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listen to the links mp3 and wake up

2008-03-09T11:44:39Z

http://asx.ljcentral.net/mp3/eir/tls/2008/tls080301_en_hi.mp3

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Impact the World with Grace and Ease

2008-02-20T23:27:29Z

Organizations all around the world profit from fear. It is their most powerful weapon. They have us paralyzed by the idea that we must struggle and war to defeat them when the solution is much simpler. If we work together there is no need for struggle. Peace and freedom are acts of grace. We will be hosting a rally for peace in Sandy, OR on Saturday, February 23 to celebrate the beginning of our campaign. If you’re interested in contributing to our efforts please call Forrest at 503-737-4118. And remember, you’ll know it’s working if you’re having fun.

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Fraud Alert regarding North Coast Earth First! Aka NCEF! Media. Completely independent from any activist group!

2008-02-18T21:11:49Z

16 views since posting on Sunday, December 2, 2007
Location California

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NCEF! Media in Humboldt County Ca.(AKA NORTH COAST EARTH FIRST!), is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Active and legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group.

Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitimate environmental nonprofit:

From: northcoastjournal.com/100407/...004.html

October 4, 2007

"Money On Trees"

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: northcoastjournal.com/101107/...011.html

"Trees Foundation Wins"

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

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i got an idea

2007-12-22T04:55:33Z

rob banks and send the money to africa to help feed those poor children

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 1 reply

kiyonah thundersong

2007-11-03T00:42:59Z

I'm trying to find kiyonah..she has moved and not been online in 6 weeks.
please contact wowova@yahoo.com or post here if you know something
thx

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

An addition to federalism

2007-10-20T09:59:02Z

Federalism is the relationship of power between Nation, State and local. Mainly Nation and state. Well, im thinking of adding another layer to this Picket-fence, its Global. basically the U.N. just isnt doing its thing, and if we set up a system, be it a system of representation such as the House (you get members based on population) or a system like the Senate (regardless of population each gets X amount of Reps), or bicameralism, why not make it a two chamber system...either way, this would be established to go with our Globalization. We could set some Global laws and just like the original Dual Federal System establish, at first Global can be weak and hardly involved, which will help get the approval it needs. but we obviously need some global rules inforced, ones that deal with trade, the moon, nuclear energy etc.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

NBC & "The greening of America's youth"

2007-04-25T01:32:31Z

NBC just mentioned they are doing a news segment about kids "going green" and that combined with my memory of the young people in Brattleboro, Vermont. What better way for kids to impact the world then by going green through nudism? Well, this is a fanciful idea I must admit, but by reducing the need for manufacturing clothes, advertising them (electricity conserved) transporting them, laundering them... Kids around the world could have a immediate impact on the environmental issue of greenhouse gases and global warming.

How do parents in disadvantaged countries of the world pay to clothe their children? Simple, they don't! In many corners of the world I suspect the head through a hole poncho style garment is THE utilitarian garment of choice. So, even if nudism is not immediately adoptable, what if children everywhere began wearing ponchos as a symbol of INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL UNITY?

This could prove to be a super-simple way for children everywhere to begin changing the face of dress customs together! I'm serious, wouldn't it be an interesting global phenomena to begin seeing ponchos turning up on every street corner, in classrooms and homes?

Experts talk about "viral marketing" where an idea spreads faster of its own accord than any marketed (e.g. shoved down our throats) idea. This could be it! Of course ponchos could come in all colors, materials and with decorations to please the "new" generation of globally aware best dressed. This might even go a little ways towards preventing the concealment of weapons IF ponchos only came with one small inner pocket for identification, a wallet, money or other smallish item.

Jokes have been floated around nudists not be able to conceal weapons for years, and people chuckled with thoughts like, 'yea, but it'll never happen.' Well, what style of dress is one step up from NO GARMENT? A simple garment that protects against the harsher elements when necessary and doesn't permit a weapon to be carried within itself (if you can call a garment "itself" - sounds odd).

Here is a link to the story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18296583/
"The greening of America's youth"
"Teens, collegians pick up global warming banner and run with it"

Pass the idea on to your Naturist club, Nudist group or clothing-optional advocacy organization but please do not list me as the source. After all it wasn't my idea, just a convergence of two concepts which some may agree are well overdue.

May God bless the youth of the world who TRULY have the power to change the future!!

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Setting up a state of the art social venture

2006-12-15T21:17:04Z

Looking for tribemembers to help port a working business model into a socialpreneur venture.

This is going to take place in Balt/Nova/Wash as a start. Can be done anywhere after some xplainin.

The idea is to take at risk youth and turn them into budding digitial artist, salespeople, marketing planners for whole new way of being in the market place.

I have aligned several groups and what to engage as many people as possible for ground work, board members.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 1 reply

Transformative e-commerce

2006-12-12T23:05:09Z

what is your favorite e-commerce site for their effort to transform the planet with the business -- given the understanding that recycled plastic dog dishes & yoga mats ain't gonna get us there...

I need to either build a site or create a business development agreement to deliver revenue on internet traffic I am writing/directing in partnership with producers at www.freerangegraphics.com (makers of the www.meatrix.com)

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 2 replies

New Witness Confirms Existence of Chinese Concentration Camp, Says Organs Removed from Live Prisoners

2006-10-03T20:02:25Z

Please help to end this horrible persectuion. knowledge is our greatest weapon, please share this information. together in peace we can make a difference. Falun Dafa is a peaceful meditation practice that teaches putting others before yourself, kindness, always telling the truth and being tolerant of others. We are literally being killed for being good people. The national media refuses to report on this because of trade issues with China. It is up to us to let the world know. Please help us.

By Ji Da
The Epoch Times Mar 17, 2006
www.theepochtimes.com

The witness, a former employee at the Liaoning Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, and says the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners are cremated immediately after the organs are removed. (The Epoch Times)
[High-resolution image ] A former employee of Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine told The Epoch Times during a recent interview that the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in China was actually a part of a hospital. The concentration camp has engaged in taking organs from Falun Gong practitioners when they were still alive and selling the organs. Since 2001, the concentration camp has secretly detained approximately 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners, none of whom have been able to leave the camp alive. The hospital removed many kidneys, livers, and corneas from the practitioners. After the organ removal, the practitioners were thrown into an incinerator, which was converted from a boiler. Their ashes were dumped together with burned charcoal.

Organs from Three Quarters of the 6,000 People Were Removed
Those whose organs were removed were in various states of health. Because many of the victims were illegally detained, there was neither an arrest warrant nor identification as to who these people actually were. Often after their organs were removed, nobody claimed the bodies. Sometimes their bodies were picked up by crooks who pretended to be their family members.

About three-quarters of the 6,000 people died after their hearts, kidneys, corneas, or skin was removed; their bodies were then burned. This witness, whose family member participated in the removal of Falun Gong practitioners' organs, said that approximately 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners remain in the hospital. She was afraid that the authorities would kill all of them to destroy evidence.

The Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine is located at 49 Xuesong Road, Sujiatun, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China. It was the first hospital in China to specialize in the heart, the brain, and surrounding blood vessels. The hospital is composed of several organizations, including the Liaoning Traditional Chinese Medicine College Teaching Hospital and the Shenyang Thrombosis Treatment Center.

Concentration Camp Details
The hospital site is 21,087 square meters, with 17,564 square meters of building area. It employs 460 people in 24 departments and 20 specialized offices. Information from the Chinese government shows that the hospital was established in December 1988, and was formerly named the Shenyang Research Institute of Thrombosis and Liaoning Province Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. In June 1998, it was renamed China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center.

The Chinese Business Morning View said in a story on July 4, 2004, that a farm worker died of abnormal causes in Sujiatun, Shenyang and was later cremated. The death certificate was provided by the Chinese Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center in Sujiatun. The news caused a stir in China.

A copy of the death certificate. (The Epoch Times Archives Photo)Below is the transcript of an Epoch Times reporter's interview with the former staff member of the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine in Sujiantun, Shenyang City. Questions were posed by the reporter and answered by the staff member being interviewed.

Epoch Times: Did the hospital's medical staff inside the concentration camp know about this?

Answer: This hospital has a small number of officials and some doctors involved secretively in the operation of organ harvesting. Some other staff in the hospital knew about this, but this is absolutely a taboo [to talk about]. They all are afraid of being killed or courting trouble, so they all avoid the issue. Only those highly trusted doctors could be chosen to be the surgeons for organ harvesting operations.

ET: Were Falun Gong practitioners alive when their organs were harvested? Did their families know about this?

Answer: Falun Gong practitioners who were imprisoned there came mostly from Dabei Prison, Masanjia Labor Camp, and other prisons in Shenyang, or they were Falun Gong practitioners arrested in parks or residential homes. Because they refused to denounce Falun Gong, they were arrested without formal warrants, and their families did not know their situation. Many did not even have their names [recorded]. In addition, since the Chinese authority exercises a policy of "not being responsible" for killing Falun Gong practitioners, the death of Falun Gong practitioners is not a very big issue for prisons. The Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong, [but] these medical personnel were told Falun Gong practitioners were facing death because they killed people, or they were sentenced to death because of crimes, or they had become insane from practicing Falun Gong.

Those Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested came from several types.

Organs harvested from live bodies are worth far more than organs taken from dead bodies. Many Falun Gong practitioners were still alive when their organs were taken. After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt, thus leaving no evidence. For some others, after their organs were stolen, the doctor sewed up the wound and asked the family or family representative to give a signature for cremation. Family members did not know at all that the dead had their organs taken out.

Furthermore, there were some healthy Falun Gong practitioners in prisons in other areas who were injected—without their knowledge—with psychoactive drugs that made their minds confused. They then were transferred to Sujiantun concentration camp to suffer further torture, till in the end their organs were harvested and their bodies were cremated in secret.

Among the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested, some were weak and some were healthy. Since most of them were illegally arrested, there were no arrest warrants or identification cards. After their organs were taken out while they were still alive, no one came to claim their bodies; or [sometimes] people using fake identities claimed their bodies.

None of these people have come out [of the concentration camp] alive; three-quarters of these 6,000 people have died, having their hearts, kidneys, retinas, and skins harvested and their bodies disposed of. I think now about 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners are still in this hospital, and I am afraid now that the authority will destroy all evidence and kill them.

Question: How did you know these things? Were you yourself a doctor involved in organ harvesting?

Answer: I worked at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Shenyang. This is exactly where this concentration camp is located. One of my family members was involved in the operation to harvest Falun Gong practitioners' organs. This has brought great pain to our family.

Question: Please tell us what you knew about.

Answer: From 2001, our hospital started to detain Falun Gong practitioners. At the beginning, these people were detained in the single-storey houses in the back yard of the hospital. Later, the hospital authorities demolished the single-storey houses, and it was unknown where in the hospital the Falun Gong practitioners were transferred. Many staff of the hospital discussed in private that these Falun Gong practitioners had been secretly transferred to the underground chambers of the hospital. According to some people working inside the hospital, the hospital has a huge system of secret underground chambers.

At the time when we went to work there, the person in charge of logistics and purchasing in the hospital said that the quantity of disposable sterile gloves used for operations and daily supplies that the hospital authorities asked to be purchased had increased dramatically. The logistics people estimated based on the scale of purchases at that time that there were at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners detained in this hospital.

These Falun Gong practitioners were not detained in the 4-story building under the in-patient department and administration at the front of the hospital, in order to keep the hospital staff from seeing them at all. We only occasionally saw Falun Gong practitioners being sent on a mobile intensive care bed to the first floor for physical examinations. These people were very weak. For the majority of the Falun Gong practitioners, nobody knew where they were being secretly kept. While they still did not know where these people were kept, some staff inquired to the hospital authorities about why so much food and so many sterile gloves and daily supplies were purchased. The hospital authorities said, "You only need to do your job well. There is no need for you to ask any other questions."

Starting in 2001, a family member of mine participated in organ-harvesting operations. My family member tried to keep me from knowing about this at the beginning. The hospital authorities selected doctors they trust in different aspects to perform the secretive operations. After a period of time, I found that my family member was in a lot pain, often had nightmares, and appeared panic-stricken. After repeated inquiries, this family member told me the truth. The leader of the hospital had asked my family member to participate in the organ harvesting operations on Falun Gong practitioners as early as 2001. It was 2003 when my family member confessed. A few years after, my family member felt so much pain from participating in this incident that it was impossible to continue with the evildoing. My family member decided to go abroad to get away from this matter.

My family member also told me: "you don't understand my suffering; those Falun Gong practitioners were alive. It might be easier for me if they were dead, but they were alive."

Question: Were there any other doctors from the hospital taking part in the operations of cutting out Falun Gong practitioners' organs?

Answer: I know there were some. All these things have been carried out secretly. Many doctors at our hospital involved were practicum doctors transferred from other hospitals. Because the government does not want to be responsible for Falun Gong practitioners' bodies and lives, their lives are treated as garbage by the regime, and their bodies were used in experiments by new doctors doing their practitcums.

Many doctors came and left the hospital because they suffered a lot after having been involved in these kinds of things. They either requested to be transferred to other places, or changed their names. Some might have been killed to eliminate the evidence, their identity files were taken out from the hospital's filing system, or their names were changed. Nobody knows where the doctors have gone.

The hospital staff all know that the rear part of the hospital is forbidden. It is always watched. The staff avoids talking about the place.

Question: It is said the hospital is equipped with an incinerator. The person whose organs were removed will be burned when he or she is still alive. Is that true?

Answer: The employees in our hospital call this place "the incinerator." Actually, it is a boiler room. Some poor farmers from nearby places were hired to work in the boiler room. They were penniless when they first came here. But they could scrape up some watches, finger rings, necklaces, and so on. The amount is not small. It is said by the employees in the hospital these jewelry and watches were collected from the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs had been removed when they were about to be thrown in the boiler to be burned. It is also said by the employees in the hospital, some were still alive when being thrown into the boiler.

Question: Do they get injection of anesthetic when in surgery?

Answer: Yes. There is a cap to the anesthetic quantity used in mainland China's hospitals. Generally, the supply of anesthetic was determined according to the accommodation of the hospital. To the public, the number of patients in our care appears to be very small, and publicly reported number of surgical procedures performed is quite low. But the equipment and articles used in surgery are abundant. Because the amount of anesthetic is limited, these secret surgeries could not use the normal anesthetic doses. In order to save anesthetic, they economized on the anesthetic used in surgeries on these Falun Gong practitioners. The amount of anesthetic used was very small. However, many whose organs were removed were still alive. You can imagine the pain suffered by the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were removed.

Question: Are there any survivors among the 6,000 people detained since 2001?

Answer: Nobody has come out alive. The number of them gets smaller and smaller. The Falun Gong practitioners detained at Sujiatun are fewer now than before. But I believe that the sin of removing the organs of the Falun Gong practitioners is still continuing.

Question: Where are these organs usually sold to? Do the higher authorities in the government know about this?

Answer: They are mainly sold to Thailand, but I believe they are also sold to other regions of the world. Nowadays, there are many patients in China who need human skin, corneas, and kidneys for organ transplant surgeries. Many patients have to wait in line to purchase organs. Currently, a kidney can be sold up to the price of 30,000 to 100,000 U.S. dollars. The profit from selling organs is simply too great. The people who benefit from this are not only the top leaders of hospital and the officials of the Chinese Communist Party's Heath Department. This is a crime present across the entire nation. People ranging from government officials to doctors to organ sellers are all involved in this and are profiting greatly.

Question: Why did they target Falun Gong practitioners as the source of organs?

Answer: Because relatives of many Falun Gong practitioners don't even know that their family members were arrested. So if the Falun Gong practitioners are killed, there will be no one to come and claim their dead bodies.

Question: Why did you want to expose this? This may bring great danger to you.

Answer: I know that there are many Falun Gong practitioners who are currently detained at the hospital. I would like to expose this to the international community, so those who are not yet killed can be saved. Also, I would like to expose this as an atonement for my family.

I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. But as a former staff member of the hospital, I have the responsibility to expose the truth, and let the world to save those Falun Gong practitioners who are still alive. Organs of some Falun Gong practitioners are still living on patients' bodies. I would like to call on all society to pay attention to this issue and stop this shocking crime.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 1 reply

A sort of intro...

2006-08-06T05:21:28Z

I'll skip the intro becuase you can check my profile and blog!

I wanted to post some abundance resources I've recently found that might get you excited and allow you to generate some monetary support -- or give it (oh it aint the only thing but it helps!) to projects that deserve it.

Here you go:

www.fundable.com
www.dropcash.com
www.pledgebank.com
www.kiva.org

Namaste!

Cityzen Jane

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 2 replies

I need Political Vids....If you vblog I want you on my site stream

2006-08-02T05:02:15Z

I am building something like a cross between youtube and a online TV network lol

If you have vids you can upload them, I may use them on a online "stream"
I am trying to collect stuff from peoples private collections!
Check out the player you can do alot of cool stuff with it!

http://netimpact.vidiac.com/

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Thoughts on the UN tax?

2006-07-26T22:48:43Z

What are your thoughts on this UN tax? I feel it sneaking up behind me!

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

The Peoples Party (A reality tv game show, that can change the course of history)

2006-06-01T08:34:06Z

is it really possible to have a peoples party at this point in time? A party who's candidate was chosen, and supported by the American people?
Yes... it really is possible. And high time if you ask me.
When I was in school they told me I could be anything I wanted. Even the president of the United States. But they never taught me how. Oh sure, we had a class president and all that, (and I seem to remember something about a cartoon bill that kept getting vetoed or something), but somehow I just don't think it's the same thing. But I have asked dozens of people (smart ones too) if they new how to go about being president if they chose to. None of them had the slightest clue. Not that I would ever want to be the president. I can't even ballance my own check book, (or remember if that cartoon bill ever got passed or not) let alone trying to balance the budget for a nation. However, I have met quite a few people along my journeys that I thought had all the attributes I would like to see in a president. Strong, responsible, honorable people, always seeming to naturally look out for the needs of others, less fortunate, and weaker than themselves, while at the same time accomplishing great feats of productivity, (including balancing their check books).
Ive met them in all walks of life. All shapes, sizes, sexes, and colors. Proud Americans, all of them. According to our constitution they have the right to run for president. The only question is... how? Well check it out...

A Letter to Michael Moore...

Hey Mike,
I hope all is going good with the new project. I can't express to you how much I appreciate your work. You both inspire me and give me hope that someday we the People will find our voice again and take our country back. On that note, I have a great Idea I’d like to share with you. This is an idea I’ve spent serious time thinking about. I’d like to humbly ask for your help. The idea needs shepherding from someone of your caliber. So here it is…

“The People’s Party”
A reality television game show
by Alan Abbott

Contestants will compete for a chance to run for President of the United States for the People’s Party.

Possible contestants, chosen from the general public, are asked (via television & radio) to send in a video tape or DVD, 3 minutes or less explaining why they or the person they are nominating should be considered as a presidential candidate.

The show will be run Documentary/American Idol style. The cameras follow each contestant on their quest. Throughout the campaign contestants and their entourage travel together, eat together, stay at the same hotels, and share the same campaign headquarters in the convention rooms at the hotels where they stay.

The American public will have the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice by telephone and the contestants with the lowest number of votes steps down each week.

The winner of the show wins the candidacy for the Peoples Party, and actually runs for president of the United States of America.

That is the basic idea. I see it as an entertaining way to empower the people to establish their own party, educate the public about what it takes to run for president. Most importantly, it will give the people a chance to take their country back.

I have been developing the show for over a year and have a lot more material. I didn’t want to bombard you with it all right now. I have made several trips to and from L.A. (from Maui) trying to contact you through “more appropriate means” than e-mail, but to no avail. So here we are.

This is actually the second e-mail I have sent you, but I fear the first may have gotten lost in the crowd, as I know you try to respond to all your e-mails. So just to give you a heads up, I am going to ask a few friends to give me a hand in getting your attention. After all, election time is around the corner, and I’d like you to be given the first opportunity to give the country back to the people. Hope you don’t mind. Please feel free to e-mail me or call me at; 808-264-0984. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Alan

We The People
Really can make this happen. More impossible dreams have come true. But we have to work together. Together... the American people can do anything.
I am asking all of you to please copy this entire post and send it to michael@michaelmoore.com then send it to everyone you know.
Michael Moore is my first choice, but I know he is not everybody's cup of tea. If you have someone in mind you like better for the task of producing, directing, and/or hosting The Peoples Party? Copy and send this entire post to them, and tell them so.
But please keep in mind that the show, and everything written here is copywritten so please don't try to pass it off as your own, you'll just get yourself in a lot of trouble. Do however feel free to share with as many people as you want. In fact please do. Post it everywhere!
I sent this letter to Michael Moore on May 19th, 2006 but Mikes a busy guy. He probably hasn't even checked his email yet. He is currently shooting another feature documentary, and I'm sure the shooting schedule is very labor intensive. Not ot mention the amount of e-mails the guy must get every day. Then when he does finaly get a chance to read them, I'm sure he has a priority list of some kind. Either way, he has not returned this e-mail yet.
But Michael is not the only person that is important to reach. If we are going to make a difference we have to work together, and spread the word to everyone.

Thank you all very much.
Sincerely, Alan
Power To The People

michael@michaelmoore.com

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 2 replies

HURRY, SAVE FREEDOM OF INTERNET

2006-05-09T15:23:37Z

Hi,

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law in upcoming days that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Internet freedom. They would allow AT&T to choose which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. If this law passes, almost every popular site—from Google to eBay to iTunes—must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why over 400,000 people have signed a petition opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.

We can all do our part to save the Internet—can you sign this petition to Congress? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/?id=7482-3714763-xoomZYcJ1ClqzSHawt2MRA&t=5

This petiton will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes in several days. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

If you want more information, here are two really good places to look.

SavetheInternet.com Coalition Web Site
http://www.savetheinternet.com/

New York Times Editorial—"Keeping A Democratic Web"
http://www.freepress.net/news/15263

Thanks.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 1 reply

Please help

2006-04-08T01:40:40Z

please go to this website to send a fax to the related US
congress and senate members to Request a Congressional Hearing on the
Sujiatun case. it's a very easy to Fill out form, With just a click, the fax will be sent.
thank you,
joshua

here is the link:
publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php

there is more information about Sujiatun on the website:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

ENTREPRENEURIAL Ideas Working Group

2006-02-23T19:44:15Z

Is there a need for "Local Tribes" of Entrepreneurs? Here is a pitch I worked up this morning, and I really think it has potential. I would love to chat / message / e-mail with anyone who wants to participate.

"What happened to that last good idea you had?
Tried of working for someone else?
Ready to network with other economically challenged residents?
~or~ Ready to help other economically challenged residents?

I have ideas, you have ideas, we all have ideas! It is time to do something with them! Don't wait for an inventors competition to come around. Turn your ideas into profit generating activities now!

I want to form a group of Las Vegas area residents with imagination, creativity, intelligence and inspiration! One that can become A NEW economic force in the valley! By taking ideas from each members and turning them into working concepts. By taking them off the shelf and putting them into practice!

Each person will retain 100% of the rights to their idea, unless they "grant" a percentage to another member/resident. And in turn we will all benefit from each others suggestions and ability to "fill in the missing pieces". Supplement your 40 hours a week income with 2 or 3 hours and the goal of having them pay MORE than the 40 you work for someone else!

People I think COULD support and benefit from this group:

Admin. Assistants! - Have you missed a way to automate a daily task?

Amateur Marketers! - Was that last television commercial you saw dumb??

Digital photographers! - How many hours are you NOT using your camera?

Pizza Shop Owners! - Is there a more reliable way to TAKE ORDERS?

Realtors! - Do you "reinvent the wheel" every other day?
(to name a few...)

If this is something that interests you, contact me! Let's end the paycheck to paycheck non-sense together!"

WHAT I DO NOT HAVE:
1. Investment capital.
2. A delivery truck or commercial driver license.
3. A multi-level marketing plan to promote. They're just crazy!
(to much slickness involved)
4. An empty warehouse to use.
5. Money to spend on advertising.

I am thinking there must be a way to profit by CONNECTING PEOPLE or creating a network of LOCAL (that's important) businesses, business people and ordinary people who will work for each other in order to see each other succeeed. Is that to far fetched? Would you be willing to work 1 hour at a Mailboxes store in exchange for having your next package shipped free? (just thinking out loud...)

I would appreciate YOUR feedback or input. Contact me.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Aldous Huxley …fiction writer or prophet?

2006-02-01T15:52:36Z

Did Huxley tap into the timeless collective consciousness Jung identified when finding inspiration for “Brave New World”?

The ravages of the ever increasing epidemic of pharmaceutical drugs span across the generations –from our ever increasing elder population to our bright and active children, “legal” drug consumption is scarring the landscape of our collective society.

Many years have been dedicated to spreading knowledge and awareness of the dangers of “illegal” drugs with memorable campaign ads such as “Say No to Drugs” and the visual sizzling egg in a frying pan –“this is your brain on drugs”.

This leads me to question and wonder why society as a whole has only applied this principle to the roster of “illegal” drugs dictated by the politicians. . .

Not only do the pharmaceutical companies peddle and promote drugs that slowly eat away at the body and mind, but they also get a wink and a nod from our elected politicians. Why does so much money go into creating a new drug to combat the liver failure induced by one wonder drug, instead of perfecting the chemicals that induce such a state to begin with?

And on what premise and criteria did our legislators base their decision to outlaw particular “street” drugs?

If it was based on the harmful affects on the individual, and society as a whole, then why are we continually bombarded with pharmaceutical ads that start off making you feel all warm and fuzzy about the effects and benefits of their wonder drug, and then end with a laundry list of “potential side effects”. I *know* that I am not the only individual who finds it disturbing that “heart failure, seizures and renal failure” are cited as if they are perfectly normal and acceptable by-products of ingesting their drug. Does their “forthcoming” disclaimer truly absolve them of their humanitarian responsibilities?

And if so, could one not logically draw the conclusion that if the street drug merchants were also “forthcoming” with the potential side effects of ingesting *their* products, that they, too, could then form a legal market?

How and *why* did “soma” usage become a socially acceptable means to relax and smoking a joint is not only frowned upon, but also illegal?

Within this post, it is not my intent to get into the finer points and debate over the blessings and curses of the myriad of drugs, both legal and illegal, nor condemn anyone for their own personal decision to exercise their free will.

Free will and Truth are my ultimate points . . . each individual has an inherent right to choose what is “right” for their life and what are “acceptable side effects” to their being. . .and calling a spade by its name. Hypocrisy is another epidemic plaguing our society –our world, and it is up to *us* to stand up and speak out against such insanity. . .and hypocrisy currently seems to be the standard by which our politicians play the game by.

Huxley’s work of “fiction” literature issued a “warning” if you will, among other great classics. . . “Fahrenheit 451”and “1984” are but two more examples of the very real potential future we face if we continue along such paths. I, myself, am *not* interested in living in such a state of ignorance, apathy and domination. . . and I *know* I am not alone.

We have a duty to ourselves, our children and future generations to lead by *true and proper* example. . .even in the face of a giant.

© 2005, B-1 Concepts

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 1 reply

We the People Tribe

2005-08-18T22:17:53Z

For starters, we here in America could take control of our government back from the uber-wealthy! Checked out the inequities in America lately?

http://inequality.org/

Open invitation to join th We the People movement...

http://tribes.tribe.net/wethepeople

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Keeping with the Dream of Follow the Money?

2005-07-01T20:22:21Z

Here's my dilemma. I've started a small business in Gabon, Central Africa. Not only being the most difficult thing I've ever done in my entire life, it has also been very rewarding however, (you knew there was a however) I'm at a crossroads where the business model for revenue is not sufficient enough to keep the company alive. So I've started adding other activities to increase revenue and keep the place alive. This however, pulls me further and further from my original goals as a small business incubator.

If you're interested in the project check it out here: www.clubafrique.net

So the question I pose to the group, how far off of target do your go in order to keep the business but maybe not the dream alive?

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Hello Everyone

2005-06-06T23:53:09Z

Hey everyone. Glad to be apart of this Tribe.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

The End of Poverty

2005-04-30T02:28:37Z

Has anyone read Jeffery Sachs recent book, or other recent articles related to millinium development goals and ending absolute poverty in our life time in the world?

check out http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/about/director/
for more info, the video segments are good.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

New Here

2005-03-10T00:04:36Z

Hello All I Started My Tribe Group Prince Neo All Are Welcome To Come.

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 0 replies

Change of heart

2005-01-24T20:38:02Z

I would like to help. Who would you like terminated?

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 4 replies

Development Strategies

2004-12-23T02:13:22Z

Is it better to help developing countries from the bottom-up or top-down?

posted in ! Social Entrepreneurs - 3 replies