Smart Meters: This is about as Big Brother as it gets

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From JERRY DAY
JerryDay.com
Thanks to Elaine and Ed

[The smart meter issue is where many on the left and right agree. -DS]

The new smart meters are watching you. They sense all kinds of goings on. They see when you turn something on or off. They see how many watts your toothbrush pulls. They send the record of that little event over wireless networks, bouncing through your neighbors’ smart meters all the way to the power company where they keep a record of your power consumption volumes and patterns every minute of every day and store that data on computers that you will never get to see.

That data shows when you are at home, shows when you are sleeping, shows when you are on vacation, when you have visitors, when you use a lamp, a power tool, some extra computers, and if you look like you’re running a business out of your home. It even senses when you bootleg energy off the grid.

Your smart meter shows a vivid profile of your personal living patterns and if you were home on the night of the murder.

This is not electrical metering. This is personal surveillance. This is a search without a warrant every day. This is your personal private life

Rosalind Peterson: Fukushima Disaster 2011 — U.S. Receiving steady flow of radiation fallout [Updated]

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

[“U.S. is receiving a steady flow of radiation from Fukushima” — Media paying little attention to radiation in food, as if problem only involves Japan -DS]

[Update: Revealed — British government's scheme with Nuke companies to play down Fukushima]

[Rosalind Peterson has put together a comprehensive chronology of Japan disaster events on her website at Agriculture Defense Coalition. -DS]

Rosalind Peterson…

The Japan section is alphabetized and also in chronological order of events. I hope that you will find this information of value to you. There are maps, videos, documents, articles and other information on these two sections:

http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/?q=content/japan-disaster-2011

http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/nuclear-issues

Each day brings additional bad news from Japan which is now rarely reported by the United States News Media.

Michael Laybourn: Opt-Out of Smart Meters Now!

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From MICHAEL LAYBOURN
Hopland

[PG&E has a 'delay installation phone number' for customers who, for any reason, wish to delay their SmartMeter install. By calling this number customers can put off the installation of their new meter until the CPUC has decided on a non-wireless SmartMeter option. The number is: 1-866-743-0263. ~Dan Hamburg]

“The PG&E and Wellington Energy employees were a no-show this morning at the Wellington Energy Installation Yard, while 26 trucks sat there ready to (illegally) install in Santa Cruz County.  About 40-50 people showed up to demand that PG&E respect local laws and get their “smart” meter program out of the County. “

Some people are demonstrating to stop the smart meters. You are missing the point if you think that smart meters will save energy. Smart meters do not save electricity. They are a reason to cut jobs. To think they are some kind of gentle green good is nonsense.

Smart meters merely track electric usage,

Senator Bernie Sanders: Dear Mr. President, Do not yield…

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From BERNIE SANDERS

[PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW! Co-sign the letter and then send the link to your personal email list. Let's overwhelm Obama with the people's demands. Thank you! -DS]

Dear Mr. President,

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction we must not ignore the painful economic reality of today – which is that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing.  In fact, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.

Everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce the deficit – a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we go forward with deficit reduction we completely reject the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny.

Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice.

Nurses Say: Make Wall Street Pay!

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From NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

Main Street Contract for America

Join Nurses to Protest Wall Street June 22

Nurses from across the U.S. will stand up to Wall Street on Wednesday, June 22 to demand the high rollers in the finance capital of the world pay to rebuild the economy of a nation they have done so much to destroy. —National Nurses Movement, 06/16/11 More »

What’s behind the attacks on working people?

The modest pensions and health benefits we have earned, the pay that supports our families, the improved conditions for our patients did not deplete public treasuries or jeopardize the survival of our employers. The banks and other financial giants did — and were rewarded with bailouts and bonuses while our communities pay the price. Over the past 30 years, while wages have fallen or stagnated and insurance premiums and other basic costs skyrocketed, wealth has been shifted from working families to Wall Street. It’s not shared sacrifice when only working people make concessions.

• Corporate taxes are at historical lows. Yet $1.6 trillion, corporate profits for the third quarter of 2010 were the highest on record.
• Hospitals nationally recorded $34 billion in profits in 2009, the second highest ever.
• 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years from 1998 to 2005.
• The average CEO who was paid $27 for every dollar earned by an employee 25 years ago now gets a ratio of about $275 to $1.

The Machine Stops

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october2011.org/
~

The Machine Stops
Author: E.M. Forster

Published: 1909

The Machine Stops is a short science fiction story. It describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual lives in isolation in a ‘cell’, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Most humans welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own. Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as ‘unmechanical’ and are threatened with “Homelessness”. Eventually, the Machine apocalyptically collapses, and the civilization of the Machine comes to an end. –Wikipedia

I

THE AIR-SHIP

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment

Dave Smith: Democracy still works locally

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To the Editors:

Democracy still works locally. Thanks to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors for responding to citizens by, hopefully, pounding the final nail in the Monster Mall coffin, and preserving our farm land.

Despite the silliness of some who tried to confuse the issue by misinterpreting the overwhelming vote against the mall, the faithful souls of smart growth and environmental sanity have once again prevailed. Thank you all.

Dave Smith
Ukiah
~

Breaking the Chains Campaign

Breaking the Chains Campaign is focusing consumers’ attention on how each purchasing decision can lead to a safer, greener, and more equitable society. Millions of green minded consumers around the world have broken the chains of corporate control in their own lives, by supporting organic, Fair Made, and locally produced products and businesses.

It is time for these individuals to come together as a single voice to break the influence of big chains, corporate agribusiness, and sweatshop driven economies the world over.

Home-Scale Energy Now

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From JOHN MICHAEL GREER
The Archdruid Report

The logic applied in last week’s post to photovoltaic solar power can be applied more generally to a fairly wide range of technologies that can, under the right circumstances, provide a modest supply of electricity to power those things for which electricity is really the most sensible power source. I want to talk about a couple of those in tthe weeks to come, partly for the sake of completeness, partly because the options I have in mind offer some distinct advantages, and partly because touching on a series of examples will make it easier to grasp certain common themes that aren’t often addressed on those rare occasions when discussions of the future of technology manage to make it out of the realm of popular mythology in the first place.

I don’t mean that last comment as a joke, by the way. If mythology can be defined as the set of stories that people in a given society use to make sense of the universe and themselves, contemporary beliefs about the future of technology in the cultural mainstream of the industrial world fill that role, doubled, tripled, and in spades. Those of my readers who have

Rosalind Peterson: Take Action! Social Security Alert!

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

There are currently seventeen [8], bills pending in either the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate that are related to changes in Social Security [1-2].  This staggering number of Social Security bills, now being considered in various committees, where amendments will be added or the bills changed, shows how determined many elected officials are in either privatizing or killing two of the most beneficial programs to protect the public ever created (with the exception of the U.S. EPA and our Clear Air and Water Act Laws).

President Obama and members of the U.S. House and Senate have placed Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block in ongoing debt ceiling negotiations.  In these secret negotiations, far away from public enlightenment or debate, deals are being cooked-up to undermine, cut or privatize these important and highly beneficial programs.

The income cap, for example, in Social Security should be increased so that the rich pay their fair tax share of these costs.  Instead more payroll tax holidays are planned allowing the rich to escalate their riches by paying less in taxes.

Call for Climate Direct Action [Updated]

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From:

Bill McKibben, 350.org
Phil Radford, Greenpeace USA
Becky Tarbotton, Rainforest Action Network

Dear friends,

In early March, a jury in Utah found Tim DeChristopher guilty for standing up to the oil and gas companies in an effort to protect our health and our climate.

If the federal government thinks that it’s intimidating people into silence with this kind of prosecution, think again. This is precisely the sort of event that reminds us why we need creative, nonviolent protests and mass mobilizations.

Over the last six months, we’ve witnessed big changes in the world that call out for creative, nonviolent protest, including:

Calling All Seed Savers

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About this project

Heritage Seed Co. is an organic farm collective and a online community building project.

Our mission is to bring back the lost foods of our country and teach interested gardeners the value of fresh. local, and heirloom produce.  We are also going to provide support and encouragement for more to plant gardens and seed save/trade. We are committed to preserving the past with the help of modern technology and social media.

Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Tomato is one of the varieties we are saving.  But we are also saving the Paw Paw a fruit bearing tree that tastes kind of like a banana and is native to our region.  We have a diverse list of starters that will grow as the project grows but this is a slow process and it will take many years to root some of the varities.

Heritage Seed Co. has targeted 30 plants on the Slow Foods Ark of Taste endangered foods list that we are planting in our greenhouses

Martin Luther King, Jr. On Nonviolence

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From MLK

In his speech on receiving the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, Martin Luther King Jr recognized that the prize was made as a response to violence: “I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeing to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation.”

“After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

In his speech, King refers to

Howard Zinn on Democracy and Civil Disobedience

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From HOWARD ZINN

Seven guidelines for civil disobedience

• Civil disobedience is the deliberate, discriminate, violation of law for a vital social purpose. It becomes not only justifiable but necessary when a fundamental human right is at stake, and when legal channels are inadequate for securing that right. It may take the form of violating an obnoxious law, protesting an unjust condition, or symbolically enacting a desirable law or condition. It may or may not eventually be held legal, because of constitutional law or international law, but its aim is always to close the gap between law and justice, as an infinite process in the development of democracy.
• There is no social value to a general obedience to the law, any more than there is value to a general disobedience to the law. Obedience to bad laws as a way of inculcating some abstract subservience

Here’s a Way to Eliminate the Regulators and Lawyers, and Build Community At the Same Time: Organize and Declare ‘Food Sovereignty,’ Like Sedgwick, Maine

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From THE COMPLETE PATIENT

[...] On Saturday morning, Sedgwick became likely the first locale in the country to pass a “Food Sovereignty” law. It’s the proposed ordinance I first described last fall, when I introduced the “Five Musketeers”, a group of farmers and consumers intent on pushing back against overly aggressive state food regulators. The regulators were interfering with farmers who, for example, took chickens to a neighbor for slaughtering, or who sold raw milk directly to consumers.

The proposed ordinance was one of 78 being considered at the Sedgwick town meeting, that New England institution that has stood the test of time, allowing all of a town’s citizens to vote yea or nay on proposals to spend their tax money and, in this case,

Barry Vogel: How Many ‘Save Ukiah Post Office Meeting’ Mailers Delivered AFTER The Meeting?

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From BARRY VOGEL
Ukiah

[If you received your notice of the Post Office meeting after 4/21, please send a letter of complaint to Mr. Williams. -BV]

May 4, 2011

David C. Williams
Inspector General
United States Postal Service
1735 N. Lynn Street
Arlington, VA 22209-2020

Re:  Complaint of delay of the mail by USPS

Dear Mr. Williams:

I represent Save the Ukiah Post Office, an ad hoc community committee working to keep the Ukiah, California, downtown post office where it has been for 74 years. This letter is a follow-up to the on-line complaint that I filed on April 28, 2011 on the OIG website.

The unusual circumstances and the direct connection

Ukiah: Taking Control of Our Common Destiny

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From DAVE SMITH
Ukiah

In this time of Peak Oil [link], Climate Change, and Disaster Capitalism, we Ukiahans will take democratic control of our own food, our money, and our energy resources, or others from elsewhere will surely succeed in taking that control away from us. Disaster Capitalism takes advantage of short-term social and financial bedlam and turns it into long-term privatizing schemes that convert our democratic control of crucial resources and services — such as schools, libraries, water and waste systems, prisons — into top-down, corporate-controlled, long-term cash cows for the very few. These schemes have utterly failed to become more efficient and save tax payers money. How could they? Profit-seeking constant-growth corporations privatize the profits and socialize the costs to our public detriment. And we citizens, instead of lower-cost, democratically-controlled resources and services, transfer our public money to the wealthy, and pay and pay and pay.

We also find ourselves continuously playing whack-a-mole… fighting off those who wish to impose their private will on our public community, leaving little time to think and act and build a positive inviting future worth fighting for.

There are several things we Ukiah citizens could be doing now instead of waiting for events that force us into decisions not in our common best interests:

1. Corporate Personhood: The state legalizes an activity – such as commercial water withdrawals, or factory farming, or big-box colonizers that take our jobs overseas – and communities are legally prohibited from saying “no” to it. Or, as may happen in our case, we reject by a huge majority vote a zoning change that protects a prime industrial parcel, and also reject by popular demand the closing of our downtown

Social Security: Their numbers are bullshit, they’ll steal us blind, please pass this on!

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From MANNY GOLDSTEIN
Democratic Underground

OK, by now we all know that the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted in 26 years, and only a portion of benefits will be paid after that. Actually, that “known fact” is pure BS, a product of cooked numbers. What they aren’t telling you is that this projection assumes that over the next 75 years, the US economy will grow at a far lower rate than it has in the past. (They weren’t expecting us to check the calculations, were they?)

Since 1960, US GDP growth has averaged 3.2%. Even in the decade before the 2007 crash, which included a recession and jobless recovery, GDP growth averaged about 3.0%. However, in creating its publicized projection, the Obama administration assumes that the future US economy will grow at a rate of about 2.1%, much lower even than the 2.9% rate in 2010, which most of us would agree was a tough year for our economy. Even in this very pessimistic projection, Social Security is still able to pay more than 75% of promised benefits after 27 years. (Note that we need about 2.5% growth just to break even with our increasing population.)

And what if the economy stays the same as in 2010, and we continue to lurch forward at 2010′s 2.9% growth rate? The same projection showed that at a 2.9% rate, the Trust fund would remain flush with cash as far as they projected (75 years).

So, unless the US economy is about to get even worse than today and stay that way, Social Security should pay full benefits for our lifetimes and beyond.

If you believe otherwise, then the bad guys have already won: they now have a pretext for stealing you blind

How Small, Mostly Conservative Towns Have Found the Trick to Defeating Corporations

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From Alternet
Thanks to Dan Hamburg

[The next logical step after we defeat the USPS' plan to gut our town by moving our Post Office to the freeway, is to ban corporate personhood at a local level. By hiding behind the privatized part of the USPS charter and refusing our requests to see the numbers they say force their decision, it is incumbent upon our citizenry to deny this subterfuge in the future by others intent upon killing our local democratic process and buying up everything in sight. Disaster Capitalism is in full sway and needs to be stopped NOW. -DS]

As the Right pushes privatization as a solution to the economic collapse, one organization is teaching communities how to defeat corporations. California’s treasurer just announced that the state may need to begin issuing IOUs if the governor and legislature can’t close the budget gap. And California’s not the only place that’s hurting. The Great Recession, hit not only businesses and individuals, but governments as well. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimated that 31 states are facing a combined shortfall for fiscal year 2011 of nearly $60 billion.

So, what’s being done? “Cities and states across the nation are selling and leasing everything

Mendo Island Transition: Reskilling Initiative

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From GREEN HANDS

[Maybe combine this with our Mendo Time Bank, Together We Can Mendocino, and Gardens Project?... -DS]

Philosophy

Peak Oil

Many people now believe that the world’s petroleum supply is at or near its peak production capacity. As it gets increasingly  difficult to maintain or expand the supply of this vital resource (aka “Peak Oil”), the economies that rely on cheap, abundant fuel  in increasing amounts will falter. As they do, we will need to devise alternatives to the industrial model we currently rely upon for basic necessities.

It’s not the purpose of this site to convince anybody of the reality and practical ramifications of Peak Oil. I encourage readers to do a search on it… there’s plenty of information available online…

Reskilling

Reskilling – the development of skills more directly connected with basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and recreation – is one practical response to the manifold problems that society may well face in the wake of peak oil and economic displacement and collapse.

Looking for a way to make it easy and practical for people to connect and share skills, I came up with the idea of the Green Helping Hands Reskilling Initiative.  Whether you’re a skilled composter/gardener or an artist with a pair of knitting needles, or if  you are seeking these or other skills, just post a sign with a green hand on it – or look for one near you.

Why a physical sign, one might ask, and not a website? After all, I’m promoting the concept through a website. The answer is, signs are cheap, fast and local, and don’t rely on high-tech anything to get started.

Take Action Ukiah: Saving Our Post Office Meeting Tonight 4/21/11 6:30pm

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From BARRY VOGEL
Radio Curious
Ukiah

The United States Postal Service has plans to close post offices in cities, small towns and rural areas across America. This edition of Radio Curious is a case study of how the federal government plans to close the main Post Office in Ukiah.  The Postal Service says it operates under a “corporate model” and is not subject to public information requests, even from local government. It is unwilling to share the bases of it cost analyses or even let the City of Ukiah conduct its own evaluations. We visit with three members of the Save the Ukiah Post Office Committee: Ukiah Mayor, Mari Rodin, Alan Nicholson and Mike Sweeney. They discuss the community efforts to save Ukiah’s downtown post office and why.

Radio Curious Interview here
~

Letters to the Editor, Ukiah Daily Journal, from Joe Wildman, Richard Shoemaker, Janie Sheppard and Mike Sweeney…

From JOE LOUIS WILDMAN

A bureaucratic bungle

All of the folks I talk with are up in arms about the Postal Service proposal to close the Downtown Post Office, but several letter writers seem to think it’s a good idea.

These contrarians want to believe the line Postal Service management is dishing out about “financial necessity.” The Postal Service claims it can save $186,921 per year by cutting a hole in the heart of Ukiah’s downtown and remodeling the out of the way annex as a replacement.

Mendo Island Transition: Remember the Boycott…

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From RAN PRIEUR

[Yes, it is important to focus more on what we can do in positive ways to assist in transitioning our communities as the culture collapses around us, but there are also negative tools that can assist us in bringing about needed change on a local basis. For example, Branches Chop House Restaurant in Ukiah has been advertising “locally raised products” and as “specializing in locally grown products" which is not true (see our article here). A sustained local boycott could be organized to help change their ways just as some of us have participated in national boycotts. Stay tuned. -DS]

Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of a war. There are bullets flying and explosions all around, and I’m trying to organize people on my side to fight effectively, and instead they’re just standing around saying, “Look, they’re shooting at us! I can’t believe they’re actually shooting at us! Look at those bad, bad people doing that bad, bad thing! Shame on th- (takes bullet in head)”

There’s only one place for morality in this world, and that is that your actions must serve the greatest, widest good that you can perceive. Beyond that, it’s all strategy and tactics. Applying morality to the actions of other people is a strategic error. I think this error goes back to our tribal ancestors. If one person does something to harm the tribe, the others will use shaming to bring this person into line. If this feels to us like a moral action, it’s because it was easier for our ancestors to mindlessly throw righteous indignation at the wrongdoer, than to carefully discern why a behavior is harmful and how shaming will correct it.

B of A Street Protest Ukiah 4/15/11: Behind the Line

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bofa-protest

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The usual suspects…
~

TED Talks: The Antidote to Apathy

Thanks to Sean Re
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Mendo Island Transition: Community Seed Banks that empower women and protect biodiversity

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From SUPRIYA KUMAR
Worldwatch

For fifteen years, Muniyamma, a farmer in Karnataka, India, practiced agriculture with the help of agro-chemicals, such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but in recent years she noticed a drastic decrease in yield.

After attending a village meeting conducted by the GREEN Foundation about organic farming, she decided to try their environmentally friendly techniques to grow bananas. When it was harvest time, Muniyamma’s plot was healthy and green, while her neighbor’s banana plot, which still relied on agro-chemicals, showed stunted growth, pale leaves, and thinner stems. That was enough to convince Muniyamma of the benefits of organic farming.

The GREEN Foundation works to preserve natural ecosystems and sustain rural livelihoods by teaching farmers the importance of agricultural biodiversity. Through village meetings, the foundation informs farmers about organic practices, such as creating fertilizer from organic waste, that are better for the environment and result in higher yields, at a lower cost, for farmers.

To protect the local biodiversity and preserve traditional seeds, the GREEN Foundation, in partnership with other NGOs, including the Seed Saver’s Network and The Development Fund, has created community seeds banks throughout the state of Karnataka, India. All villagers can become a member of a community seed bank by paying an annual nominal fee. Members, who receive seeds free of cost, sow the seeds, harvest the crop and return double the amount of seeds to the bank. To maintain purity of the seeds, farmers must follow rules – such as no chemical fertilizers and pesticides – when growing their crops.

Because these seed banks are managed by self-help groups (SHG) made up of women,

Ukiah & Fort Bragg: Street Protest Bank of America Today 4/15/11 – [Updated]

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[If you are indignant and outraged like I am (see articles below), we can do something about it by joining other disgusted citizens in a grassroots protest being organized. Bank of America got a $1.9 billion tax rebate last year when it had profits of more than $4 billion. Please encourage folks to withdraw their money from Bank of America, Chase, and other national banks and deposit it in one of our locally-owned, democratically-controlled credit unions, or locally-owned banks. See you there! -DS]

Ukiah: Bank of America on State Street 4-6 pm.
~
Fort Bragg: [UPDATE] There will be a march and demonstration on traditional Tax day FRIDAY, APRIL 15. We will meet at the GP  gate at highway 1 and Cypress at 1 P.M. Then we will march down to the Bank of America parking lot and hand out leaflets encouraging Bank of America’s customers  to withdraw their money from B of A and deposit it in a local bank such as The Fort Bragg Federal Credit Union, The Mendo Lake Credit Union or The Savings Bank of Mendocino County. This demonstration is in concert with one in Union Square in New York City on the same day. Please bring signs and as many of your friends as you can. There will be another Bank of America protest on MONDAY, APRIL 18 that was called by moveon.org. ~Ed Oberweiser
~
From ROGER EBERT
Chicago Sun-Times

“The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.

“Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent.”

Hey Mendocino County: Again! Tell BRANCHES CHOP HOUSE to start buying from local farmers (or stop advertising that they do)

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From SCOTT CRATTY
Ukiah

[REPOSTING FROM APRIL 11: Checking with Scott again, this restaurant is still misrepresenting that they buy local. They do not. They have met with local farmers, but no action. They even recently advertised that they were carrying Magruder local meat. Magruder says they aren't. I am still boycotting this restaurant. -DS]

You may have noticed that Branches “chop house,” the large new restaurant in the Airport Park complex, has (since before it opened) advertised itself as featuring “locally raised products” and as “specializing in locally grown products.” A big new restaurant supporting our local farms and ranches would have a significant positive effect.

Although Branches claims to be a local food specialist, there is still nothing on its regular menu that features or uses local produce or meats. As a “chop house” one would expect at least some chop option from one of Mendocino’s several excellent ranches, but that is also not the case. Branches is currently not purchasing anything for its restaurant menu from any area farm or ranch. (It does use local honey in some baked goods, is working on plans for a garden on its own property and is asking Campovida to plant some things on its behalf.)

Please join in to urge Branches to connect with our local farmers and ranchers and to move as rapidly as possible to incorporate fresh, locally-grown and raised products into its menu.  It will taste even better too.
~
[It's one thing to not support local farmers; it's quite another to lie about it... especially as a new business in town, pretending to be something they are not.

I will personally Boycott Branches until they start supporting local, organic farmers by purchasing from them. ~DS]
~~

 

Unequal Protection — Chapter 3: Banding Together for the Common Good

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From THOM HARTMANN
Truthout

A corporation has no rights except those given it by law. It can exercise no power except that conferred upon it by the people through legislation, and the people should be as free to withhold as to give, public interest and not private advantage being the end in view. ~ William Jennings Bryan, address to the Ohio 1912 Constitutional Convention

In the beginning, there were people.

For thousands of years, it was popular among philosophers, theologians, and social commentators to suggest that the first humans lived as disorganized, disheveled, terrified, cold, hungry, and brutal lone-wolf beasts. But both the anthropological and archeological records prove it a lie.

Even our cousins the apes live in organized societies, and evidence of cooperative and social living is as ancient as the oldest hominid remains. For four hundred thousand years or more, even before the origin of Homo sapiens, around the world we primates have made tools, art, and jewelry and organized ourselves into various social forms, ranging from families to clans to tribes. More recently, we’ve also organized ourselves as nations and empires.1

As psychologist Abraham Maslow and others have pointed out, the value system of humans is first based on survival. Humans must breathe air, eat food, drink water, keep warm, and sleep safely. Once the basic survival and safety needs are accounted for, we turn to our social needs—family, companionship, love, and intellectual stimulation. And when those are covered, we work to fulfill our spiritual or personal needs for growth.

Our institutions reflect this hierarchy of needs. Families, whether tribal nomads or suburban yuppies, first attend to food, water, clothing, and shelter. Then they consider transportation, social interaction, and livelihood. And when those basics are covered,

Film Review: The Economics of Happiness

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From ROB HOPKINS
Transition Culture
[Available for rent at Mulligan Books]

The concept of localisation is one increasingly being discussed as the debt-based, high carbon, energy vulnerable model of economic globalisation increasingly comes apart at the seams.  A recent conference run by Transition Colorado had the subtitle “food relocalisation as economic development”.  I think we might argue for localisation in general, not just in terms of food, being seen now as a key strategy of economic development.  ‘The Economics of Happiness’, as a film that argues that “’going local’ is the way to repair our fractured world – our ecosystems, our societies and our selves” has therefore arrived at the right time, but is it the convincing, accessible and rousing film about localisation that we need in order to raise the issue to the next level of the debate?  Here is the trailer:

Small Actions Amid Chaos

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From PEAK OIL HAUSFRAU
What I do in lieu of watching television

[Update: See TRIBES below]

Riots and toppling governments in the Middle East, states taking drastic measures to balance their budgets, oil and food prices rising. The implications of all this turmoil are enough to make me start breathing into a paper sack. I can’t affect what happens in Libya or Wisconsin, but I can take action where I am, not only on my (semi-) urban homestead but also in my neighborhood and city.

Our neighborhood is beginning to organize, starting with small, simple actions like setting up a Facebook page, organizing a LitterBlitz, having regular meetings and newsletters with helpful information (weatherizing programs, useful resources, encouraging community action), and applying for trees for a tree-planting. We also hope to set up a neighborhood patrol. Eventually I hope that these baby steps with will result in greater community cohesion and trust that can be leveraged to build resilience.

Transition OKC continues to work toward supporting and expanding our local food capacity – the ability to feed ourselves. We have been facilitating meetings of a group of local food advocates for the past six months to help strengthen the existing network of local farmers and food entrepreneurs. Our TOKC team is also planning to host a Permaculture Design Course in the fall. I have wanted to take a full permaculture course for many years

James Houle: Shut Down California Nukes NOW! (Updated)

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The nuclear plant near San Clemente, run by Southern California Edison

From JAMES HOULE
Redwood Valley

It takes a disaster to wake us up to the vulnerability of life on this precarious planet. California has very large nuclear power plants at two locations: San Onofre (between LA and San Diego) and Diablo Canyon (near San Luis Obispo) which contain a total of four nuclear reactors.  They have operated for 30 years and will be obsolete in another 10. They have many similarities to the three units in Japan that have already gone into meltdown, and have released massive amounts of radioactivity to the atmosphere:

First, our nukes are located near active earthquake faults long overdue for a major shift in the earth’s crust.

[Update: I was taken on a tour of the cliffs below the San Onofre Nuclear power plant by a geologist in 1980. He showed us that the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant is sitting directly on a right face vertical earthquake fault line. ~Ed Oberweiser, Mendocino Listserv]

Second, they are located right on the shoreline and subject to the same dangers as in Japan, where tsunamis knocked out their emergency cooling water pumps, after their primary cooling systems were knocked off line by the earthquake itself.

Third, they are near major population centers.

Frankenfish spook Northwest lawmakers

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[We should ask Congressman Thompson, Senator's Boxer & Feinstein to support Senator Murray on this important issue. Washington, D.C. U.S. Congress toll free  (1866) 220-0044. ~Rosalind Peterson]

From McClatchy Newspapers
Thanks to Rosalind Peterson
Redwood Valley

Fearing for the wild salmon industry in the Northwest, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state wants to stop the Food and Drug Administration from making a quick decision on whether to approve genetically modified Atlantic salmon for human consumption.

Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska says that Congress can’t allow “these alien fish to infect our stocks.”

Murray and Young are part of a growing bipartisan coalition on Capitol Hill that’s out to stop a Massachusetts biotechnology company from winning federal approval to sell its fast-growing fish, which critics are calling “Frankenfish.”

“I’m very concerned this is being rushed through with massive potential for negative ramifications,” Murray said.

Take Action Ukiah! Save Our Post Office!

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The historic Ukiah Post Office built in 1936 by the Work Projects Administration

Why We Can Win

The Ukiah post office has been the heart of downtown for 74 years. On Feb. 23, the United States Postal Service told the city that it wants to abandon this beautiful building and move all services to the annex on Orchard Avenue.

This proposal comes from the USPS district, which has to hear public comment at a meeting, respond to it, and justify the decision to higher management. Any decision can be appealed.

Many towns have been successful in defending their post offices. If the Ukiah community stands together, we can prevent this terrible blow to the city because:

It’s bad business. USPS intends to spend at least $360,000 to remodel the annex as a replacement, instead of keeping the downtown post office in good repair. Without the convenient downtown location, USPS will lose business and it hasn’t made a coherent explanation of why there would be any operational savings.

They’re hiding documents. USPS refuses to release its closure study and survey of the downtown building, while it claims a preposterous cost to make repairs to it.

It’s a historic building. USPS is required to protect historic resources, not needlessly abandon them and try to sell them off.

JOIN THE FIGHT. Let us know at Save@UkiahPostOffice.com if you would like to be notified of upcoming meetings, including the PUBLIC FORUM to be held soon where USPS officials will hear your comments.

To give your feedback TODAY, write Rosemarie Fernandez, District Manager, USPS, 1300 Evans Avenue, San Francisco CA 94124 or call her at 415-550-5001. [copy your letter to Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C. 20590]

www.UkiahPostOffice.com – Facebook: Save The Ukiah Post Office 280 N. Oak St., Ukiah
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Take Action! GMO Seed Identification

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From eHow

[Please contact me if you know other means and sources of GMO testing. Keeping our local seed strains clean is urgent. ~DS]

Local food growers who specialize in producing organic produce and home gardeners who want to avoid growing GMO crops in their backyard gardens have limited resources to identify whether a seed stock contains genetically modified organisms (GMO). There are three basic methods available.

Buy From Trusted Vendors

Many seed sellers sell certified GMO-free seed stock. One of the most comprehensive directories of companies that sell non-GMO seeds is the Southern Organic Resource Guide, which lists companies across the country. While this guide does not endorse the companies it lists, it states that it has made an effort to compile a listing of organic seed sources to assist organic producers and encourages growers to visit the respective companies’ websites.

Similarly, local co-ops that produce organic vegetables may also have “known non-GMO” seed sellers that are local to you.

ELISA Testing

ELISA protein antibody test strips offer relatively rapid turnaround times to determine whether a grain lot is non-GMO. However, their use is limited. The strips test for particular chemical and protein signatures

Will Parrish: Sovereignty, Not Localization

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From WILL PARRISH
Laytonville

The most exciting aspect of Mendocino County’s civic life is the popularity of efforts geared toward creating a more ecologically-sane, human-scale economic system.  These activities commonly fall under the rubric of “economic localization.”  The basic idea is that people living in a given geographic area should produce what they use for themselves, rather than depend on purely self-interested corporations and wealthy absentee land owners to furnish these things for them.

In recent years, Mendocino County’s far-flung assortment of activities that are consciously geared toward achieving this end has been growing in breadth and depth.  The majority of efforts by localization activists encompass the areas of food cultivation and distribution (e.g., locally owned organic farms and farmers’ markets), transportation (e.g., Cars Are Evil), energy production (e.g., solar panel installations at private residences), and education about the tenuous state of the global economy.

One strong measure of California North Coast’s emergence as a national localization hub is the regional prevalence of sharing organic, open-pollinated heirloom seeds and seed saving.  Heirloom seeds are those handed down by families and tribes over generations.

Earlier this month, I participated in annual seed exchanges in both Boonville and Laytonville, which gatherings featured a broad assortment of seeds that local people cultivated in their organic gardens, ranging from Zapatista Blue Corn to chili peppers from Sri Lanka.  At the Anderson Valley Seed

Scott Cratty: Our Local Farmers Need Us Now

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Paula and Adam give us a 1-minute tour of their farm

From SCOTT CRATTY and MICHAEL FOLEY
Ukiah and Willits

[Includes a farmer's rant about soil and food below... DS]

Friends of the Farmers’ Market,

Greetings.  Been taking some time off from the farmers’ market this Winter? It seems that many in the Ukiah area have.

Attendance at our local farmers’ markets is down sharply relative to the last two seasons, both in Ukiah and in Willits.

Below this note you will find “A Self-Interested, Public-Spirited Appeal” for your support. It is was written by Willits market manager Michael Foley. Some of the specifics are about Willits, but the concepts conveyed apply equally well to Ukiah. The points about pricing at the winter farmers’ market mirror the analysis in a recent Press Democrat article you can find here.

If you can attend this Saturday (9:30 to noon starting at the corner of Clay and School Streets), it should be a nice market. Ukiah Greens will be back, possibly Green Uprising Farm as well.  Spring Hill Cheese has been back as well.  Plus we will be trying out a new musical group, Lazy Rebel.  They promise to deliver “positive acoustic from the heart.”

US Uncut: How to Build a Progressive Tea Party

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(Click Post Title Above To Enlarge)

From JOHANN HARI
The Nation

Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind. Enraged citizens gather in every city, week after week—to demand the government finally regulate the behavior of corporations and the superrich, and force them to start paying taxes. The protesters shut down the shops and offices of the companies that have most aggressively ripped off the country. The swelling movement is made up of everyone from teenagers to pensioners. They surround branches of the banks that caused this crash and force them to close, with banners saying, You Caused This Crisis. Now YOU Pay.

As people see their fellow citizens acting in self-defense, these tax-the-rich protests spread to even the most conservative parts of the country. It becomes the most-discussed subject on Twitter. Even right-wing media outlets, sensing a startling effect on the public mood, begin to praise the uprising, and dig up damning facts on the tax dodgers.

Instead of the fake populism of the Tea Party, there is a movement based on real populism.

US UNCUT Debuts with Nationwide Protests Against Corporate Tax Dodgers

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From CHUCK COLLINS
Alternet

Do You Pay Your Taxes?  Bank of America Doesn’t

In 2009 and 2010, according to their SEC K-10 report, filed on Friday, Bank of America paid no taxes. Meanwhile, the federal government and many state governments, facing large budget shortfalls, are cutting services and benefits that help the poor and middle class. For many people, that just doesn’t add up.

On Saturday Feb 26th, many of those people took to the streets in cities across the country to protest corporate tax dodging. In more than 50 cities, those protests focused on Bank of America.

Local activists protested inside and outside of Bank of America branches, conducting teach-ins about corporate tax avoidance and theatrical “bail-ins.”  They stopped passers-by to ask, “Do you pay your taxes? Bank of America doesn’t.”

In Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, protests forced the early closure of major bank branches. The San Fransisco protesters presented bank tellers with fake checks, made out from Bank of America to “The United States of America, c/o Tax-Paying Citizens.”

Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition

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From TRANSITION CULTURE

[...] So, over to the US. Congratulations to Transition Cheltenham, which is Transition US’s 78^th official initiative…exciting news! Transition Centre County recently held discussions about how rising oil prices would affect their community, so have a look and see what they think the impacts would be. Transition Town Hope is holding a movie series, while Transition Town Manchester has shared their ideas for some future projects including a River Walk displaying art that celebrates nature, a hazelnut tree planting project and their regular organic potluck…yum! The group will also be selling hazel nut trees to plant in the local area following on from their successful fruit tree project last year. They again plan to sell 350 trees to highlight the need to reduce atmospheric CO2 content to 350 parts per million if we are to maintain the earth’s current climate.

Transition Town Nashville recently held a local food movement webcast that brought together 20 high-profile speakers from the local food and slow food movements to discuss the importance of redefining the way we grow and prepare our food, so it would be great to know what the outcomes were. Transition Salt Spring together with a few other

Hey John Pearson: Save The Ukiah Post Office! We were here! Where the hell were you?

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From DAVE SMITH
Ukiah

Letter to the Editors (AVA,UDJ)

In his Letter to the Editor (UDJ 3/1/11 – see below), John Pearson writes: “I am amazed that so many people would put so much energy into keeping an old building [Ukiah downtown Post Office] in place… Perhaps if these same people would have put these same energies to use we would still have a manufacturing base here in the valley that paid living wages instead of low paying entry wage jobs we now have… Where were they when Masonite was getting ready to close?”

Well, we were right here, John!… desperately protesting the massacre of our forests so we could save them to produce sustainable manufacturing jobs for the long term. We were here protesting the poisoning of our community by Masonite, asking them to clean up their act. Instead, corporate loggers and sawmills ignored our warnings that they were killing future jobs and ruining their welcome. We were right. The jobs are now gone because the forest was raped and ruined. Where the hell were you?

Fear or Defiance? Destroy or Build? Cower or Flower? We Have Choices. Choose!

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Has America Reached The Tipping Point?

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[The Fascist Majority on the Supreme Court is responsible now for much of the destruction of our democracy. They installed a defeated Presidential candidate as President who left us unprotected despite being warned repeatedly before 911, and who then put us into disastrous wars. They have now left us to the mercy of the very wealthy and to unrestrained corporate power. Things have got to change, and it is up to us to change it. ~DS]

See also: Senator Bernie Sanders on Income Inequality (Video) “Greed is an issue we have got to deal with.”

From Wake Up and Stand Up

Years from now, we will think of February 2011 as the tipping point in America’s great awakening. After all the warnings and wake-up calls, this be will remembered as the time when the American people decided to come together, confront the plutocracy that plagues our republic, and do something to change the economic inequality / instability that has grown from it. There is a tide. If you don’t yet feel it, here are Ten Wake Up Calls that we predict will help define February 2011 in America.  The more people who get involved, the more meaningful it will be.  So, please share this page with others who may still need a reason to wake up and stand up.

1.  Egypt. It had to have an impact: so many Americans glued to their televisions, watching as people take to the streets, ready to die for freedom, destined to topple an oppressive regime that had dominated them for decades.  How?  By peacefully demanding self-governance.  Their triumph made us believe we could, and should, demand the same.

2.  Bob Herbert’s Challenge To America. While some Americans looked at Egypt and thought, “They’re trying to get what we already have,” Bob Herbert’s Feb. 12 column challenged us to look in the mirror.  He wrote, “Senator John Kerry said that the Egyptian people ‘have made clear they will settle for nothing less than greater democracy and more economic opportunities.’ Americans are being asked to swallow exactly the opposite. In the mad rush

We don’t need no !@&%#$! budget cuts – We just need our richest tax dodgers to pay their fair share

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From DAVIDSON LOEHR
Chelsea Green Publishing

In this winter of worldwide discontent, a powerful moral and political spirit has arisen in the Middle East. There are already uprisings of ordinary people all over the world: nobodies dumping Somebodies off their thrones, as the world watches.  It’s happening so fast our heads are spinning.  But it’s clear that we will turn that moral spirit loose here at home: the next Egypt – or England — will be the United States.

It is maddening and insulting to hear our president and our lawmakers simply accept the idea that we must cut social services, education, Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security and other parts of our social safety nets – while the General Accounting Office has estimated that 83 of our top 100 corporations pay no taxes.  There’s no good reason we should accept that, because it isn’t fair.  It goes against the wishes of a large majority of our citizens.  Many of our laws were bought by corporations whose lobbyists seduced many of our elected officials into selling out their country for private gain.  If our government can’t or won’t see how unfair and morally reprehensible it is to use taxpayer money to bail out those who don’t even pay taxes, then it is up to us.  And the ongoing protests in Arab countries show that we can do it.

There Is No Terrorism and We Are Not at War

As a Google search for “Americans killed by terrorists” shows, terrorism is a red herring:  a bogus threat.  We’re much more likely to be killed by lightning, peanuts, handguns and a dozen more everyday dangers than by terrorists.  We’re being misled by propaganda used to take trillions of dollars of our tax money to deter a terrorist threat that isn’t there.  “Terrorism” is used to frighten us, and as a blank check to cover any military expenditures or assaults on our civil liberties that our leaders choose.

Our tax dollars go to swell the coffers of the military-industrial complex, which alienates all Arab countries and much of the rest of the world.  This is losing us both respect and allies.  It also gives our elected leaders this red herring to keep us stirred up by the untrue claim that terrorists are everywhere and the sky is falling. 

Ukiah’s Historic Post Office Faces Closure

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From The PD

Ukiah’s historic downtown post office is targeted for closure, the U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday. Postal officials plan to move retail mail services from downtown to the postal annex on the outskirts of town, confirming what Ukiah officials and residents have feared for months. “This is official,” said Ukiah Mayor Mari Rodin, who was informed about the plan during a meeting with Postal Service officials Wednesday. She vowed to fight the move. “I’m really committed to doing whatever I have to do to try to keep it here,” Rodin said.

The 1930s era post office, with its 1940s federal works project mural, is an integral part of the downtown’s history and crucial to creating a vital, walkable downtown, she said. However, postal officials said the building would require $780,000 in repairs, including a new roof, heating and electrical systems and fire alarms, to remain open. A public hearing on the proposed closure is the next step, and will be held within 60 days, said Postal Service spokesman James Wigdel. “The sooner the better,” he said.

A community group formed to preserve the downtown post office plans to rally citizens to attend meetings and sign petitions to underscore its importance. “If you believe the post office should remain where it is, come to the public meeting and explain why,” said Ukiah attorney Barry Vogel, a member of the group.

Postal officials are hoping to have a final determination on the post office’s fate within three months, Wigdel said. If approved, modifications will be made to the annex to incorporate the retail services now offered downtown. The cost of the improvements and the move are expected to cost $360,000. The Postal Service is consolidating services nationwide to reduce its budgetary bleeding, estimated at $8.5 billion annually, Wigdel said.

Healdsburg officials and residents won a 2008 campaign against the planned closure of the city’s downtown post office just off the Healdsburg Plaza. But the post office was gutted by fire in August, effectively changing plans to keep the office open. The Postal Service has since refurbished its Healdsburg annex building and moved all postal business to that location… Full article here
~~

How to Build a Lifeboat

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From STONELEIGH
The Automatic Earth (11/08)

[...] we are facing deflation and… I wanted to review and explain the suggestions we have made previously for dealing with a deflationary scenario….

1. Hold no debt (for most people this means renting)
2. Hold cash and cash equivalents (short term treasuries) under your own control
3. Don’t trust the banking system, deposit insurance or no deposit insurance
4. Sell equities, real estate, most bonds, commodities, collectibles (or short if you can afford to gamble)
5. Gain some control over the necessities of your own existence if you can afford it
6. Be prepared to work with others as that will give you far greater scope for resilience and security
7. If you have done all that and still have spare resources, consider precious metals as an insurance policy
8. Be worth more to your employer than he is paying you
9. Look after your health!

1) The reason that getting rid of debt is priority #1 is that during deflation, real interest rates will be punishingly high even if nominal rates are low. That is because the real rate (adjusted for changes in the money supply) is the nominal rate minus inflation, which can be positive or negative. During inflationary times, this means that the real rate of interest is lower than the nominal rate, and can even be negative as it was during parts of then 1970s and again in the middle of our own decade. People have taken on huge amounts of debt because they were effectively being paid to borrow, but periods of negative real interest rates are a trap. They lure people into too much debt that they may not be able to service if real rates rise even a little. Most people are thoroughly enmeshed in that trap now as real rates are set to rise substantially.

When inflation is negative (i.e. deflation), the real rate of interest is the nominal rate minus negative inflation. In other words, the real rate is higher than the nominal rate,

Will Parrish: Our local water commons has been stolen from us by Globalized Corporate Wine Colonizers to produce high-end booze. Does anyone care? (Updated)

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Frey Family Vineyards: A Better Way

From WILL PARRISH
Laytonville

[Update: Investigative reporter Will Parrish will discuss his controversial recent series on the ecological toll of California's wine industry, with a special emphasis on rapacious vineyard development in the Gualala River watershed: The North Coast Wine Industry: Draining Our Rivers Dry]
~

Don Sanderson: Will, your articles have been quite interesting. Alas, this has been happening in other agricultural sectors all over the country as, for example, in dairying. I can even trace the roots back to seventeenth century England. As long as cities made demands, there have been those who saw an opportunity for wealth if they could control all aspects of production and delivery. Those of that color eliminated my prospects for succeeding as a farmer way back in the fifties.

Still, there are many small vineyard owners who are attempting to make it with great difficulties, out in the fields doing their own work. There are also small proprietor-owned wineries scattered around the county providing employment for quite a few and making honest wine from those vineyard owners’ grapes. It is important not to tar and feather them with the same brush.

Will Parrish: Thanks for your kind words on the series, Don. Because your critique is basically the same as a few other people have offered, I’ll address it at length here….

In my work as an investigative journalist, I try to act as an interlocutor with current orthodoxy, expressing forbidden silences and demonstrating how the interests of rapacious power are served when certain things get omitted from public discourse.

Egypt, Wisconsin, and the Future of Our Democracy. Fight back! We have to beat them!

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From MIKE LUX
Author, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be

I loved how close ally of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Rep. Paul Ryan, blurted out that Madison in recent days looked like Egypt. Realizing that made the protesters sound like the good guys, he tried to backtrack with something incoherent about meaning the violent protests there, but given that the only violence in Egypt was done by the government and Mubarak’s allies, he just dug himself a deeper hole.

The fact is that the pictures we are seeing and the story playing out in Wisconsin is like Egypt in some really important ways. The new mass militancy of union members, students, and other allies of the maligned teachers, social workers, cops, firefighters, and other public employees being attacked and threatened by the governor is not a manufactured thing, it is a mass movement spreading like wildfire, building in momentum day by day. Blaming public employees for the state’s economic problems is like blaming foreign aid (less than 1 percent of the budget) for our federal budget deficit: The numbers don’t add up. And building an economic strategy around breaking unions, laying off more workers, driving down wages, depriving retirees of pensions, and forcing already hard-pressed workers to pay more out of pocket for health care is pure, unadulterated economic insanity. Taking money out of the economy and decimating a huge part of the middle class’ disposable income is not exactly a formula for stimulating a recovery.

The response to Gov. Walker’s insanity has been as inspiring as the protesters in Egypt, and it is a joy to see workers, students, and progressives of all stripes spontaneously say “NO!” in a very loud voice. In fact, it is clear that protesters in Wisconsin and Ohio were inspired by the Egyptian democracy movement; some folks were even carrying Egyptian flags. The fact that the protests are spreading

198 Methods of Taking Nonviolent Action

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From DR. GENE SHARP
Nonviolent Action
Thanks to Ron Epstein

[These methods were compiled by Dr. Gene Sharp and first published in his 1973 book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action. (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973). The book outlines each method and gives information about its historical use.]

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION

Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures

Do-it-yourself GMO labels: Show grocers how to label their GMO and factory farmed foods!

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Natural News’ Mike Adams joins OCA director Ronnie Cummins for a live discussion on the myth of “coexistence” between organics and GMOs, and how grassroots action and truth-in-labeling can start to drive Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops and foods off the market. This is the first in a series.

When: February 24th, 2011, 7 p.m. Central Time

Registration for this free event is limited. Please visit http://www.organicconsumers.org/art… to register.

This will be a call-in event, and it is an action-oriented effort to help educate the public about the GMOs in foods that are being sold right now, in grocery stores and even health food stores across America (and around the world).

Our goal in this campaign is to protect consumers from the genetically engineered ingredients in their foods. At the very least, consumers have a right to know when they’re buying GMOs, and that’s why the honest, accurate labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients is something that consumers must now demand from the food companies.

The FDA, the USDA, and of course the big food companies all want to keep their GMOs as their “dirty little secret,” hoping you won’t notice the altered ingredients in the food supply. We aim to expose that secret and achieve full disclosure regarding GMOs in manufactured foods.

Join us by registering for this free, limited event:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/art…
~~

Dave Smith: Join Progressives United. I have. (Updated)

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From DAVE SMITH
Ukiah
(Progressives United Website)

[Update: Feingold on Rachel Maddow]

Our Mission

In January of 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision greatly expanded the corrupting influence of corporate special interests. It’s time we fought back. Launched one year after that decision, Progressives United will:

1. Empower Americans to stand up against the exploding corporate influence in Washington, especially since the Citizens United decision.

2. Hold our representatives accountable to every constituent, regardless of economic class or insider access.

3. Support national, state, and local candidates who stand up for our progressive ideals.

Moving Forward

On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court issued a historic decision in Citizens United v. FEC that undercut one hundred years of precedent, and declared that corporations have the same political rights as individuals.  Progressives United is founded in the wake of that disastrous decision to fight back by empowering Americans to take back their right to free speech and fair elections.

Progressives United aims to build a massive grassroots effort dedicated to

Transition: Potato Day in Stroud, England

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[Watch this sweet little film... -DS]
~

From THE ORGANIC CENTER

Why Organic Potatoes?

Whenever I’m at the grocery store trying to decide if organic potatoes are worth the price, I always think about what Jeffrey Moyer, farm director of the Rodale Institute and chair of the National Organic Standards Board, once said: “I’ve talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals.”

Root vegetables absorb whatever is in the soil. So, if herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides are in the soil, they become part of the potato, too. In other words, you can’t wash it off. In addition, potatoes are treated with fungicides during the growing season, and then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. Once the potatoes are harvested, they are often treated again with more herbicides to prevent them from sprouting.

What to do? Grow and buy organic. If the farmer growing the potato with all those chemicals won’t eat it, why should you?
~
See also: Transition Ukiah!
…and Mendocino Coast Transition
…and Gardens Project Mendo
~~

UK: The fat cats are robbing all our money

From UK UNCUT

[A cabinet of millionaires in England have decided that libraries, healthcare, education funding, voluntary services, sports, the environment, the disabled, the poor and the elderly must pay the price for the recklessness of the rich. The British youth are taking them on. When will our youth "get up, stand up"? -DS]

UK Uncut was born in a shop doorway.

On October 27th 2010, just one week after George Osborne announced the deepest cuts to public services since the 1920s, around 70 people ran along Oxford Street, entered Vodafone’s flagship store and sat down. We had shut down tax-dodging Vodafone’s flagship store.

At that point, UK Uncut only existed as #ukuncut, a hashtag someone had dreamed up the night before the protest. As we sat in the doorway, chanting and handing leaflets to passersby,