Unfriendly skies and seeds

Just as I thought, researching into the airline industry has proven to be a large task. It’s hard for me to know when to stop looking sometimes, so I try to remember my original goal is “not harming people, animal or earth”. However finding all the safety issues is a little alarming and I wonder if I shouldn’t include “personal safety” on my list!

I’ve read stories about disabled workers being pushed out of their jobs and not compensated for them, or on-the-job-injured employees having their medical coverage denied and then being fired as well. And these sound like completely legit claims, of course it’s hard to know when you have just one side of the story but based on the quantity of these types of stories, I do believe them. There is even a United Airlines website set up for employees to voice their unfair treatment by management as well as several lawsuits in action.

But the safety part is really scary! People getting fired for doing the right thing and for not doing the wrong thing. I don’t know if one airline is really worse than another, but I read many complains against regional airlines, namely Gulfstream. You can go to http://www.airline-whistleblowers.org/ and read all the stories you want! This is a website set up specifically for whistle-blowing on the airlines. And why should a website like this even need to exist? Obviously passenger safety is not first with the airline industry and so the employees must anonymously voice their concerns for fear of retribution.

I’m not sure what I can do about this, I can’t stop flying major airlines – I guess I could hire my own plane ? Sure, I’ll put that down as a goal! But in reality it boils down to letter-writing.

I’ve written many letters this past week. It’s one of the only ways we have a voice in this country, let the decision-makers know what the people want! I’ve written to the Texas Board of Education asking them NOT to remove Cesar Chavez and other leaders of the farm movement from the school textbooks. I’ve written to my senators about several issues this past week, including several letters about GMO (genetically modified organism) products. I’ve asked Traders Joe’s to stop selling “red list” seafood and promoting unsustainable fishing practices. I’ll be writing to Health Valley organics and Amy’s organics thanking them for specifically labeling if they’re products contain GMO’s or not.

It’s real easy to write a letter, ask me if you need help.

I’ve been following the GMO world closely the last week, although I don’t want this to turn into an anti-GMO blog, nor anti-Monsanto blog, I’m getting increasingly frustrated. I’ve set a little personal goal to not support Monsanto or DuPont/Pioneer, but it’s tough/
As I look for organic seeds for my personal garden, I find that Seeds of Change is now owned by Monsanto, although you’ll not find that on any of their packaging. It’s increasingly hard to know just what we’re getting or where it’s coming from.

Two news items to note this week:
1. RR crops are getting more herbicide than ever before – over 30% more in the last two years. Can I get you some soymilk with your herbicide??
2. Gates Foundation has named a former Monsanto man as Agriculture Director ( I’m still figuring out my letter to send Bill.)

If you’re bored have a look and see what Gates, Monsanto, Rockefellers, DuPont and others are up to for controlling our future: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529 - I know it seems a little like “conspiracy theory” but there is truth to it, then watch the movie “Zeitgeist” for fun.

For my journey this week – just where is all the RR cotton going to? It’s not an edible product so it could be easy to let this slide, but it’ll endanger other products and people from it’s bio-engineered DNA and heavy herbicide use.

My wish of others – write letters! Go to change.org if nothing else and sign petitions