Thomas: I will be cruel. Without experience there is not understanding. Without feeling there is no wisdom. Western man objectivies everything and very little touchs him. People study religion, they do not practise religion. People study anthropology, they do not sit in the woods and feel the world. People argue about abstractions, they do not test their arguments in reality. To know about nudity, you have to take your clothes off. To know about hunger you have to experience not eating. To know about spiritual experience you have to have some. To know about trade, you have to trade. In the west, we do not trade, we buy and sell. The difference is we objectify every value into the mathematics of money. The "trader" arguing with the native over the value of a beaver pelt imposed objectivity on the trade - discounting the experience of traveling through the woods, setting traps, removing the life of an animal, scraping the skin, feeling the texture and beauty of nature expressed in the fur. Discounting the stories of the beaver and their relationship with the native and the exchange of learning that each had from the spirit of the other. Trade is about the exchange of values. Western man imposes values based not on use or creation, but on potential profit. The capitalist defines the rules. The question is, "why should we play their game?" We play the game because the capitalist holds something we might value or aspire to own and he sets the terms of it's price. In most cases, the capitalist did not make the knive or the gun but was able to buy that labour and craftsmanship because they held the power of food and shelter. They did this through political systems that have the ultimate power of physical force behind them. Capitalism, as we in West know it, did not develop among indigeous people because the food supply was always free. Any native could set a snare, start a fire and harden a stick to make a spear, pick a berry or dig a root or catch a fish. Any native could sleep in a leanto, make a tent or brush shelter, build an igloo, drink water from the lake or stream. Yes, that food or shelter may not have met the standards of comfort we expect today but it allowed them that rarest of values - true freedom. Therefore, trade was about exchanges inherent in the object being traded - not objectified into an arbritrary monetary number enforced by force. As I watch Ray, twist and turn, trying to use references, scholarship and comments on his experiences to try and penetrate the objectivity of the Western mind, I feel his spirit contracting like a wild animal forced to come to terms with a cage. A the same time I sense the nobility of the spirit that tries to communicate values, relationships, experiences and histories that come from his experiences - from his families experiences, from his tribes experiences, from his race's experiences. We, temporarily, are the conquerers. That does not invalidate other truths, it just means that in the long wheel of history, at this moment our thought, our rules, our perspective is dominate. Like most conquerer's we have the arrogance of rightness - after all, science, rationalism, logic, capitalism, military prowess, legal traditions are the proof of our rightness - right? What don't we have? We don't have spirit - we study the cosmos, we don't experience the cosmos. We talk of freedom and rights - but we don't have freedom and rights except in the narrowest of definitions. You do not have the right to take food from the Earth or to use a portion of the Earth for shelter - except within the rules. Our government makes decisions for us, creates regulations that define our behavior, create mazes we must go through to recieve benefits, be they education or welfare. The native in the Council could listen and speak and then decide for himself whether to particpate. We do not have a standard of honesty, of respect for the truth. Our truth, is the truth of self service. We conceal what embarrases us, we distort what prevents our success - how many resumes do you think are truthful? I am going to close this posting with a Graffis posting that perfectly expresses the values of the West, that exemplifies the distortions we have created because we have moved out of balance with the Earth and because it points so succinctly towards the seeds of our civilizations downfall. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde From: Mark Graffis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> New market for old farts ?? Free trade or protection? Observer (London) Sunday July 25, 1999 Q: What causes as much air pollution as power station chimneys? A: Pig farms ROBIN MCKIE on how scientists have found nitrogen produced by manure on animal farms is as damaging to trees as the smoke and steam from industrial sites They are as bad for the atmosphere as belching chimney stacks and emissions from power stations. Scientists have discovered a startling new source of air pollution: pig and chicken farms. They have found that nitrogen emissions from units for intensively rearing animals are killing woods and forests at the same rate as the effects of industrial pollution. Plumes of nitrogen chemicals, mostly compounds of ammonia, have been detected pouring into the air from animal farms, stripping local coniferous forests of their pines and suffocating them. The emissions - most of them from animal farms' growing piles of manure - are causing serious damage to woodland in some areas. In Denmark and Holland, where large pig and chicken farms are a major industry, precious heathlands are being destroyed. Scientists believe agricultural pollution is now as great a threat to air quality as emissions from power plants and factories. 'Farmers have been getting away with things that no factory owner would ever be allowed to,' said Dr Phil Ineson, of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria. Ineson began his research in an attempt to study acid rain's impact on soil. 'We took crateloads of soil samples to places suffering from different sorts of environmental damage,' he said. 'We expected to find that acid rain, created by sulphur pollution from factories and power plants, would have the worst effect. In fact, nitrogen was the most damaging.' About 80 per cent of the air we breathe is made up of nitrogen (oxygen forms a large part of the remainder). In its atmospheric form nitrogen is unreactive. However, there is a chemically active type of nitrogen used in agriculture and industry and this version can cause ecological problems. Excess amounts of nitrogen-containing fertilisers are washed off fields by rain and pollute rivers, while cars and factories produce oxides of nitrogen that can lead to the build up of harmful amounts of ozone in the air. 'We knew industrial nitrogen could cause atmospheric pollution, but thought nitrogen from farms was only a threat to water supplies,' said Dr Ineson. 'However, when we followed up our soil research and looked at pig and chicken farms, we got a real surprise.' Ineson investigated one moderate-sized pig farm in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire. 'It had a only few hundred animals, but produced a colossal amount of manure. This stuff - apart from smelling horrible - was stacked in mounds and generated plumes of ammonia. 'The heat of the animals' bodies, stacked close together, was sending up a pillar of warm air and that was carrying the ammonia high into the air.' At a nearby wood, downwind of the farm, leaves and branches were found coated with ammonium sulphate. Conifers had been stripped of their pine needles and were dying. 'The wood was in a bad way,' said Dr Ineson. His team's work has been followed up by other researchers who have looked at chicken farms and again found damaging nitrogen pollution nearby. 'If you have any sensitive woodland, or sites of biological importance, you should not allow them to get downwind of a major pig or chicken farm,' he said. 'On the other hand, farms with a few pigs or chickens wandering around are not a threat.' The research suggests farms might one day have to be forced to clean up such pollution. Manure will have to be treated. 'Who pays the price for cleaning things up is a different matter,' said Dr Ineson. *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. *** --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Create a list for FRIENDS & FAMILY... ...and YOU can WIN $100 to Amazon.com. For details, go to http://www.onelist.com/info/onereachsplash3.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------
