Opinion

Details

Published: 17 November 2007

Throughout time and everywhere in the world, specific individuals and groups have imposed their wills on others, from the victors on the battlefields who enslaved their victims to those who defined the role of women to be subservient.

Middle Eastern patriarchies, which had the greatest influence on western civilization, further enshrined obedience as the highest virtue, in this case obedience to a God to whose access they alone declared holding the unique formula. In practical terms that meant submission to the Temple, the Church or the Mosque that were said to exclusively represent divine authority on earth, and that indeed shared, along with the State, tyrannical powers over the populations that had the misfortune of living within their reaches.

It appears to be the curse of all cultures called civilized, even the Aztecs, to have been pathologically obsessed with ideas of conquest, of dominant power, and of the submission and control of the populace under the authority of single rulers or governmental institutions, and in many cases of religious figures and dogma.

No other cultures but the West and the Middle East have historically so successfully used religion as a tool of domination, of coercion, of the breaking of individual will to serve and benefit the various kingdoms and empires whose aims and actions certainly never spoke of humility, but which were on the contrary driven to reign over the world by any means, rationalizing their arrogant and all-too-often abominable transgressions by, ironically, pretending, with the sanctioning of religious institutions, to represent "God's will" on earth.

The idea of submission or obedience as a fundamental necessity for spiritual salvation consequently never applied to the rulers, to those who assumed power over the people and who indeed had to be deified, to be made to rise to the elevated and grotesquely inflated positions of god-king, god-emperors, to be made to embody divine powers, so as to be free to exert tyranny over their own people and those they conquered.

Humanity has not yet completely cleared its own psyche of centuries of such conditioning, and considers questioning authority a daring act, when it is in reality a baby step in the vital process of reclaiming spiritual sovereignty, of restoring the integrity, unity and wholeness of the soul.

People still believe that submission to authority is the foundation of civilization, and are culturally programmed to think that without a fear of the law, without the threat of coercion, they would "revert" to chaos, to anti-social behaviors. They are trained to think that civilization rose out of chaos, of anarchy, of savagery, of barbarism, and that anything that threatens it would recreate such conditions.

Yet were not most so-called primitive cultures more orderly, united, stable, harmonious and grounded in timeless traditions than present societies, which are becoming ever more chaotic, unbalanced, diseased, divided, oppressive and unsafe? Nothing seems to produce chaos more surely than civilization, that is to say coercion, because living under the authority of another or of an institution or government, a person automatically learns to associate freedom with destructive behavior, precisely because freedom means expression, and expression means the ability to release what becomes, under such abnormal and unnatural conditions, prevalent emotions: anger, fear, resentment, rage in extreme cases.

Living under pressure, the civilized mobs periodically release such pressures illegally by participating in riots, in occasional bloody revolutions, and legally in global wars in which their barbarism is unleashed with the blessings of the State and of religious authorities and finds full expression, after which they are made to ponder their own inhumanity, and to welcome ever more control, ever more coercion, ever more "civilization", because told to fear themselves, to completely distrust what is defined for them by religion and science to be a degraded and brutal human nature.

This is why all major wars lead to ever greater losses of individual liberty, to the expansion of bureaucracies, to greater governmental and institutional powers, and to the greater power of those whose immense wealth place them in positions of extreme influence, and who marvel at the ease with which they can manipulate the willingly submissive and self-destructive masses.

Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.

{mos_sb_discuss:4}

Details

Written by: Lake County News Reports

Published: 11 November 2007

The recent workshop on quagga mussels (held at the Board of Supervisors chambers on Nov. 8) and previous meetings/Board of Supervisors discussions/classes are all similar and real scary. The threat is well defined (results of these mussels getting into a waterway); any chance of eradication is all but dismissed; significant ongoing monitoring of the lake (including water sample DNA analysis) is described to see if we have them (negative so far); and the public outreach to inform our residents is reviewed.

It is agreed that prevention is our only hope. The scary part is that no significant prevention actions (either underway or in the planning stages) are discussed.

The county says that prevention is a state task and we cannot afford to do anything but wait for the state to act. The state has stepped up inspection at several Southern California border inspection stations, which is good.

The state has assigned the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) as the lead agency and recently passed a resolution (AB1683) to give more power to agencies to fight against these invaders. A DFG employee at the meeting stated that while she is not aware of the current status on their effort, DFG is very understaffed and has had significant budget cuts recently. She did describe the effort where dogs are being trained and used to locate mussels (like drug sniffing) and Lake County will have two such dogs; that is also good.

When one analyzes the data presented at these meetings and then does some research to validate and expand this knowledge, the scare is amplified. All information indicates that if the mussels (quagga or zebra) were to reach Clear Lake (an ideally suited environment for them) the lake and the county would change forever.

Over a period of (5+ ?) years, the lake would be dominated by the mussels, the fishery as we know it today would be wiped out (bass included), many of the birds would be gone, the beaches and shores would be covered with sharp mussel shells and would stink from decaying mussel tissue.

The recreational lure of the lake would be gone as would much of the county revenue. However, costs would soar, water usage from the lake would become very costly as every water pump inlet would need to continually be cleaned or have expensive chlorine dispensers installed to keep the mussels from closing them off.

This would be another nail in the coffin of our struggling agriculture industry. All of this would cause property values to plummet and further hit the county revenue stream. And of course this is not isolated to our county; Cache Creek would spread the mussels into the delta and the state’s water distribution system.

Most would quickly say this doomsday scenario is at best exaggerated and probably not accurate, the lake has done well for hundreds of thousands of years etc., etc. Many are hoping that eradication of the mussels is not impossible as now assumed and scientists are trying to understand effective ways of doing so.

A “California Science Advisory Panel” (including experts on Clear Lake) was assembled to address this threat and their report “California’s Response to the Zebra/Quagga Mussel Invasion in the West” (May 2007) is available for reading on the Internet. This report confirms the serious threat to the west and concludes that it would be foolish to not do everything possible to prevent or eradicate these invaders even if significant short-term interruption to tourism, fishing or recreation would result. They admit that prevention/eradication costs would be high and may seem too over whelming but would be justified when compared to the long-term environmental and economic costs of an invasion.

So, why are we doing so little and not sensing a higher level of urgency on this topic?

We recently had a large bass tournament and several of the boats were from the Lake Mead area. Inspection was not enforced prior to going into our lake; any precautions taken with these boats were entirely up to the owners. Several Lake Mead contestants in the tournament admitted to taking no precautions prior to entering Clear Lake.

Many Southern California boats use our lake for many reasons. Even if a boat owner wanted to have a boat sanitized for mussels prior to launching, there is still no effective station for getting that done in Lake County.

One has to agree that ultimately control should be at the state level (ours is not the only lake at risk), but it is our lake and our local economy and we should not be willing to stand back and wait until the DFG gets its act together to protect us.

What can we do?

Controlling access to this lake is difficult at best. However this threat was first presented to the Board of Supervisors in 2005, and again early this year with a frightening update that the mussels were now in California and still no effective action or plan.

One possibility is to "shut down" our lake and publicize it widely; have the county declare that lake county waterways are off limits to out-of-county boats unless they are inspected and properly sanitized. Anyone proved to be violating this restriction will be fined $10,000. An action similar to this was proposed by one of our supervisors in February of 2007, but I guess ruled out as overkill?

At the very least something like this should be done until less intrusive (state?) controls are in place and effective.

Why is the Sierra Club not all over this? It is certainly a greater short-term risk to our lake than global warming. It is certainly more of an environmental threat than herbicides on our roadways.

Tell your supervisors you want them to escalate this issue as a county priority and assign a strategic task force to put a plan together. We should not panic over this but it does warrant our best effort.

Ed Calkins is chairman of the Clear Lake Advisory Subcommittee. He lives in Kelseyville.

{mos_sb_discuss:4}

Details

Written by: Mike Thompson

Published: 10 November 2007

Veterans Day is an opportunity to honor our nation’s heroes and what they have done for our great country. While one day is never enough to appreciate the sacrifices these individuals have made, we should all take time today to think of and thank our veterans.

But today should be about more than what veterans have done for us. It should also be a day to consider what we are doing for our veterans. Are we providing them with the support and benefits they deserve?

As your congressman and a combat veteran of the Vietnam war, I frequently ask myself that question. Whether at Walter Reed Army hospital speaking with a soldier wounded in Iraq or at a town hall meeting talking with World War II and Vietnam veterans, I question whether our government is providing each of our veterans with quality care and support.

Regardless of your opinion on the war in Iraq, there is no denying that our troops are doing a great job. There’s also no denying that our ongoing involvement in this war has placed an enormous strain on our veteran services system. Thousands of service members have returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious physical injuries and psychological trauma. More will follow them. Some of them need extensive treatment and care for their injuries, possibly for the rest of their lives. Others need significant help transitioning back into civilian life.

Unfortunately, too many of our veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan are not getting the quality health care and support they deserve. Some aren’t getting the appropriate treatment they need to recover from their injuries. Some are struggling to transition back into the workplace. Some are facing mountains of paperwork and red tape before they can get care. And many who cannot return to work are struggling to pay their bills.

This strain is not only impacting our new veterans and their families; it’s affecting our older veterans as well. I hear from many veterans of previous wars who wait months before they can get an appointment with a physician. Sometimes they have to travel long distances to find a veterans health care facility that can give them the treatment they need.

There is clearly much more Congress can do to fulfill our civic and moral obligation to our veterans. And this Veterans Day, we can say we are making progress. Over the past year, Congress has worked to significantly improve how our country provides all our veterans with services and benefits.

Most important, Congress is in the process of creating historic increases in resources available for our veterans. This year, Congress voted for the single largest increase in veterans’ funding in the 77-year history of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Veterans of Foreign Wars said “the record funding level acknowledges the deep debt this nation owes to its defenders.” The American Legion called these improvements “an impressive commitment to this nation’s service members, veterans and their families.” This funding will help improve health care benefits and facilities and add 1,100 more case workers to the VA’s staff.

But funding alone is not enough. We are making strides to address the inadequacies of the veterans health care system brought to light in part by the Walter Reed scandal. We’re also working to provide better health care programs for combat veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. And last week, the House passed a bill that would help thousands of California veterans achieve the goal of homeownership.

We are taking the necessary steps toward providing each of our veterans, including the more than 50,000 veterans in the 1st Congressional District, with the quality care and support they deserve. Veterans kept their promise to serve our nation and we must keep our promise to them. Today, help keep this promise by showing your appreciation to those who answered the call of duty.

Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) represents District 1, which includes Lake County, in the U.S. House of Representatives.

{mos_sb_discuss:5}