The Way Of The World!

kindness

I’ll be the first to admit that members of our species can show incredible acts of kindness to and sacrifice for others, even strangers. Some will even give up their own lives for strangers. I know this is so and have factual evidence testifying to this being true. However, we do have a vicious side to our natures. …

Look, this is what our species has done to people not belonging to their own groups since times immemorial. They simply take and take again away from them their resources and means of survival other than often at the bare minimum for the subjugated ones to actually survive. Sometimes they just destroy the providing group in entirety if it seems more beneficial to be rid of them.

Then the assailants just have the dead ones’ landholdings and other gains, such as belongings, instead. They can have access to all that the vanquished previously had as assets. (Of course, the conquered subordinates can make fine slaves, too.)

… The Romans, the Crusaders, Attila the Hun and his crowd, the Spanish Inquisitors, the Mongols and countless others have done the same action of ravaging and dominating other groups for accrual of wealth, power, status and control … or simply destroying them rather than going through the drawn out process of taking increasingly all or nearly all that they have.

palestine

Look, we’re a rapacious and self-serving species — one always willing to take maximum benefits for our own kinds while shortchanging others whether Dalits, child-slave labors, other species that get cleared out of the way for our economic advantage or killed for sport. Why, whole nations are bombed to smithereens so that access to their resources and the profits from the resource sales can go into the killers’ own coffers or those of their friends.

A few are brave enough to tell it like it is, although often the brunt of them does so for ulterior motives. For example, Alan Greenspan timed his announcement (shared in the link below) to his putting out a book on the very same and related topics. (Yup, he wanted even more profits for himself via book royalties and, so, gave a verbal teaser a few days in advance of the book’s release.)

Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m | World …

https://www.theguardian.com › World › Iraq

Sep 16, 2007 – Greenspan’s damning comments about the war come as a survey of Iraqis, which was released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people …

Same old story, but different year and country:

Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention | Foreign …

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/…/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-li…

Jan 6, 2016 – The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, …

… and what do you think the ever-ongoing wars in Syria and Afghanistan are concerning? Control of pipeline routes and resources. Simple answer as always, although there is another factor, which is to get more subjugated and docile citizens lined up to accept international and corporately owned products.

A farfetched notion? Check here if you doubt verity:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a partly autobiographical bo

Does it even matter that genetically the Jews and Arabs share close to a hundred percent their genes? No, of course not. The fighting will continue, anyway, and one of the reasons is that there is a decreasing amount of resources for us all as our human numbers keep rising across the globe relative to a finite amount of resources.

Indeed, the loss of Palestinian land rivals all the rest that has been snatched for centuries upon centuries. Here you’ll see just one of ever so many other examples. Compare the above Palestinian-Israel map imagery with this set derived from Map: the Lost Land – National Geographic Magazine – NGM.com:

A time-line for only one of ever so many native American reservations that the US government and others forced to be formed with much bloodshed in the process: 

1851

1851

1868

1868

1876

1876-1877

1889

1889

2012

1899-2012

pine-ridge

Pine Ridge Today

On Pine Ridge and five other reservations, the Sioux own five million acres of their original treaty land. Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribes can arrange leases of reservation land, used mainly for grazing. Some leases go to Indians, others to outsiders. Because of the way land was originally allotted, the Sioux have been left with the least productive tracts.

Further, anyone who thinks that so-called public lands, the commons, are truly communal property needs to think again. For example, check out this assessment that I just received from a friend of mine:

Do you know how industry is using your land?

One should remember that any open-access commons subject to pressure
for use greater than its capacity, will be destroyed. What is needed is
Garrett Hardin’s “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon” as in
successful managed commons for thousands of years. However, the commons
needs to be managed in the interests of the “owning” community and in
practice by them and their representatives. Management by others,
especially in secrecy, will also result in the destruction of the
commons.

See for example, Susan Jane Buck Cox’s article “No Tragedy on the
Commons” from Environmental Ethics for 1985:

<http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y>
and other literature of The International Association for the Study of the Commons via
http://www.iasc-commons.org – D. Woodard

Part of the great theft of the commons. Just try and access the resources as a private citizen and theoretical part owner of the same….  – R. Balfour

Canadians may have difficulty finding out how governments are
allowing industry to explore, alter or remove resources from
publicly-owned land …
– E. McSheffrey

A lot of the theft is secret and without citizens knowing. Other give-aways to corporations are quite in the open:

Why is the federal government trading away public land to the 1 …

www.latimes.com/opinion/…/la-oe-aguirre-federal-land-exchange-20170312-story.ht…

Mar 12, 2017 – Federal land exchanges have become a back-door auction block for wealthy private citizens. … to “give away every single piece of property we own, for free, and … been quietly trading away public land for decades — to corporations, … government — to return pockets of private land to the public domain, …

Oil companies are drilling on public land for the price of a cup of coffee …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/oil-companies-are-drilling-on-public-land-for-the…

Jun 16, 2015 – Renting public land to some of the wealthiest corporations in the world for as little as … One of the U.S. government’s largest sources of non-tax revenue comes from the land … Those bargain prices give private companies a windfall while depriving American taxpayers of a fair return from energy production.

Demand Federal Criminal Investigation of Rick Scott’s Land Give …

https://www.change.org/…/demand-federal-criminal-investigation-of-rick-scott-s-land…

Demand Federal Criminal Investigation of Rick Scott’s Land Give-away to Koch Brothers … Georgia-Pacific/Koch Industries is permitted to discharge up to 60 million gallons per day of … Ron Littlepage: Has Gov. … On behalf of his corporate polluting buddies, such as the Koch brothers, Scott’s environmental agency will ask.

The whole mess, actually, is of a pretty big magnitude. It goes something like this:

Zinke Pushes to Shrink Bears Ears National Monument

The war on public lands took a troubling turn this week. On Monday Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended that President Trump vastly shrink Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, removing critical protections for irreplaceable public lands and American Indian cultural sites while rewarding corporate polluters and the lawmakers they helped put into office.

The recommendation is part of a “review” by the Trump administration of 27 monuments around the country — on land and in oceans — that threatens over 1 billion acres.

More than 1 million public comments were submitted calling for continued protection of Bears Ears and other monuments at risk. Thanks to all of you who spoke out — this fight isn’t over. The Center for Biological Diversity is committed to fighting for Bears Ears and all national monuments, so stay tuned for how you can help.

Read more in The Guardian and read more in The Revelator about the roots of Bears Ears. – Center for Biological Diversity

Trump’s Troubling Plan for Sage Grouse

Interior Secretary Zinke has announced plans for a “review” that threatens to undermine efforts to protect greater sage grouse across 11 western states.

Zinke’s plan could give big oil companies and other polluters — who want to exploit public lands for oil, gas, grazing and agriculture — new access to vital habitat for these iconic dancing birds.

“We’ll do everything in our power to make sure this amazing animal and its habitat are protected,” said the Center’s Randi Spivak. Learn more in our press release. – Center for Biological Diversity

Protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay From Open-pit Mine

President Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt recently struck a backroom deal with a foreign mining company that wants to build an open-pit mine near some of our nation’s most precious waters in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The announcement to even consider such a mine marks a sharp reversal to existing plans to protect the area. Over the past decade, activists and fisherman have been working to secure safeguards for Bristol Bay and its wildlife.

The Bristol Bay watershed is home to a pristine ecosystem and the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. It supports 14,000 jobs in commercial fishing and outdoor recreation — and for generations Alaska Natives have fished and hunted here. Tell the EPA to stick to its original plan to protect Bristol Bay and reject this mine proposal. – Center for Biological Diversity

Yet there still are other ways to look at the whole issue of more and more of the natural world being ravaged for resources so as to get even greater profits for major corporations and their owners at the public’s and the planet’s expense. Here’s one:

In his own quixotic way, Donald Trump is not only trying to obliterate the existing world order, but also attempting to lay the foundations for a new one, a world in which fossil-fuel powers will contend for supremacy with post-carbon, green-energy states.

This is the kind of diversionary narrative that the oligarchs use to energize the likes of Hillary’s Hystericals. I am surprised that Klare would fall for it. State and non-state corporate fossil fuel powers have been in the driver’s seat for many decades, and only ignorant liberal environmentals would believe that there exist any “green states” of any significance. If he were alive, Ghandi might say about “green states” what he is alleged to have answered when asked his opinion about democracy: “It might be worth a try”. – M. and A. Stewart


“Pueblo que canta no morira” – Cuban saying [“People who sing don’t die ,”an anti-war song. – S.]
“They only call it class warfare when we fight back” – Anon.
“My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel.”
—Saudi saying – K. North

Are you starting to see a pattern here, one starting from the theft of lands from minority maligned peoples to the theft or land resources from the public on common property belonging to all? If so, you’re not alone.

So where do we go from here? Keeping our eyes widely open and standing against any sort of tremendous assault upon our Mother Earth, our brothers and sisters living on it and other species dependent upon it.

We also need to listen to the thoughts of others around the world, who share our views. We need to join with them to hold the rapacious ravagers at bay. We need especially to come together in song, using songs like “Pueblo que canta no morira,” the anti-war song, because when we do so we are calling others to join our cause and bring them into the fold to stop warring against the Earth, its species, its fellow humans, its dwindling resources and its overall capability to serve life’s furtherance past our own individual small time here on the planet.

Jul 2, 2014 – Uploaded by Ilaria Savini Pueblo que canta no morirà è un viaggio con i Vincanto nella Spagna antifranchista; dai canti nati …

A few years ago, I visited the grave of Emily Dickenson. While there, I thought about one of my favorite poems that she wrote.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886

I’m Nobody! Who are you?Are you – Nobody – too?Then there’s a pair of us!Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody!How public – like a Frog –  To tell one’s name – the livelong June –  To an admiring Bog! As I reviewed the poem in mind, my view stretched past her grave  and across the small old serene cemetery where people before my time had been buried. My vision then wandered to a nearby wall on a three or four story building where many people had painted a gorgeous huge picture on the building’s bricks a depiction of the history of the town of Amherst, MA where Emily D. had lived more than a century ago.  It was replete with stories through images of the lives of various people and she was only one small piece. Accordingly it reminded me, in the work of creating the grand overview by a group in unison and in the history shown of the forbearers, that I am one with them in a thread of people before, now and after me.  It also reminded that we, even if little nobodies singularly, all can raise one voice together into oneness and create a whole goodness that subsumes and takes in us all  … generation by generation. We just need to develop that voice and a big powerful song to bring it forth. We need to make that one strong, overpowering song to be just as big as that strong evocative image on the building wall.  Can we collectively rise that large? Yes, we can, I know so, if we have the will! Hey, I’m a total body donor after I die. There will be nothing left to bury after all is either used to help living people have sight, a heart, lungs, skin for burn victims and so on, and rest goes to train future medical doctors to learn about body systems and dissection.  Hey, but something else is left of my life even so. It’s my voice. It’s “Pueblo que canta no morirà” if enough others can join my small nobody’s voice in the mix. Then I continue past my own little time on Earth just as Emily D. did in her poetry and in the collective action taken to create the mural honoring our community past, present and future even as the individual artists die off. So, thus, we can be immortal if others follow our vision, paint our views and sing our life-supportive song into the future! Personally, I do not belong to the planetary rapists. I do not identify with the conquerors, who plunder and steal. After all, I’m just a little small singular being, who’s a small passage in time – a no one in the bigness of it all. The vastness of it all is just too much for one small mind to envision. So instead I think about Emily’s message to me and my experience of the conglomerate mural that I carry forward. I belong to them. Maybe some others will join our visions in their voices and visions forward. I hope so even as our individual names and efforts have turned to dust and the countless eons of  our own forgottenness.  I’d find the following image and text heartwarming except for one aspect. Why is there the mortar fire in the first place? What kind of humans are these that can both destroy others and feed a kitten in the aftermath?  As Mark Twain stated: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” Yet that is not enough to realize. We must also stop the ever ongoing slaughter of each other and of Mother Earth that leads to motherlessness. No other way forward for humanity works! 

mark-twain

 

Sally Dugman is a writer in MA, USA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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