Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Dear Democrats,

I'm constantly bombarded with requests for donations via e-mail! Panic-sounding notes repeating the message, "the Republicans are kicking our keisters," raising funds. Rep. Doggett and Sarbanes came to Austin, TX to rally common folks to send more money! Even Paul Weyrich knew what conservatives had to do: fewer voters! When fewer folks make it to the polls the crowd with the most determined base wins; most often conservatives.


So, persuade voters that their votes don't count and then follow through with voter blocking rules, laws and gerrymandering: conservatives almost always win.


Sound familiar?


We don't need to match funds with Republicans. We do have to keep the Internet neutral and use it to propagate the message, "Your vote does matter!"


"Funny or Die," Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Oprah Winfrey, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Robert Reich, Senator Warren, etc... web sites need to spread progressive messages vital to restoring the USA we know, love and need to bring back to the fore: the New, New Deal and the Greatest Society.


Registering voters and reminding them that their votes matter so much that some are trying really, desperately hard to block it.


Raising money is important, matching Republicans dollar for dollar is not important!


Voting is incredibly important! Voting is the basis of Democracy!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Job Creators...

Customers are the job creators... Without customers there are no businesses.


D'oh!


Customers are reasonably compensated employees.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Eat to Live: Industrial Agriculture vs. Sustainable Agriculture.




Genetically modified organisms (GMO) are a result of genetic engineering (GE) and they are not perceived as, “evil,” but as the most recent, lowest, level attained by unsustainable, industrial agriculture (IA).



IA promotes monoculture (enormous fields of one, identical crop) that forgoes the natural competition between the pests of different plants; requires the application of chemical pesticides. Avoids the natural remediation (legumes bring nitrogen from the air back to the soil, whereas other plants must get that nutrient from the soil) available from interleaved plant species; requires the application of chemical fertilizers. The promoting of monoculture, found nowhere in nature, requires the application of chemical herbicides. It might be important to highlight the definition of the the suffix  -cide: killer!



IA also promotes confined/crowded animal feeding operations (CAFO) that puts a great many animals in a very limited, unnaturally so, amount of space; such that they are constantly exposed to their own waste product. Large quantities of antibiotics, approximately 80% of the antibiotics used in the USA, are included in the daily life of the confined livestock. Antibiotics were also discovered to promote more rapid physical maturity (growth) in livestock, so the antibiotics are prone to being abused even for unconfined animals.



CAFO also feed corn to ruminants, creatures that evolved to survive by consuming and digesting enormous quantities of various grasses, to add fat (flavor and texture) to the protein content while simultaneously causing increased flatulence.



The constant exposure of flora and fauna to increasingly higher levels of: antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides has led to super: pathogens, pests and weeds. So, the corporations that profit mightily from IA step in with GE created GMOs. GMO corn that produces it's own pesticide (Bt corn) is fed to cattle, people and used to create a great many processed foods... What could possibly go wrong there?



GMO plants were created to tolerate higher levels of applied herbicides and pesticides without harm to the plants thusly modified; probably one of the factors in the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) in bee hives; disappearing the primary pollinators of food crops. Increased application of '-cides' is also harmful to farm workers and to soil microbes; microbes already under assault from the need to plow/till soil annually (exposing soil and its beneficial microbes to drying sun and winds).



GMO apples hide the fact that apples oxidize (turn a brownish color) once sliced, create pseudo-salmon (frankenfish) that gets much bigger, faster; more product, falsely labeled as salmon, to market (more money).



Once again asking, “What could possibly go wrong?”



The answer is that there hasn't been time for sufficient, peer reviewed, scientific inquiry to answer that oft repeated query.



That is not calling GMOs, “evil.” It is an attempt to call for a halt to the race to profit from the next generation of IA... A time to pause and consider the, properly peer reviewed, methods of sustainable agriculture.

One of the Main Reasons for Government...

Profit trumps responsibility too often in business. Unenlightened, self-interest driven economics is the reason you need rules, regulation and enforcement from government; enough power to reign in the corrupting  influence of money.



That's the theory, but it only works when everybody registers and votes in every election; routinely replacing elected officials. Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently, for the same reason.

Solutions to Political and Government Problems Start Here...

When talking about politics and government the problems vary, but the start (the beginning, etc...) to solutions does not: voters must register and vote in all elections.



1% may have most of the money, but 99% have almost all the vote! We can not all be bought. If we do not vote we have given our power away for free!