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Since I was a kid I felt this need to play a role in helping Mother Earth. At the age of 12, I wrote a 50-page report (that wasn’t supposed to be more than 5 pages) on threatened wildlife and realized clearly that my Mother was being continually and forcibly raped by giant corporations intent on profit.
It’s ironic that the never-ending quest for wealth has brought such destruction to Mother Nature because the desire for money is basically a desire for happiness. But true happiness lies in nature we relax and unwind and finally realize we are just on a hamster wheel. Just walking down a tree lined street in a busy city immediately calms me. Let’s face it peace is the key to happiness. I can’t be peaceful unless I’m relaxed and I can’t do any of it unless I’m doing yoga, but I digress (I used to want to change my middle name from Tracy to Tangential because I can never follow a straight line. I prefer to get lost in getting lost I tend to have the best experiences. But back to the thread)
Having the realization when I was 12 that, in the words of Neil Young, “Mother Nature’s on the run”, along with Ted Danson getting me active in his organization, American Oceans Campaign, encouraged me to learn about drift-netting and all the shit the giant companies were dumping in our waters. And the more I learned the more I wanted to learn.
My passion to get the word out led me to write a play called 2 on 2 in 1988. I studied about global warming and other environmental atrocities and worked scientific predictions into one of the character’s monologues. I have watched these predictions come true from the melting of the polar ice caps to an increase in hurricanes and flooding.
I began to speak for the trees because forests house so many species of plants, insects and animals necessary for the balance of our planet. After finding that over half of all the trees cut in America were cut for paper and that until the late 1800s, 90 percent of the world’s paper came from hemp as it is the longest and strongest natural fiber, I knew I had found the ultimate sustainable crop. I researched the history of hemp (having been long since acquainted with its fun loving cousin) and discovered the absurd, corporate-driven fight to kill it to be the perfect parable in the vein of David and Goliath. It sums up the fight of the factory worker, the small farmer, the teacher, the field worker and the sharecroppers of the world still fighting against slavery.
The importance of the fight to make hemp legal cannot be over emphasized. Hemp is synonymous with sustainability and the fight for freedom. Going on Bill Mahers show for Todd McCormick affected my efforts, as I naturally became the pot poster boy and the D.A.R.E. poster boy (for what not to do). I suppose its okay because the bottom line is that in a “free” country you should be free to do as you please as long as you’re not hurting anyone.
The reality is we are living in truly exceptional times and the Patriot Act and the jackboot are crushing the breastbone of Freedom to the point where it is no longer breathing. And if billions of corporate and private dollars go to the puppets (who call themselves our leaders), those “donors” are genuinely free to do anything they want and are above the law. They belch toxins into our air, spew chemical toxemia into the river, dump barrels of radioactive material and God only knows what into the oceans and no one will stop them. And, ironically, you and I cant make up our own mind about our personal well being like driving down the road without a seat belt or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or ingesting a non-government sanctioned corporate drug. God forbid we want to protest the genuinely wrong things the many arms of the Beast are into cutting down ancient forest, nuclear waste, mountaintop removal and GMO proliferation just to name a few crimes.
Frankly, I have felt stymied many times but find I need to stop looking at the big picture now that I have seen the daunting vista, and just focus on what is close at hand. Cultural Creatives are 26 percent of the adult population. There are plenty of us who understand the corruption of the political/economic apparatus of this country and this world. Can you believe that since Hurricane Katrina, Tony Blair, Bush’s war mongering brother across the bay, said he agrees with GW’s assessment that the greenhouse effect needs more research and wants to pull the entire EU out of the Kyoto Protocol and that individual nations should adhere to Kyoto only in as much as economic considerations allow? Who is controlling the strings that make Blair’s body and mouth move?
I see the ongoing destruction of all that is natural and want to make a difference. Our mission at Voice Yourself is to connect you with others, to share information about alternatives biodiesel, sustainable clothing companies (i.e. hemp, organic cotton and bamboo) and to get clean and natural cleansers into your hands and homes this is only the beginning. Our small, extended family will spread out across the world like good music. Thank you for contributing to the dream that we know exists. Our time is now.
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