.
When I left the waiting room to use the restroom, I saw this gaggle of reps moving from doctor’s office to doctor’s office. They were running into each other in the hall, greeting each other warmly, then moving on to their next office.

This was simply business. All the reps were counting on a sacred truth of the pharmaceutical industry: the doctor with the most free drugs on hand is more likely to prescribe those drugs to their patients. But what about the TV commercial that proclaims “More doctors prescribe ______ over any other drug.” Sadly, they probably do so because that company is more effective at marketing (and has good gifts) than the others.

All this got me thinking about the pervasive influence that our corporate culture has on our lives. That influence is dramatic and insidious and interferes with our ability to make reasoned decisions, support effective legislation, and just live our lives according to the values we select. I think about this more and more as our environmental problems seem to get more complex and our leaders seem less likely to take action.

How many decisions and choices that we make are our own or actually the result of subliminal, repetitive, and constant advertising we have been exposed to from an early age? In fact, drug companies are now advertising in major newspapers and magazines and elaborate TV commercials with the banner “Ask your doctor about ______________.” Did you ever count the number of commercials you are exposed to? By age 5, most children in the U.S. see hundreds of thousands of commercials. We live in a culture which has 260,000 billboards, 17,000 newspapers, 12,000 periodicals, 27,000 video outlets, 400 million television sets, and well over 500 million radios (not including those in cars). We are awash with social conditioning that is virtually inseparable from our true self. Yet in order to fully comprehend our planetary (and personal) crises, we must learn to separate ourselves from the conditioning.

Our resistance to learning how to follow our heart may start early in school. Richard Heckler in Anatomy of Change offers a clue to the failings of our educational system:

Traditional education encourages us to live society’s image and discourages us from awakening to our deeper and more energetic impulses. We are not taught how to use ourselves in the learning process. Without knowing that, we lose our individuality by following the images that society and the media systematically place in front of us. We bury the intelligence of our body in order to be uniformly responsive and predictable, which marks the death of preverbal, preliterate wisdom.

The traditional, Western way of educating, particularly in science, by teaching facts and concepts and “scientific truths” results in a static and fixed sense of what is real. We grow up with the idea that there are absolute truths and that it is everyone’s goal to obtain a “stable” lifestyle that is free of change. How can a person so educated possibly feel a part of a universe that is based on constant change and upheaval? How can such a person ever feel comfortable identifying with the natural world? “We are never educated,” says Heckler, “into the how of living through change.”
We can only learn to be in connection with the natural world, and with our fellows on this world, by being fully present in our bodies, following our energy, and trusting our perceptions. Yet we have been taught that learning occurs by sitting still in an uncomfortable chair (or in a comfortable chair in front of the TV) and having someone lecture to us about someone else’s perceptions of the universe. Heckler says:

We become swallowers of history, language, and mathematics but are rarely encouraged to let go of that which is not meaningful or relevant. We also need to be taught how to sit so we may better receive; and how to appreciate the actual process of writing and drawing; and how to participate in the joy of flourish when the name we write is connected to who we are; and how to follow the interest generated by our deeper levels of excitement. True learning, receiving the transmission of experience, happens at a level much deeper than cognition. It is in the experience of the lived body that we have the opportunity to contact and learn from the process of being alive.

There is a deep conditioning that we have experienced since the Scientific Revolution. This conditioning takes many forms, but the most common in the West may be our ability to intellectualize as a form of diversion and evasion, a way to circumvent feeling. Heckler says that “becoming overinvolved in our thoughts is a way to avoid the emotions, gestures, and expressions that were at some time in the past responded to unfavorably or with disapproval.” In addition to being told that the natural world was wild and unsafe, most of us were told that we were awkward in our movements, that we couldn’t draw or be creative, and that you risk ridicule and censure if you do those things. Hence, there are many resistances to thinking on our own and trusting our judgement.

The conditioning we experience is a powerful obstacle to learning and opening up to the connections that exist in the natural world. This conditioning is a complex web that has been woven for a number of generations. It has a solid foundation of faulty assumptions created in a post-war environment, particularly in the United States, where the world was taught that the most powerful people are those who consume the most and who shelter themselves the most completely from the natural world. Climate controlled, insulated homes filled with all the modern “conveniences” became the symbols of power and affluence.

These values became the foundational teachings of our educational system, a system built upon the premise that farmers had to be trained to be the factory workers required to churn out the goods that we all needed to consume. This conditioning is heavily influenced by our media saturation that begins at birth (some would say even before birth) as our parents create gender roles and participate in the stereotyping that insidiously exists at every turn of the head. Our definitions of what it is to be safe and secure are fixed at an early age as we are taught to shelter ourselves from even the mildest temperatures and protect ourselves from nasty bugs and dirt. Revulsion to insects, rodents, and soil (called “dirt”), begins at an early age. We are taught from an early age that we need the latest vacuum cleaner to get every last bit of “dirt” out of our homes. Things that our culture reviles are called “dirt-y.”

Moving less in order to be more efficient and productive is part of our early training as well. We are on a constant quest for “labor-saving” devices that give us more time to do things. We want cars so we don’t have to walk places and we design our homes so that everything is “at our fingertips.” Minimizing movement is emphasized – even our chairs have wheels so that we can move around in our office without having to move our bodies.

This trend toward virtual immobility as a goal in our Western culture has had profound implications on our ability to feel, not only a connection to the natural world, but a connection to each other and ourselves as well. Bringing movement back into our lives can have a profound effect on our well-being. Heckler says that

When we place our attention in our body, we begin to feel, and our feeling connects us to our energy. Our energy then informs us of our direction and meaning in life. If we respond from our energy, we are responding from that part of ourselves that is least conditioned. If we act from our energy, and not from our ideas, social images, or what others expect, we feel enriched with genuine expression and life.

Our “conditioning,” which varies from individual to individual in content and intensity, may be the greatest obstacle we face. Awakening a relationship to our bodies and our senses is a way around much of that conditioning. In movement therapy classes I have taken, people from all walks of life moved and felt together as if they knew each other. Often, however, we knew nothing in the traditional sense about each other. Rarely did I know where the other people lived or where they worked or what their interests, prejudices, or politics were. Yet in these sessions, through dance movements alone, with a partner, or in groups, issues such as trust, love, fear, giving, receiving, and other profound emotions and states of being were explored.

Words have been so abused in our world. Definitions of such fundamental concepts as trust, safety, and security have been so co-opted by political forces that we cannot rely on language as the sole communicator of awareness. The U.S. Department of Defense doesn’t like to use the term “peace” in their documentation. Instead, they say “permanent pre-hostility.” Instead of the word bullet, they prefer “kinetic energy penetrator.” The invasion of Panama was called a “pre-dawn vertical insertion” and instead of saying soldiers were killed, they say they were “arbitrarily deprived of life.” Wrongly amputated legs in military hospitals are referred to as “therapeutic mis-adventures.” I wish I were joking, but these are real examples.

Even in our common, everyday language, assumptions abound about the way the world and society work and phrases abound that have terrible origins. We will often casually say that we have given someone the “third degree” when referring to questioning someone for information. Few realize, however, that this phrase comes from the 300 years of horror when 9 to 20 million women (and some men) were burned at the stake for witchcraft. The third degree was the final, and most horrible, level of torture when any victim said what their tormentor wanted them to say.

We will say that some idea is a “rule of thumb.” Yet this phrase refers to the time in old England when it was legal, and recommended, to beat your wife. You simply had to use a stick that was no wider than the width of your thumb. That was the “Rule of Thumb.”

Ever call someone a “stool pigeon?” This phrase comes from the days of the passenger pigeon, an amazing bird whose flocks, in the 1850s, would darken the U.S. skies for four hours as a 240 mile long by 1 mile wide flock passed overhead. Such a flock contained over 2 billion birds. By 1914, the last passenger pigeon, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo, the species driven to extinction by relentless hunting and a complete lack of understanding of the population dynamics of this bird. It seems that the reason why there were so many of them was because they, for some reason, needed huge communities of birds to be present for successful mating and reproduction. They were extremely social birds and it wasn’t long before someone noticed that a live bird could be used as bait. A living passenger pigeon would be tied to a stool which was put out into a field. Within minutes, hundreds of birds would gather, to be shot or clubbed. This was the stool pigeon.

The energy of these origins lingers on in us all. The witch burning times lasted for 300 years. Six generations of children watched their mothers burn. How can we come to terms with that horror? Gay men are stilled called “faggots” to this day. How many know that this term comes from the times of the witch burning as well? Gay men were often collected together, tied in bundles, and burned in the witches’ fire. The term for a burning bundle of wood is a faggot.

Many of the scientific tools developed during the Scientific Revolution came directly from the inquisition’s tools for torture. Few know this grisly origin of much scientific methodology. Special interest groups have crafted how people perceive science. How often do we wait for “scientific proof” of the health impact of a toxic exposure when many have already died? One sick child or one dead person should be enough to suggest caution, yet thousands of chemicals that are known carcinogens are on the market today for political and economic reasons. We must find another language while we redefine common terms and erase other terms of horror from common usage.
We may need some quiet to make some sense out of all the conflicting information. We may need to turn off our TV’s, close the newspaper, and look inward. Heckler says that

There is a time to quiet ourself so that we may look at and listen to who we are. There is also a time, and a need, to go with our desires and urges. This is the path of passion. It is the making of a seasoned and rich soup that we call our process, the all of who we are.

Maybe that is it: finding out who we are - or at least realizing that we need to. The only way to do that may be to stop listening to the voices on the outside – and listen to our hearts. Then it won’t matter whose selling what.

We look with uncertainty

Beyond the old choices for

Clear-cut answers

To a softer, more permeable aliveness

Which is every moment

At the brink of death;

For something new is being born in us

If we but let it.

We stand at a new doorway;

Awaiting that which comes . . .

Daring to be human creatures.

Vulnerable to the beauty of existence.

Learning to love.

-- Anne Hillman

RESOURCES
1. Learn more about the U.S. military from those in the business from the Center for Defense Information. Their video, “The Language of War,” discusses the abuse of language by the military.

2. Learn about society’s campaign against women and the Earth that began long ago. Learn of the times of the witch burnings when the Catholic Church tried to extinguish the last vestige of our connections with the Earth. The film, the Burning Times (National Film Board of Canada) will open your eyes. Learn about it at http://www.amazon.com/Women-Spirituality-Burning-Times/dp/158350026X.

3. If you live in the Los Angeles area, experience the power of movement with Eve Athey Ray, MA, MFCC through her Movement Expression classes. She can be reached at http://www.evearay.com/. You can take a 2 hour introductory session or an intensive 9-week program. It will change your life.

4. Learn how to curb consumerism from the Media Foundation at http://www.adbusters.org/

5. Follow those who watch the media for abuses. One group is Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Visit them at http://www.fair.org/.

Give Thanks – and Acknowledge the Truth

"The Europeans were able to conquer America not
because of their military genius, or their religious
motivation, or their ambition, or their greed. They
conquered it by waging unpremeditated biological
warfare." -- Howard Simpson

"Considering that virtually none of the standard fare
surrounding Thanksgiving contains an ounce of
authenticity, historical accuracy, or cross-cultural
perception, why is it so apparently ingrained? Is it
necessary to the American psyche to perpetually
exploit and debase its victims in order to justify
its history?" -- Michael Dorris

"European explorers and invaders discovered an
inhabited land. Had it been pristine wilderness then, it
would possibly be so still, for neither the technology nor
the social organization of Europe in the 16th and 17th
centuries had the capacity to maintain, of its own
resources, outpost colonies thousands of miles from
home." -- Francis Jennings

What Thanksgiving story are you telling your children or talking about with your guests during this holiday? Most Americans speak of remembering the Pilgrims who, in 1620, chose the land around Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts for their settlement. You might remember from your elementary school days that since they arrived in the winter, they were unprepared for the harsh climate. Fortunately, they were aided by some friendly Indians who gave them food and showed them how to grow corn. When the warm weather came, the colonists planted crops, fished, hunted and became much better prepared for next winter. And when they harvested their first crop, they invited their Indian friends to celebrate with them what was to become the first Thanksgiving.

This story is taught today in thousands of classrooms across the nation, and around the world, and is ingrained in most people’s consciousness. Just yesterday, I heard some elementary school teachers telling the story on National Pubic Radio. Unfortunately, the entire story, from start to finish, is a complete lie.

You are going to have to push aside your turkey (or tofu) leftovers if you are going to learn what really happened at the time of the first Thanksgiving in America. In fact, you may not be able to stomach any food for a while after you learn the truth.

The story actually begins after 1492 as Europeans came in significant numbers to the newly found Americas.

When people began moving, the microbes that they evolved with moved along with them. Before the arrival of Europeans, the inhabitants of North and South America were remarkably healthy. But along with the Europeans came their illnesses and their livestock and the native inhabitants were now exposed to the many diseases that can be passed back and forth between those animals and humans - anthrax, tuberculosis, cholera, streptococcus, ringworm and various poxes.

The British and French had fished in Southern New England for some time before the Pilgrims landed in 1620. It is likely that they came in contact with the Indians at that time. The native inhabitants had no resistance to the diseases brought by the Europeans and within three years, a plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of coastal New England! This death rate was unknown in all previous human experience. For comparison, the Black Plague in the 1300s killed about 30 percent of Europe’s population.

This piece of history is usually omitted from most textbooks, yet these plagues, which ravaged the Indian population for the next 15 years, set the tone for the relationship of the European settlers with the indigenous people of America.

The English settlers inferred from the plague that God was on their side in taking over the land. John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, wrote that the plague was "miraculous." He said "God hath thereby cleared out title to this place..." Is it any wonder that our political leaders of today ask for God’s blessing and protection as they go to war to kill?

Between 1520 and 1918, there were 93 epidemics among Native Americans.

The affect that these plagues had on the native populations reached into their psyches as well. They felt that God had abandoned them. Some survivors of the Cherokee lost all confidence in their gods and priests and destroyed the sacred objects of the tribe. Indian healers could do nothing and their religion provided no cause. But the Whites usually survived and their religion seemed to save them. Many Indians turned to alcohol, Christianity or simply committed suicide. So it was a psychologically and physically devastated people that for the first 50 years of European occupation presented no real opposition to the invaders.


Pilgrims as they are shown in America today (Graphic courtesy Valerie)
Prior to the arrival of European invaders, the native population of North and South American was 100 million in 1492. The entire population of Europe at the time was 70 million. If colonists had not been able to take over lands that the Indians had already cleared and cultivated, and if the Indian population had not been devastated by disease, there might not have been any colonization at all.

By 1880, the Indian population was 250,000, a drop of 98 percent.

It is quite likely that the Pilgrims knew well of these plagues. In fact, pretty much everyone knew about them. Ziner, in the book “Squanto,” wrote that before the Mayflower sailed, King James of England gave thanks to “Almighty God in his great goodness and bounty towards us” for sending “this wonderful plague among the savages.”

Few Americans know that the Pilgrims numbered only about 35 of the 102 settlers aboard the Mayflower, which was headed for the new Virginia colony. It is believed by some historians that it is possible that the Pilgrims bribed the Mayflower captain to drop them off in Massachusetts. Some say they may have even hijacked the ship. In any case, the non-Pilgrim majority, who had joined the ship because of the economic opportunity afforded by the Virginia tobacco plantations, were quite upset at being taken someplace else.

Historians, in their search for a story that told the mythical beginnings of American culture, probably chose to omit facts about the Pilgrims story rather than tell the tale of Virginia. In Virginia, the British took the Native Americans prisoner and forced them to show the colonists how to farm. James W. Loewen, in his revealing book “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” says, “in 1623, the British indulged in the first use of chemical warfare in the colonies when negotiating a treaty with the tribes near the Potomac River, headed by Chiskiack. The British offered a toast ‘symbolizing eternal friendship,’ whereupon the chief, his family, advisors, and two hundred followers dropped dead of poison.”

The Pilgrims choose their site at Plymouth because it had beautifully cleared fields, recently planted corn, and excellent water supplies. The Pilgrims did not start from scratch in the wildness, but used a common practice of the European invaders of appropriating Indian cornfields for their initial settlements. This is why so many of the names of East Coast towns end in “field.”

The Indians who created and lived in this new Plymouth were mostly dead from the plagues, so they provided little opposition.

The Pilgrims robbed graves, stole what they could find in abandoned Indian homes, and filled their larder with the harvest of a dying culture’s labors.

The reasons for the lies about the origins of Thanksgiving go deep into culture, psyche, and religion and is covered in depth in Loewen’s book. But one thing is for sure: the true history of Thanksgiving reveals some very embarrassing facts, to say the least.

The most remarkable part of the story may be that the Pilgrims did not even introduce the tradition of Thanksgiving in America. It wasn’t until 1863 that President Lincoln proclaimed it a national holiday. The fabricated story of the Pilgrims was not even included in the holiday until the 1890’s. The term “Pilgrim” was not even used until the 1870’s.

This environmental and social devastation wrought by the European invaders of North America continues today. Oil company explorers, miners and loggers continue to introduce disease to the isolated cultures of Brazil and Venezuela, where one fourth of their population was killed in 1991.

The myth of Thanksgiving has created a false sense of self in Americans that has done great damage throughout the world. It has resulted in children being planted with the seeds of racial hatred and white superiority. It is an insult to us all, especially since most Americans are ignorant of the truth, even though the facts about the grave robbing, Indian enslavement and murder, and the plagues, were common knowledge among the settlers of New England.

Loewen gives us excellent reasons why we should seek out the truth of American history. If the conflicts of the true story were revealed, he says, then “students might discover that the knowledge they gain has implications for their lives today. Correctly taught, the issues of the era of the first Thanksgiving could help Americans grow more thoughtful and more tolerant, rather than more ethnocentric.”

We can redefine Thanksgiving for ourselves and our family. We can make it a day when we not only give thanks for the bounty we have received, but a day when we acknowledge the injustices that have been and are being perpetrated on so many people and animals in the world. After feasting, we could choose a way for our families to help lessen the suffering of some creature somewhere in the world, animal or human.

We must remember these tragedies as we shape the new millennium. With genetically engineered bacteria, crops and animals being created every day, are we risking a biological devastation like the Indians experienced?

We must examine how we are using this stolen gift of a nation. As life support systems crumble and species become extinct every day, can we really say we have learned anything in the last 500 years?

Happy Thanksgiving.

RESOURCES

1.Read "Lies My Teacher Told Me," by James W. Loewen to learn about moresurprises in American history. Buy a few copies and give them toelementary school teachers in your community. If you have children,make sure your child’s teacher has one. Visit a website devoted to thisbook at:

2.Read the Indian Country Newspaper at: http://indiancountry.com/

3.Read about the Indigenous Peoples Earth Science Project at http://www.purdue.edu/eas/iesp/project_description.shtml

4.Visit http://www.nativeamerican.net/and http://nativeamericannetroots.net/

5.Read about the largest forced relocation in the U.S. since theinternment of Japanese American citizens in World War II at http://www.diatribune.com/video-mccain-amp-forced-relocation-navajo-update.

Reflections From a New Public Transportation Convert

For all of my adult life, I have supported the concept of public transportation as a viable and important way to conserve resources. But its actual use was for someone else, not me. For all of my adult life since I was 18 (some 36 years), I have been content with my excuses for why I never rode the bus: my schedule is too complicated; I must have immediate access to my car to do all the things I want to do; what if there was an emergency; it takes too long to get to my destinations. Of course, there is one excuse that we don't want to readily admit to: buses are where the "other" people go - it's not safe for me. I lived contently with these excuses for three decades and I thought they served me.

A few weeks ago, my options ran out and my excuses were no longer relevant. My car died, rather dramatically in the middle of a bridge. I could not afford the $1,000 repair, so the bus became my only option to get to my work. My journey was a mere 17 miles as the crow flies, but it was across a bridge designed for traffic patterns of 75 years ago. By car it took about 20 minutes when the freeway was clear and up to 2 hours when it was rush hour. That distance was going to take as many as three buses and 2 hours to traverse.

I always knew there was a bus stop right at the corner of my street, about a 3 minute walk from my house. I would often look at the buses go by and feel a bit of envy that those folks were being driven to their destinations. But of course, that couldn't work for me.

So at 5:45 am, I made my way there and waited for the 28 bus to take me to the 48 where I would get off at the entrance to the bridge freeway to catch the final bus, the 242. Turns out the 242 drops me off right in front of my office. The process took about an hour and 15 minutes. It was not what I had assumed it would be for 36 years nor was it what I expected.

It was actually rather pleasant. The bus wasn't filled with shady characters - rather, it was filled with sleepy professional people, sleepy workers from all walks of life, and on the route to a local medical center, lots of nurses and disabled folks. But everyone had one thing in common: they were all quite pleasant, all said "thank you" to the driver as they left, and all seemed to sense that no matter who we were, we were all connected with this bond that comes from taking the bus. We were the no-car people. And now I was one, too.

In the month I have been doing this, I have seen some amazing sights. I have seen people automatically get up to let a blind person sit down. I have seen an average working guy with a hard hat dangling from his tattered back pack get up and rush to give 50 cents to a woman who didn't have enough change. I saw an average looking man get up without hesitation to unhook the safety belts on a wheelchair-bound person at their stop. I have seen bus drivers let folks on who couldn't pay. I have seen little random acts of kindness, acceptance, and generosity regularly on the bus.

My car is working now, but still needs work. I use the fact that it runs roughly as my excuse to continue taking the bus. I have driven to the Park-and-Ride a couple of miles from my house, since I can then take just one bus to get me to work. But I find that I would rather leave the car at home completely and take the three buses so I can walk from my house. It is amazing how much my world, my attitudes, and my demeanor have changed.

There are negatives, of course. I get less sleep and my breathing has been affected by the daily intake of diesel fumes, reminding me of the "smog cough" I had while living in Los Angeles for 34 years. You get bounced around a lot and sometimes, especially on rainy days, the smell isn't all that great. But you know, those things don't seem to matter much. I am saving over $70 per week in gas, I am burning nearly zero fossil fuels in a week, and I am not sitting for 2 hours in rush hour traffic.

In my environmental studies teaching and writing, I always pondered how people get so shut off from the natural world and have documented the consequences of that distance. This morning at 5:45am, I was standing at the bus stop in the dark, under my umbrella while it rained pretty hard. It was a very peaceful, enjoyable experience.

I still wonder why buses don't have seat belts, though.

You might want to try the bus sometime, just to see how it is. You might be surprised and find that you actually could work it into your life after all.

A New President - But The Power Is Still With The People

"And a merchant said,
Speak to us of Buying and Selling,
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit,and you shall not want
if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that
you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
it will lead some to greed and others to hunger."
-- Kahlil Gibran from "The Prophet"

It is wonderful news that Barak Obama will soon be in the White House. I wept, too, last night during his acceptance speech, but not for the same reasons as most others. I wept because I am not sure it is going to make any difference.

I don't mean to be cynical. It is just that I have a list of planetary priorities, no part of which was ever mentioned in any debate or speech by the major party's candidates. Here is my list for the United States that no president will EVER address as long as his/her job description includes caring for the U.S. economic system:

• Stop throwing out 200,000 tons of edible food every day


• Stop using use 313 million gallons of fuel - enough to drain 26 tractor -trailer trucks every minute


• Stop allowing cigarettes to be made, which kills 1,233 people in the U.S. alone every day


• Stop taking 18 million tons of raw materials from the Earth every day


• Stop using 6.8 billion gallons of fresh drinking water to flush toilets every day


• Stop people from throwing over 1 million bushels of litter out of car windows every day


• Stop people from adding 10,000 mink coats to their closets and coat racks every day


• Stop the $200 million spent every day on advertising in the U.S. alone


• Stop sawing up 100 million board feet of wood a day


• Stop using 250,000 tons of steel every day


• Stop using 187,000 tons of paper every day

And my global list is even more chilling:

• Stop 120,000 children worldwide from dying each day from diarrhea from polluted drinking water.


• Stop pesticide poisoning, which kills over 265,000 people worldwide every year


• Stop 180 sq. miles of tropical forests from being cleared every day


• Stop 73 tons of topsoil from being eroded every day


• Stop eliminating 10 to 100 species every day


• Stop the 78 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that is emitted every day


• Stop the 1,800 tons of ozone-depleting chloroflorocarbons that are added to the atmosphere every day.
  

No president has or ever will address these issues without a fundamental restructuring of their job. As long as they are tasked with keeping the U.S. economy going as currently designed, these will continue to be the consequences of doing business to support that system.

People have to understand that the true power lies with us and our choices - food choices, transportation choices, purchasing choices. No matter who sits in the White House, we can change the world tomorrow - if we wanted to.

How Do We Decide on Which Leader? Does the President Matter?

This earth spun of soil and sun,

Water and air for all to share,

Lives or dies by the work and play

Of every creature, every day.

From a Filipino Creation Story (Author Unknown)

Most people hate elections. With all the rhetoric, lies, misinformation and mountains of issues among candidates who look like they came from the same mold, how do you decide? I think it may be easier than you think.

C.A. Bowers in his book Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis (State University of New York Press, 1993), states that the condition of our Earthly habitats should be the prime concern of our culture that should frame how we think about everything we do. I take this idea one step further - how a candidate expresses his or her concern for our environmental crisis will tell me how to vote.

Time may be running out for many of the life support systems of our planet. We may no longer have the luxury of examining the details of a candidate's spending plan or how they stand on tax reform. If they are not sensitive to the need to have environmental protection and restoration be the basic priority from which all others are measured, then they cannot have my vote.

This may seem an extreme position to many who have been brought up to view the environment as just another societal factor to be considered along with road construction, health care or tax reform. This is no surprise and such folks cannot be criticized for their perceptions. Most of us have grown up in a culture that works hard to disconnect us from the web of life. Precious earth is called dirt and has to be washed off. Most animals are considered pests if they enter our homes and must be killed. The natural world is considered unsafe and we are taught that the wild is to be feared. Cleared land is considered more valuable than a rich, vibrant forest.

We have been relentlessly raping the Earth for centuries and we are near the end of the line in many areas. Rapid industrialization and resource consumption on a scale never before seen in history has been taking place since the Industrial Revolution in the 1700's. The buildup of toxic materials in our air and water and soil used in the endless drive to industrialize has deeply invaded our bodies. Many ecosystems and species cannot sustain even another 4 - 8 years of the kind of abuse that a conservative regime will impose.

Up until now in history, humans have believed that everything will work itself out given enough time. In the past, although people died, there has been the fundamental assumption that humans and the Earth would live on. This may have been true for a long time in human history, but the Industrial Revolution eliminated this as an option. Machines can work exponentially faster at chewing up our Earth than a human with a plow. The last 300 years has seen a level of environmental, ecosystem and species destruction that it would have taken many more centuries for a less technical society to achieve.

It is hard to imagine that it is ever possible to run out of time. But with only 5 percent of our rainforests left and 95 percent of the forests in the lower 48 states having been logged at least once, time is a serious issue. Large areas of our oceans are poisoned and lifeless and in some parts of the world, birth defects are a way of life.

Since the debacles of James Watt during the Reagan Administration when this Secretary of the Interior openly showed his contempt for environmental issues and captured massive media attention, conservative forces have gotten really good at keeping their environmental destruction below the level of most media attention. I preferred Watt - at least you could keep an eye on him and know where the battle lines were.

The conservative of today knows how to talk the lingo and distract us from what they are doing with promises of fairness.

This must end (photo by Abram Brown from http://www.igc.org/psr/airpol.html)

We are in an unprecedented era in human history, one where ecosystems and planetary life-support systems upon which the future depends are being destroyed. Therefore, the condition of our planet is the concern that should frame all others.

Sadly, this is a relatively new concern for Westerners since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Recognition that cultural practices are not independent from a concern for the well-being of the planet is a relatively new awareness in politics and goes back a mere 50 years or so to the work of Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner, to name a few.

Although you may not see destroyed ecosystems like those in popular science fiction movies like Blade Runner and Soylent Green when you drive down the street, the constant spread of toxic chemicals into our world for the last 300 years has seriously affected the life-sustaining capabilities of habitats worldwide.

Television coverage of environmental disasters are so common that ozone holes, oil spills and species extinctions have lost their power to capture the public's attention.

A candidate who recognizes the fundamental role that the environment plays in our lives may be more likely to apply that awareness to other issues. A candidate, regardless of his or her party, who promises economic prosperity for the people while promoting an agenda of continued resource extraction at all costs cannot be taken seriously. All the tax benefits in the world, whatever your income level, will be meaningless if we have no clean air to breath, safe water to drink, or soil in which to grow food.

Now after you make the right presidential choice and cast your vote, forget about it! The office of the President may be the lease important one in the nation. Sound crazy? Think about it. The President sets the tone, and appoints lots of people, but a President, regarless of what party they are from, must uphold the economic system of the United States above all else.

That means that he or she much do everything in their power to keep the nation making things so that people can buy them. He CANNOT, by definition, be that concerned with the environment because true environmental management and preservation would require that many industries shut down and that people stop buying so many things. These actions are fundamentally at odds with a President’s fundamental duty to the economy.

So get real and don’t expect profound change from ANY president. The only true, lasting, and meaningful change must come from a fundamental change in the attitudes of the individual. We must all take it upon ourselves to consume less, drive less, and to make peace and feeding the world our number one priority.

Time is running out for us all - especially the politicians.

RESOURCES

1. Be reminded of the routine destruction of our oceans at http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html
2. Read about the coming end of petroleum at http://dieoff.com/page140.htm
3. Read about acts of murder by oil companies in developing nations at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Boycotts/ShellNigeria_boycott.html and http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Transnational_corps/DrillingKilling_OilNigeria.html
4. Read about the destruction of native cultures by U.S. oil companies at http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/beyond_oil/index.html
5. See air pollution from around the world at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3589/airpollutionaix.html
6. See what the next President could do about climate change at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080623/hertsgaard2
7. The League of Conservation Voters is a good source: http://www.lcv.org/

The Cycles of Life Continue

At some ideas you stand perplexed,

especially at the sight of human sins,

uncertain whether to combat it by force or by human love.

Always decide, "I will combat it with human love."

If you make up your mind about that once and for all,

you can conquer the whole world.

Loving humility is a terrible force;

it is the strongest of all things

and there is nothing like it."

Feodor Dostoyevsky

All the people of Earth have, since the dawn of time, experienced these rhythms of the planet of our birth. Those rhythms, if made a part of our lives, create an ebb and flow that can regulate the pace of our daily lives. Through the connection with the Earth that our seasonal cycles foster, we don't get caught up in the trap of our technology and current events that keeps us moving, nonstop, between events, separated from the natural world.

As Winter approaches in the north (and our friends in the Southern Hemisphere are experiencing the coming of Spring and Summer), cycles of life are brought to our attention as the leaves change colors and death covers the landscape. The systems of the Earth, which include us, are designed to periodically pause. It is a time to reflect, to take stock in what you have received in the harvest and to prepare for the darker days ahead.

For at least the last 12,000 years, people all over the world have celebrated the passage of time, the journey of the Earth around the Sun, in ways that have connected their lives to the life of our planet. How might our lives be changed, our environmental problems be helped, and our ability to look beyond race or color or religious preference enhanced if we took more time to recognize the seasons and the wisdom they bring?

As the Earth in its journey around the Sun takes us toward Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the days will get shorter and shorter. The darkness will increase until we reach the Winter Solstice in December. From there, the darkness recedes and the days lengthen.

We participants in the modern world won’t notice it – our streetlights and headlights and indoor lighting have long since dulled our notice of the differences between light and dark. But to people who are more connected to the natural world, these are powerful times. It is a time to make peace with the dark and to consider it as part of the light, not to be feared but to be embraced.

Seasonal cycles are celebrated around the world by every faith. For example, in China, the first day of Fall - the Autumnal Equinox or Mabon as the pagans called it - marks the end of the rice harvest and is known as Chung Ch'’u. Jews celebrate Succoth near that time, a harvest holiday with roots in pagan culture. In old Rome, the time was celebrated with a party that went on for many days marking the Festival of Dionysus, the God of Wine.

In Winter, leaves die and Nature withers, spent after giving forth her abundance of life giving foods. She must rest so that the cycle can begin again. For those that came before us and those that strive today to be part of the natural world, it is naturally a time to reflect upon death, its meaning and importance. Darkness will soon overtake the light. It is an important time of regeneration, not a time of evil.

We also let parts of ourselves die each year, leaving behind behaviors and experiences that we no longer wish to be part of our lives, our hopes, and our dreams. This year, we might want to focus on leaving behind the blindness that comes from being overloaded with images and awareness of terrible events we are bombarded with every day.

This self-imposed blindness has created an epidemic of bad decisions, faulty reasoning, and false beliefs about how things work on our world.

For example, from the 1940’s until 1972 when it was banned, DDT was used for insect control all over the world. Millions of tons were used and the chemical can still be found worldwide in our lakes, streams, oceans, and soil. While it breaks down quickly when exposed to sunlight, it doesn’t break down well in soil and lasts a long time in water.

Proven to cause terrible neurological and reproductive damage and a suspected carcinogen in humans, DDT is still used worldwide even though it is illegal to use in the United States. It is passed to infants through breastmilk.

It was even used to sterilize hospital instruments, spray foods, and prevent insect infestations in museum objects. Our nation’s museum employees, normally not considered at great risk, are exposed to DDT if they handle museum specimens that have been around since the 1940’s.

In an effort to find out how much DDT is in our nation’s waterways, the Environmental Protection Agency began collecting fish samples in the late 1990’s from hundreds of lakes and streams. In 1999, five small trout were gathered from Lake Chelan in central Washington State. They were gathered near where a creek empties into the lake that has been known to carry pesticide laden runoff over the years.

So far, 143 lakes have been tested in the program and it has taken a few years to get around to the Lake Chelan samples. But what was found should be alarming officials enough to close the lake to all fishing immediately. Instead, they are saying all is well – for now.

The EPA found 1,481 parts per billion of DDT in the Lake Chelan fish tested. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has set a human ingestion limit of 5 parts per million in fish. If the problem found in those 5 fish is representative of fish in the rest of the lake, which is quite likely, then people who consume fish multiple times per week could approach the FDA’s limit.

What do the Washington State authorities have to say about this? The “Seattle Post-Intelligencer,” reported some of their comments on October 19, 2002.

“The number of fish sampled is extremely small and the body of water so large we don’t feel like we have enough information to issue an advisory,” said Dr. Jude Van Buren, the state Health Department’s director of environmental health assessment. Yet the same health department issued an advisory to not eat more than one meal a week of all bottom fish because of DDT contamination in Washington’s Yakima River. The Yakima’s DDT level was measured at 840 parts per billion, less than half of what Lake Chelan trout contained.

Patricia Cirone, program manager of the EPA’s Seattle-based “Region 10” office, said, “All of us are thinking we should go back to that lake and test more fish.” She went on to say “I’m not surprised to find DDT. With such a tiny fish . . . it makes me suspect the sample. There’s something not quite right to me.” She ended her comments by saying that based on the one test “I wouldn’t cut my trout diet down. I would eat trout.”

Their blinders are fully in place.

It will take decisive action to eliminate the blinders we have put on to ward off the truth. It will take letters to elected representatives, boycotts, protests, and changes in behaviors for all of us. But we need energy and motivation for those actions, fuel for our hearts and our souls. The celebration of seasonal cycles can be an easy and meaningful way to create the energy we all need for action.

And we need to act now.

RESOURCES

1. Now more than ever is the time to write your Congressional representatives. Tell them how you feel and what you want. You can find them at: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

2. See a fact sheet on the toxic effects of DDT and its byproducts at: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts35.html

3. Read about the seasons at: http://www.equinox-and-solstice.com/index.html

4. Find alternative sources for information to understand the complexity of world events. Visit:

· Peace Brigades International at: http://www.peacebrigades.org/index.php

· Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at: http://www.napf.org/

· Perspectives from around the world on the terrorist attacks at: http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/terrorism/introduction.htm

· Peace News at: http://www.peacenews.info/

· War Resistors League at: http://www.warresisters.org/

· The Nonviolence Web at: http://www.nonviolence.org/

See your earth anytime of the day or night at: http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-p&img=learth.evif