Greenspiraton News
I receive an email regularly called Greenspiration News
Here is the latest edition:
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Help Haiti - Drop the Debt - Sign the Petition
Cancel Haiti's existing debt and ensure new aid is provided in the form of grants.
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Statement by the Canadian Peace Alliance
Humanitarian relief urgently needed in Haiti, not militarization of aid
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Where Was the World When Haiti Really Needed It?
Why did it take a natural tragedy for this? Haiti's sorry history of American occupation, brutal dictatorial and military rule, the flood of refugees trying to escape the nation's destitution, the perennial food crisis's, the wave of devastating hurricanes that tore through the country in one month in 2008, the US, Canada and France's meddling in the nation's internal politics, and the grinding poverty is well known.
Haiti's corrupt, repressive military rulers and government officials get standard blame for the country's chronic poverty and bankruptcy. There's much truth to that. But Haiti is also a relentless victim of crushing and never ending debt servitude to the IMF and foreign banks, vicious labor exploitation, and the blind eye US aid policies that stunt Haiti's farm and manufacturing growth.
The nation's debt burden would sink virtually any developing nation. Haiti is compelled to shell out nearly $1 million a week to pay off its debt to the World Bank and the IMF; debt incurred by the Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier regimes and their successor military governments in the early 1990s propped up by the US. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Where-Was-the-World-When-H-by-earl-ofari-hutchin-100114-591.html
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Our role in Haiti's plight
Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
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There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
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Cuba is Missing... From US Reports on the International Response to Haiti’s Earthquake
In fact, left unmentioned is the reality that Cuba already had over 400 doctors posted to Haiti to help with the day-to-day health needs of this poorest nation in the Americas, and that those doctors were the first to respond to the disaster, setting up a hospital right next to the main hospital in Port-au-Prince which collapsed in the earthquake.
Far from “doing nothing” about the disaster as the right-wing propagandists at Fox-TV were claiming, Cuba has been one of the most effective and critical responders to the crisis, because it had set up a medical infrastructure before the quake, which was able to mobilize quickly and start treating the victims. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/15-6
----------Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA
Why the Blood Is on Our Hands
In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates. Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty.
So the question is relevant. How'd Haiti become so poor?
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Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again
Journalist and author Naomi Klein spoke in New York last night and addressed the crisis in Haiti: “We have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy—which is part natural, part unnatural—must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interest of our corporations. This is not conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.”http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/14/naomi_klein_issues_haiti_disaster_capitalism
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Food Not Troops for Haiti! End the Military Occupation!
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What You Can Do to Help Haiti
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NO to prorogation!
YES to democracy!
Pissed off about the prorogation of Canadian Parliament? Help send a clear message to Prime Minister Harper: take to the streets on Sat. Jan. 23.
Sat. Jan. 23 Nationwide rallies - 50 cities across Canada take to the streets!
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First Prorogue, then Eviscerate
Harper's agenda has a simple goal: destroy the Canadian social safety net.
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‘Petro-pirates’ robbing Alberta’s resources
Flushing justice down the pipeline with Wiebo Ludwig’s arrest
Why is a bomber targeting EnCana's oil facilities and why is the RCMP targeting Wiebo Ludwig? Because Alberta is not a democratic province. It is a province controlled by international corporations that see profit and extraction of natural resources as their prime object.
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Mawkish, maybe. But Avatar is a profound, insightful, important film
- By George Monbiot
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Investors urge governments to act on climate change
Investors say hands are tied until governments act
Investors representing $13 trillion in assets are calling on governments around the world to act more decisively to adopt policies to address climate change, saying they are vowing to respond with a windfall of private investments to finance renewable and efficient energy.
"We are ready and willing to up the ante to finance the transition to a low carbon global economy, but you need to have the courage to act," Mindy Lubber, the president of investor-environmentalist coalition Ceres, said at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1423262220100114?type=marketsNews
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Pick-your-own vegetables to replace flowers in high street
Climate change and food shortage issues prompt Lancashire town to consider growing edible crops in public
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The first decade of the twenty-first century was the hottest since recordkeeping began in 1880. The year 2005 was the hottest on record, while 2007 and 2009 tied for second hottest. In fact, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record occurred in the past decade.
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Landmark Ruling: animals fed on GM components ARE different
In a landmark ruling, the NZ Commerce Commission has accepted evidence from Prof Jack Heinemann, from an exhaustive review of the literature and on the basis of his own extensive professional experience, that animals fed on GM components ARE different from those which are reared using non-GM feed. This is a direct challenge to EFSA and FSA, who have maintained consistently that there are no differences between GM- fed and non-GM-fed animals, and that there is therefore no need for labelling or segregation of feed supplies to meet consumer demand for GM-free products.
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MSC/ES – Multiple Chemical Sensitivities /Environmental Sensitivities
People with any other disability are allowed appropriate health care and related aids, tax breaks, subsidies, insurance benefits, accommodations, and accessible housing. People with chemical injury, with MCS/ES, are denied access and even obstructed at every turn.
Linda Sepp lives in Toronto, disabled and housebound from severe Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Environmental Sensitivities, Fibromyalgia, and Electro HyperSensitivity. Read her blog here:http://lindasepp.wordpress.com/
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Naomi Klein: How Corporate Branding Took Over the White House
Ten years after the publication of "No Logo", Klein looks at how Obama created a brand that won him the Presidency. Will his failure to live up to his lofty brand cost him?
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HOME
For those who have not yet seen this movie, "Home" is a visually stunning, educational and brutally honest depiction about the impact of our lifestyles on our planet. I’ve circulated the link before, but it deserves a second announcement.
It’s 93 minutes, and you can watch it online here:
So, this begs the question - the Star must have got the number of at least 7,000 for the Toronto rally, so - why did they report much less? Either they got it mixed up with the Ottawa number, which was about 3,000, or, they want to downplay the rallies. Or, maybe it was both these reasons. Regardless, if they do publish a correction, it will be buried and un-noticed by most readers.
Reason for downplaying the rallies? They, like the other large media companies, are large corporations. And Harper gave large corporations many billions of dollars in tax decreases over the past few years. (So much so that we will now see a great reduction in services as a result). The Star does not want to bite the hand that feeds it.