Thursday, September 22, 2011

It is all connected!

Why Environmentalists Should Care About the Occupy Wall Street Protest
The pages of TreeHugger are filled with examples of lobbyists for the corporate polluting class subverting the democratic process in the United States. From the activities of the Koch brothers lobbying octopus in opposing any environmental constraints on business, to the vast subsidies the oil industry maintains even as profits are at record levels, to dirty tricks lobbying against meaningful climate action.
The government of the United States in 2011 is fully in the hands of corporations, at times bordering on the unification of corporate and government interests embodied in fascism--at least in spirit if not every single platform point as outlined three quarters of a century ago.
Besides the destructive environmental consequences of war, the United States outspends the entire world in its militarism. And it is bankrupting this nation. If this nation's military spending was just cut back to doubling its nearest rival, China, it would free up funding for domestic environmental programs, job creation programs, and programs to directly help people at home.
From another angle, if the US wasn't so utterly dependent on fossil fuels it would not have to spend so much money supporting the national and corporate goals of ensuring that the oil keeps flowing, in the process supporting despotic regimes, even supporting friendly governments trying to peddle their environmentally destructive oil as a better alternative to those regimes, and de facto supporting rampant environment destruction in some of the world's poorest regions.
Clean energy may not bring an end to war, or an end to international economic conflict, but it will end the need to protect oil and natural gas fields around the world.
Everything is connected. Environmental justice, social justice - it is all the same fight.
If we do not fight now, we can face the same as is happening in China...
LA Times has a report about how organic produce is sold in China, providing a glimpse into what life might eventually be like, here in the USA, if House Republicans fully codify their Libertarian beliefs (which assumes they would put an end to funding USDA Organic registration).
As things stand, US citizens have a choice: if they want to eat factory farm produce and dairy they can do that; or, they can spend a little more for USDA-certified organic food. In China, on the other hand, the good stuff is saved "...for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don't sell to the public," said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. "Ordinary people can't go in there."
Come to think of it, with some prices, especially with restaurants, we are already there.   Cheaper to eat the crap in McD's rather than fresh veggies from a farmer's market.

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