Malu ‘Aina Farm

Center for non-violent education and action
June 30, 2013
Support for Bill 79

Aloha Council members,

I urge your support of Bill 79.  This bill is historic.  It’s an opportunity to make a pro-active choice for the future direction of agriculture on Hawaii Island.  The choice of Bill 79 is clear.  To support Bill 79 is to prohibit future GMO food crops and big agrochemical corporate interests from controlling and dominating agriculture in our county.  It is supporting a policy of aloha ‘aina.  It opens up possibilities for Hawaii County to prosper as a GMO-free food crop area, with the exception of GMO papayas   To oppose Bill 79 is to choose to stand with monopoly corporate interests –Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, etc. who put short term profits and control of the world’s seed supply before concerns of people’s health and safety and the life of the land.  These mammoth corporations simply view Hawaii’s land as a commodity to be exploited for their personal gain. If and when there are irreparable unintended consequences, they will cut and run, taking their profits and leaving Hawaii’s people and land with their mess.To ban GMOs is to make a choice for the precautionary principle.  It’s the right thing to do for people, plants and animals, for the land, for the water, for the air, for the earth itself.  Climate change, global warming, the epidemics of cancer, etc. are all testimonies that we have failed in the past to take to heart and practice the precautionary principle.  We are on borrowed time.  Let us not make the same mistakes again.  Support Bill 79.  Ban GMOs.  It’s the pono thing to do.

Mahalo.

Jim Albertini, president

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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 Visit us on the web at www.malu-aina.org

NSA “spying” on Buddhist Peace Fellowship Innermost thoughts

Come to the Hilo Friday Peace Vigil today 3:30-5PM 
Support NSA Whistleblower Ed Snowden
Stand up to the Obama Warfare and Surveillance State!

( Bobbie  Photo below from last week’s vigil)

Aloha kakou,
This Friday (June 28th) Hilo peace vigil is extra important.  The focus with be in support of Whistleblower Ed Snowden exposing the vast U.S. Surveillance state.  We will have signs that say “Stand with Whistleblower Edward Snowden.” and we’ll have Ed Snowden masks.  We’ll also have an NSA spy costume with extended microphone for some sidewalk surveillance drama.  NSA spy volunteer actors welcome.  Please pass the word and make an extra effort to join this week’s vigil.
Stand up to support Snowden, to dismantle the surveillance/warfare state, and say No to war on Syria.  Mahalo.
Jim

Support Whistleblower

Edward Snowden

The U.S. Government, and its media mouthpieces, do not want to focus on the content of CIA and NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s exposures because they reveal a secret, massive, systematic,  industrial-scale surveillance state. Ask who is the real danger, Snowden for exposing it, or the U.S. Military/Industrial Complex for creating it?  Snowden believed what he saw violated basic human rights and privacy and therefore in the public interest, he disclosed the information and performed an invaluable public service at great personal risk. He deserves our gratitude as do Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, and Marine Bradley Manning for disclosing U.S. war crimes.

There is a special irony over the Obama Administration lecturing other countries about “the rule of law” in its zeal for Snowden’s extradition to the U.S. This is the same administration which:

1. has failed to prosecute a single major bankster responsible for unprecedented financial crimes;
2. has failed to prosecute a single figure in the Bush administration for what international law calls the “supreme war crime” – waging a war of aggression on Iraq;
3. has failed to prosecute any torturers;
4. has failed to prosecute anyone for illegal wiretapping Americans;
5. has failed to shut down the shameful U.S. prison at Guantanamo or release prisoners even after they have been exonerated.

The secret, massive surveillance state disclosed by Snowden is in itself, a disgrace to the rule of law.

The one thing the Obama administration has continued to prosecute are illegal wars of aggression and occupation. Syria and Iran are next on the chopping block. Obama has increased the use of Reaper and Predator drones that have killed a countless number of children and other innocent people, violated other countries sovereignty, and has increased hatred toward the U.S. around the world.

End the Wars!  Dismantle the Surveillance

State!

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.  Email ja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (June 28, 2013– 614th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Rein in the

Surveillance

State!

     The U.S. National Security Administration (NSA) has been conducting a massive phone call and internet surveillance dragnet of U.S. citizens and others which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls an abuse of statutory power and a violation of basic 1st and 4th amendment rights. We owe our thanks to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald for making this criminal activity public.

      President Obama tried to defend the illegal spying programs as “transparent” even though the spying is authorized in secret. Talk about Orwellian doublespeak! The location of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) is secret. It’s sessions are closed. The orders that result, where only government lawyers are involved, are classified. When Obama says the massive spying is legal the ACLU says this is what he really means: secret courts immune to scrutiny, secret briefings to a handful of legislators, and an executive branch claiming more and more unchecked powers. (Seemore here http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35347.htm)

      The ACLU is planning a lawsuit to stop the illegal spying but we cannot depend on lawyers and the courts alone. Ordinary people need to begin to speak up and demand an end to government spying. Repeal the Patriot Act. (See http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35348.htm)

      Daniel Ellsberg, the well-known whistleblower who leaked the “Pentagon Papers” 40 years ago, exposing the U.S. government’s criminal policies of the Vietnam War, has said “There has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material.” Despite enormous government efforts to attempt to discredit Snowden, including resurrecting Vice War Criminal in Chief, Dick Cheney, it is important to stand firm and not be deterred. We need to support courageous people who expose U.S. war crimes, people such as Edward Snowden, Marine, Bradley Manning, and Wikileaks, Julian Assange. Their destiny is tied to our own. Thanks to them we now know more of the truth. Ellsberg says “this may be our last chance to rein in the surveillance state… The technical capabilities are in place. With the flip of the switch or another major attack, (real or contrived) we may find ourselves in a dangerous situation in which average citizens, along with Congresspersons, journalists and their sources, even judges, are watched around the clock and are afraid to dissent. The core fixtures of our democracy—the right to protest, the right to live freely in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness without government intrusion—could be weakened beyond repair.” https://www.aclu.org/secure/stop-spying?Ms=autofire_acluaction_ellsbergspying_130619

      Remember the famous quote of Pastor Martin Niemoller in Nazi Germany: “First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Stand Up & Speak Out Before

It’s Too Late!

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.  Email ja@malu-aina.org   http://www.malu-aina.org

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (June 21, 2013– 613th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office