Yes, will have no Bananas ,and what has this got to do with Oil ?

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http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/17/offbeat.banana.reut/index.html

"We may even see the extinction of the banana as both a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and as the most popular product on the world's supermarket shelves," the magazine added.

Plantains , a cooking banana makes up 75 % of the Amazonian people's caloric intake.

They grow in the tropics, like blackberries grow in the U.S. . They are almost impossible to eradicate if someone wanted to do so and have been disease and pest free for thousands of years until now .This food has keep the Native Indians in the Amazon alive for thousands of years and is the single most important food that keeps them highly independent from the outside ( civilized ?? ) world we live in. What the staple food Wheat is in importance to the U.S. , the Plantain banana is to the Amazonians.Possibly more. Imagine what would happen to our food supply if wheat became extinct.

There is oil in the Amazon and the big oil companies want it. There is also timber and metals , the things needed to keep the industial societies of the world turning .But lately the Amazonian tribes have found lawyers to represent them and along with public support are starting to make small headway in keeping the oil and timber companies out of some of their terrritory.

How can the oil companies get the oil and minerals under the Amazon forrest and jungles. Get the Amazonian indians out of there. How do they do this. Starve them out .The single most important food these Amazonian indians need to be independant are these cooking Bananas.Without these plantain bananas the Amazonians are going to have to compromise with the outside world for a food supply.I bet the trade offered to them will be for their oil.

Remember how some enviormentalist found a loop hole to stop logging in the Pacific Northwest by using the excuse of an endangered speices of owl making it's home in the trees that would have been logged. And how the logging companies found another breed of owl that wasn't considered endangered and could cross breed with the endangered spieces.And how they brought in that other breed of unprotected owl to cross breed with the endangered breed. The new cross breed would not be considered protected and now the forrest trees could be logged away .

That's similar to the concept of this disease that has been invented and will wipe out all natural breeds of bananas. And only the new genetic man made varities of bananas with the resistantence to this man made biological disease , will be able to grow.

I have no doubt that the disease that is going to wipe out plantain bananas is man made and part of a conspiracy to keep the Amazonian Indians from being independant and to get the oil that is under their land .. Do I have proof or documentation? No.

But remember this :

There's no documentaion that the most power country in the world has a leader , that if his parents and family weren't powerful energy company tycoons , and he came from a middle class family , he most likely be an unfunctional human waste and most likely an inpatient in a mental hospital. Just look at the guy.Anyone who's ever visited someone in a mental hospital or using the new politically correct term ( behavior treatment center )can reccognize that brain impaired look....He makes Dan Quayle look like Einstien.

-- Steve (Unreal@home.com), January 30, 2003

Answers

I have not heard about this attack on the South American indigenous folks. Tsk. tsk.

I take it you're not fond of Bush? Or are you merely lamenting his lack of measurable IQ?

I think he's the second member of the real Axis of Evil: Cheney, Bush, Rumsfield. Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Perle. I'm leaving somebody out.. Hmm. Alfred Newman?

ON the Spotted Owl issue, I live in the PNW, and to the best of m knowledge, this scenario you laid out never happened.

Where'd you hear this strange tale of cross breeding?

The timber industry is largely non existent around here, and the spotted owl played a part, that's for sure. Also playing a part were years of serious overcutting, payoffs, illegal logging practices, and greed.

Hey-plantains-way cool. I'll never forget the very first trip I made to Latin America. I'm on the train, right? Here comes this lovely lady with a huge bunch of the biggest bananas I ever say. As big around as a beercan. Twenty-four inches long, if they were an ince.

I took one look, and told my Copilot, "I've gotta buy one of those things".

So I bought one. I opened the peel. As I hungrily began to take a bite, I noticed all the local folks looking at me warily. I bit down on the banana. Everyone started laughing! It was a plantain, and it was like eating shoe leather!

During that month long advernture in survival without any knowledge of Spanish whatsoever, I did learn about platanas. They were served as a side dish at every breakfast-fried. Delicious!

¡Buen provecho!

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), January 30, 2003.


Eradicate the food sorce. Introduce disease, make indiginous people dependent upon the perpetraters...yep...it works. Ask a Native American.

-- Marty in Mo. (martys@iland.net), January 30, 2003.

<< ""I have not heard about this attack on the South American indigenous folks. ".>>

Joe , This has been going on way back, I remember when PBS was a little more informative in the 70's and showed the mining of gold in S.A. and how they used a chemical solvent to extract gold from soil to get the small fine particle sized gold . All the rivers in that area were getting contaminated with the solvent ( may have been asenic ? )and all the fish ( that was a protien source of food ) were dieing down river.

On a satellite tv network called world link they show a lot of freelance reporters documentaries ( one being how we supply the country of Turkey U.S. militay helicopters so Turkish goven"t can kill Kurd rebels living in the hills ) . They shows wars and injustices from all over the world. .It's also where I first heard about the 320 tons of spent radi active waste used in Dessert Storm years before it was being mentioned in this countries media .http://www.worldlinktv.org/contNow.html . here's their web site .

One documentary was on an area in South Americas Amazon. I had written down the names of the tribes , the company that was drilling oil and some other stuff .I 'm just learning to be accurate because it holds up better when telling something on the forums . . I lost the paper that I had written it on, an envelope of junk mail. So I never posted the story .They showed ponds of oil , oil in the rivers , birds covered with oil and this waste product of oil that trucks were spraying on the roads ,telling the locals that is was to keep the roads from being dusty. It looked like a hell on Earth .They were also teaching the natives tribes to live in housing other than their cutomary homes and introducing a new diet that were of foods that the natives people were just learning about .And would only be able to get from the ones who brought this new food. A lot of it was white bleached flour . Now there's a healthy diet .I say they'd need to introduce dentist next .

The information of the spotted owl and the introduction of another species of owl into the area that the spotted owl live in that was to cross with the spotted owl and eventually become a new cross breed species of owl,I don't remember where I read it. But I remember reading it somewhere . It was a while back and I didn't give it too much attention when I read it. It's obvious I did read it or I'd have no Idea of the forrest in the PNW being protected because of an endangered species of owl.It was when Clinton was president that I read it. I have a strange way of keeping track of time also.

Enviormentalistt in the article I read were accusing the logging companies for hiring biologist for coming up with a solution to get rid of the spotted owl so logging could be done.I am aware that it must take time ( generations ) for the cross breeds to dominate to the point that ( all ) spotted owls are eliminated by becoming the new cross breed for the logging to take place.

Joe you said : <" ON the Spotted Owl issue, I live in the PNW, and to the best of my knowledge, this scenario you laid out never happened. ">

I know your saying here that the trees that are habitat of the spotted owl haven't been logged yet. But the introduction of the different species of owl to the area that the spotted owl lives in , are you saying that scenario never happened ?

I will search to see if I can find something where this claim was made.

Joe ,if the spotted owl becomes extinct will the forrest that was their habitat be logged? That was what the article I read said , that once the spotted owl was gone from the area , it could be logged.

I'm always the first to admitt being inaccurate . And you've been known ,in the 2 years I've been reading your post, to be consistantly accurate.

I knew you'd respond to the claim I made.I now need to find documentaion.

Marty ,does this story sound familiar ? Same story different place .Don't tell us the ending, I haven't seen this this one before and I'm wondering how this story will end ???

JOJ : < " I bit down on the banana. Everyone started laughing! It was a plantain, and it was like eating shoe leather! " >

Joe , you know your politics well , But eating a raw platano (Plantain ) .You know you'd have needed a box of EX-LAX to get that safely out of your bodies digestive system. That's why the people were laughing . Crazy Gringo !

I still eat plantains as a big part of my diet about 4 times a week.It's the only fried food I eat beside an occassional egg.

I also have another belief that will sound on the paranoid scitzo side.It's a " Steve original ".

I believe with more and more people trying to grow their own independent food supply, dieases like the ones that are affecting the banana are going to start affecting the common vegetables we grow here in the U.S..

I believe that there will be new genetic hybrid vegetable seeds that will be designed to resist the new ( man-made )diseases ,that will be sold in place of the seeds we now have access to .

I also believe these new genetic hybrid seeds will produce vegetables , that will have seeds but the seeds will be sterile. So saving the seeds from the vegetables we grow in our home gardens will be useless as they will not grow into food. Causing people who grow their own food , to have to buy seeds ( that will be highly exspensive )every year if they want to grow their own vegetable gardens. Eliminating our food producing independance.

The purpoe of this biological war- fare. To prevent people from being independant and self sustaining .A lot of people in the U.S. may not realize it . A single family that grow an independant food supply is called , Homesteaders .But a community of people who grow their own foods, and produce all the things they need to be a self sustaing Community has a word that descibes this type of living .

It's called COMMUNISM. That's a bad word in America.

I think it's funny that a lot of people who homestead will speak against communism , when in fact , they are striving for an independant life style that is actually fitting to the U.S governments definition of the word.

The corporations that run this government are not going to allow this independant life style to continue much longer . Most homesteaders must have some intuitive instincts about this, and although they don't know why they feel this way , they seem to be highly paranoid.Maybe living on the land brings out our natural defense instincts .And they have a reason to be .

-- Steve (Unreal@home.com), January 31, 2003.


JOJ , So far this is all I can find on spotted owls crossbreeding . It still doesn't mention what I claimed above.

But the article I read quoted an enviormentalist groups accusations of biologist working for the logging industry, and were introducing these barred owls purposely in spotted owls habitat in order to cross breed .I will keep searching and post what I've found latter .

http://www.hollyandjeremy.com/wildlife/esReports/report17.html

Another problem in trying to figure out where spotted owls are currently living is the expanding barred owl population. The barred owl's current range is the eastern U.S.; however, since the 1900's, its range has included western Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and northern California. The barred owls have started moving into spotted owl habitat, and in some cases the owls are cross breeding, making it difficult for scientists to determine which species they are dealing with.

-- Steve (Unreal@home.com), January 31, 2003.


And to try to be more accurate in my older years, I think it's been 3 years since I've seen your post around,as I think I remember you posting on countryside forum before I started posting there.I first started reading countryside forum around the time everyone was planning for Dooms -Day count-down when the year 2000 was just about to come.

It seemed to me that everyone planned so well and then were disapointed that nothing happened. It was like planning months for a big picnic and then the day came and it was a rain-out .

All I had saved was a days worth of food. I hope I'm better prepared when the real thing happens.

-- Steve (unreal@home.com), January 31, 2003.



I find it interesting that this thread began with a threat to humanity and evolved into bananas and owls.

-- Marty in Mo. (martys@iland.net), January 31, 2003.

Marty , just PRAISE THE LORD no one went into some religious ranting.I needed to say that to give this forum the feeling it had when it first started. Well here goes.I know I'll be accused of another type of ranting , but that's what the forums are about. I could just say something nice about the weather but I'll write this instead .

I thought this post began with bananas ? and mentioned owls in the 5th group of words.

About the threat to humanity.

I wonder what useful biological purpose humanity now serves on the planet and if the planet would be better off without the human being .You have or had primative humans living in a jungle.They have no formal education. But by no means are they uneducated.They know how to feed ,cloth, and shelter themselves. They know about medicines , they have intoxicants, sustainable agriculture practices ,they have talents in arts, crafts ,music and hunting tools , they have companionship as they live in close nit communities.

They take care of the weak , sick and elderly. So they have compassion.They don't have ridgid standards , so they have loose sexual contact. They don't destroy the enviorment that sustains their life needs.Their wars don't pull in everyone in the world who are not involved to fight and become part of that war. Nor pose a threat on a global level.

They have every thing they need to live , all within a few square miles of where they live. So they don't waste energy importing necessaries they already have in their own back yard.

It seems they have all ,one could ask for out of life. So why do we need all that we have now , which is so much , yet most feel something is missing out of their life?And want more .

It seems to me that primative human living in agrarian societies are highly sophisticated compared to us industrialized , formally educated ,highly dependent on industrial gadgets,human beings. They don't helplessly depend on so much of the things we depend on. They can do more and live better and be more comfortable with so much less.

So I conclude, but maybe I'm missing something here and not have given this proper indept rational thought.That the threat to humanity begins when we leave the simple jungle life and have desires for things other than what is basic necessities that the jungle dwellers have.Or had . I see the tribal people that are left on the planet as an example of a solution to most of the problems in society today. It's right in front of us . The answer to most of societies woes.And we are going to do nothing as it's destroyed .For short lived energy supplies ,minerals, and timber which serves as the lungs of the Earth , as said by these primative ones.

I also think. it's the only way human kind can live in a life sustainable way. Any other way would lead to where we have gotten now.

We became so advanced ( so we think ) that now we can destroy almost every living thing with the push of a few buttons.Nuclear tantrum toys.

Hows that Marty, I did the best I could to end this keeping it in the suject Topic . I think.

We are a biological creatures not a computor or machine. Denying what we are as we shave our face clean.

Set on a timer to be at work everyday .As we're told what we're worth by the amount of our pay .

Not listening to when ,our body tells us to rest . Or to raise and teach our children , to what we believe is best .

Prison like institutions to force their education.When it's nothing more than brain washing them ,to serve an industrailized nation.

Since I believe that everyone needs to choose the lfestyle that's right for them. I have no hard feelings for those who chose an industrail lifestyle. As long as they repect the others who chose a primative simple lifestyle , and they drill for oil on their own property cut their own tress in their back yard ,did up the ground so it looks like the moon , to get minerals in their own back yard and live and face up to the impact this has on their life as well as others ,instead of doing it in someone else's back yard while their yard looks pretty with bright green lawns and pretty flowers.

What complicates matters is that everyone wants fast these days . Move fast , think fast , read fast ,fast service, fast cars , fast foods, fast jets, 0 to 60 in 3 seconds. Hoooooooold on .

Like Mahatma Gandi, maybe everyone needs to meditate , slow down and fast .Cactus time.I recommend the usual affective dosage .

I kind of see things as; We become a educated society that makes as much sense as a person who drinks out of the toilet bowl and craps in the kitchen sink.

Makes me wonder who the real savages are ..And who are the truely the sophisticated ones ????

I'm still searching for that owl story.

-- steve (Unreal@home.com), February 01, 2003.


Marty , don't go shooting back a one liner.I know there's good stuff in your head that your not sharing.

-- Steve (Un@h.com), February 01, 2003.

Since I live in a rural area of the U.S. I am actaul less of an enviormentalist in a way than a city dweller who uses public transportaion or lives 5 minutes from work or the supermarket .

Everytime I go buy my goat feeds so I may live a more natural argrian type lifestyle I will think how the money I spend on gas will contribute to taking someone I don't know , away from their natural lifestyle. I'm supporting a hell on earth. Yet I like to think of myself as an enviormentalist , when in true fact I'm a hypocrite.Hey if I can fool myself , why should I care? Everyone else does it .

Gee Wiz , Al Gore is linked to this oily mess also ? Who next will we find is involved in this Mother Teresa ?:::http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,714634,00.html

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Cabana/4580/texaco.html

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Cabana/4580/huaroni.html

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Cabana/4580/oil.html

http://www.amazonwatch.org/newsroom/mediaclips02/uwa/020503_uwa_rt.htm l

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/033100-02.htm

-- Steve (Un@h.com), February 02, 2003.


Yeah, I prepared for the y2k thing. I installed a 2500 gallon storage tank, at the highest point on my property. I'd wanted to do this for a while, since I had become spoiled by gravity flow springs at my last place. y2k gave me an excuse, and I'm glad I put in the tank. Now, if the power goes out, which it does every so often, I have enough water to last a long time. I also saved on the cost of my irrigation system, as each zone can water twice or more times as many plants, thus saving on piping, solenoids, etc.

I put up about a year's supply of food, and it was also pretty handy for a long time, though not necessary.

I figured, it was considered likely that y2k would cause disruptions by a lot of fairly reputable people, so I might as well at least prepare to the extent of buying stuff I could use in the future anyway.

I'd do it again, under similar circumstances...

I like your philosophy of life, aka "Syphilized" vs. "primitive". I agree, for the most part. I do have a suggestion as to why it's necessary to have all the modern stuff, the tools, the 9-5 workday, etc. I think it's so that SOME of us can have a very "classy" life, you know the drill: travel around in expensive yachts, fly over to see the total eclipse, drink the finest imported single malt whiskey, etc etc etc.

This can only be accomplished if 90% more or less of the population works their butts off, at lousy wages, so that the "High Class" folks can have the lifestyle they desire.

I just started a really cool book, called "The Culture of Make Believe", By Derrick Jensen, who happens to live in Crescent City, and teaches Creative Writing at Pelican Bay. Since you left the area so long ago, you may not know about Pelican Bay. It's the closest thing to hell ever made by the Government of California. It's a maximum security prison for those who totally blow it in other maximum security prisons.

Anyway, if you like to read, get this book. It's a mind blower! Among other things, he explains why slavery was likely outlawed in the US of A: it's more expensive than merely keeping the unemployment rate high enough to assure a cheap workforce. The slaves had to be fed, had to have medical attention, cost as much as a typical house, and you have to raise little slaves for years before they become worthwhile workers.

He covers so many topics, with such a novel (to me, at least) perspective. Listen to the last paragraph from his Preface:

"This book is a weapon. It is gun to be put into the hands of all of us who wish to oppose these atrocities, and a manual on how to use it. It is a knife to cut the ropes that bind us to our ways of perceiving and being in the world. It is a match to light a fuse."

Steve U@oh; don't flagellate yourself. As a popular left wing call in host, hereabouts on public radio says, "Do what you can do"..

You can't do everything perfectly. For one thing, there is no perfection. We live in an imperfect world.

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), February 04, 2003.



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