On 11/12/2011 11:04 a.m., Rik Tindall wrote:
> Brian, your dedication to what is good for people and planet is most
> admirable.
Think of the warnings on tobacco products. How did that come about?
I am also writing a bit on Facebook:
TPPA Action Group
Steffan Browning
there is a lot to do.
>
> On 09/12/11 02:44, Brian Sandle wrote:
>> Fewer people these days attend church throughout their lives.
> For a start, denominational Christianity is edging out of the
> "mainstream" - as, under pressures of (Protestant) capitalism and
> migration, the "community" we knew diversifies and dis-integrates.
> Belief in a more real, effective and unifying ethic is probably coming
> due therefore. Motivating that 'trans-spiritual' humanism, indubitably,
> is great doubt that the asset-bound institutions of "Christ" bear out
> very much of the actual teachings of Jesus, who is but one of several
> worthy prophets of the past. The future needs more prescience now, a
> perfected distribution and a secular, hypothesis-driven approach to that
> is more relevant, arguably.
The Anglican Church and the other Protestant churches have place for
thinking people and have wider philosophy than you might credit:
In the Bishop Vicotria Matthews video I referenced she asks about
whether we are stewards by hording or by rather by sharing and also
talks of comning the three aspects of financial stewardship: Diocese,
Church Property Trustees, Anglican Care, into one, which I think bears
on your comment, "asset-bound" institutions of Christ.
And I note that in replying you quoted most of my article but cut the
very important last part:
" I have had great sustenance in my life from taking part in St Matthew
and St John Passions in both Cathedrals, and also in another way from
the Commonwealth Games at QEII.
In one of a series of "River of Life"meetings facilitated by a Methodist
Minister, the Anglican Priest at our New Brighton Parish ministered to
us on how the tributaries of the Avon had been controlled - piped by our
city builders, but now the river is starting to claim its own paths, and
how we will have to respect it and co-operate.
The Methodist Minister feels the Avon, with its flow of life through the
city, to be like a cathedral."
(He is the one facilitating the New Brighton Community Gardens video on
crude oil at 6.30 pm this evening.)
Rest of post
>
>>>>>
<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-labour-party/news/article.cfm?o_id=264&objectid=10767413>
>>>>>
>>>>> MAF is reportedly doing a study in economics of GE.
>>>>> (purported)
>>>>> Chrissie Williams has resigned from CCC so now an election to replace
>>>>> her is in the near future.
> Opportunities for innovative new industry, jobs and training are what
> Christchurch most needs to recover its dynamism. The search for such
> openings has been the focus of Sustainable Canterbury group work, for
> two and half years. Finally, a breakthrough:
>
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20111209-0827-hemp_food_could_be_on_the_market_next_year-048.mp3
> - strong reference for an economic alternative to Genetically Modified
> Organisms (GMO) is made here, that you will very much like. This is good
> for the land, people and resources, and is the viable prospect that
> Canterbury / NZ so desperately needs. - Get your submissions in to Kate
> Wilkinson MP, Minster of food security, by February 2012.
>
>> Or you might think we are engaging a priest when our city has had such loss.
> The recent "Earthquake in Chile" drama presentation in Addington
> explored this theme very usefully. The ideas of supernatural "Creation"
> and "Act of God" may be the primary disablers that society now needs to
> overcome.
On my facebook page I have some refs to epigentics, in which it is
demonstrated how we live now affects or creates the genetic inheritance
of future generations. That is a sort of creation, isn't it?
The Protestant Church in Christchurch seems to be saying to live in a
way that does not waste the world we have, which must include where we
build to avoid the results of known probable future earthquakes.
>>>> Interesting that Peter Beck is a candidate.
>>> Considering the actions of the other wayward priest - Jolyon White
>>> (billboard vandal) - one wonders what the Anglican agenda actually is:
>>> complete destruction of democratic process and independent public voice?
>> Jolyon's job in the Church seems to be to facilitate a better deal for
>> the less fortunate. Obviously he has become desperately troubled by what
>> corporatocracy has been doing.
> I know I am not the only one surprised to see pastors, in their
> 'dog-collar' regalia, taking up political causes and taking their pulpit
> to the streets - in what seems like an application for new work: a new
> role where their spiritual one has come under intense pressure. It looks
> like an inappropriate merging of functions and a snub to democratic
> history, where political leadership is simply assumed by authorities of
> one particular denomination. Where is the community choice here?
Choose which ministers to support.
> Where
> is the alternative to CanCERN-CERA (Anglican) power that community
> democracy needs, and why are those agencies so undermining of due
> process? !?
Examples, please.
>
>>> Of course (profitable) GE is one thing they are likely to help sell:
>>> science for private (not the public) interest.
>> Some of the members of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu have had disagreements
>> with Ngai Tahu Property Ltd. I wonder if the latter will have any pull
>> on Meridian in the joint Amuri water project:
>>
>> "âInvestment in the proposed project would satisfy multiple
>> objectives including direct tribal involvement in the design and
>> management of water infrastructure that is sensitive
>> to cultural and environmental values,â says Mr Sewell."
> If this irrigator "progress" is at the expense of wider, societal
> democracy and balanced environmental values, that is a nett harm.
I believe that the Maori philosophy is that water and land cannot be owned.
I note that in the US some of the organic famers have found that because
of genetic pollution of their crops that they are having to accept hush
money. Can we avoid these pollutions here?
>>>>> On 4/12/2011 11:47 a.m., Brian Sandle wrote:
>>>>>> Noting what Wikileaks says about GMO food corporates and their policy to
>>>>>> get US Ambassadors to put pressure on NZ and other governments to have
>>>>>> genetically modified crops accepted, and also noting the what those
>>>>>> crops would do to NZ I feel we need to get a very good tactical voting
>>>>>> plan together. GMOs would ruin our agriculture, bankrupt farmers and
>>>>>> make it easy for corporates to buy our farms and water.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
<http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Monsanto_defeated_by_herbicide_resistant_superweeds.php>
>>> The trans-corporate agenda is to inflict societal conformity -
>>> monoculture - which explains the wheeling out of specialists like the
>>> High Church.
>> From time to time I think that Christchurch has had a better lot than
>> many places in the world as a result of its being sponsored in the 19th
>> century by the Anglican Church.
> There is truth in that, availing more fairness of opportunity, for some.
> But the Anglican intention of importing English class society to here -
> founded on top of a numerous layer of skilled agricultural labour -
> actually failed here. The Kiwi culture of "Jack's as good as his master"
> took most "out from under" into independent self-employment - the actual
> paradigm that took root and characterises New Zealand identity. Let us
> give that rational independence clear voice.
However it sprang from the soil of Anglican belief and maybe it is
losing its soil and whithering at the moment.
I relay the Bishop's quote from the Bible:
Ephesians 3:
" 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be
glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for
ever and ever! Amen. "
Brian.
>
>> Some councils are trying to be cautious about GMOs.
>>>>
<http://web.gefreenorthland.org.nz/press-releases/0082-northland-local-authorities-and-auckland-council-collaboratively-investigate-loc>
>>>>
>>>> NZ has been able to be nuclear-free up to now. I say we may be owing a
>>>> lot to activists who have gone through discomforts of varying degree to
>>>> bring that about. Have they helped us avoid in NZ anything like what has
>>>> happened with the nuclear disasters in Ukraine or Japan?
>>>>
>>>> I submit that we owe a lot to the GE Free campaigners, too, noting even
>>>> now the failure of GE crops, and what would have happened to our
>>>> economy, let alone what could happen if they were introduced here.
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone reading this how any idea how the Burwood Pegasus candidates
>>>> might vote on holding corporates in check?
>>>>
>>>> Brian
>>> Vote www.SustainableCanterbury.org for the only realistic and caring
>>> alternative on offer, with a program that you can rely upon.