- What is a human life worth? To governments, despite any
supposed humanitarian rhetoric, not much. To insurance companies, well,
just what the risk tables list. Human life, despite the entire exterior
Orwellian rhetoric, is not worth much these days. Talk is pretty much
empty rhetoric, if it is not backed up by ethical and social support.
The latest tragedy for Gaza citizens speaks volumes for what Israel gets
away with, and with military help from the United States. Innocent people
can be bombed, murdered, assaulted, or torched all with impunity.
Military force, made up of humans, too, does not know anything but destruction
and killing. In more than 5,000 years of recorded history, Homo sapiens
have not learned very much. As a species, we are still tripping over our
own muddy feet and still behaving like Neanderthals. It is a patriarchal
system that is totally broken.
-
- Yes, of course, cultural artifacts and literature remain
from long- gone societies/civilizations. But, what about the deeper philosophical
issues? Caring. Goodness. Ethics. Social support. Compassion. Empathy.
Doing the right thing. Telling the truth. Helping one's neighbor, when
all is in chaos. Where are all these today?
-
- Around the globe, we are also experiencing one weather-related
crises after another: cyclones, tornadoes, enormous flooding, category-5
hurricanes, and now thousands of out-of-control fires. Really, they can
be called FIRESTORMS, due to their ferocious intensity and extensive damage,
often in the thousands of acres. Last year, California had a record 2,000
fires. Many burned for weeks and weeks. Exacerbated by years of drought,
poor forest management, apathetic and ignorant public officials who remain
clueless as to what this kind of devastation actually does to individuals,
and more and more frequently these days to entire communities that are
wiped out. Even more tragic than this is the huge loss of life: children,
family members, and neighbors. Companion pets and wildlife also count
in this kind of tragedy. When all that remain are skeletons and bones
of animals one knew, or the loss of a daily familiarity of feeding birds
in the winter, or watching the beauty of Mother Nature. This, too, counts
as tremendous heart-wrenching loss.
-
- The mainstream, corporate-controlled news carries some
of these events. Yet, so much of the news is absolutely worthless trivia,
and many reporters (whose work is published) are completely ignorant.
To make matters worse, these days, human attention span is short. Brain
function is short-circuited. Now we have news sound bites, not in-depth,
reporting. People are more wrapped up in the illusion of contrived movie
or television catastrophes than in actual REAL-LIFE ones. How much time
do people spend chatting about the latest scary film about some terrible
fake event, as if it was the real thing?
-
- What does it actually mean, when an area is really on
fire? An out of control fire? Massive amounts of acreage, burning hundreds
of feet into the air with a disturbing red-orange glow. This suffocates
all wildlife and creates unmitigated havoc for all those people engulfed
in its horrific midst. The sky is greyish-black, filled with darkened
smoke. The air is hot, acrid, and chocked with thousands of burning toxins
from homes, businesses, autos, and every other imaginable thing caught
up in it and swirling together in Dante's real-life Inferno.
-
- I can write about a FIRESTORM with first-hand knowledge.
I am a survivor of the 1-million-acre horrific devastation of the October-
November 2003 southern California FIRESTORM. At the time, this was the
worst fire in California's history. It blanketed an area from the Mexican
border, up through San Diego County, to Orange County (just south of Los
Angeles). Despite thousands of firefighters, who came from all over (not
just California), this FIRESTORM raged, out- of-control for three-and-a-half
weeks. At one point three separate fires in San Diego County almost merged.
That would have created more havoc of some SUPER FIRESTORM than was already
raging.
-
- My community of about 2,000 people, outside of San Diego,
was notified early one morning, on Monday Oct 27. The helicopter flew
over my house, and warned us to "evacuate immediately." We had
about 15 minutes to pack and leave. Time was taken to call neighbors,
as we had a small evacuation plan in place. What can one take in 15 minutes?
A few family photos, pets (only sometimes, unless you have farm animals),
some food. Not very much. We thought we would be coming back "home"
soon. My life has not been the same since that October morning.
-
- As I drove out of my driveway, my heirloom roses were
blooming. It seemed so incongruous this very last bit of momentary
joy-- from what was actually happening. I never thought this would be
the very last time I would see not only my own home but also my entire
neighborhood.
-
- In the ensuing three-and-a-half weeks, most people (who
did not have pets) were evacuated to places far away. If you had pets,
you could not stay in any shelter, as pets were not allowed. Where did
this leave thousands of people who had taken their pets? So, it became
a huge unfolding nightmare: where was it safe to stay, when so much of
San Diego was ablaze? The fires jumped over several major freeways, so
one could not escape either south to Mexico, or north to Los Angeles.
Planes were grounded. First, I lived in my car for five days. I had my
four cats with me, and had had the presence of mind to take enough food
for me and my "four sweeties," as I always call them.
-
- My four cats were lucky survivors; but many of my friends
lost their pets and farm animals. Around San Diego County, thousands of
animals were burned to death. Some estimates put it at more than 90 percent
of all the wildlife in the national forests and state parks. Many of those
animals that did survive the FIRESTORM later starved, as food was so scarce.
This, too, has a parallel with the fires going on in Australia now, as
millions of animals have died. (1)
-
- Into the month of November, our FIRESTORM continued to
rage. Calling newspapers, radio or TV stations, provided absolutely no
information on one's own community. Despite ABC's Peter Jennings (with
whom I spoke on several occasions) and other top reporters from as far
away as London, we could not get any answers: "Do you have any news?
Is my neighborhood safe?" News services and reporters knew nothing.
What were they covering?
-
- Two weeks into this chaos, the FIRESTORM in some areas
was raging at 2700 degrees Fahrenheit and up to 200-300-feet into the
darkened, smoke-filled sky. Officials told us the air was safe to breathe.
More lies. We were told the very same lies that Christy Whitman told New
Yorkers after the Twin Towers were demolished on September 11th. It's
okay to breathe hundreds of thousands of pounds of poisons. It's okay.
-
- When we were finally allowed "home" to absolutely
nothing leftthen began another long-term (YEARS!) saga of what it means
to be a survivor in the United States of a county-wide catastrophe. Our
FIRESTORM was made up of 14 arsons within those three major larger ones.
ARSON! What does that mean? For us it actually meant that our neighborhood
was deliberately torched to the ground by three CDF (California Department
of Forestry) firefighters. There were witnesses to this crime. It does
not even compute that people who were supposed to be protecting our homes
and property were actually responsible for burning it! It was not some
supposed controlled back-fire. It was sheer GREED. It was a crime.
-
- CDF firefighters were making avaricious piles of money
supposedly "battling the fires." We were told they could be
making up to $1,500 per day. The longer the FIRESTORM burned, the more
money they made. When a few of us in my neighborhood began to hear about
these arsonist firefighters, we brought in a legal team and fire investigators.
After more than three years, all of this investigation and court appearances
were stonewalled. Everything we tried to do to get accountability was
silenced. So much for answerability and justice.
-
- When a community is declared a US "Federal Disaster
Area" and citizens get their worthless FEMA cards, this quite literally
means: "Tough, you are on your own. There will be no help. No justice.
Absolutely nothing."
-
- Oftentimes, there was no help from family members or
friends. Were they too scared to act in a decent manner? The only small
amount of help our community had was from two Methodist and Presbyterian
churches, a very kind rabbi, and priest.
-
- Several people I knew died. Children died. Burned bodies
were still being found four years after the FIRESTORM. Who was held accountable?
Not one person.
-
- The trauma was/is very deep. As a scholar and academic,
I lost my life's work: more than 2,000 books, 35 years of research and
teaching materials (long before the days when some of the research could
be done on-line); six books that I was writing in various stages of completion;
three generations of family photos; all my creative work (needlepoint,
embroidery, sewing, knitting, and crochet), a myriad of my grandmother's
and mother's creative work, too. None of this is replaceable. My gorgeous
organic flower and vegetable gardens are gone. All is ash. That ash, I
shoveled myself for seven-and-a-half months even with "guaranteed
replacement" insurance. In that entire time, post-FIRESTORM, I had
about 4-5 days of help. A person is worn to the bone, when day after day,
all one can do is drive to horrific devastation, shovel ash, and walk
with knee-high boots on ground that was still hot-to-warm for weeks after.
Wearing a heavy-duty mask hardly helped. In the beginning, there was not
even a relief center nearby.
-
- When all is ash, when you walk land that used to be filled
with elegant, old oak trees, a babbling brook, spring flowers, the air
perfumed with lilacs and rosesand then, everything that you smell is
burned, what can you even think? It is impossible to process the massive
destruction. When the remains of thousands upon thousands of trees are
blackened skeletons, when the ground is hot, when there is no home, no
comfort, nothing that even remotely looks familiar, the wrenching heartache
is enormous.
-
- Further, in this state of trauma, you do not expect to
be going to battle: battle with officials; battle with insurance companies.
It is truly, Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" in real life. And
THAT is what the political criminals-in-charge want: Get you off guard;
tell you lies; deceive you. These days, this is the way rapacious businesses
and the government are run.
-
- With a so-called "guaranteed replacement" insurance
policy, I did not expect that I would have to take my insurance company
to court. I never had a claim. To have them tell me: "We do not have
any proof that you had such an extensive library." Then when you
finally "settle" with the insurance fraudsters, they give you
pennies on every thousand dollars. How can I replace even a fraction
of my library [a three-generation one, in four languages, with books from
the eighteenth-and nineteenth centuries] with a few thousand dollars?
But, for decades, this is the on-going insurance- scam reality. It does
not matter which insurance company one has. They deliberately under-insure
their customers to stay competitive. How many people actually read their
insurance policy, until it is too late? This is the rip-off that millions
of Americans face. Whether it was our FIRESTORM, or hurricanes Rita and
Katrina, Andrew, or tornadoes, or floods, the story is all the same: deceive
people who are in crisis. Take advantage of their ordeal. Is this same
scenario about to happen to Australians?
-
- How does one begin to start a new life, when there is
an insurance battle ahead? If one does not have any insurance, this situation
is even far more of a nightmare. FEMA [meaning, Federal Emergency Mis-
management] gave one of my neighbors $10,000 to help her rebuild. Then
a year later, they sent her threatening letters that they wanted this
money back and with interest! She had nothing! There is no justice. Just
off-the-scale greed. There are billions and billions of taxpayer dollars
to illegally pay American banksters and fraudsters in the biggest insider
financial swindle in our history; but there is no money to help rebuild
lives. No help. Absolutely none. Thousands of hurricanes Rita and Katrina
survivors are still in extremis some now are critically ill because
FEMA put them in toxic trailers. So much for FEMA "help."
-
- If a person wants to start a new life, but has no records
of anything, then there are additional troubles. Who wants to hire someone
in extremis? House burned, everything gone. No clothes, no car, nothing
needed for a working day is there anymore. It does not matter what a person's
credentials are, if there are no records left. Getting duplicate records
sometimes takes years and years to replace, because this is only one part
of all the things that have to be redonejust to get back to some very
small semblance of where you used to be.
-
- The only consistent scenario is that we were all in trauma
and we had little-to-no help. Lies came from an incompetent president
(who came to San Diego late, and then said there would be help). Red
Cross also came to our community late. They have more than 100 years of
supposedly "helping people" during catastrophes. After two days
of interviews totaling almost three hours, Red Cross told me: "I'm
sorry, Dr. Perlingieri, we have no proof that your house burned down."
And we were only 5 miles from my destroyed and devastated neighborhood!
It was more than incompetence. There was unmitigated, long-term whitewashing
from every public official: from the mayor to the governor, and everyone
in between. As an American citizen, who loves what she thought was her
country, I (along with all my neighbors) was completely unprepared for
the massive deception and deliberate cover-up that has ensued.
-
- This is not the country in which I grew up.
-
- With the FIRESTORM tragedy unfolding now in far-away
Australiathe devastation is the same. The similarities are quite striking.
There are more arsons. Will anyone be held accountable? Will there be
justice? Lives are unraveling. Havoc aboundseven if the world media is
not reporting what the human toll actually is! Death abounds. Futures
are uncertain. What public official there will tell the truth? Who will
help the small and young children who are now traumatized? They do not
understand the magnitude of what is happening! They are just scared. Who
will help the elderly? Who will help people who are disabled? WHO WILL
HELP ANYONE IN GREAT NEED? Will there really be any compassion? Help?
Succor? Anything that resembles what being human is all about? People
need comfort and a tremendous amount of understanding in a massive catastrophe!
Any kind of healing takes years and years!
-
- In the ensuing five years, since our nightmare, in addition
to trying to rebuild lives and homes, some of my neighbors did not make
it. Five of my neighbors have died from post-FIRESTORM
- related illnesses. Three now have breast cancer. Nothing
is really fixed for many of us.
-
- Further, what was once a gorgeous landscape for hundreds
and hundreds of miles, even today, is still devastated. Scientists told
us that it would be more than 150 years before the area recovered. We
do not have the luxury of that kind of time, with the climate unraveling.
Many areas still look like moonscapes. California is in a huge, long-term
drought, just as Australia is. The fires in California and Australia were
so intense that they could both be seen by satellite. Drought conditions
do not recover, when there is planetary-wide environmental chaos.
-
- These bushfires are "the worst in Australia's history
[as our FIRESTORM was in 2003] and the day the fires started is being
referred to in the media as Black Saturday. Australian Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd is calling the deaths 'mass murder,' according to Sky News."
(2) The death toll continues to mount. Some bodies are so badly burned
that they cannot be identified. We experienced that, too. This latest
tragedy continues to unfold, while families are in deep crisis. It will
take months and months (perhaps, realistically years, as I saw personally)
for the death toll, the investigations (if they are not covered up), and
the devastating aftermath to have any real kind of resolution. Any normalcy
is years away. This is only the early part of it all.
-
- These fires are being called "bush" fires.
It is like our California fires being called "wildfires." When
fires are deliberately set, they are arson. "Bush" or "wildfires"
indicates some accident of Nature. Far too many fires in California have
been deliberately set. Very few arsonists have been caught or tried.
Here, too, the similarities, in this Australian tragedy to ours, are striking.
Drought, in both our FIRESTORM and Australia's, plays a big part in expanding
a fire's scope. (3)
-
- My repeatedly asked questions remains: How much of this
chaotic climate we've been experiencing (including droughts around the
globe), that is accelerating over the past 5-10 years, is human- caused
from excessive use of fossil fuel-greenhouse-gas emissions, and how much
of supposed "Climate Change" is really a human-created smokescreen
for the horrific and illegal use of more than 60 Clandestine Weather Modification
programs that originated with the US military and now are all over the
planet? Are these vast array of Chemtrail poisons actually the reason
for our changing climate? We are being sprayed with tons of barium [highly
toxic to all mammals and that affects the heart], lithium, fiberglass-coated
aluminum [to which the US Air Force admits, and it destroys brain function],
assorted mycotoxins, molds, and viruses are being sprayed on us every
day, every week, every year for the past 10 years, from various altitudes.
Much of this has been documented by concerned citizens who have sent samples
to independent labs.
-
- We are breathing this! It is no wonder we have so many
epidemics. You cannot put all the, perhaps, billions of tons of these
aerosol poisons (over the past 10 years, there are no public records)
into the air without environmental repercussions. How is all this poisonous
Chemtrail spew affecting our weather? In the entire United States, only
one meteorologist, Kevin Martin [www.socalweather.org/scwa.html], who
is actually reporting Chemtrail patterns. The rest are lying to us.
-
- For millions of years, our weather was courtesy of Mother
Nature. Not today. Our gorgeous deep-blue sky has vanished. Now, we have
"X's" and "tic-tac-toe" Chemtrail lines, and EMF wavy
red synthetic clouds in the sky. In absolutely no way do they resemble
real clouds. Without our permission, we have been illegally assaulted
with an assortment of aerosol poisons for the past 10 years. Not one
public official has responded to thousands of concerned citizens letters
and phone calls. These are massive war crimes on a mostly unsuspecting
global-wide populace. Australia is as affected as North America.
-
- It takes years and years to begin to start any kind of
new life. If a person does not have any or minimal help, it is even more
difficult. In our completely and impersonally askew Orwellian world,
maybe someone will listen for 5 minutes. Then, one cannot talk about it.
No one wants to hear about it. No on wants to listen. Who wants to hear
about some enormous tragedy, when it is so very far away? This is what
is now happening in Australia.
-
- When people die in arson fires, it is murder. It is the
deliberate taking of life. In our post-FIRESTORM scenario, all of this
was deliberately whitewashed. Repeated calls to public officials brought
silence. No one returned calls. My newspaper essays were ignored by county
officials. When I was interviewed on the radio, there were countless other
citizens who called in to say they knew that this horror was going one.
But none of us could even get to first base to get any answers or any
kind of accountability! The San Diego County judges were in cahoots with
politicians. The so- called "Blue Ribbon Commission" was full
of lies. Absolutely nothing was done to get to the truth.
-
- There are no guarantees in life except illegal taxes
and death. Those are certainties. We do the best we can each day. We try
to set good examples. We have dreams and plans. We want to accomplish
and share things with those we love. Then, circumstances beyond our own
personal control happen. An accidental "wildfire" is a far different
occurrence than a devastating human-caused-arson fire. When crazed people
deliberately cause county-wide havoc or country- wide decimation through
arson, when lives are deliberately destroyed by arsonists (who often get
away with it), these are crimes.
-
- We live in an out-of-kilter Western society that is in
its Roman death throes, where crimes are condoned or ignored. The little
guy gets nailed for driving 5 miles over the speed limit, while corporate
CEOs are living in luxury, after they've stashed millions away, bankrupted
their companies, and gotten away with it. The latest US "stimulus
packages" mean theft and further economic collapse for us. From illegal
wire-tapping and the dismantling of laws, to the deceit of big corporations
who are now supported by fraudster government policies, this is all "business
as usual." It is planned. When those in charge are part of the ethical
malaise and moral decrepitude that is endemic to our broken political
policies, why are we not holding all of them accountable?
-
- As I have written recently, we are at a precipice. As
a species, we have been racing at Star Trek's Warp 10 off a cliff, without
any breaks. We are mostly led by rapacious, criminal leaders whose strings
are being controlled around the world by an elite cabal bent on world
domination. Today, all our multiple crises are manipulated and instigated
by people lacking in any humanity. Greed has taken the place of ethics
and compassion. With this kind of scenario, what is a life worth?
-
- There are thousands of Australians who are now in deep
shock and great anguish. Crimes have been committed. I know how they are
suffering. I have been there. My heart aches for them. Will they have
the very real help they need? Will Australian officials do the right thing?
Will they be there to really help; and show the world that another country's
officials can step up to the plate? Will they show compassion and character
(something totally lacking in US public officials)? Will all the arsonists
be found and be held accountable? To date, with hundreds of Australian
fires in Victoria state, only three are known to be arson. (4) News reports
mention this is the largest arson investigation in the country's history.
However, it remains to be seen whether early investigations of these
known arsons actually produce real results.
-
- Across the thousands of miles, I hope there will be help,
caring, and compassion for all Australians who are now in deep distress.
I hope there will be justice given to arsonists, as well as empathy and
real, long-term, absolutely essential assistance given to those in great
need. I hope Australians, who are now in extremis, will have the courage
to rise like the ancient Phoenix from the ashes and that Australian officials
will really shine with integrity.
- ***************
- NOTES:
- 1. Bonnie Malkin. "Australian bush fires: Millions
of animals feared dead." Feb. 12, 2009:
- www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/
4598663/Australian-bush-fires-Millions-of-animals-feared-dead.html]
-
- 2. Carol Bengle Gilbert. "Australian Fires Linked
to Arson; 171 Dead; Livestock and Wildlife Losses Heavy." Feb. 9,
2009: www.associatedcontent.com/article/1459911/ australian_fires_linked_to_arson_171.html?cat=8
-
- 3. Eric deCarbonnel. "Catastrophic Fall in 2009
Global Food Production." Feb. 10, 2009: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=va&aid=12252
-
- 4. "New arson attacks suspected in fire-ravaged
Australia. Feb. 11, 2009: www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ ALeqM5hr9eDbBsXUIYOLpQcZAyG2QryJTg
-
- *******************
- Educator and environmental writer Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
is the author of "The Uterine Crisis," which London's "The
Ecologist" notes is "a must read."
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