Testimony in support of Bill 79 Banning GMO in Hawaii County

Published by jalbertini on May 13th, 2013 in Farm, Social Justice, Take Action!, Uncategorized | No Comments

To Hawaii County Council Committee on Public Safety & Mass Transit,

Testimony in support of Bill 79 to ban the use of GMO on Hawaii Island.

Aloha Council members,

I have been a farmer on this island for more than 30 years, growing a wide variety of organic fruits and vegetables.  I have also been a long time non-violent activist for justice, peace and the environment. Over these many years I have leaned that the means we use in all that we do must be in line with the end that we seek.  If we want a peaceful, just, and environmentally sustainable world then the means we use must be peaceful, just, and environmentally sustainable.  Whatever we do to the land, water, plants and animals, we do to ourselves.  When we bomb the land we bomb ourselves.  When we poison the land we poison ourselves.

GMO –Genetically modifying organisms is a fundamental violation of this important sacred principle of means and ends.  It is not a natural process occurring in nature.  It is manipulating nature for short term financial gain with potential long term consequences.  It is precisely this pattern of grabbing for a  short term quick fix that has our world on the path of unprecedented destruction — be it Climate change, Fukushima, nuclear war, global economic collapse, etc.

To support Bill 79 for a GMO ban in Hawaii County is a small but important step of affirming the long term life and sovereignty of the land over the short term quick fix of financial gain for the few at the expense of the many.  It is a step that affirms the sacredness and interconnection of all life.  It is a step for future generations and the earth for which this council can take pride.

Mahalo nui loa,
Jim

–
Jim Albertini Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org

Poor People’s Campaign 2013

Published by jalbertini on May 9th, 2013 in Hawaii Independence, Military, Public Events, Social Justice, Take Action! | No Comments

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On the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign / ‘We will march to ignite the revolution King called for’

By the Rev. C. D. Witherspoon

The following press statement was released by Witherspoon, president of the Baltimore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Next Saturday morning, many of us will mark the 45th anniversary of the Poor People’s Campaign that Martin Luther King inspired, but did not live long enough to lead, by marching from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.
On May 11, the families of young Black and Brown people who have been killed by police will link arms with poor people, immigrant workers fighting for their rights, students, Walmart workers, union members, unemployed people and Occupy Wall Street activists, and walk 40 miles south down the highway to Washington, D.C.
We will occupy Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks away from the White House and down the road from the Capitol. There we will erect a big tent and convene a People’s Power Assembly.
We are doing this to bear witness to the truth, and to help spark the social revolution that Dr. King prescribed in the months before his death.
Dr. King often said that truth crushed to earth will rise again. The brutal truth is that the powers that be are waging a war against virtually everything that Dr. King fought and died for.
Fifty years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Monument, King shared his dream with the world. Today more and more of us are living in a nightmare.
Anyone who thought that having an African-American family or a Democrat in the White House would negate the urgent necessity for a social revolution has long awoken from that dream.
Our young people are more likely to be in prison than in a job.
Poverty, unemployment and desperation are more widespread today than they were when King was alive. The pauperization of the population is the biggest crisis today.
The banks got bailed out after the 2008 global financial crash, and the stock market has soared through the roof. But for the rest of us — the people that Occupy Wall Street calls the 99% — there’s nothing but economic terrorism in the form of unemployment, evictions, foreclosures, low wages and cutbacks.
The 1% have never been richer, greedier and more determined to eliminate, privatize or otherwise destroy every program that is helpful to the poor.
Wall Street has ordered the politicians and the corporate media to justify the war against the poor.
We’ve been told that the cutting of Social Security, health care and unemployment benefits and the closing of hospitals, schools and post offices are being forced upon us by harsh economic realities.
We’ve been told that there’s no point in proposing a real jobs program because we can’t afford one.
These things are presented to us as though they were inarguable facts. They are not.
They are absurd and cruel lies put forward by the 1% in defense of a social and economic order that puts profits and greed before people’s needs. These lies are meant to demoralize us and persuade us that it’s useless to fight for a world based on equality, justice, solidarity and love.
These lies, and the 1% whose interest they serve, must be defeated.
When King proposed the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967, he said that a revolution of values was needed, one that would transform a profit-centered economy into a people-centered one.

We will be marching on Saturday to ignite that revolution.
For details on the March see www.PeoplesPowerAssemblies.org
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Download Leaflet - English – Español

 

M.L. King and Poor Peoples Campaign

 Initiated by: Baltimore Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the People’s Power Assembly 

Contact: 410-500-2168 or 410-218-4835
email: 2013PoorPeoplesCampaign@gmail.com

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Watch Important Video on Pohakuloa

Published by jalbertini on May 9th, 2013 in Hawaii Independence, Military, Radiation, Social Justice, Take Action! | No Comments

The Syrian Opposition Scam

Published by jalbertini on May 8th, 2013 in Hawaii Independence, Military, Radiation, Social Justice, Take Action!, Vigil leaflets | No Comments

Stop The U.S./Israel Agenda:

  Regime Change in Syria & Iran Next

 THE “SYRIAN OPPOSITION SCAM”

Syriaan rebels

     UN independent commission of inquiry on Syria lead investigator Carla del Ponte charged, “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated. This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.” 

     What does this do to President Obama’s “red line” on the use of chemical weapons?  Will he now bomb the terrorists he has released on the Syrian people or will the entire matter be dropped by both our corporate government and corporate media?  This entire “Syrian opposition” scam only works because the entire mainstream US media participates in it, demonizing the Syrian government while pretending not to notice that religious jihadists, including al Qaeda, have been armed and directed against the Syrian people by client states of the USA (for “deniability”).

     The Arab world, including many of those client states, has condemned the missile strikes by Israel against Syria over the weekend.  This is largely crocodile tears, because many of these Arab governments know their own populations would revolt if they were aware the government was working with Israel and the USA against fellow Arabs.

(The above is from Liberty Underground News service.  To join the Liberty Underground news service email libertyuv@hotmail.comwith “join” for a subject)

It should be noted that in the late 1960s, under the cover of “weather testing” the U.S. military tested Sarin nerve gas, and other chemical and biological agents, in the Waiakea Forest area, which is Hilo’s watershed.  Around the same time the Army used Depleted Uranium (DU) radiation spotting rounds at Pohakuloa.

Make Peace Not War –Work for Justice!

1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622.  Emailja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (May 10, 2013– 607th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Hawaii County –Ban GMO Bill

Published by jalbertini on May 7th, 2013 in Farm, Social Justice, Take Action!, Uncategorized | No Comments

Great news!  Councilperson Margaret Wille has written Bill 79 (link below) to amend

the county code to prohibit GMOs.
 http://records.co.hawaii.hi.us/WebLink8/0/doc/789300/Page1.aspx
3 minute testimony is needed in support of this bill which will be heard at 9am, Tuesday,
May 14 in Hilo.  Heartfelt testimony on any aspect of the bill is valuable and needed.
If you know who your council person is, pls address them during the testimony.  If you
have never testified, please use this link and scroll down to written public testimony
for deadline info.  If you testify in person (much more effective), bring 14 copies
of your testimony and hand it into the clerk when you arrive and sign in.
http://www.hawaiicounty.gov/lb-council-meeting
Please participate!  The Council passed a resolution in support of GMO labeling bills
at this past state legislature 8-1, Onishi dissenting.  Now is our time.
Mahalo, Merle
Merle Hayward
Hilo, Hawaii 96720
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