Max Rameau is an organizer of “Take Back the Land”. The organization is based in Florida where it started in Miami in the fall of 2006 and has since emerged as a national movement with affiliates in Atlanta, NYC, Boston, New Orleans, Washinton DC, Chicago, Madison, New Orleans, Toledo, Sacramento and Portland (Right to Survive). Take Back the Land holds the position that housing is a Human Right.At this time there are as many vacant homes as homeless families. Because this housing is available we should move homeless people into these unoccupied homes. But the real objective of building homes is not to house people but is to make a profit. So houses stay empty and people stay homeless. Take Back the Land identifies government owned homes that have been foreclosed and, without permission from banks or government, moves homeless people into them. Take Back the Land also supports other local groups who value humans over corporations in housing. They call themselves a “translocal mov...
David Chandler is a physics teacher, a Quaker peace activist, and an independent 9/11 researcher, active with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and on the board of the International Center for 9/11 Studies. He noticed that something was amiss with the way the buildings fell on 9/11 and did precise measurements of the motions associated with the building collapses and straightforwardly applied Newton's laws of motion to show what this implied about the forces at work.Chandler thinks that the free fall of the buildings is one of the clearest smoking guns for the use of explosives on 9/11. A paper describing his analysis can be found online at the Journal of 9/11 Studies. Chandler's' analysis proves that approximately 90% of the structural support had to have been removed from the North Tower for it to come down with constant downward acceleration as it did. Building 7 (the third building to undergo rapid, total destruction on the evening of 9/11) came down at absolute freefall a...
David Cobb is a community organizer and attorney living in Eureka, CA when he's not on the road sharing his concerns and organizing for a more democratic USA. He has run for president on the Green Party ticket in the past. Presently he is a leader of the group Democracy Unlimited of Humbolt County, a group which is working toward leading a non-violent grassroots uprising to make democracy real and legal in the United States. Democracy Unlimited’s present focus toward legalized democracy is a response in particular to the recent Supreme Court decision that gives corporations the same rights as an individual. In the past, if a person’s constitutional rights were being infringed upon, that person could go to the court system and find relief. However, with the January 2010 Supreme Court decision, now corporations have that same right as well. This means that now any effort to control the corporation’s conduct through legislation is subject to being overturned in court. Cobb says this...
The MOVE organization was started in the 1972 by John Africa and included members from different religions, race and gender but all were cemented by the belief that nothing is more important than life. The members of MOVE staged demonstrations at institutions they felt exploited life on earth, including circuses and zoos, chemical plants that were polluting our water, and homes for the elderly where residents were not being treated with respect. The police didn't appreciate the protests and reacted with brutality and bombings many times over. This brutality came to a head twice in MOVE's forty year history -- once in August of 1978 and again in May of 1985. Both times homes and lives were lost in the fight. In 1978, police officer James Ramp was killed. Nine members of the MOVE organization were convicted of the murder and, over thirty years later are still in jail. In 1985, the police came to the new MOVE house under the guise of following up on complaints by neighbors. The police ...
Dr. Michael Fry, a wildlife toxicologist, is the Director of Conservation Advocacy at American Bird Conservancy and the Committee Chairman for the Federal Advisory Committee for Minerals Management Service. He says the EPA (Environmental Protections Agency) began developing technology 14 years ago with which it is just now beginning to test the chemicals all around us that are, as Dr Fry explains "endocrine interfering" chemicals which, though they are rarely mentioned, can have huge affects on humans and other animals and their endocrine systems (eg., gender development). He mentions that plastics are a major source of our contacts with these chemicals. Plastics numbered 3, 6 and 7 are toxic and should be avoided. Plastics numbered 2, 4 and 5 are non-toxic.On another matter, Dr. Fry explains some risk involved with wind as an alternate energy method. The problem is that windy places are also places where birds are. At Altamont Pass--east of San Francisco-- 1000 golden eagles and 17...
As a child Musikka suffered from congenital cataracts, which developed into glaucoma after several surgeries. She began using marijuana to treat this condition despite the opinion of her ophthalmologist who felt that she should have surgery instead. Musikka chose to have the surgery on one eye, while continuing to treat the glaucoma using marijuana, obtained illegally to treat her other eye. She was in constant fear of getting arrested and losing her children, but the marijuana was working. By 1987 the eye she was having surgery on was blind and Musikka was arrested for possession of marijuana. By this point her children had left home for college. The press was alerted to the story and followed every move from her arrest to her trial. At the trial, Dr. Palmberg convinced the judge that no marijuana for Musikka would be a “life sentence to blindness.”On August 15, 1988 Musikka was acquitted. Later that same year she was enrolled in an experimental program run by the Federal Governm...
Terry Hurst had ridden his bicycle from Salt Lake City, Utah to Eugene, Oregon when Sue Supriano met him. His destination was the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s a Board Member of the Mestizo Center of Culture and Arts in Salt Lake City—a nonprofit culture and arts organization on the west side of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City is very ethnically diverse. Hurst’s neighborhood is 45% Latino, 3% Native Amer., 3% African American, 8% Pacific Islander, 6% Asian and 30% Caucasian. There are also many refugees—Tibetan, Vietnamese, Serbian and Ruandan. Of course these groups, including the GLBT population have their own churches, temples and centers.etc.—just in his neighborhood. The truth is that this diversity is the model for the US. Hurst believes that when you see people as the problems you build more jails and more “at risk” programs. When people are seen as the solutions you build more businesses, banks, community gardens and green programs for the neighborhood. Since the latter...
Ian Hill is the founder and CEO of Oregon based Sequential Biofuels which consists of both a biofuel production company, producing a yearly five and a half million gallons of fuel, including ethanol, in the plant in Salem, OR and a filling station in Eugene, Oregon. At the time that Hill came from Tennessee to Oregon there was no demand for biofuel. After lots of study and believing that of the advantages of the lower carbon emissions of biofuels, and using recycled oil for the fuel would be a factor in making the world a better place SeQuential Biofuel was founded in 2002. Ninety percent of the fuel is made from recycled cooking oil which is very important to make this fuel sustainable without the many down sides of using land for growing fuel instead of food. Hill believes that we humans have ruined our own nest and feels strongly about not further perpetuating that model. The Eugene filling station is the first and only of its kind in that it is a passive solar building that uses...
Jan Spencer lives in Eugene, Oregon where he is an elder activist for more sustainable living as well as an artist . In this interview we talk about the transformation of his standard ranch style house with a medium sized yard into a permaculture paradise producing lots of food, biological richness and beauty. Spencer says “permaculture is a big toolbox designing interrelated systems that work with each other and enhance the positive functioning of the larger system. It can apply to any region from one’s backyard to the world. It takes in economics, the larger system, the environment and the person designing the system. It can change the whole world for the better and much of it is using our common sense which too often we’ve lost track of. Spencer rides a bike, leads tours of Eugene neighborhoods for others who he encourages to be on bikes as well, gives talks and works tirelessly to bring people’s attention to the “system” that tends not to be good for us and encourages othe...
Jyoti is the Spiritual Director of the or California based Center for Sacred Studies which is, among other things, sponsoring and supporting the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. The Center for Sacred Studies is in the mountains of N. California. It is a place for people to pray in whatever form they wish and much of their prayer is to heal and transform the history of violence against the Native Miwok and other Native people who were driven off their lands. One of the elders of Jyoti's larger international community, Kayumari, brought a message that one of the main purposes of the Center is to preserve different lines of prayer. Jyoti went to Africa to learn about the Iboga plant and there she met Bernadette Rebienot who is now one of the Grandmothers on the Council. Bernadette had made contact with the ayahausceros of the Amazon—ayahausca and iboga both being "plant" medicine/teachers that come out of the pharmacy of the earth. The people from the South A...