Poverty And Violence Fuels Illegal Immigration

     As long as people cannot live normal lives in the countries of their birth, they will uproot themselves and seek a better place. Grinding poverty and lack of opportunity drives people to go where they can support themselves and their families. This is what has driven much of the immigration to the United States.
     Out of control gangs and criminal organizations, corrupt governments, oligarchs, wars, tyrants, stifling religious theocracies, violence and corruption, all contribute to the flight of people from their homelands. Desperate people will seek better places, no matter the barriers in place.
     Economic opportunity and jobs that provide living wages in stable environments free from violence and oppression is the only to stop illegal immigration. Only then will people want to remain in their own countries.

Apologists For Islamic Jihad And The Blood Of Gaza

       Islamic jihadists are good at blaming others for the hells they create (including the wars or killings in Yemen, North Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Somalia, South Philippines, South Thailand, Kashmir, Europe and many other places). The rulers of Gaza are no exception. Fortunately for them, they have the planet's most hated group to blame. This allows them to continue siphoning off money and funds to pursue their jihad in Gaza, luxury homes and properties in places like Qatar, all the while ensuring that Gaza has no future. They can send brainwashed Gazans to the border, knowing that the more they direct hatred towards the Jews, all eyes are deflected from them and their corruption and violence.
       This does not excuse Israel from doing everything it can to not fall into the Islamic jihadist trap that seeks maximum civilian causalities on all sides. Israel must always take the moral high ground, and not descend into the gutter with the Islamic jihadist political and religious leaders that see human beings as completely disposable. They eagerly send other people to their deaths, or to a lifetime of disability and painful wounds, never reserving this for themselves.
       To the left or progressive supporters of the Islamic jihadists, if your anger was real, if your tears were not crocodile, then you would demand that the Islamic jihadists stop treating human beings as useless, disposable canon fodder. You would stop making excuses or justifying everything the Islamic jihadists do. You are the enablers that keep the Islamic jihadists emboldened.
       You say Gaza is the concentration camp of Israel's making - as you believe, or as you pretend to believe - in your continued effort to free Hamas and the Islamic jihadists of all responsibility. If Gaza is indeed a concentration camp, then it is the concentration camp of Hamas and Islamic Jihad's making.
       In the universe of the Islamist jihadists and their Jew hating supporters on the left and right, Islamic jihadists can do no wrong as long as their attacks are against the Jews.
       There are few good options or ways to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. But there are options, and it can be done. A bad, really evil option that the Islamic jihadists, and that far too many Palestinian Arab children are being brainwashed to believe in - which is the destruction of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of its Jewish population - condemns the region to endless war and bloodshed. The apologists for the Islamic jihadists, consumed with hate for Jews or Israel, are the enablers that keep the Islamic jihadists emboldened. If Hamas fires rockets, the apologists can only see firecrackers. Suicide bombers are explained away and excused, as is the campaign to terrorize by stabbings and by running vehicles into civilians. The hundreds of thousands of Jews that were expelled and ethnically cleansed from Arab Muslim majority and other Muslim majority countries do not exist in their universe. If the apologists acknowledge any wrong doing on the side of Arab Muslims or other Muslims, it would mean their careers pandering, apologizing and inciting might end.
         Hamas and the other jihadists do not hide their hatred and genocidal ambitions. It takes a special kind of blindness, or a person with a personal agenda, to excuse the violence and blood lust of the Islamic jihadists. Islamic jihadists are emboldened by their apologists. The apologists, despite their anger, feigned or not, have blood on their hands.

Death In Gaza Driven By Hamas, Islamic Jihadi Hatred Of Jews

     Hamas is a typical Islamic jihadist organization that brainwashes children and worships death and killing. (To be clear, they do not really believe in death. They think that dying in this life means they will magically reappear in a hedonistic paradise. In fact, there is no incentive for being on earth for their brainwashed male followers when an imagined paradise awaits, full of women and wild times, all within grasp by killing or trying to kill infidels, especially if they are Jews.) Hamas, like all Islamic jihad groups, rejoices in chaos, violence, disorder and blood. This is what Hamas itself proudly declares. It does not hide its intentions. It does not hide its hate and genocidal ambitions. Recently the leader of Hamas gave a talk about the Jews he despises, in which he tried to use the long history of Jewish persecution and expulsion as the justification for his genocidal ambitions. It never dawned on this hate filled small minded bigot that small minority groups like Jews have been persecuted throughout history because of their vulnerability under the thumb of more powerful majorities. Blaming a minority's persecution on the minority, not on the majority doing the persecuting, is an easy way to justify one's own hate and murderous ambitions.
      This is not a defense of Israeli actions along its border with Gaza. Israel, even though it is dealing with fanatical death worshiping and death seeking enemies, still has the responsibility to do everything possible to limit civilian casualties. But it takes a special kind of blindness or hate to not see that Islamic jihadists like Hamas want civilian casualties. They prefer to kill Israeli civilians, but sending their own civilians to their deaths in order to harm Israel is just as good to these selfish fanatics.
       Hamas indoctrinates its children to believe Jews are evil people that stole their land. Enough Jew haters on the left and right support this point of view, even as many of them live on lands that were stolen from native peoples. You will never see these hypocrites leave North America, Australia, and many other places in order that the lands be returned to the original native people. Many Arabs live and prosper in many places where the lands were stolen, including by Arab Muslims and other Muslims, never once questioning why this is acceptable. During the violent expansion of Islam and Christianity, many native peoples had their lands stolen and their lives violently taken, including Jews. Yet it is argued that the right of return is a right for only Palestinian Arabs, never seeing the hypocrisy in demanding a right for only Arabs that many Arabs themselves have denied others. Regarding the use of the word native, it is conveniently forgotten that Jews had a kingdom and nation called Israel long before there was an Islam, and that Jews have never stopped having a presence in what is now Israel. Jews have lived throughout the middle east, including in what is now called Saudi Arabia, long before Islam came into existence.
        The UN goes along with the Hamas indoctrination of children, which guarantees war and conflict for generations to come. Kill Jews and get back your land, children under Hamas and other Islamic jihad control are taught. Thousands attend summer camps that are nothing like summer camps in the west. These are summer camps where children are taught hate and how to kill. The brainwashed  children and teenagers want nothing more from life than to wage war and kill.
         No one teaches these children that Jews have legitimate rights to live on the land called Israel, a country the jihadists are determined to destroy. No one teaches these children that there were far more Jews driven out from Arab Muslim majority lands and other Muslim majority lands than there were Arabs that fled when Israel became a state. No one teaches these children that Arabs have tried many times to destroy Israel, and that Arab Muslim war mongering and hatred of Jews contributed to the refugee problem (which is putting it mildly). No one teaches these children that of the hundreds of millions of refugees that have been  resettled from the end of WW2 until the present, Arabs and fellow Muslims have made sure that sizable numbers of Palestinian Arabs remain refugees in order to keep the war against Israel alive.
         Many people disregard the legitimate rights of the Jews that were driven out from Muslim majority lands. If the right of return is applied to the Arabs now called Palestinians, then the right of return must be applied to the Jews and their descendents that were driven out by Muslims. The lands they left behind are far greater in size than Israel. And this is only in reference to Jews driven out from Muslim majority lands since 1948. If the right of return has no time limit, which many Palestinian Arabs and others declare to be the case, then Jews must be given back the lands that were taken from them in Europe, all over the middle east and North Africa, and it must include the lands in what is now Saudi Arabia that once belonged to the Jewish tribes of Arabia before they were slaughtered or driven out from the Arabian peninsula by Muslims. Will Arab Muslims give back to the Jews the lands that were recently stolen from Jews in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and many other places? No, they will not. If the Jews from the middle east and North Africa and their descendents, who now form the majority population of Israel, were to return to those places, they would be slaughtered.
         Antisemitism, or hatred of Jews, drives the conflict. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and others make no effort to hide their hatred and desire for genocide. As long as the west keeps pandering to this hatred, encouraging it or ignoring it, as long as hatred of Jews remains steeped in far too much of the Islamic world, and as long as hatred of Jews in the west and elsewhere supports Islamic jihadi genocidal ambitions, many more people will die.
     
       

Money And God Worship On An Impoverished Planet

     Poverty and environmental degradation go hand in hand. No matter the false perception given by rising stock and financial markets, the true wealth of the world - the state of the oceans, coral reefs, healthy seabeds, untouched rain forests, biodiversity, diverse and healthy marine life, and so forth - are in serious decline. The world is getting filthier, more degraded, less biologically rich, more contaminated. Financial wealth is ever more concentrated in the hands of a few who for the most part are oblivious to the depletion and suffering. It is they with the most power, financial wealth and ability to change things, and yet they have the least incentives or desire to do so.
      Any decrease in poverty rates will be short lived unless environmental degradation is reversed. If only people would have greater loyalty to the planet on which they depend, and worship less money, power and their imagined religions that they think offer special places in paradise. Worshiping God, but allowing God's earth to be trashed or washed in blood is beyond comprehension.
       

Starbucks, Howard Schultz, Stop Using Plastic Straws Worldwide

     Starbucks and its founder, Howard Schultz, pride themselves on their concern for the public good. They should immediately stop using plastic straws, and move away from single use plastic and other oil based non biodegradable materials. This should have been done years ago. In the many countries where Starbucks operates, including China (where they are aggressively expanding), Philippines,Thailand, Indonesia and more, plastic pours into the Pacific Ocean and other oceans by millions of pounds daily. Even though Starbucks is just one of many sources of plastic and other oil based contaminants destroying the oceans, Starbucks can set the standard for environmental protection. Will they do it? Will they put oceans first?
       Before Starbucks, there were many small coffee shops that used non disposable dishes, glassware and cups that were washed and reused. Those days are long gone. Big corporations, including Mcdonalds, Starbucks, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Jollibee's and more, never pay the true price for their cheap disposable, non biodegradable oil based packaging and other materials. The oceans and wildlife pay it, and ultimately so does the public at large.

Will Ocean Plastics Be Exploited Like Animal Cruelty?

    There is virtually no accountability in the nonprofit world regarding the efficacy of the programs and services the nonprofits provide in regards to voiceless populations. So here is how their money making career enhancing formula works: talk about or show visually or in another way the problem or form of suffering people care about; show concern; make it seem like something is being done (no matter how worthless or harmful it might be), and then watch the money pour in.
      Are all nonprofits ineffective or harmful? Absolutely not. But when it especially comes to populations that cannot speak for themselves, the exploitation is rampant.
      A number of individuals and organizations have the public believing that they are addressing animal cruelty and dog fighting, when in fact their programs and actions have actually harmed animals and people and prevented any positive move forward for decades now. This is discussed extensively in previous blogs.
       In the realm of conservation and wildlife protection, no matter how inefficient and ineffective a number of people and organizations have been, no matter their hidden failures, the money keeps pouring in for them.
        Poisoning of the oceans by plastics and other non biodegradable waste is a far greater problem than people imagine. It will hit humanity in the face sooner than later, and much harder than is anticipated. Will this problem be the money train for a few, and will it join the long line of conservation, animal welfare, against cruelty type organizations and people that have made fortunes while doing great harm by their ineffectiveness, by lulling people into a false sense of confidence, and by outright harm?

The Animal Advocates And Organizations Benefiting Dog Fighters And Animal Abusers

     If not for the animal organizations and animal advocates that exploit animal cruelty and dog fighting for their own gain, animal cruelty and dog fighting would have long ago moved fully into the realm of public law enforcement where it belongs (law enforcement, meanwhile, will continue to do little to nothing about these crimes, including with worthless token police anti animal cruelty teams, in the absence of pressure to do otherwise). All crime, including animal related crime, belongs in the hands of public law enforcement, which is no closer to happening than it was decades ago. Animals and people have been harmed by the involvement of self serving people and organizations that have made fortunes and careers off the backs of suffering animals.

Man Swimming Across The Pacific. Awareness, Plastics, Animal Cruelty And Dogfighting

     It is in the news regarding a man that intends on swimming across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to San Francisco. According to news reports, he started his journey several days ago. He intends on swimming approximately 8 hours a day. The reports added that at least one boat is following him, and that part of the reason he is undertaking this swim is to raise awareness about plastic in the oceans. Samples of water will be tested for plastic as he goes along.
      It is not our intention to criticize the man for undertaking such a difficult swim. Even if he swims 8 hours a day for months, and rests on a boat during other times, this is a very difficult journey.
      It is commendable that he wants to bring awareness to the problem of ocean plastic. But as having discovered only too well, raising awareness is utterly meaningless in and of itself. We raised awareness regarding animal cruelty and dogfighting, only to see awareness be the means by which a number of nonprofits and individuals capitalized on sentiment to raise money for themselves and further their own careers and interests. Awareness is a money maker that in and of itself does not result in a change of behavior, direction, or in a reduction of harm. Awareness is often exploited by nonprofits and other so called well meaning people and corporations, and becomes the means by which vast amounts of money can be made in the form of contributions, documentaries, other media events, and so forth.
        Concrete action regarding plastics, which has been discussed in detail in previous blogs, is sorely lacking. Millions of pounds of plastics, styrofoam and other oil based contaminants pour into the oceans daily. Only a small amount of it collects at the great ocean garbage patches. Most breaks down into smaller particles and disperses, contaminating marine life, oceans, and people. We are unleashing trillions of plastic fibers and plastic particles through our synthetic clothing and their washing, through our single use products, and from many other sources. Little to nothing is being done to change any of this.
         A number of animal organizations and so called animal advocates have profited handsomely from animal cruelty and dog fighting. They capitalize on sentiment and awareness, and have, through their greed and exploitation, ensured that virtually nothing has been done about dog fighting and animal cruelty, which is discussed at length in previous blogs.
         In short, awareness brings attention and money to a greedy few, and does nothing to make serious problems any better.
         We wish this swimmer a safe journey. We wish that raising awareness meant more than what it has come to mean.
      
     

Starbucks And Howard Schultz, Plastics, China, And The Pacific

     The disaster that is befalling the oceans from the never before experienced millions of pounds dumped into it daily of plastics and other oil based non biodegradable contaminants is not the fault of any one company or country. Economic growth, encouraged all over the world, has long ago outpaced the capacity and ability to properly collect and dispose of the waste products from this growth. Starbucks is just one of many corporations that have grown fat and rich, never having to concern itself with the true cost of where all their non biodegradable products end up. If only Starbucks and its chairman put front and center the environment and oceans. Before Starbucks, when coffee shops were mom and pop operations, where coffee was served in dishes and cups that were washed and reused, the environmental impact was small. Whatever it is that propels people to want uniformity and large company domination seems to completely disregard the price that gets paid for so called efficiency. Garbage has to go somewhere. Much of it ends up in the oceans. Now that Starbucks is aggressively moving into China - where plastic and other oil based waste pours into the Pacific Ocean - will Starbucks and its soon to retire multi billionaire CEO realize that one reason their corporation (like other food corporations) is so profitable is because they do not incur the true cost of where their non biodegradable waste ends up?  Howard Schultz asserts the company has used its scale for social good. No company, including one that prides itself on being progressive, should ever leave the oceans behind in the pursuit of profit.

China And The Right Of Any Nation To Destroy A Sea (The Dying South China Sea)

     China's war against the South China Sea is short sighted and not in the long term interest of humanity, China, or any of the nations that share the South China Sea. Nationalism or whatever it is that motivates China to destroy living coral reefs, atolls, coral islands, and healthy marine zones in order to build military outposts and more, is destroying the South China Sea. Large clams, sea turtles and other marine life are recklessly harvested, ensuring their complete collapse.
      China is turning the South China Sea from a biologically rich, biologically diverse, sustainable food source into a desert that will sustain nothing. It is becoming an empty sea filled with artificial  sterile islands built on the backs of what was once vibrant life.
       Killing a sea in the interest of nationalism or Chinese expansion or whatever motivates the leaders of China to pursue such a reckless path guarantees a future of hunger for millions of people that rely on the bounty of the South China Sea. Many Chinese people will suffer, as will millions of people from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and elsewhere.
        Conservation groups worldwide should address this emergency, including by putting this issue front and center at the UN, pressing for the South China Sea coral reefs and other still pristine areas to be protected marine zones. This means not necessarily challenging Chinese claims of sovereignty, but definitely challenging the right of any nation to destroy a sea or ocean. The Philippines, a nation that will suffer greatly if the South China Sea continues to die, must put the destruction of the South China Sea front and center. Not by war or violence, but by every diplomatic, economic and nonviolent means possible. Unfortunately, more than likely the Philippines will do nothing, conservation groups will do nothing; no one will do anything to stop this wanton destruction. If only this assessment is wrong. And if it not, as sure as sure can be, the South China Sea will stop being the ecological jewel, biologically rich food source that it has been from time immemorial.
         

Ocean Plastic, Heart Disease, Fast Food And Developing Nations

     Most fast food companies use plastics, styrofoam, plastic straws and other non biodegradable materials, much of which ends up in the oceans. Most of these companies do nothing regarding having less non biodegradable packaging. Some of these companies do provide healthy food choices and are taking some steps towards having more environmentally friendly packaging. Unfortunately, this usually applies only towards what they do in developed countries. Their standards are different in developing nations. If people care about heart disease and overall health, and if people care about the poisoning of the oceans by plastic and other non biodegradable materials, they will advocate for food corporations to have one high standard for both developed and developing nations.
      Food corporations need to move away from plastic straws, other plastics, styrofoam, and other non biodegradable materials across the board, in every single country in which they operate. Plastic and other non biodegradable contaminants that enter the oceans from far away places are killing the same Pacific Ocean and other oceans upon which all nations depend.
      Food corporations may argue that healthy food choices and changes in packaging materials are too costly to implement in all countries. The true cost of unhealthy foods and the trashing of the oceans is enormous. It is a cost the public bears, not the food corporations.