The primary mission of the Democratic Match liberal dating service is to help you connect with other
progressive individuals for dating, chat & friendship. Do
we hate republicans and others on the political right? No. We all have family or friends
who drink the corporate cool-aid, and it is our duty as progressives to open their eyes to see that the
leadership of their once conservative
ideology has been utterly corrupted, and has led us down the road to Fascism (corporate rule) and environmental ruin - which
brings us to the second reason we created Democratic Match ... to help save the
planet!
Replant the Earth, and reverse Global Warming
"Only after the
last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been
poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught - only then will you find
that money cannot be eaten." - Cree Indian proverb
Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, we fell them down and turn
them into paper, that we may record our emptiness. - Kahlil Gibran
"To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass
is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug." - Helen Keller
"The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives." - Chinese Proverb
Our world sported globe-covering, air-giving forests just a few centuries ago... the lungs of our planet and the engines of life. Now the global forests are gone, and our climate is changing radically. The title of this chapter was 'Replant The Earth and reverse Global Warming - ridiculous? Not at all - cutting down all the planet's trees while simultaneously spewing our carbon emissions got us into this mess... undoing those 2 things will set it right. We must replace what has been lost, and return to the natural system that the planet evolved over billions of years. Too late? No.. read on....
Island Earth
As you can see by this photo, we live on a spaceship. A tiny island of life drifting through an unimaginably vast ocean of space. There is only a few thousand feet of tree-given air between us and the big Hoover in the sky. Our spaceship is built of many 'parts' - a veritable treasure trove of integral and exotic life forms unique to our planet. Nowhere else will you find a Rhinoceros, a Redwood, a Humpback Whale, or a Monarch Butterfly. Not one of Earth's life forms will you find anywhere else in the entire Universe. We are unique ~ our planet and all of it's lifeforms are utterly priceless.
3 billion years of living diversification has
led to our island's astoundingly varied and interdependent weave of life. Our human thread has long
been an integral and balanced part of this weave. We share the DNA of each and every other
living thing on this island, both plants and animals. Evolving side by side in this co-dependent embrace, we and nature are undeniably one and inseparable.
After mastering the use of tools, the human race was on - we began expanding exponentially, cutting down the world's forests, and dramatically changing Earth's evolutionary processes. In our folly we continue to eliminate thousands of threads from Earth's complex fabric of life. As John Muir said, "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world"
Fools call our subduction of the planet 'survival of the fittest' and say our domination over other life forms is simply evolution. Maybe, but when has a single species ever caused a planet-wide mass extinction of both plants and animals? When has one species ever altered the climate of the Earth? This type of 'evolution' is perverted and unprecedented, and if allowed to continue, unsurvivable.
Oily bastards, genome perverts, and politicians
The politicians and corporations who promote Earth-destroying oil, coal, and nuclear power would do the planet a great service by volunteering for a nice long trip to Mars - breathe deep arse-holes, and you'll know just how precious the environment is back home on your little island. It is not impossible to make the Earth's atmosphere and climate like that of Mars, and some seem bent on making it happen.
Exxon-Mobil for example is funding a mass disinformation campaign about global warming. Lying about something that could destroy most of the life on Earth is a moral crime of unparalleled scope. If you drive, RUN OUT OF GAS before filling up at Exxon-Mobil!
Some corporations are altering and perverting the DNA of Earth's life forms - the very building blocks of life. Incredibly irresponsible and dangerous.
Some corporations profit by removing huge
chunks of Earth's ancient living skin - thoughtlessly tearing out billions of years of natural evolution, replacing it with sterile
scars, further reducing our planet's ability to combat global warming.
Wars are fought for oil companies punch holes in the Earth
to suck up their poisonous goo which, when used as directed destroys our atmosphere and causes the global temperature increase which now threatens life on Earth. Clean, safe technologies already exist which could provide power for the entire planet without pollution. However, oil, coal, nuclear, and their puppets in government (mostly Republicans, let's face facts) will do anything to keep us from adopting these planet saving technologies - all in the name of
greed and profit. These Goober mechanics are tinkering with the very engine of our existence, and they must be stopped. Time grows short and we must act."The Earth is not dying -- it is being killed. And the people who are
killing it have names and addresses..." U-tah Phillips
Voices for the Earth
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin" - William Shakespeare
"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web,
we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect." Chief Seattle, 1855
"How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements,
breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a
thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty,
the mineral-like quality of life?" - Charles A. Lindbergh
"Take nothing but pictures.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time."
- Motto of the Baltimore Grotto
"Why should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above him when
he shows no mercy to what is under him?" - Pierre Troubetzkoy
"Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. - Juvenal
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." - John Muir
"The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children." - Paul R. Ehrlich
"The magnificence of mountains, the serenity of nature - nothing is safe from the idiot
marks of man's passing." - Loudon Wainwright
"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather
preserve its life than destroy it." - Henry David Thoreau
"We have been god-like in the planned breeding of our domesticated plants, but
rabbit-like in the unplanned breeding of ourselves." - Arnold Toynbee
"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive" - Albert Einstein
Thin Skinned
Look at the beautiful picture of Earth below - See that hazy, hair-thin blue line at the very
edge of the planet? That's our entire atmosphere. All that keeps us alive is there. It was pure just a few centuries ago.
Now it contains our car emissions, smokestack fumes,
pesticides, nuclear accidents, you name it... all we create stays right there. Ours is a closed system.
The Global Warming studies have been exhaustive and unless you believe Exxon-Mobil, the jury is in: We are
warming our planet.
Looking at how thin our atmosphere is, it is not so hard to believe.
This thin cocoon of air is created by our planet's living skin - it's forests, plants, and animals.
This skin is all that separates Earth from dead worlds like Mars or Venus.
Have you noticed that our economic system revolves
around the principle of endless human
expansion? Since we know of our planet's finite dimensions,
simple math, and a drive in rush hour traffic should convince anyone that further expansion is folly. We continue to
ignore the enormous elephant in the living room, and grow, grow, grow. Our current economic
system amounts to nothing more than a land and population pyramid scheme.
As with all pyramid schemes,
the game ends when there is no room left at the bottom - we are there. Our planet cannot support further human expansion and be expected to survive. Monsanto will tell you the Earth can comfortably hold 15 billion people. They lie. There is no reality
in the view from the top of the corporate pyramid. The Orwellian
words they use to describe their collective madness -
"Growth" and "Development" are pretty words, but hide the truth that in fact we are dismantling our planet's life-support system.
Cancer is a stupid disease. It races to it's own suicide
by multiplying until it kills it's host - thereby killing itself. We must be smarter.
6.5 Billion, and ... "Growing?"
Birth control is not rocket science.
Bush could be dropping condom-bombs all over the planet,
and we'd be loved the world over. Why do corporations and the media they own
make no mention of population control? Because more people make an ever-higher pyramid. More pop-up neighborhoods, more
Wall-Marts, more Exxon-Mobil
stations, and more people to feed their Matrix.
We have to ask ourselves, is the ever-increasing number of people needed to feed this runaway corporate train going
to make this a better world? Do Wall-Marts give us air? Does cement grow trees?
As progressive minds have done
through history, we need again to awaken the consciousness of a sleeping world.
Progressives ended slavery, enabled the vote for all people, separated the church-state unions
that gave rise to the inquisition - the list is endless. The same forces of greed,
oppression, and centralized power have run amok again, this
time in the form of corporations which have hijacked our government and the mainstream media.
Many good people are hypnotized by their subtle manipulations.
One thing is different in today's battle however. For the
first time in human history, the survival of the Earth hangs in the balance. Overly dramatic? No, it is plain
to any with eyes that see and ears that hear that the future of all life on this planet is at stake. If we fail, there will be no
other planets to move to, no rescue ships from outer space, and no second chances. This is our test. You might ask yourself... "What would
Ben Franklin do in our shoes?"
As Albert Einstein put it:
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind
of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting
us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to
free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole [of] nature in its beauty" - Albert Einstein
"When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal.
When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman" - Joseph Wood Krutch
"The command "Be fruitful and multiply" was promulgated, according to our authorities, when the population
of the world consisted of two people" - William Ralph Inge
"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of
equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.
If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos" - Edward O. Wilson
"You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the
ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your
children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children
what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls
the earth befalls the sons of the earth" - Native American Wisdom
"The victory of Christianity over paganism was the greatest psychic revolution in the
history of our culture. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to
exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects" - Lynn I. White
"The word "wilderness" occurs approximately three hundred times in the Bible,
and all its meanings are derogatory" - René Dubos
"A wee child toddling in a wonder world.... I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the
natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds,
the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism,
then at present, at least, I am a Pagan" - Zitkala-Sa
A World of Possibilities.
Is it so hard to imagine an economy based on
sustainability instead of "growth?" Human quality over quantity? Green planet over green paper?
If we decide to focus our considerable creative powers on healing the
damage we have done, we may yet avert global disaster
and redeem ourselves as the caretakers of a priceless planet.
In exchange for our efforts, we will save millions of life forms unique in the
universe (including our own), and extend indefinitely our stay on this eden of the heavens. We can easily switch from an oil economy to
an eco-economy, utilizing clean energy resulting in clean air to breathe, clean
drinkable water flowing in every river once again (yes, that's what we said),
truly healthy forests,
and a reduced and sustainable human population once more in balance with the Earth.
Solutions?
Logic would dictate putting back that which has
been taken - pretty radical huh? Since the problem was caused by cutting
down all the trees, overpopulating, and pumping our air and water full of pollutants,
does it not make sense that reversing course will solve the problems? Too late you say? No!
Humans: Stewards of the Earth.
Overpopulation is the root cause of most of our environmental (and societal) problems, yet is incredibly easy to fix - if we would simply address the issue honestly. If the world simply embraced a two-adult, two-child policy, we could
immediately halt human population expansion! Want more than 2 kids? Wonderful - Adopt!
The simplest of mathematics tells us that we are no longer free to procreate without limits within the confines of this once finely-balanced ecosystem.
Trees: The lungs of our planet.
Did you know it takes between 2 and 5 tons of fuel oil or
liquid petroleum (propane) to heat an average home in the eastern United States for a year.
It takes only 6 one-foot diameter trees to do the
exact same job - cleanly. "Burn wood" you say? How primitive!
Burning non-renewable pollutants like oil and coal is much more primitive. Burning just one pound of
dried wood gives
off 7,700 BTU's of heat / power.
Trees and other biomass fuels like hemp are completely clean and cyclical energy sources -
you burn them, and the next generation of growth takes the gases back in
and gives us oxygen in return. The
ashes from the burn are returned to the soil as fertilizer.
There is no waste. There
is no pollution, and it's 100% free - you can grow this fuel in your backyard, and hang your hammock
under it besides. Tell Exxon to kiss your ashes... grow some trees!!!
The money America has spent invading Iraq would have
purchased enough wind generators and solar panels to power our entire planet, and a state-of-the-art wood furnace for each
and every home in the United States.
If we had a government that wasn't run by corporations they would immediately issue a call
for action to the nation's people to address global warming, and we would rise to the challenge.
We can quickly do some very simple things to save ourselves, as well as the
sorry bastards who will fight us every step of the way (dittoheads, etc..). First, the
governments and people of the world must start a planet-wide re-planting campaign.
Aerial seeding could potentially re-cover the world with trees in just a few short years,
and the planet will again be able to breathe.
Planting programs would cost a fraction of our collective
military budgets, and what a superb paradigm shift - imagine using the world's warplanes
to seed the Earth, uniting the world in the last war.. a war on ignorance and self destruction.
Besides fueling the new clean-burning furnaces our Iraq money
just bought us, these new trees would create huge amounts of habitat
for wildlife, and replace most of our current uses of coal. Trees can
be harvested for fuel without being cut
down - you simply take half the limbs, and leave the rest.
This method allows 10 times the growth rate over new trees, as a newly trimmed mature tree will
suddenly have twice the root
system it needs for it's remaining branches, allowing for a phenomenal
re-growth rate.
Water: Blood of the Earth.
Once solar, wind, hydrogen, and biomass (wood/hemp etc) are adopted as the world's power sources, the need for hydroelectric dams will completely disappear.
The rivers can be reverted back to their original state, allowing them once again to function as the unclogged arteries
that bring this precious lifeblood to ecological sub-systems all over our island.
Fish will again be able to swim upstream, and the health and vitality will again return to the areas that have been robbed of their natural heritage of free flowing water.
Animals: The thinking, breathing, playing, feeling, mobile miracles of our
world. Those that remain can be
rewarded for surviving our profound shortsightedness by being re-introduced
to unfenced and growing - not shrinking - wild places.
Where neighborhoods exist, indigenous flora and fauna can be
re-introduced, re-creating to some degree what evolved there.
Even in the cities we could do wonderful things if we
put our minds to it. If having trees and animals in our yards will help save
 the planet, would
we do it? It would require an end to the demonetization of nature and animals.
It is laughable that the
planet's most dangerous creatures are terrified of almost everything in nature - spiders,
bees, bats, wolves, you name it... the list of our animal phobias is nearly
endless. Hey Hollywood - quit making crappy movies about killer animals.
Fact: Total human deaths by venomous
animals in the United States was 68 in 1996. Total non-venomous deaths caused by
animals was 201. Contrast this with 20,634 homicides in the same year, and it
becomes pretty clear who the dangerous animals are
Weak minds, and the corporate powers that pollute them will certainly tell
you you're nuts when you espouse progressive and sustainable world ideas. They
will call you "environmental
wacko," or "tree hugger." Wear them proudly, as the future will know the truth and smile
upon you for what you do today.
One need only look at the global destruction caused by corporate interests, and it
 becomes
immediately apparent who the true environmental wackos are.
We lose our way when we try to separate ourselves from nature.
"The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart, away from nature,
becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon
led to lack of respect for humans too." - Luther Standing Bear.
We must "come home." We must re-integrate with the natural world from whence we came. Many of the ills
of modern society can be traced directly to the severing
of our ties with our natural roots.
Anyone who has ever walked in a forest can attest to the power of peace and
healing to be found there. Would it not be wonderful to make that weekend
get-away into nature as simple as walking out your
back door?
We can easily make these changes. It will take enlightenment, world awareness, and
a permanent mindset of co-operation and peace. Borders and flags must be retired
and left to an ignorant past.
All that has been damaged can be healed. All that can be dreamed can be done.
As one world-changing progressive mind told us so
eloquently in song, "there are no problems, only solutions."
Corporate Person-hood
Pollution and a slew of other problems will be largely solved the minute
corporations are forever removed from the halls and pockets
of our governments. Corporate influence on public policy maker's decisions
is the cancer eating our democracy.
At the heart of the problem are
Please read about them and write,
demand, picket,
surround, shut down -
whatever it takes! Our lives and a 3-billion year
miracle hang in the balance.
More voices for the Earth
"Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals "love" them. But
those who respect their natures and wish
to let them live normal lives, love them more" - Edwin Way Teale
"A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule"
- Michael Pollan
"In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be
static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet
in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me"
- John Fowles
"Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand"
- Henry David Thoreau
"The mind, in proportion as it is cut off from free communication with nature,
with revelation, with God, with itself,
loses its life, just as the body droops when debarred from the air and the cheering light from heaven"
- William Channing
"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air
and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning
walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night;
to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are
some of the rewards of the simple life."
- John Burroughs
"Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were
in their natural habitat.
If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all" - Michael Fox
"When we heal the earth, we heal ourselves." - David Orr
"There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that
heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet." - Brooke Medicine Eagle
"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a
green thing which stands in their way" - William Blake
"Only to the white man was nature a 'wilderness'." - Luther Standing Bear
"If we once -- and for so long -- lived in balance with nature and each
other, we should be able to do so again." - John Zerzan
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