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<$Project P.E.A.C.E. -- Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics$>
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The tsunami that slammed sudden and violent death, injury, illness, homelessness, poverty, sorrow, confusion and havoc into the people of coastal Sumatra, India, Africa and Asia, did not have to cost nearly as much as it did in preventable loss of life. Considering the history of tsunami activity in this part of the world, advance preparations ought to have been made to warn people. Even lacking satellite systems, there is much that could have been done to warn and evacuate people before the wave hit.
A root condition, fundamental to why so many people died, has to do with man's dangerous arrogance toward, and disrespect for, Nature. Mankind's abject failure to obey the truly significant laws that govern the operating systems of this planet are most perceptably reflected in our "extinctionistic" economic system. The choice was made, generations ago, that toxic chemicals, rather than agricultural productivity, would determine the sad trajectory of our degenerate values.
The fact that the reigning U.S. political elite are made up of families whose wealth emminates from exploiting fossil fuels and the sale of chemical pharmaceuticals, is proof that neither our system of government, nor our system of economics works.
For the price of a few days in Iraq, or the cost of building a prison to house drug war prisoners, a system of satellite warning buoys could have been set up that would have saved many, if not most of the people that died last week. Even a rudimentary, international "telephone tree," coordinated in conjunction with tsunami warning sirens (as are used in Hawaii), would have saved tens of thousands of lives.
As disease, psychological trauma and economic upheaval continue to reveal more casualties, following the initial cataclism, there are profound questions to be asked and vital lessons to be learned from this tragedy. It is critical to those who are presently exposed, anywhere in the world that we learn what we must, before the next giant wave strikes, or worse.
In the wake of the recent devastation, to wake up and see how severely we are under-estimating the potentially horrific, long-term repercussions of what our species is doing to disrupt the Natural Order, is one message that must be considered in our conscious collective awareness. The synergistic effects of global warming, disregard for the carbon cycle, and other antagonisms toward the Earth's atmosphere, are a deadly combination. Add to this the seismic aggravation from draining petroleum from beneath our feet, and detonation of nuclear explosions in the Pacific.
The future of our species doesn't have to be an endless tally of needless myseries, as the mounting death tolls from the tsunami, the carnage in Iraq, and increasing casualties in a counter-productive "drug war." Our species can no longer afford the luxuries of denial and fear. Unless people stand and claim the right to farm "every herb bearing seed" then the imbalances imposed on ecology, economics, and social evolution, sixty-seven yeras ago, will continue to spin toward synergistic collapse.
Suspension of Cannabis prohibition is the most immediate and cost-efficient measure that could be implemented by world governments, in the interest of re-directing critical resources to where they are needed most. Money and energy that are currently being applied to drug war activities, suppressing the world's most useful agricultural resource, must be re-directed to achieve meaningful benefit for people in this time of extreme crisis.
In addition to the money and manpower that this would make available, the potential use of Cannabis as a safe and effective herbal remedy would include allowing 'marijuana' to be used as a psychic comfort by the traumatised population. Having free access to this traditional herbal remedy would allow reconditioning of farmland damaged by the tsunami and establishment of a viable, agriculturally-based economy.
If something is valuable then a crisis only makes it more valuable. Cannabis is a resource which people can employ on a regional economic basis, which will aid in the short-term and the long-term recovery of this area. The sooner that this is recognized, the more coordinated an effort can be made to heal the wound that is being suffered.
posted by projectpeace @
1:28 AM
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Monday, January 03, 2005  |
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