Currently Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals By Michael Pollan see related

Food, Fodder or Fuel?

     The true test of spring's arrival is not so much the warmer days (although the warm days and blue skies are Mother Nature's rekindling of our hearts and souls) but, the  return of the glorious warm evenings...TheFlowerDoctor was sitting out on the back porch with BusterBrowne as the sun was setting in the west. BusterBrowne fondly remembered those warm evenings from previous years and always looked forward to a night time story from TheFlowerDoctor..."Tell me a story, FD! Make it a good one and try not to be too corny!" FD rolled over in laughter, "Well, guess what BB, I have spent the week reading and researching all about ethanol and all I have for you are corny stories! Now that is the true meaning of laughing out loud." BB rolled his eyes and was not totally thrilled anymore, but; told FD to continue....   

     "A long time ago, when the Indians were first made, one man lived alone, far from any others. He did not know fire, and so he lived on roots, bark, and nuts. This man became very lonely for companionship. He grew tired of digging roots, lost his appetite, and for several days lay dreaming in the sunshine. When he awoke, he saw someone standing near and, at first, was very frightened. But when he heard the stranger's voice, his heart was glad, and he looked up. He saw a beautiful woman with long light hair! 'Come to me,' he whispered. But she did not, and when he tried to approach her, she moved farther away. He sang to her about his loneliness, and begged her not to leave him. At last she replied, 'If you will do exactly what I tell you to do, I will also be with you.' He promised that he would try his very best. So she led him to a place where there was some very dry grass. 'Now get two dry sticks,' she told him, 'and rub them together fast while you hold them in the grass.'  Soon a spark flew out. The grass caught fire, and as swiftly as an arrow takes flight, the ground was burned over. Then the beautiful woman spoke again: 'When the sun sets, take me by the hair and drag me over the burned ground.'  'Oh, I don't want to do that!' the man exclaimed. 'You must do what I tell you to do,' said she. 'Wherever you drag me, something like grass will spring up, and you will see something like hair coming from between the leaves. Soon seeds will be ready for your use.' The man followed the beautiful woman's orders. And when the Indians see silk on the cornstalk, they know that the beautiful woman has not forgotten them."

     BusterBrowne liked this story, it wasn't the usual; 'gotcha story' that TheFlowerDoctor always seemed to catch him off guard with. BB asked FD, "You always eat alot of corn and I remember that last summer you were complaining about all the bad corn that was in the grocery stores...you said that the only good corn you had was in August, when the Michigan corn hit the market." TheFlowerDoctor nodded in agreement "They say that standard sweet corn isn't grown by many farmers these days and prefer Supersweet corn with its longer shelf life and bolder taste. Michigan produces over 10,000 acres of sweet-corn for fresh consumption alone. Summer isn't summer in the Midwest without fresh sweet corn, and despite its popularity as a backyard garden crop, it can be a profitable venture on a large scale. Like any crop, though, sweet corn poses its own special challenges. Harvesting by hand is necessary to provide consumers with unblemished, injury-free ears, but it's also labor-intensive, expensive and grueling work in the midsummer heat." 

      MOONFLOWER chides in: "Indians in the Americas were growing maize (corn) extensively long before the discovery of these continents by Europeans. Archaeological studies indicate that corn was cultivated in the Americas at least 5600 years ago. The exact origin of corn is unknown as the plant is found only under cultivation. The probable center off origin is the Central American and Mexico region.

     Three major types of corn are grown in the United States. Grain or field corn is grown annually for grain on from 55 to 60 million acres, with seed production in excess of 4 billion bushels; and in addition, around 8 million acres of this type are harvested for silage. Sweet corn, used mainly as food, is grown on around 650,000 acres. Popcorn, also used mainly for food, is grown on from 175,000 to 200,000 acres. Human consumption of corn and cornmeal constitutes a staple food in many regions of the world.  Corn meal is made into a thick porridge in many cultures: from the polenta of Italy, the angu of Brazil, the mamaliga of Romania, to mush in the U.S. or the food called sadza, nshima, ugali and mealie pap in Africa. It is the main ingredient for tortillas, atole and many other dishes of Mexican food, and for chicha, a fermented beverage of Central and South America. The eating of corn on the cob varies culturally. It is common in the United States but virtually unheard of in some European countries.

     Maize can also be prepared as hominy, in which the kernels are bleached with lye; or grits, which are coarsely, ground corn. These are commonly eaten in the Southeastern United States, foods handed down from Native Americans. Another common food made from maize is corn flakes. The floury meal of maize (cornmeal or masa) is used to make cornbread and Mexican tortillas. Teosinte is used as fodder, and can also be popped as popcorn.

     Increasingly ethanol is being used at low concentrations (10% or less) as an additive in gasoline (gasohol) for motor fuels to increase the octane rating, lower pollutants, and reduce petroleum use (what is nowadays also known as 'biofuels' and has been generating an intense debate regarding the human beings' necessity of new sources of  energy), on the one hand, and the need to maintain, in regions such as Latin America, the food habits and culture which has been the essence of civilizations such as the one originated in Mesoamerica. Certain commercial agreements of NAFTA has increased this debate, considering the bad labor conditions of workers in the fields, and  mainly the fact that NAFTA essentially, opened the doors to the import of corn from the United States, where the farmers who grow it receive multi-million dollar subsidies  and other government supports. When NAFTA went into effect, the price of maize in Mexico fell 70% between 1994 and 2001. The number of farm jobs dropped as well: from 8.1 million in 1993 to 6.8 million in 2002. Many of those who found themselves without work were small-scale maize growers."

     STARGAZER.........thought.........................pondered.............................and finally, replied: "Polyculture, though it often requires more labor, has several advantages over monoculture....and only through biodiversity can we assure environmental sustainability."

Currently Listening What's Going on By Marvin Gaye What's Going On see related

Earth Day - 2008

      BusterBrowne arose very early this Tuesday morning, "What a Glorious morning!!...The blue skies, the warming air, the gentle wind, The yellow seas of blooming  forsythias, the lilac leaves are unfurling, the daffodils poking their yellow and white heads up, the birds are chirping, squirrels are frolicking and the grass is so very  green!...Life is Good! I love today!" TheFlowerDoctor was having his first cup of coffee and was also thinking about the green grass, or; more specifically...'Grassroots'..."Do you know what today is?...today is a celebration of the earth...'Earth Day', there was a time when the mornings weren't always so glorious....In the 1960's, All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not...On April 22, 1970, over 20 million people across America celebrated the first Earth Day. It was a time when cities were buried under their own smog and polluted rivers caught fire. Now Earth Day is celebrated annually around the globe.  Through the combined efforts of the U.S. government, grassroots organizations, and citizens like me and you, what started as a day of national environmental recognition has evolved into a world-wide campaign to protect our global environment!"

     MOONFLOWER chides in: Technically there are two Earth Days. The equinoctial Earth Day is celebrated on the vernal equinox to mark the precise moment that spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. On equinox, night and day are in equal length anywhere on Earth. Therefore, a perfectly vertical pole standing on the equator at noon during equinox will not cast a shadow. At the South Pole the sun sets and ends a six-month-long day; while at the North Pole the sun rises, ending six months of continuous darkness. This occurs generally around March 21.                                            

     The environmental Earth Day is a global holiday celebrated every year on April 22, the idea was first introduced by John McConnell in 1969, the same year that he designed the Earth flag. United States Senator Gaylord Nelson of Clear Lake, Wisconsin called for an Environmental Teach-in or Earth Day to be held on April 22, 1970. Over 20 million people participated and it is now observed each year by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries. Senator Gaylord Nelson, an environmental activist in the U.S. Senate, took a leading role in organizing the celebration, to demonstrate popular political support for an environmental agenda. He modeled it on the highly effective Vietnam War protests of the time. The nationwide event included opposition to the Vietnam War on the agenda. Earth Day proved extremely popular in the United States and around the world. The first Earth Day, in 1970, had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform."      

          BusterBrowne raised an eyebrow..."You know FD that was way before my time!...What exactly was going on in the 60's?" TheFlowerDoctor cleared his throat and replied..."Don't get me started! But, by the latter half of 1960's, environmental pollution became a large social problem and its solution urgent. At that time, the American economy was in a high growth period, which had made the national income twice as much and brought about an unprecedented material prosperity. However, contrary to such positive effects, a lot of negative effects were also felt. For instance, our heavy and chemical industries had developed rapidly, and mining and industrial production and energy consumption had increased. Utilized raw materials had become innumerable and discharge of smoke and waste water from factories increased beyond the capacity of natural purification. Moreover, lateness in installing environmental pollution prevention facilities aggravated air and water pollution. Meanwhile, various environmental pollution cases such as organic mercury toxicoses caused by waste water from factories, asthmatic patients caused by smoke from factories, cadmium toxicoses caused by waste water from mining and industrial factories had produced extremely tragic damage to human health and life. Pollutants discharged and accumulated for a long time had also brought a serious environmental deterioration. The importance of settlement of environmental pollution problems was belatedly recognized as an urgent agenda. However, environmental pollution disputes had various distinctive difficulties. The number of victims was usually large, its damage ranged from lives and health of human beings to property and living environment, and immediate remedy especially in cases of health damage was required, but the establishment of a cause-effect relationship remained extremely difficult."

     TheFlowerDoctor was thinking out loud and told BB, "This is 2008 and we have been taking some steps backward. The most important thing that one can do is to educate oneself about the issues, and learn what steps you can take to make an impact. And, always remember; individual steps matter. A third of all carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. are the result of lifestyle decisions, in a country of 300 million people all aggregate steps are not only important, but essential to achieving emissions- reduction goals. Try to do your own independent research and to separate out what's credible. 'Environmental literacy' on your (the consumer) part is critical in this day and age of consumerism versus the environment!"

Here is a list of common 'green' myths:

(1) Natural means natural: Americans spent $7.5 billion last year on personal care products that claim to be all-natural but in many cases are not, according to the Natural  Products Association, which represents more than 10,000 natural product companies. Look closely at the labels, and many times you'll see synthetic compounds like parabens, which act as a preservative, in beauty products, and diethyl phthalate in fragrances, both of which are suspected of causing reproductive problems in humans.  There's absolutely no regulation of the term 'natural' in cosmetic product lines. Burt's Bees, one of the country's first natural cosmetics product lines, conducted a survey this  year that found that 3 out of 4 women did not know that the term 'natural' is not regulated. The Natural Products Association is spearheading the effort to develop a definition of 'natural' for food, health and beauty products. In July, the association formed a working group of other business representatives to develop a definition. They hope to be done by the end of the year. So, please; read the labels: Federal law requires ingredients to be listed on health and beauty products. If some of the ingredients on the package sound like they are petrochemicals, which are suspected of causing harm, they probably are. Research: If the salespeople at your store can't help you, contact the companies themselves. The Burt's Bees Web site, www.burtsbees.com/ thegreatergood, has compiled five questions you should ask. The Consumers Union's Web site,  www.eco-labels.org, rates products, from those that have accurate labels to those that have no independent confirmation of their content. Greenbiz, which advises businesses on how to be environmentally friendly, also scrutinizes labeling claims; www.greenbiz.com.

(2) Bottled water is good for you and the environment: The growing bottled water market has resulted each year in literally billions of plastic bottles filling landfills across the country. It also uses extensive amounts of energy to transport and filter the water which further contributes to global warming. And there's no reason for bottled water when tap water in most areas of the United States is safe for consumption. In many cases, bottled water is just filtered tap water, anyway! Still, it's estimated that every American drinks roughly 27 gallons of bottled water a year, according to the International Bottled Water Association, an industry trade group. Michigan while it has a 'bottle deposit law’ still does not put a deposit on bottled water. Many states do not even have 'bottle deposit laws'...besides the litter on the streets and roads, it is important that we remember to recycle. If you must buy bottled water, please reuse the bottle several times. Just remember from time to time to wash the bottles with soap and hot water to prevent the buildup of bacteria.

(3) Buying a new car will increase my gas mileage: The sad truth is that miles per gallon (mpg) have not increased in years. As a matter of fact, if you have a reasonably newer car; the mpg and the pollution emissions are about as good as you can get (unfortunately). Research has concluded that it takes the equivalent of a year's worth of fuel to build a new vehicle. Scientists determined this by doing a life-cycle analysis -- a detailed study of the raw materials used to build the vehicle, where the materials came from and the energy it took to collect them. This is referred to as the vehicle's embedded energy. If you car is over 10 years old, you may want to consider a hybrid vehicle. Changing your driving habits, however; can make a big difference, drive fewer miles: For example, take care of multiple chores (multi-task) on one trip instead of three or four trips. Keep tires properly inflated: This helps to save gasoline. Keep your car tuned up: This keeps the car running more efficiently, thus saving fuel and lowering emissions.

4 Organic foods are better for you: By definition, organic meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products must come from animals that are given neither antibiotics nor growth hormones. In addition, they're produced without the use of most conventional pesticides or fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients. While there is no noticeable difference in nutritional value, there are many other benefits to purchasing organic food: you avoid exposure to some potentially toxic chemicals, and raising pesticide-free crops means fewer chemicals may be carried by rainwater into waterways used for drinking water. That doesn't mean you should buy only organic fruits and vegetables, though.  Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research group in Washington, D.C., lists on its Web site non-organic fruits and vegetables that have been inspected by government agencies and found to contain little, if any, pesticide. Fruits such as avocados, cantaloupes, watermelons and bananas have a hard shell or peel that helps insulate the fruit inside. Peaches, strawberries and grapes, however, have been found to have significant pesticide residue, and it might make more sense to buy organic in these cases. Be a smart shopper: Know which fruits and vegetables have been shown to contain pesticides. Visit the Environmental Working Group's Shopper's Guide at  www.foodnews.org/. Eat locally grown food: Many local farmers markets offer produce that has been grown without the use of pesticides. Small, local farmers know that their ‘niche’ is growing healthy, organic food; as compared with the huge agribusiness companies. The Department of Agriculture maintains an online list of farmers markets  nationwide at www.ams.usda.gov/ farmersmarkets/map.htm 

Currently Reading The Last of the Mohicans (Leatherstocking Tale) By James Fenimore Cooper see related

Black Leather, Body Stockings and Barbie Dolls

     That thought did strike a chord with BusterBrowne..."Tell me about it! I had no idea three months ago that the birds would get up so early and that the robins would return and the flowers would pop up and the brown would turn to green and that I would be back out on the porch napping and sitting with you everyday! I love this fresh air and am just so happy now!" TheFlowerDoctor always appreciated BB's, sometimes; laissez-faire approach to life. FD explained to BusterBrowne that he was talking about James Fenimore Cooper: "The environmental movement, as we know it today, is founded on three basic principles: First, that American natural resources are not inexhaustible; that without conservation, we will run out of the trees, minerals, and fossil fuels that have made possible our industries and our high standard of living. Second, that our natural environment, including the wild birds, animals, and plants that live in it, is a precious part of our inheritance that must be preserved for future generations. And thirdly, that our waste of resources and the pollution caused by chemicals and poisons, endanger our very existence on this planet. These three environmental concerns were first graphically expressed to the American public by Mr. Cooper, in two of the Leatherstocking novels published in 1823 and 1827, The Pioneers and The Prairie. In promoting these ideas, Cooper was supported by two friends: the artist Thomas Cole, founder of the so-called Hudson River school of landscape painting, and the poet William Cullen Bryant. Between them, the novelist, the painter, and the poet sought to educate an America which would only later begin to accept their message."

     MOONFLOWER chides in: " When the first European settlers came to Northeastern America in the early 1600s there was one thing they were sure of: the forest was a bad place, to be transformed into fields, villages, and towns as rapidly as possible. There were two reasons for this: (1) To begin with, from almost the beginning of time the Europeans had been brought up to believe that the forest was not primeval, but just evil -- the home of monsters and spirits, a place to be entered only upon necessity, and left as quickly as possible. European folk lore, down to the tales of the Grimm Brothers, is filled with stories about the dangers of the woods -- countless generations of children were brought up on them. (2) Another reason to dislike the woods was that in the more developed parts of Europe, such as England, the remaining forests had become pleasure grounds for the nobility. Think of our stories about Sherwood Forest. Only kings and nobles were allowed to hunt; poachers from the lower classes were ruthlessly dealt with by an army of wardens and gamekeepers. Even worse, ordinary farmers were forbidden to protect their lands from marauding wild animals; by law they had to sit by helpless and watch the crops on which their survival depended destroyed.

   From a practical point of view, the early settlers had reason to hate the forest. Clearing heavily wooded land with hand tools is a gargantuan task -- and most pioneers went through a period of severe hardship, even starvation, before they could clear enough land to grow the crops that were to feed them. And, of course, it was the home of both possibly antagonistic Indians and of carnivorous animals that could endanger their lives and livestock. So many settlers in the woodlands of Eastern North America had a triple grudge against the wilderness: it was an inherently dangerous place; it represented the hated privileges of the aristocracy; and it posed an immediate danger to their new homesteads. Not surprisingly, within a comparatively few decades, the wilderness and its animal life had virtually disappeared from New England and, soon after, from the settled portions of New York. By 1850 the fields in this part of New York extended to the tops of all but the most inaccessible slopes, and it had been years since a deer had been seen in Otsego County.

     BusterBrowne stopped rummaging through the remains in the closet for the moment, and asked TheFlowerDoctor "How did these attitudes change; how was what we now call the environmental movement born?" FD was happy to answer this question, "An important part of the answer can be found in Cooper's works who spent over half his life and writing career in Cooperstown, in Otsego County. His book, The Pioneers introduced two of the three fundamental ideas of the environmental movement: the conservation of natural resources for man, and the beauty of nature and the wilderness. Throughout The Pioneers, Judge Temple expresses his concern that the thoughtless settlers of Templeton will destroy the very resources on which their life depends: the trees, and especially the sugar maples, that fill the woods, the schools of fish that teem in Lake Otsego, and the migrating passenger pigeons (now extinct) that fly past the village every spring."

The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of novels each featuring the main hero Natty Bumppo, known by European settlers as 'Leatherstocking', 'La Longue Carabine', and 'the Trapper' and by the Native Americans as 'Pathfinder', 'Deerslayer' and 'Hawkeye'.

Publication

Date     Story

Dates   Title       Subtitle

1841     1744     The Deerslayer the First War Path

1826     1757     The Last of the Mohicans A Narrative of 1757

1840     1750s   The Pathfinder The Inland Sea

1823     1793     The Pioneers The Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale

1827     1804     The Prairie A Tale

Note that the 'Story Dates' above are the dates given by Cooper in the tales themselves. They don't all correspond with the actual dates of historical events described in the series. This may have been done for convenience's sake, for instance to avoid making Leatherstocking 100 years old when he traveled the Kansas plains in The Prairie.

      BB was cracking up at that name! "Natty Bumppo sounds more like a cartoon character to me." TheFlowerDoctor mentioned that "a writer, once described President John F. Kennedy as a  'blazing a new spiritual frontier with Natto Bumppo shrewdness and nerve'.....But, the Natty Bumppo character is generally believed to have been inspired, at least in part, by the real-life squatter David Shipman and the pioneer man Thomas Leffingwell. Many depictions of Natty Bumppo and his adventures appear on film. Most used one of his nicknames, most often Hawkeye. In the 1992 film version of Last of the Mohicans, Hawkeye's name was changed from Bumppo to Poe.

     STARGAZER.............................pondered.......................thought...............................and finally replied: "Wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, by the dial stone, aged and green, one rose of the wilderness, left on its stalk, to mark where a garden had been."

Currently Listening Legends of Soul Ball of Confusion see related

You Don't Have to Feed the RAVENS....The RAVENS Feed Themselves

                                      To see one raven is lucky, 'tis true,
                                     But it's certain misfortune to light upon two
                                     And meeting with three is the devil!

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Joe Warren dropped his head to his hands, sobbing as he remembered back 40 years to the bitter garbage workers strike that drew Martin Luther King  Jr. to Memphis -- and to his death. Warren, 86, was one of the 1,300 black sanitation workers who walked off the job in 1968 with a strike that tore at the foundation of the  city's white-only rule. "They talked to you like you were a dog, and they worked you like a dog," he said, his shoulders trembling. "But I couldn't find a job nowhere else." The sanitation strike and King's assassination made clear to blacks and whites alike that 'the old plantation mentality had to be dumped,'  Memphis was suppose to be  just another stop in Martin Luther King's struggle for economic justice for the poor. In the 1960s, close to 60 percent of black families in Memphis lived in poverty and few jobs other than manual labor was open to blacks. Today the city has a poverty rate of nearly 24 percent overall, almost twice the national figure, and 30 percent among black residents. But the good jobs, in government and the private sector, are no longer reserved for whites. Memphis, which was 40 percent black in the 1960s, is now more than 60 percent black. It has had a black mayor since 1991.

    The strike began in February 1968 after two sanitation workers were crushed by a trash compactor when they climbed in a garbage truck to get out of the rain. The accident was blamed on faulty equipment, but it inflamed tensions that had festered for years over low wages, poor working conditions and racist treatment of black workers by white superiors. The garbage workers had to wrestle with tubs and cans of all shapes and sizes, some so heavy it took two or three men to lift them. In the sweltering Memphis summers, the containers were prime breeding grounds for maggots that tumbled onto the workers. "You'd have to tie a rag around your head to keep them from going down your back. That's rough work, but you couldn't say anything or they'd fire you," Warren said. "We were men, but they treated us like boys." Pay ranged from $1.65 to $1.85 an hour for garbage crew members, just above the federal minimum wage of $1.60. Workers got no breaks or overtime pay and could be sent home without full pay when it rained. White supervisors drew full pay, rain or shine. Looking back on the indignities endured by the workers still brings tears to Warren's eyes, but the pain is softened by memories of organizing the strike and taking to the streets under the banner "I Am a Man."...."I had a sign on my front and my back," he said, "and I was walking around saying, "I am a man. I ain't going to be quiet no more."                          

      King was cut down April 4 by a rifle slug that tore through his jaw and spine as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. James Earl Ray, a petty criminal and prison escapee, pleaded guilty to the murder. He died in prison in 1998. After King's death, with the National Guard patrolling the streets, worried Memphis residents began calling for an end to racial hostilities. "In the beginning, there was chaos," said Fred Davis, one of three newly elected blacks on the 13-member city council in 1968. "But it brought people together who had never talked to each other to try to deal with a community problem." Twelve days after King's death, the strike ended with the city council recognizing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees as the workers' union. The workers got a pay raise of 15 cents an hour, promotions based on seniority and the right to file on-the-job grievances.

     The thoughts of the raven made TheFlowerDoctor's stomach turn queasy, "The Raven is puzzle for sure, and how do these all-black creatures acquire their dual and contradictory images -- as birds of both life and death?" BusterBrowne was not nearly as analytical as FD..."You know, FD; I think that you are making too big of a deal about this. They are just fun to watch and I could watch them for hours!" TheFlowerDoctor, paused for a moment and tried to chose his words very carefully, "I don't know BB....it just seems as if, life and death implies two opposite forces...like a dichotomy, almost as if we don't continue the fight for our ideals and beliefs than just maybe, the concepts of change for the good of our own society will just whither away." 

     MOONFLOWER chides in: "I would submit to you that Martin Luther King was a trade unionist. He believed in the union movement and struggled for the organized labor movement. He knew and he preached that civil rights were inadequate without economic rights. Dr. King knew that our economic system allows a few to have too much  power and wealth and workers to have too little, so he believed that we have a responsibility to struggle to push down wealth and power from those who have too much to  those who have too little. His last great campaign was the Poor People’s Campaign to organize America’s poor to fight for economic justice and dignity. In 1961, King explained his belief that the civil rights and union movements were linked. Speaking before the AFL-CIO Convention that year, he said: The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement…Together we can bring about the day when there will be no separate identification of Negroes and labor. Four years later, he told the Illinois AFL-CIO convention: Negroes in the United States read the history of labor and find it mirrors their own experience.  We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the goodwill and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us. They deplore our discontent, they resent our will to organize, so that we may guarantee that humanity will prevail and equality will be exacted. And in 1967, one year before he died, King wrote in his book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? That unions are just as important as business in ensuring economic success for people of color: 'Our young people need to think of union careers as earnestly as they do business careers and professions'. King had qualities that allowed him to lead a mass movement that joined working-class people to the middle class through the black church. In a remarkable few moments in his first speech at the first mass meeting of the Montgomery Improvement Association, King put the struggle against segregation into a moral and world-historical context. 'There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression,' and have to organize, he said. Unions had set the precedent. 'When labor all over this nation came to see that it would be trampled over by capitalistic power, there was nothing wrong with labor getting together organizing and protesting for its rights.'

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 Check this out!

                                  

glumbert - Wake Up America

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       Now BusterBrowne was totally confused, "I thought that all blacks were lazy, ignorant, drug dealers/users, turned neighborhoods into ghettos and were porch monkeys and welfare bunnies? Seems like this MLK guy had a plan! What happened FD?" TheFlowerDoctor was never bashful when it came posturing an opinion..."Well, BB; As scavengers, Ravens know how and when to take advantage of other animals to help them cadge a meal they couldn't otherwise reach...thus, Neo-conservatism was born as a political philosophy in the United States aimed at the rejection of social liberalism and the New Left counterculture of the 1960s. By the 1980s, most neocons found in President Ronald Reagan an avenue for their aggressive approach to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Ironically,  this would create a huge military build-up and detour funds from social programs....Job Training, Education, Environmental Protection, Drug-Abuse, etc. At the same time, Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total  federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they’re still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world). Reagan’s tax cut greatly diminished expenditures on infrastructure (bridges, roads, hospital, colleges, etc.) and placed more of a tax burden on the middle-class!  Before the Reagan years there were only about 1 million illegal aliens in our work force, when he left office 3 million, and today 12 million. During that same period union membership has dropped from 25% to 7%. Cheap labor increases corporate profits. Before Reagan, the enforcement of laws against hiring illegal’s served as a barrier to their entry."  

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    BusterBrowne seemed to raise the appropriate question at the right time "Why would you want to change the world when you can't seem to get your own country on the same page?" TheFlowerDoctor raised his eyes to the heavens "That’s the point, BB; as a Nation we weren’t ready. There was way too much more work to be done in the homefront. After passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without human rights — including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow. Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for radical changes in the structure of our society to redistribute wealth and power....True compassion, King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."                                              

     By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his 'Beyond Vietnam' speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 — a year to the day before he was murdered —  From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was on the wrong side of a world revolution. King questioned our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America, and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions of the shirtless and barefoot people in the Third World, instead of supporting them.

    In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People's Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble a multiracial army of the poor that would descend on Washington — engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be — until Congress enacted a poor people's bill of rights. King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its hostility to the poor — appropriating military funds with alacrity and generosity, but providing poverty funds with miserliness. How familiar that sounds today, almost a half century after King's efforts on behalf of the poor people's mobilization were cut short by an assassin's bullet. In this nation of immense wealth, the White House and Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. And so do most mass media.  

   

     Perhaps it's no surprise that they tell us little about the last years of Martin Luther King's life. During the last phase of MLK's life (1967-1968), it should be noted that mainstream media saw Reverend Martin Luther King; like they now see Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Back then they denounced King's critical comments. While noting in passing that King spoke out against the Vietnam War, mainstream reports today rarely acknowledge that he went way beyond Vietnam to decry U.S. militarism in general: "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos," said King in 1967 speeches on foreign policy, "without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government." In response to these speeches, Newsweek said King was over his head and wanted a race-conscious minority to dictate U.S.  Foreign policy. Life magazine described the Nobel Peace Prize winner as a communist pawn who advocated abject surrender in Vietnam. The Washington Post couldn’t have been more patronizing: King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people.

 

   

     When King's moral voice moved beyond racial discrimination to international issues, the New York Times attacked his efforts to link the civil rights and antiwar movements. King's sermons on Vietnam could get as angry as those of Barack Obama's ex-pastor: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war . . . We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world." In 1967, King was also criticizing the economic underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy, railing against “capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries." Today, capitalists of the West reap huge profits from their domination of global media. -- In the U.S. and abroad.

 

     If King had survived to hear the war drums beating for the invasion and occupation of Iraq - amplified by TV networks and the New York Times front page and Washington Post editorial page -- there's little doubt where he'd stand. Or how loudly he'd be speaking out.... And there's little doubt how big U.S. media would have reacted. On Fox News and talk radio, King would have been 'Dixie Chicked'. . . or 'Rev. Wrighted'. In corporate centrist outlets, he'd have been marginalized faster than you can say Noam Chomsky!

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     One suspects King would be marveling at the rise of Barack Obama and the multiracial movement behind him. But would he be happy with Obama and other Democratic leaders who heap boundless billions onto the biggest military budget in world history? In 1967, King denounced a Democratic-controlled Congress for fattening the Pentagon budget while cutting anti-poverty programs, declaring: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

STARGAZER........................thought...................................pondered............................and finally replied: "Need we forget that.......the Raven has been seen to follow wild wolf packs to a kill; some stories even have ravens flying ahead of the wolves to lead them to prey...."             

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And the Band Played On!!!