Tuesday, February 26, 2019

'Everyone. Needs. To. Watch...' Democrat Dianne Feinstein Explain to Children Why She Won't Back Green New Deal

This is a meeting between neoliberal Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who justifies the toxic and deadly status quo, and courageous young people who hold exponentially greater consciousness, wisdom, and understanding of the radical changes needed to give them the potential of a habitable planet. These adults who deny these kids what they urgently need to have a future are beyond dangerous, ignorant, inhumane, and brutal. They have to go! — Molly
I also appreciate Norman Solomon’s words:
“Longer version video of Feinstein explaining to young people why it's not a priority for them to have a future. Early on, when she says there's not enough money for the Green New Deal, a child says that money could be used from the military -- which sure makes sense to me!”




LIVE: We’re inside Senator Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco office with 15 middle and high schoolers asking her to stand with our generation and support AOC and Sen. Ed Markey's #GreenNewDeal resolution.
Watch her condescending response, share with your friends, and CALL her office at (415) 393-0707 to ask her to support the Green New Deal!
*****
 "This is a fight for our generation's survival. Her reaction is why young people desperately want new leadership in Congress." —Sunrise Movement

By
As young people from around the world are marching in the streets and calling on adults and elected leaders to act urgently to address runaway global warming and the climate crisis, this video of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) explaining to youth activists in her office on Friday why she won't back the joint congressional resolution on the Green New Deal has to be seen in order to be believed.
Posted to Twitter by the Sunrise Movement, which had organized the office visit as part of its campaign to garner support for the resolution, the video shows Feinstein responding with "smugness and disrespect" when the group explains that while their futures are the ones that will be impacted the most the scientific community has said there is just 12 years for radical transformation to take place.
According to Sunrise:
Children as young as 7 reminded Senator Feinstein that their generation will be most impacted by the effects of climate change and that she must stand with her constituents.
The Senator responded by asking for their ages, stating: "Well, you did not vote for me."
"I’ve been doing this for 30 years," Feinstein says in the video. "You come in here and say it has to be my way or the highway. I don't respond to that...I know what I'm doing. Maybe people should listen a little bit."
Watch it:
"Everyone needs to watch this video of  disparaging literal children from  calling on her to support  and ’s Green New Deal," said Waleed Shahid of the Justice Democrats.
In the wake of the video, Varshini Prakash, co-founder and executive of the Sunrise Movement, let it be known how disgusted she was with the way Feinstein treated the young activists in her office:
Author and activist Naomi Klein also reposted the video and simply said: "Everyone. Needs. To. Watch. It."

Updated (2/23):
In response to some people criticizing the original video the group tweeted as being a selectively-editing version, Sunrise later issued this tweet along with a link to the full video:
Watch the full 15-minute video for yourself below:
And on Saturday, Prakash posted this subsequent message further reflecting on the encounter with Feinstein:
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Vandana Shiva: We Must Fight Back Against the 1 Percent to Stop the Sixth Mass Extinction

An excellent, illuminating, and incredibly important interview with Vandana Shiva. — Molly


 New research finds at least a third of the Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate change, even if the world’s most ambitious environmental reforms are implemented. A report released earlier this month by the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could lead to mass population displacements, as well as catastrophic food and water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans from Afghanistan to Burma. More than a billion-and-a-half people depend on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks. We speak with world-renowned environmental leader and ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva about climate change, seed sovereignty and her new book, “Oneness vs. the 1%.” Shiva is an Indian scholar, physicist, and food sovereignty and seed freedom advocate. She was was born in Doon Valley in the Himalayan foothills.

Transcript: 

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. A shocking new report finds at least a third of the Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate change, even if the world’s most ambitious environmental reforms are implemented. The report released Monday by The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment is the culmination of half a decade’s work by over 200 scientists, with an additional 125 experts peer reviewing their work.

It warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could lead to mass population displacements, as well as catastrophic food and water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans from Afghanistan to Burma. The region is home to the most ice in the world, after Antarctica and the Arctic. And over a billion-and-a-half people depend on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks.

We turn now to the world-renowned environmental leader and ecologist, who was born in Doon Valley in the Himalayan foothills, Dr. Vandana Shiva. She’s an Indian scholar and physicist, as well as a food sovereignty and seed freedom advocate. Dr. Shiva is also an alternative globalization author who’s written more than 20 books. Her latest, Oneness vs. the 1% and Who Really Feeds the World? She founded Navdanya, “nine seeds,” a movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds. In 1993, Dr. Shiva was recipient of the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the Right Livelihood Award.

Vandana Shiva, welcome back to Democracy Now!

VANDANA SHIVA: My joy to be with you again, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. The title of this book, Oneness vs. the 1%, explain.

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, oneness is the recognition that, A, we are part of one planet, and we are one humanity. And unless we live with that consciousness and shape every moment of our production and consumption with that consciousness, we are going to destroy ourselves, which we are. The melting of the glaciers is one of the very severe indicators.

The 1 percent, of course, is the symbol of the concentration of wealth under the rules of the neoliberal economies, that are basically, on the one hand, turning every natural resource into a war zone. Even the Venezuelan issue is really a war over oil.

But war over seeds, that’s my life’s work, to keep seeds free, because they literally are a war over control of seeds, by a poison cartel of three—Monsanto and Bayer, Syngenta and ChemChina, Dow and DuPont—all of them with their roots in Hitler’s Germany and finding chemicals to kill people. No wonder they’re still killing people. No wonder they’re killing our butterflies and our bees and our pollinators.

And every indicator is showing we are not just in a severe climate catastrophe; we are in the sixth mass extinction. And both the species extinction and the climate catastrophe are two sides of the same coin.

To continue the transcript, and for the original, please go here: https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/22/vandana_shiva_we_must_fight_back?fbclid=IwAR3Cmh96cttffOJMFkOFwoYcNrW-oPGTl_2uaN88VDO9LKO1NP9FWX4zRkA
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Mary Oliver: On Meditating, Sort Of


Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
if you entertain a certain strict posture.
Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
So why should I think I could ever be successful?
Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
even better place — half asleep — where the world,
spring, summer, autumn, winter —
flies through my mind in its
hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.
So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.
Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints —
all that glorious, temporary stuff.
— Mary Oliver
From Devotions: The Selected Poems
of Mary Oliver

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Mary Oliver: This Morning


This morning the redbirds' eggs
have hatched and already the chicks
are chirping for food. They don't 
know where it's coming from, they 
just keep shouting, "More! More!"
As to anything else, they haven't 
had a single thought. Their eyes 
haven't yet opened, they know nothing 
about the sky that's waiting. Or
the thousands, the millions of trees.
They don't even Know they have wings.

And just like that, like a simple
neighborhood event, a miracle is
taking place.

— Mary Oliver
From Devotions: The Selected Poems
of Mary Oliver

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)