Thursday, January 3, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Hedges writes, "The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the agriculture industry has a death rate seven times higher than the average rate for most industries." The farm workers perform grueling work for 10, 12 hours a day in the fields often covered in pesticides in sometimes extreme weather conditions. These workers are paid very low wages which allow only the most subsistent living, if that, often sleeping on the woods or incarcerated by crew leaders in confined accommodations so they cannot flee.
Here, in Brockport, we eat our cheap tomatoes in February because of the oppressive conditions which the farm laborers in Florida endure. We also see these folks when they come north in the summer to work in our fields here in the Brockport area. Tom Rivers does an excellent job documenting their work here in his book, Farm Hands, which is available at the Lift Bridge Book Shop.
While our nation has been very inhospitable to undocumented farm laborers, the fact is their labor is needed if we are going to continue to eat cheap produce. Americans are huge hypocrites when they stigmatize and mistreat the very people who do the hard, dirty work, they are not willing or are unable, because of their poor physical conditioning, to do themselves.
Farm workers deserve better working conditions, benefits, and most importantly, to be treated with dignity. Here in Brockport they live in fear, and last year the Bienvenido celebration was canceled for the first time in many years, because of fear of border patrol harassment were the farm workers to gather in public.
Congress has yet to pass a humane and viable law to manage the millions of undocumented but badly needed and hard working immigrants among us. We should promote and affirm justice, equity, and compassion in our human relations and when it comes to farm laborers, we have failed because of economic pressures which, for the most part, are invisible to most Brockporters.
Let us become aware of the plight of farm workers and celebrate their hard work and gifts which make our quality of life possible eating fresh vegetables all year around.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
" All sentient beings in this world have perfect wisdom and complete virtue, they simply do not know it."
Buddha
"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance."
A Course In Miracles
Let us resolve to remove the blocks to the awareness of love's presence in our lives in Brockport, NY during this year of 2013.
Buddha
"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance."
A Course In Miracles
Let us resolve to remove the blocks to the awareness of love's presence in our lives in Brockport, NY during this year of 2013.
Chuang-Tzu
Dad what was the beginning of the world?
It was a twinkling in the eye of God, sweetheart.
What does that mean?
It means that God is love and love has no beginning or end. It just exists. We don't know why. It is simply our inheritance. Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present. Beginnings and endings were created by humans. They do not exist in the mind of God. Sometimes you will know this when you experience the Holy Instant, when time stands still, when you get caught in the flow and when you come back to time's awareness you say, "My golly where has the time gone!?" The answer is that it didn't go anywhere, we simply have returned to our self consciousness and will start arbitrarily marking time again.
Wow!
Yeah Wow! How are things in Brockport?
Monday, December 31, 2012
"Elected officials at the state and federal level are paid employees of the corporate state. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the front group for the major corporations in this country, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Chevron, News Corp, spent more money on the 2010 elections than the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined. A staggering ninety-four percent of the Chamber's contributions went to politicians who deny the existence of climate change." p. 129
"The coal companies write the laws. They control local and state politicians. They destroy the water tables, suck billions of dollars' worth of coal out of the state (West Virginia), and render hundreds of acres uninhabitable." p. 128
West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the United States and its beautiful Appalachin Mountains are being destroyed by the coal companies who have no interest in the environment or the people or other living creatures who live in those mountains. The interest of the coal company is purely financial profit.
Hedges quotes Patty Sebok, a resident of the mountains,
"A lot of people didn't want to believe their water was bad because they are coal mining families," she says. They just don't want to hear it, because, I mean, it's a hard choice when you gotta make a living, or you gotta say you water is bad from the company they're working for. They're scared".
While we don't have mountains we do have gas and the gas companies what to destroy our water tables, pollute our land, fracking for gas. They have a huge lobby in Albany. Our Senator Maziarz has the largest campaign fund in the State because of utility contributions to his campaign fund. Maziarz is not working for his constituents in Western New York, he is working for the utility companies and for a profit and money the environment in Western New York can be put at risk and destroyed. Keep your eye on the 1% willing to sell the well being of the earth out from under us for their profit.
"The coal companies write the laws. They control local and state politicians. They destroy the water tables, suck billions of dollars' worth of coal out of the state (West Virginia), and render hundreds of acres uninhabitable." p. 128
West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the United States and its beautiful Appalachin Mountains are being destroyed by the coal companies who have no interest in the environment or the people or other living creatures who live in those mountains. The interest of the coal company is purely financial profit.
Hedges quotes Patty Sebok, a resident of the mountains,
"A lot of people didn't want to believe their water was bad because they are coal mining families," she says. They just don't want to hear it, because, I mean, it's a hard choice when you gotta make a living, or you gotta say you water is bad from the company they're working for. They're scared".
While we don't have mountains we do have gas and the gas companies what to destroy our water tables, pollute our land, fracking for gas. They have a huge lobby in Albany. Our Senator Maziarz has the largest campaign fund in the State because of utility contributions to his campaign fund. Maziarz is not working for his constituents in Western New York, he is working for the utility companies and for a profit and money the environment in Western New York can be put at risk and destroyed. Keep your eye on the 1% willing to sell the well being of the earth out from under us for their profit.
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