'Surround Congress' Madrid clashes: Dramatic footage of night violence in Spain - YouTube

Tragic, tragic, tragic... just people, fellow humans finding life impossible to agree with under the governments we have. Police position needs to be addressed - why is halting free-speech so important? Why are governments NOT engaging in diplomatic talks with us rather than hiding behind police? What next for those of us who disagree with our governments but are offered only clones on ballott papers every few years as an alternative? At what stage do law-abiding citizens refuse to acknowledge any more, those laws used against us by those we consider corrupt?

We are simply saying LOUDLY and in our masses, that the system is corrupted by big business and that the health, welfare and rights of the people come second to profits. No justice, no peace...

'Surround Congress' Madrid clashes: Dramatic footage of night violence in Spain - YouTube

On The Soapbox: Symptoms & Disease | The Occupied Times

It’s been a pretty life changing nine months since I took a tent and became a part of the Occupy movement in London. Following eviction I came home to Blackpool in Lancashire and found Cuadrilla (mining company) breezing through with plans for shale gas exploration and exploitation of the Bowland Shale in the region known as The Fylde; a well-populated area of prime agriculture and tourism. It feels like having been a part of tackling the primary cause of society’s illness with others in the Occupy movement, I now find myself with equally determined others, dealing with a symptom; albeit a really urgent one that must be tackled now, before any further harm is allowed to be done both here and in the rest of the UK. 

I sense a futility in easing symptoms, whilst the disease rages on; damaging so many aspects of society and am torn as to how to divide energy and time. It is as if involvement with single-issue (symptom) fights, entangles us in something that is all-consuming and leaves little left for cause-of-disease fighting. I haven’t found a balance or solution; just keep counting on winning the battle against fracking, quickly and cleanly with a sharp slice of truth through the ludicrous PR, marketing and powerful lobbying. 

Protest groups are always with us - whilst enduring solutions remain evasive

I wonder if this is what always happens? Do people act when they recognise a danger/injustice and then get so caught up, they cannot get out and tackle the true cause? Maybe that's why protest groups are always with us and enduring solutions, evasive? The struggle against corporate greed’s unjust control over our governments is fought in pockets of resistance and I see the Occupy Movement as a potential solution; through its ability to unify these pockets and focus attention on the cause rather than the symptoms.

There is though an advantage of being part of Occupy and then going on to join local groups that are so admirably standing their ground. The link between cause and symptom is ever-more clear and sadly, the resulting view, evenr-more ugly. Whether it’s fracking, banking, privatisation of services, LIBOR manipulation, corruption in government, dodgy election results, misleading media, intimidation of whistle-blowers and protesters, wars created for efficiency and profit in energy sector or any of the other clearly insane activities – it is the one disease of system that is at their root.

 Bloodied mothers & raping for resources

Watching the news, I’m bewildered by the tragic, confused faces of children; set against backdrops of war, with bloodied mothers by their sides. 

I don’t recognise landscapes raped for resources - being heralded as a way ‘forward’.  

I’m just plain dumb-struck that none of the bankers, financiers, lobby-loved politicians, lords or CEOs have appeared in court in light of the countless scandals (crimes) they are embroiled in.

But most of all, what I don’t understand are the people; the individuals who fulfil roles in councils, governments, banks, big media and big companies. How do these individuals carry out their soul-less tasks each day; tasks each must be aware, will eventually result in harm to people, harm to planet, harm for the future?

Whether it’s a Councillor, easily bought with promises of power; a politician no longer heeding his electorate and instead feathering his own political nest; one of the cogs in one of the wheels in some part of the financial sector that contributes to the whole that puts governments (and therefore people) in debt; or the CEO who knows the next cut to cost, though it will pay out big, may just involve a bit of risk to the environment, the people living in that environment and the future generations that were rather ‘banking’ (!) on that environment – each and every one of these people is an individual, of the whole that is ‘we the people’.

These granddads and mothers, husbands and aunts, they’re responsible for and to future generations, like the rest of us; yet, I watch their lips move and the sounds come out and I do not recognise them as being ‘people’. They are mouthpieces for whoever pays the money and seem more enslaved by their own lifestyles than those of us who haven’t clamoured up the pole to their level of ‘success’. Yet they seem trapped - too scared to slip down the pole. 

 

That there’s even a pole, disturbs me

They cling tight to their place in the hierarchy, grasp hard at the handhold in the pocket of the guy above and clench buttock cheeks in determination to remain, invisibly chained to the greasy pole marked ‘success’. But what is their success? Measured only in wealth and status perhaps it could rank them high but this measurement would be a slap in the face for fairness and true insight; it is proven (and individually known by the vast majority) that ‘success’ may include money and status but does not require it. Genuine success smells better than money and fits more comfortably than a manufactured status-suit. 

How can they do what they do, when they know (must know), what we all know? How can they tick a box that harms lots of people, places and futures? How can they give the nod to laws that make the future’s uncertainty – certain? How can they contribute to holding us on course, for ever-more unjust, abusive situations?
 

What happens when they go home? What happens when the warmth of family, pets and relaxation covers them? What happens inside their heads after having just said, “My day was fine” to someone who cares that they exist? What happens when they tuck into bed; does the dark truth of their day’s deeds finally hit them?

Originally published:

On The Soapbox: Symptoms & Disease | The Occupied Times

Films For Action Presents: The Top 100 Documentaries Inspiring the Shift to a Sustainable Paradigm

So much of worth, all in one place - highly recommended:


Films For Action Presents: The Top 100 Documentaries Inspiring the Shift to a Sustainable Paradigm

Drilling ‘high risk’ say EU’s scientists - Community - Blackpool Gazette

Drilling ‘high risk’ say EU’s scientists - Community - Blackpool Gazette

9/10

Change the nature of a day
Arc time the other way
Cease the reports
Rewind, retract, contort
The hands on the clock
Make them stop.
Hold the calendar on this page
Let 9/10 forever stay
All ghosts returned
To bodies unburned
All tears un-cried
None survived
A catastrophe that didn’t occur.
9/11’s not a word
We are still innocent
180,000 living souls still ignorant
Of the death that could have come
If some atrocity had been done
On some date not yet happened
That would have led us to attack them
And $437bn would not be allocated
For costs to the "war on terror” related
Instead Make Poverty History
Could have had $375bn maybe
That is needed to clear the debts
Of the world's poorest nations we have yet
To fulfil promises once made
In a once upon a time G8
Ali Abbas would be able to clap
At 12 years old he liked that
Along with the chance to throw a ball
Roll up his sleeves and see all
Of his arms that would no longer be
If the page turns to a day of misery
But on this day that will remain
Orphans unmade by parents sustained
Cindy Sheehan is ironing with a smile
Knowing that Casey will be home in a while
Women at work and kitchen sinks
Have never heard of Code Pink
Petitions unwritten, marches un-walked
Politicians on other subjects talk
People go to work at the towers
The skyline still has an awesome power
Its profile complete, no parts that gape
No holes in sight on familiar landscape
Twins, in tact, in sight, in view
Populated by so many who
Will be going home tonight
Everyday husbands, lovers, wives.
And all our soldiers are in training camps
Or deployed to familiar lands
Not statistics from Iraq
Or gone to Afghanistan without coming back
Our phone calls reach only one set of ears
Our media doesn’t spoon feed us on fear
Just hold on tight for a moment
And a moment more
So that now, can still be
…the day before.

...........................................

Written in 2006

EU study sparks regulation debate over ‘high-risk’ shale gas | EurActiv

EU study sparks regulation debate over ‘high-risk’ shale gas | EurActiv

Important study into shale gas by EU:
snip

"Tough new regulations could be slapped on the shale gas industry if the EU acts upon legislative and environmental failings identified in its most comprehensive analysis yet of the sector, due to be released today [7 September].

Shale gas drilling poses a ‘high risk’ to human health and the environment that is worse than that posed by other fossil fuels, according to a 300-page report prepared by the EU's environment directorate. It is also currently unregulated. "