Reclaiming the air and the natural selection of seed stock

Notes 30

Naming and claiming the Commons

Rewriting the "Tragedy of the Commons"
Wednesday 19 January 2011
by: Bill McKibben | YES! Magazine | Op-Ed
What cooperation and sharing have to do with saving the world.
Things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes.
If we are to somehow ward off the coming catastrophes, we have to reclaim this atmospheric commons. We have to figure out how to cooperatively own and protect the single most important feature of the planet we inhabit—the thin envelope of atmosphere that makes our lives possible. Wrestling this key prize away from Exxon Mobil and other corporations is the great political issue of our time, and some of the solutions proposed have been ingenious—most notably the idea put forth by commons theorist Peter Barnes and others that we should own the sky jointly, and share in the profits realized by leasing its storage space to the fossil fuel industry. For that to work, of course, we would have to reduce that storage space quickly and dramatically. Barnes’ Cap-and-Dividend plan offers one way to make that economically and politically feasible.

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When I was in Kauai a couple of years ago, natives were worried about Monsanto
Experimental farm contaminating local seeds through pollination by bees, butterflies

Ryan Stock, Truthout: "'A fabulous Easter gift,' commented Monsanto Director of Development Initiatives Elizabeth Vancil. Nearly 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn seeds and other vegetable seeds were donated to post-earthquake Haiti by Monsanto. In observance of World Environment Day, June 4, 2010, roughly 10,000 rural Haitian farmers gathered in Papaye to march seven kilometers to Hinche in celebration of this gift. Upon arrival, these rewarded farmers took their collective Easter baskets of more than 400 tons of vegetable seeds and burned them all. 'Long live the native maize seed!' they chanted in unison. 'Monsanto's GMO [genetically modified organism] and hybrid seed violate peasant agriculture!'"

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Biggest arm of self serving propaganda in the government

Countering Pentagon Propaganda About Prisoners Released From Guantanamo
Andy Worthington, War Is A Crime: "For several years now, one organization in the US government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantanamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration's ill-conceived response to the 9/11 attacks. That organization is the Pentagon, and its habit of issuing announcements regarding the alleged recidivism of prisoners released from Guantanamo - without documentation to back up its claims - has also exposed a startling lack of journalistic integrity in the mainstream media."

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Obama’s picks for Administration supported vested interests not transformation but he persists in pretending to be the good guy--and we buy it

Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story
Matthew Skomarovsky, LittleSis: "Larry Summers' path to the Obama administration, and his record within it, are symptomatic of a new American plutocracy, and his new job at Harvard will keep the gears of corruption greased. Summers rose to power under the protective wing of Wall Street and Democratic Party mogul Robert Rubin. He aggressively advanced Rubin's program of financial deregulation and faithfully rescued his cronies when deregulation went wrong. Despite the economic catastrophes these policies have contributed to, Summers and other Rubinites have continued their political ascendancy in recent years, filling top positions in the Obama administration

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Propagating the myth. Keeping the faith

Ira Chernus | How the Power of Myth Keeps Us Mired in War
Ira Chernus, TomDispatch: "When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh. He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked. Conservatives are often the nicest people - that's what I told him - the ones you'd like to have as neighbors. Then I said: I bet you're always willing to help your neighbors when they need it. Absolutely, he replied. So why, I asked, don't you to want to help out people across town who have the same needs, even if they're strangers--because we’re nice people and THEY are not.

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Christian model does not work any better at solving world’s problems than Chinese model--but the Chinese ARE at peace. No imperial policy there.

WASHINGTON – Chinese President Hu Jintao denied his country is a military threat despite its arms buildup. "We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development," Hu told the luncheon. "We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House members "raised our strong, ongoing concerns with reports of human rights violations in China, including the denial of religious freedom and the use of coercive abortion" as a result of China's one-child policy.