If anything is certain from the economic destruction that has taken place over the last weeks, it is that we are all connected. What affects Wall St is affecting the rest of the world. We are in serious trouble and if we don't act quick we will see soup and bread lines again in this country. This is not a pessimistic view but rather that of realism. I am sick of hearing about the strength of the American worker, I studied economics and the American worker does not factor in here. The American worker is an innocent bystander force to watch this train wreck.
We need serious action NOW! We need to stop the bleeding, we need to freeze the markets and assess what is the best course of action, but if we continue to let the market right itself we will destroy our economy and others around the world. Throwing money at the problem is not going to change anything, hell look at the AIG crowd. They were greedy before why would they change. We need to nationalize banking, not all but most. We have done it before and we should do it again. Once things level out and start climbing again we can privatize the markets again but with much greater restrictions.
Call your Senators and please vote on November 4th!!! Please for the sake of our nation and others choose the candidate that has laid out specific policy plans to take the country in a different direction.
5 comments:
I am sorry, but if anyone thinks the Democrats are the ones siding with the people are delusional. Both the Republicans and the Democrats voted overwhelmingly for the bail out, which then put a lot of unnecessary pressure on the public. Both parties were against and are still against strict regulations, both parties are against unions, both parties get most of their funding from Wall Street and co-operations, both parties voted for the illegal war of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need alternatives! An alternative party who truly cares for the people!!!!
I am not saying that it is just Republicans to blame. Both parties have contributed to this recent mess.
The two party system is not a true democracy, and it does not truly represent all Americans. We do need alternatives, but we will not have them by Nov 4. So I recommend voting for Obama who has offers a different path than what we are on now.
FOR TREEHUGGER:
PORTERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.
The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.
Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.
Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.
"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh. "These are America's most precious resources, and they are being devastated by an unprecedented commercial enterprise conducted by armed foreign nationals. It is a huge mess."
The first documented marijuana cartels were discovered in Sequoia National Park in 1998. Then, officials say, tighter border controls after Sept. 11, 2001, forced industrial-scale growers to move their operations into the United States.
Millions of dollars are spent every year to find and uproot marijuana-growing operations on state and federal lands, but federal officials say no money is budgeted to clean up the environmental mess left behind after helicopters carry off the plants. They are encouraged that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who last year secured funding for eradication, has inquired about the pollution problems.
In the meantime, the only cleanup is done by volunteers. On Tuesday, the nonprofit High Sierra Trail Crew, founded to improve access to public lands, plans to take 30 people deep into the Sequoia National Forest to carry out miles of drip irrigation pipe, tons of human garbage, volatile propane canisters, and bags and bottles of herbicides and pesticides.
"If the people of California knew what was going on out there, they'd be up in arms about this," said Shane Krogen, the nonprofit's executive director. "Helicopters full of dope are like body counts in the Vietnam War. What does it really mean?"
Last year, law enforcement agents uprooted nearly five million plants in California, nearly a half million in Kentucky and 276,000 in Washington state as the development of hybrid plants has expanded the range of climates marijuana can tolerate.
"People light up a joint, and they have no idea the amount of environmental damage associated with it," said Cicely Muldoon, deputy regional director of the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service.
As of Sept. 2, more than 2.2 million plants had been uprooted statewide. The largest single bust in the nation this year netted 482,000 plants in the remote Sierra of Tulare County, the forest service said.
Some popular parks also have suffered damage. In 2007, rangers found more than 20,000 plants in Yosemite National Park and 43,000 plants in Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park, where 159 grow sites have been discovered over the past 10 years.
Agent Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Game estimated that 1.5 pounds of fertilizers and pesticides is used for every 11.5 plants.
"I've seen the pesticide residue on the plants," Foy said. "You ain't just smoking pot, bud. You're smoking some heavy-duty pesticides from Mexico."
Scott Wanek, the western regional chief ranger for the National Park Service, said he believes the eradication efforts have touched only a small portion of the marijuana farms and that the environmental impact is much greater than anyone knows.
"Think about Sequoia," Wanek said. "The impact goes well beyond the acreage planted. They create huge networks of trail systems, and the chemicals that get into watersheds are potentially very far-reaching — all the way to drinking water for the downstream communities. We are trying to study that now."
Thanks for the post, Anonymous. Very interesting article, and very disturbing. This is just another prime reason why the United States needs to consider the legalization and regulation of marijuana. Too bad the government will instead try to use it as a way to demonize pot smokers.
If marijuana were legal and regulated, this type of black market would be pushed out of the United States, therefore eliminating the need for such obstructive practices. If those types of chemicals are illegal in the United States, then legal and regulated growers would not be able to use them. You do not need these kinds of chemicals to grow pot, and there are plenty of environmentally friendly alternatives available. One thing we have to remember with this story is that it isn't the crop itself that is damaging our environment, it is the means by which it is grown.
Another thing this article tells me is that the "War on Drugs" is certainly not working, if environmentally devastating illegal crops are expanding in this country, as the article described, due primarily to tighter boarder control. Drug use continues to rise, violence continues to thrive off of a black market and rehabilitation and education continue to be underfunded and, in turn, ineffective. Let's do what we can to make drugs less harmful to society, since we know that there isn't anything our government can do to eliminate them completely.
I just posted in my blog an article about, why must cannabis be legalized. I have 2 young kids and for their sake I want cannabis to be treated like alcohol or cigarettes. Heavy taxation, tight control on age must be a given. But come one.... !!! Isn't it a little immature of governments around the world to treat this drug as if it's the boogie man. :)
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