Category Archives: Community

Gulf Oil Spill as the Unfolding of Prophecy

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The Gulf Oil Spill as the Unfolding of Prophecy

Daniel Pinchbeck

via: http://www.realitysandwich.com/gulf_oil_spill_unfolding_prophecy

As someone who has written extensively on indigenous prophecies relating to this time, it is hard for me to escape the uneasy presentiment that the massive, ceaseless, devastating cascade of what may be more than 100,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day – apparently still mixed with the far more toxic dispersant Corexit that British Petroleum continues to inject, despite EPA objections – is anything but the inception of a new phase in the foretold unfolding of events that may terminate most life on earth, potentially leading to the rapid extinction of the human species. Recent articles reveal that there is a gigantic bubble of methane gas underneath the Gulf of Mexico, which has helped to create the enormous pressure that makes it unlikely, if not impossible, that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill can be stopped by human means. Video taken by undersea robots show oil and gas leaking from many fissures in the earth, far beyond the range of the well hole. This suggests that the underground containment structure is cracking apart. If the current effort to build relief wells fails or is ineffective, there are no more known technological fixes available.

According to  D. K. Matai, writing on The Huffington Post, “The “flow team” of the US Geological Survey estimates that 2,900 cubic feet of natural gas, which primarily contains methane, is being released into the Gulf waters with every barrel of oil.” If the estimates of over 100,000 barrels of oil leaking per day is correct, this means that over 16 billion cubic feet of gas may have been emitted, “making it one of the most vigorous eruptions in modern history,” writes Matai, an engineer and co-founder of The Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance. The huge methane deposits beneath the Gulf were well-known as a risk factor for drilling operations, which did not apparently dissuade corporations like British Petroleum from shirking regulatory safeguards in order to drill at the edge of known technology, 5,000 feet under the ocean floor and then 30,000 feet (imagine a distant speck of airplane far above the ground for a comparision) beneath that, into the core of the earth. Methane is a major contributor to global warming, turning into carbon dioxide once released.

What Matai along with other engineers, scientists, and journalists have laid out is a possible scenario where the methane, pushing up with enormous pressure, could lead to a gas explosion: “A methane bubble this large – if able to escape from under the ocean floor through fissures, cracks and fault areas – is likely to cause a gas explosion. With the emerging evidence of fissures, the tacit fear now is this: the methane bubble may rupture the seabed and may then erupt with an explosion within the Gulf of Mexico waters. The bubble is likely to explode upwards propelled by more than 50,000 psi [pounds per square inch] of pressure, bursting through the cracks and fissures of the sea floor, fracturing and rupturing miles of ocean bottom with a single extreme explosion.”

The methane gas explosion would be immediately followed by a series of enormous tsunamis engulfing Florida and the southern coast of the US. At the same time, during the day when this explosion takes place, “several billion barrels of oil and gas” will be released, as freezing water rushes into the enormous cavity, turning immediately into steam. There are many earthquake fault lines running from the Gulf through Mexico and much of the South West of America that might be triggered by a sudden collapse of the ocean floor due to such an event. “Could this be how nature eventually seals the hole created by the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher?” Matai asks. Of course, this is only one scenario, and it is unknown if this will occur, or what the timetable might be.

If such a devastating scenario does not take place, there is still the continuing spill, and the high likelihood that our current known and available technologies will be unable to address it. In this case, we may soon see the Gulf of Mexico area and the Southern coastline rendered uninhabitable. As the Christian Science Monitor has reported in its article, “Raining Oil in Louisiana? Video suggests Gulf oil spill causing crude rain,” there is some evidence that oil is beginning to rain down on inland areas of Louisiana. “Crude oil doesn’t evaporate, but some are speculating that oil mixed with Corexit 9500, the dispersant that BP is using on the ever-growing slick, could take to the air.” As Kerry Kennedy, from the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, stated in an interview on CNN,  the average life expectancy of cleanup workers on the Exxon Valdez oil spill was 51 years old. “Almost all those people who did work on the Exxon Valdez are now dead,” she stated. “And BP still here, once again, is big oil not giving the information to the doctors and health care officials.” According to Kennedy, cleanup workers in the Gulf “had been told by BP that the didn’t need respirators. Apparently, they’re concerned about poor media images of people wearing respirators and rubber gloves and starting, quote, ‘hysteria.’”

As widely reported, hurricane season is now upon us. Hurricanes could potentially carry the extremely toxic crude oil mingled with the even more poisonous Corexit hundreds of miles inland, creating either a slow-motion mass murder of the local populations or forcing the government to execute a total evacuation from the area. As the oil travels up the coastline over the next years, coastal cities facing the Atlantic and Pacific may also become uninhabitable “Haz Mat” sites. Caribbean islands such as Cuba and Jamaica will be devastated, as will be the coastline of Mexico.

As I explored in previous works, I am convinced that we are reaching the hinge point of a shift in human consciousness and the earth that will either lead to a rapid transformation of our way of life, our “civilization” and its basic paradigm, or the termination of our species in a series of intensifying cataclysms. One clear reason for this is that our technological powers continue to advance rapidly, while those who are currently in control of these galvanic forces reveal a dangerously reduced consciousness, a lack of forethought based on their self-centered greed, combined with a complete absence of ethical and moral development. As Rolling Stone recently exposed in a great piece of investigative journalism, the bungled handling of the oil spill was preceded by the gutting of the regulatory system that monitored such operations, revealing once again the government’s capitulation to corporate interests. It seems increasingly obvious that, if we wish to survive as a species, the current ruling corporate, political, and financial elite – working seamlessly together to bring about our collective suicide – must be deposed, replaced by a new orchestration of civil society, an openly democratic and truly transparent system, where nothing is hidden, where profit is not the only motivation, and all have a voice.

As the Deepwater Horizon cataclysm spreads gigantic dead zones in the Gulf, exterminating vast ecosystems of marine life, threatening millions of human beings with illness, dislocation, and death, potentially blossoming into an extinction-level event, British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward continues to display the profound lack of remorse and the blithe disinterest we recall from the tenure of the last Bush to occupy the White House. Recently, he attended a yacht race off the as-of-yet-unsullied English coast, while his public statements include the infamous “I’d like my life back” and the equally extraordinary, “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean.” Despite extensive scientific documentation of the extreme toxicity of crude oil, Hayward has suggested that “growing health problems among clean-up workers may be related to food poisoning, rather than their exposure to crude oil and dispersants.” Our corporate and financial culture instills a mindset of sociopathic disregard, and the system permits certain psychological profiles to thrive within it: those capable of disassociating their actions from any moral consequences. What should be an extreme liability in a complex and interconnected world shared by a multitude of living beings has become an asset for our corporate, financial, and political masters – the current ruling elite who congregate at events like the annual Bilderberg gathering, who see massive loss of life as “collateral damage” along the way to their next golf game or yachting match. By now, it seems fairly obvious that Barack Obama is one of this breed, indistinct from the rest.

“These deformed individuals lack the capacity for empathy,” writes Chris Hedges in his essay, ‘BP and the Little Eichmanns.’ “They are at once banal and dangerous. They possess the peculiar ability to organize vast, destructive bureaucracies and yet remain blind to the ramifications. … The corporations, and those who run them, consume, pollute, oppress and kill. The little Eichmanns who manage them reside in a parallel universe of staggering wealth, luxury and splendid isolation that rivals that of the closed court of Versailles. The elite, sheltered and enriched, continue to prosper even as the rest of us and the natural world start to die… And our business schools and elite universities churn out tens of thousands of these deaf, dumb and blind systems managers who are endowed with sophisticated skills of management and the incapacity for common sense, compassion or remorse.” Like the bail out of Wall Street, the BP oil spill disaster makes evident – if more evidence was needed – that, in the United States, the corporations and the government have merged into a single power, a destructive force founded on the mindset of Empire, seeking domination of nature through technology, and control of consciousness through incessant indoctrination via the corporate-controlled media. There is zero possibility that our atrophied electoral system will interrupt or impede this juggernaut.

I try to maintain faith that the human spirit will awaken in time to liberate itself from the prison that has been built around it. While my doubts grow, I continue to work for that result – to hope and to pray for it. What seems more likely is that the great churning multitude of humanity will choose to remain distracted, disconnected, pursuing narcissistic aims, vain and virtual pleasures, as the natural world, the generative earth, crumbles around them. On what the Russian mystic G I Gurdjieff called our “ill-fated planet,” most people apparently prefer to die rather than awaken to the situation, think for themselves, and join together in a collective movement to restore the earth and build a sustainable and equitible global society. Many of us can see the awakening happening, but it seems to be coming far too slowly, in hesitant fits and starts, while the destructive force also grows in strength, pumping up the volume on mind control technologies, predatory drones able to assassinate from a distance, data-mining intelligence operations, and all the rest of the sterile evils that our technocrat sociopaths can envision and unleash.

These are aspects of my current view of the world: the faltering of my faith, that horrible presentiment that the forces of disillusion and destruction have already triumphed, that creepy familiar feeling (as if I already experienced this, long ago, on some other lost world, many forgotten splinters of incarnated lifetimes ago) of failure and futility. On another level, I feel an equally uncanny presentiment that all of this is still going perfectly according to plan, that the script of our collective world movie/space oddysey has to unscroll or unfurl in just this stomach-clenching way, toward its still mysterious denouement. Observing my own life, I see that it often takes a drastic crisis to spur me into action – perhaps that is the only way change ever takes place, on the individual or species level.

The environmental and economic meltdown could clear away all the obstacles and obstructions that keep us from attaining clarity, from putting into practice what we know intuitively to be true. Is it possible that the Jungian archetypal Self – the increasingly humanized god-image that seeks to incarnate in our human world – must bring about the complete breakdown of what is known and familiar, to open the space for what can only be revealed, in the fullness – and emptiness – of time? Perhaps we can only reach the depth dimensions of our higher being through an unfolding mega-crash that exposes all levels of delusion and self-deception, that forces those of us who desire illumination to break all the bonds, the “mind-forg’d manacles,” that keep us from attaining liberation. Or perhaps I am only making a hopeful story out of the toxic rubble and radioactive fragments that will soon be all that remains of our ruined world, if the corporate sociopaths and Little Eichmanns have their way.

I consider the geyser in the Gulf to be analagous to the rupturing of the amniotic sac that occurs at the end of  pregnancy. This event presages the birth of the new being, who must be forced by a terrifying and life-threatening crisis to use the organs he or she has developed over the previous months – developed without knowing what purpose they serve or how they function. Like the fetus at the end of the pregnancy, the human race has devoured the stored resources within our mother’s secure womb, the fossil fuels buried deep underground, and now we must learn to survive on new forms of energy, taking the initiative on our own.

Over the course of history, humanity has developed delicate and sensitive organs of consciousness and perception, without truly knowing their eventual meaning or purpose. Unlike other species, we have a tremendous excess of communicative capacity, leading us to make art, write novels, dance, compose symphonies, imagine elaborate inner worlds. How do we know that these seemingly marginal aspects – aspects that seem to have little to do with our survival as a species – are not, in fact, essential to our unfolding evolutionary trajectory? Aboriginals in Australia believe the sacred task of humanity is to “sing the world into being,” communicating with the ancestors in the Dreamtime. Perhaps, through an awakening of our imaginative and psychic faculties, we can restore this primordial communion, and reopen doorways that modern society slammed shut long ago.

Our creative capacities are one legacy of our species’ recent history, a new extension or organ of  consciousness that has developed along with our increasing technical and technological capabilities. Another aspect of our evolution can be found in the world’s esoteric knowledge systems. These systems give us tools for evolving consciousness, for perceiving and interacting with other dimensions of reality. We learn from the traditions of mystery schools that humans are capable of performing marvelous and magical feats that overturn the apparent physical “laws” proposed by science. Up until now, such manifestations have appeared rarely, usually linked to a particular person – books like In Search of the Miraculous or The Autobiography of a Yogi describe many psychic feats of certain masters. In our modern desacralized world, there are also many well-reported accounts of “miracles” – inexplicable psychic phenomena – such as mothers suddenly able to lift 3,000 pound vehicles off of their children after an accident, and so on – acounts of powers that exist in one moment, but afterwards seem to fade into nonexistence.

In the same way that electricity was once inaccessible to us until engineers learned to channel it in the early 19th Century, is it conceivable that these psychic or psycho-physical capacities could become steadily available to people through a disciplined training, once the mechanisms behind them are better understood? I believe that we are currently in transition from the physical to the psychic phase of our evolution as a species. In order to manifest this, we would need to develop a shared realization that such a shift is possible. This requires an open dialogue on the legitimacy of psychic phenomena and synchronicity, building a foundation for general acceptance of the powers and potencies contained within the psyche. I am compelled by Rupert Sheldrake’s theories around “morphic resonance” and the “morphogenetic field” that forms when sudden inspirations and breakthroughs become habits and patterns, creating what scientists mistakenly call “laws.” Those who have broken through to a new level of understanding need to create the template, strengthen the morphogenetic field, before the larger population can comprehend what is happening, and make a transition.

It is now agonizingly obvious that humans do not change their ways until they are far outside of their comfort zone. It is only at the point of death that transmutation becomes possible. Perhaps the rampant desecration of the physical world is going to force the more conscious subset of humanity to purify their intentions, clearing cobwebs from the shadowy corners of the psyche, to access extrasensory capacities on a regular basis. Many of us have experiences of this energy, this potential, but the manifestations tend to occur at uncontrollable junctures and in mysterious ways. In my own life, I have found that psychically charged events occur at certain highly charged junctures, which seem to reveal the working of a synchronic order, as if some form of superconsciousness, when magnetized by the energy of intention, can ripple through the underpinnings of our 3-D reality, causing changes that seem beyond the parameters of what we generally accept as possible. Can we learn to access these capacities on a regular basis, like the dependable current we get from electricity? If we can come into alignment with this superconscious shaping force, we may be able to begin to heal the wounds of Gaia, to stop tormenting the generative earth that shelters us and gives us life. I think it is quite possible that even the course of seemingly unstoppable biospheric and geophysical events, like climate change or the oil spill, could be altered through collective psychic effort, much as indigenous groups like the Hopi used initiatory ritual and trance dances to bring rain down from the sky.

I pray this is the universe’s wager for us: that we will go beyond our current ruts and limitations, that we will manifest a future of imaginative joy by stepping into our potential, becoming the wizards, warriors, and initiates that the world needs so desperately now. As Nietzsche pointed out accurately, “man”, in his current form, can only be a transitional creature. Either we are rapidly approaching the terminus point for our species or we can collectively choose to transmute, creating an evolutionary implosion, from the physical to the psychic realm. As the oil gushes forth and the earth’s resources disappear, it may be that we can learn to thrive on subtler and far more powerful forms of energy. Working together, we can guide the world toward its next phase of being – a plateau of intensified consciousness and synchronic coherence, in which conscious evolution becomes both sacred game and participatory art form.

Decentralize the web with Diaspora

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Diaspora – the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network

We are four talented young programmers from NYU’s Courant Institute trying to raise money so we can spend the summer building Diaspora; an open source personal web server that will put individuals in control of their data.

What is it?

Enter your Diaspora “seed,” a personal web server that stores all of your information and shares it with your friends. Diaspora knows how to securely share (using GPG) your pictures, videos, and more. When you have a Diaspora seed of your own, you own your social graph, you have access to your information however you want, whenever you want, and you have full control of your online identity. Once we have built a solid foundation, we will make Diaspora easy to extend to facilitate any type of communication, and the possibilities will be endless.

For a little more detailed explanation, checkout this blog post.

What is the project about?

We believe that privacy and connectedness do not have to be mutually exclusive. With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today’s centralized social web with a more secure and convenient decentralized network. Diaspora will be easy to use, and it will be centered on you instead of a faceless hub.

Why are we building it?

This February, Eben Moglen, Columbia law professor and author of the latest GPL, gave a talk on Internet privacy. As more and more of our lives and identities become digitized, Moglen explains, the convenience of putting all of our information in the hands of companies on “the cloud” is training us to casually sacrifice our privacy and fragment our online identities.

But why is centralization so much more convenient, even in an age where relatively powerful computers are ubiquitous? Why is there no good alternative to centralized services that, as Moglen pointed out, comes with “spying for free?” Why do we keep our personal data in a thousand places? We have the technology, someone just needs to take the time to figure out how we can communicate smoothly and intuitively, without the hidden costs of “the cloud”. As good programmers, when we noticed that the application we need doesn’t exist, we set out to fill the hole in our digital lives.

Why do we need money?

We have a plan, a bunch of ideas and the programming chops to build Diaspora. What we need is the time it takes to iron out a powerful, secure, and elegant piece of software. Daniel, Ilya, Raphael, and Maxwell are all ready to trade our internships and summer jobs for three months totally focused on building Diaspora. We want to write code all the time, everyday. Once we have made our first solid iteration, we are going to release our code as free software so everyone can make Diaspora even better. $10,000 buys the software for everyone who wants to use it, forever. We think it can change the way people communicate and empower individuals to permanently take control of their online identities.

After we open source our source code, we hope to also provide a paid turnkey hosted service in the vein of WordPress.com to make it easy for people who want to use Diaspora, but don’t want to deal with the fuss of setting it up.* We will make it easy to export your data and configuration, so if you decide you want to graduate and host your seed yourself, you are free to do so at anytime.

Our goal is for everyone to have full control over their data and to empower people in to become responsible, secure, and social Internet dwellers. We believe offering this service will be helpful to non-technical users who are also worried about their data and privacy online.

Our Promise.
We promise to you that Diaspora will be aGPL software which will released at the end of the summer.

Want more info?
Check out our website for project updates, blog posts, pictures, and plans. More information is being added every day! www.joindiaspora.com

Check out more videos here.

Follow us at @joindiaspora Twitter or identi.ca

Want get Diaspora updates via email? Sign up here!
* This service will be available a few months after the end of the summer.

Project location: New York, NY

Day of Action, Night of Mourning Against Offshore Drilling Friday May 14, Nationwide

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via http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2010/05/08/national-day-of-action-night-of-mourning-against-offshore-drilling-friday-may-14/

Once again the fossil fuel industry has brought crisis to the Gulf Coast. Devastation of untold proportions spews non-stop from BP’s oil well as politicians try to save face with empty promises, and oil companies preserve their profits with PR campaigns. This catastrophic spill comes on the heels of Obama’s plan to expand offshore drilling. The price of burning fossil fuels is too high. From combustion to extraction the oil industry poisons our communities, destroys ecosystems, and destabilizes the climate. Now is the time to stop offshore drilling dead in its tracks and drive another nail into the fossil fuel industry’s coffin.

Take action Friday May 14 to demand:

-An immediate ban on all offshore drilling

-A rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels

-No bailouts for the oil industry. All recovery costs must be paid for by BP, Halliburton, Transocean and other implicated companies.

-The federal government must remove any caps on liability for oil companies.

-BP provides full compensation for impacted communities and small businesses.

-BP provides full funding for long-term ecosystem restoration for impacted areas.

-Oil companies operating in the Gulf fully fund restoration of coastal ecosystems damaged by canals, pipelines, and other industry activities.

Take action at:

-BP gas stations and offices

-Halliburton and Transocean offices

-Federal buildings

-Offices of members of Congress

-State government officials in states affected by Obama’s offshore drilling proposal.

-Critical Mass bike rides

-Vigils to mourn the unspeakable loss brought by this spill

-Get creative!

9500 LIBERTY

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Currently touring the United States at film festivals, conventions, university events, and community screenings, and soon to screen for Members of Congress in the US Capitol building, “9500 Liberty” will soon premiere on cable television (can’t say where just yet) and will be available on DVD and for internet download by the end of the spring, 2010.

SYNOPSIS:
Prince William County, Virginia becomes ground zero in Americas explosive battle over immigration policy when elected officials adopt a law requiring police officers to question anyone they have “probable cause” to suspect is an undocumented immigrant.

9500 Liberty reveals the startling vulnerability of a local government, targeted by national anti-immigration networks using the Internet to frighten and intimidate lawmakers and citizens. Alarmed by a climate of fear and racial division, residents form a resistance using YouTube videos and virtual town halls, setting up a real-life showdown in the seat of county government.

The devastating social and economic impact of the Immigration Resolution is felt in the lives of real people in homes and in local businesses. But the ferocious fight to adopt and then reverse this policy unfolds inside government chambers, on the streets, and on the Internet. 9500 Liberty provides a front row seat to all three battlegrounds.

Religion and Sustainability

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by Cameron Burgess on Mar 9, 2010

via http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/03/religion-%E2%89%A0-sustainability/

Your politics & religion are my concern.

separation of church and state george washington founders founding fathers

Religion’s getting a bad rap these days – and with good reason. Between the Jihadi’s, the Israelis and the fundies on their compounds, the world is increasingly looking like something out of Dante’s Inferno (and yes, I did just have a crack at Israel – and no that doesn’t make me anti-Semitic; just as criticising the USA doesn’t make one ‘anti-American’).

Of course, the arguments are that the conflicts in Palestine, the Middle East and just about anywhere outside North America where the US military is stationed are purely political (or related to energy security).

Yet wherever you have Presidents, Kings, Sheiks, Prime Ministers and various other political leaders invoking their god(s), praying in Parliament or printing scripture on their currency, there is a case to be made for asserting that there is absolutely no separation between church and state.

And if that’s true, a rigorous analysis of the dominant religions and the part they play in shaping policy is essential for determining whether consumer sentiment or political activism really stands a chance of shifting us away from a path of almost certain self-destruction and onto a path of survival.

Many wiser and more erudite people than me have discussed this already, and the point of this post is not to seek to restate their positions, but to bring a particular focus to it in the hope of continuing to stimulate debate and enquiry.

Sam Harris in The End of Faith makes a compelling case for the dangers of faith-based religion, whilst The Ranting Gryphon makes a far more impassioned (and amusing to some) case through his two minute video on Global Warming. And then there’s Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and a plethora of others asking similar and equally valid questions about whether religion has a future in humanity’s future – or if humanity even has a future as long as religion does.

In a recent post I commented:

It’s time for discussions about politics, religion and consumerism to take centre stage, for all of us to call into question the irrational and dangerous beliefs that have brought us to the precipice. It’s time to wage war on superstition and unsubstantiated belief and embrace reason.

Your lifestyle choice is my concern – your diet is my concern, your means of transportation is my concern, your politics are my concern, your religion is my concern.

We all know that thought precedes action. I often hear discussions about the ‘lack of thoughtful action’ when it comes to addressing global sustainability concerns – yet I’m pretty sure that it’s the quality of the thinking, and not its absence that is the primary problem.

We’re so busy hammering away at a culture of consumerism – and blaming that for the problems that beset us – that we’ve failed to recognise that each of the three largest monotheistic religious groups have spread their influence throughout politics, the courts, economics, science, philanthropy and education;  due in no small part  to our unwillingness to really discuss their place in our societies. Our imam’s, rabbi’s and priests are the original thought-police – not only telling us what we are permitted to believe, but threatening to ostracize us from our communities if we either fail to agree or, heaven forbid, exercise our own intelligence in contradiction to what they teach.

… and now they’re supported either covertly or explicitly by government policy, tax concessions and grants.

The time for religious tolerance is long past. And by saying this I’m not agitating for racial or cultural intolerance.

Religious tolerance seems to pretty much equate to “you leave me alone to believe what I want, and I’ll leave you alone to believe what you want”.

Yet when our beliefs, collectively, appear to represent a significant threat to our capacity to survive as a species, is this really a reasonable basis for continuing?

What it seems we need is an intolerance for foolishness. An intolerance for irrationality. An intolerance for the beliefs that have not only ‘brought us to the precipice’ but now threaten to tip us over the edge.

What I really want to know is, why, in our quest to save ourselves from self-induced extinction, is everything else up for discussion but God?

Religion and Sustainability

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by Cameron Burgess on Mar 9, 2010

via http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/03/religion-%E2%89%A0-sustainability/

Your politics & religion are my concern.

separation of church and state george washington founders founding fathers

Religion’s getting a bad rap these days – and with good reason. Between the Jihadi’s, the Israelis and the fundies on their compounds, the world is increasingly looking like something out of Dante’s Inferno (and yes, I did just have a crack at Israel – and no that doesn’t make me anti-Semitic; just as criticising the USA doesn’t make one ‘anti-American’).

Of course, the arguments are that the conflicts in Palestine, the Middle East and just about anywhere outside North America where the US military is stationed are purely political (or related to energy security).

Yet wherever you have Presidents, Kings, Sheiks, Prime Ministers and various other political leaders invoking their god(s), praying in Parliament or printing scripture on their currency, there is a case to be made for asserting that there is absolutely no separation between church and state.

And if that’s true, a rigorous analysis of the dominant religions and the part they play in shaping policy is essential for determining whether consumer sentiment or political activism really stands a chance of shifting us away from a path of almost certain self-destruction and onto a path of survival.

Many wiser and more erudite people than me have discussed this already, and the point of this post is not to seek to restate their positions, but to bring a particular focus to it in the hope of continuing to stimulate debate and enquiry.

Sam Harris in The End of Faith makes a compelling case for the dangers of faith-based religion, whilst The Ranting Gryphon makes a far more impassioned (and amusing to some) case through his two minute video on Global Warming. And then there’s Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and a plethora of others asking similar and equally valid questions about whether religion has a future in humanity’s future – or if humanity even has a future as long as religion does.

In a recent post I commented:

It’s time for discussions about politics, religion and consumerism to take centre stage, for all of us to call into question the irrational and dangerous beliefs that have brought us to the precipice. It’s time to wage war on superstition and unsubstantiated belief and embrace reason.

Your lifestyle choice is my concern – your diet is my concern, your means of transportation is my concern, your politics are my concern, your religion is my concern.

We all know that thought precedes action. I often hear discussions about the ‘lack of thoughtful action’ when it comes to addressing global sustainability concerns – yet I’m pretty sure that it’s the quality of the thinking, and not its absence that is the primary problem.

We’re so busy hammering away at a culture of consumerism – and blaming that for the problems that beset us – that we’ve failed to recognise that each of the three largest monotheistic religious groups have spread their influence throughout politics, the courts, economics, science, philanthropy and education;  due in no small part  to our unwillingness to really discuss their place in our societies. Our imam’s, rabbi’s and priests are the original thought-police – not only telling us what we are permitted to believe, but threatening to ostracize us from our communities if we either fail to agree or, heaven forbid, exercise our own intelligence in contradiction to what they teach.

… and now they’re supported either covertly or explicitly by government policy, tax concessions and grants.

The time for religious tolerance is long past. And by saying this I’m not agitating for racial or cultural intolerance.

Religious tolerance seems to pretty much equate to “you leave me alone to believe what I want, and I’ll leave you alone to believe what you want”.

Yet when our beliefs, collectively, appear to represent a significant threat to our capacity to survive as a species, is this really a reasonable basis for continuing?

What it seems we need is an intolerance for foolishness. An intolerance for irrationality. An intolerance for the beliefs that have not only ‘brought us to the precipice’ but now threaten to tip us over the edge.

What I really want to know is, why, in our quest to save ourselves from self-induced extinction, is everything else up for discussion but God?

Peyote Last of The Medicine Men

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Peyote Last of The Medicine Men Part One
Peyote Last of The Medicine Men Part Two

Monthly Fred Rogers Quote

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For more information about Fred Rogers and Family Communications, the company he founded, please visit our website at www.fci.org

“Imagining something may be the first step in making it happen, but it takes the real time and real efforts of real people to learn things, make things, turn thoughts into deeds or visions into inventions.”

Schizophrenic or Shamanic?

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Terence Mckenna giving his view on how we define the mentally ill because we haven’t got any place in our society to put these strange perceptions of reality that some people experience and how we should not fear these states but be confident and turn them into some sort of planetary worldview. The video speaks for itself.

Darwin and the Buddha

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Does compassion make evolutionary sense? Does happiness, for that matter? Tricycle editor James Shaheen interviews science writer Robert Wright on where natural selection and Buddhism meet—and don’t.

http://www.tricycle.com/interview/darwin-and-buddha?page=0%2C0

One of Buddhism’s central tenets is the illusory nature of self. How does that square with evolutionary theory?
Well, commenting on the metaphysical status of the self is above my pay grade, and I’m not sure that a Darwinian perspective sheds much direct light on it. But this perspective does help to explain another, and perhaps related, illusion about the self: the “specialness of the self.” People instinctively operate under the assumption that their own happiness is more important than other people’s happiness. And that’s because we were built by natural selection, which is all about self-preservation and self-interest. So Buddhism’s emphasis on surrendering self-interest in consideration of other beings is radically opposed to Darwinian logic.

Darwin and BuddhaWhat if you consider selfless compassion as an adaptive strategy for the group?
Our capacity for compassion is indeed something that has evolved biologically, but we’re designed to deploy it in the name of Darwinian self-interest. We’re naturally compassionate toward two kinds of people. First, to our kin, who share our genes. And second, to friends who can return the favor someday. We’re not unique here. Vampire bats, for example, express reciprocal altruism, sharing blood with other bats that will later return the favor. But when a religion or philosophy counsels you to be compassionate toward people you don’t even know, it runs against the grain of Darwinian logic.

And yet, in the situation we find ourselves in today, doesn’t it come to us naturally that it’s in our self-interest to extend compassion to those beyond our local groups?
No, it doesn’t. Because to worry about what some disenchanted Muslim teenager in Pakistan is feeling right now does not come naturally in the sense of a visceral response. It does, however, make intellectual sense; the world is moving us to a point where, if only out of self-interest, we need to think about that person. One virtue of some of the religious traditions is that they have well-worked-out procedures for assisting this intellectual process. In other words, it’s one thing to realize logically that my fate is intertwined with the fate of Muslims around the world: if they’re unhappy, they’ll eventually make me unhappy. But it’s another to feel it, to look at someone and get a deep sense of fraternity with them. That’s where religious practice plays an important role. In Buddhism, there is metta meditation, in which we cultivate compassion for all sentient beings. This sort of practice is what I would consider a product of cultural evolution.

What do you mean by “cultural evolution”?
By cultural evolution I mean evolution that arises from the selective transmission of nongenetic information. That is to say, the evolution of technologies, the evolution of ideas, the evolution of political systems, religious doctrines. And, as with biological evolution, in cultural evolution there is a tendency to move in a specific – almost inevitable – direction.

In your work, you refer to that tendency as “directionality.” Can you say something about that?
Directionality in cultural evolution means that it was very likely that social complexity would grow in scope and in depth, just as biological complexity grew in many lineages—human beings as a case in point. So even back in the Stone Age, it was almost certain that the scope of social organization would grow beyond a single hunter-gatherer village. I contend that our increasingly globally organized society—certainly at the economic level, and to some extent at the political level—was very likely the outcome all along. The basic driving force was technological evolution, notably the evolution of technologies that facilitate productive interaction – technologies like writing and the printing press and the Internet, and the wheel and the sailing ship and the railroad train, and so on. And one interesting feature of this is that the fortunes of people in one part of the world become more and more correlated with the fortunes of people far, far away. In technical terms, that means we’ve arrived at a non-zero-sum relationship.

What do you mean by “non-zero-sum”?
One of the most basic aspects of the direction of human history is that it has brought people at greater and greater distances into a web of shared destiny. So that what’s good for a person in one part of the world ultimately can be good for someone in another part of the world. Or, conversely, what’s bad for someone is bad for others distantly situated. Disease spreads rapidly around the world; an economic collapse in one part of the world has a ripple effect; the discontents of people on one side of the world can turn into terrorism on the other. It serves our self-interest to concern ourselves with the welfare of people at great distances from us, people we’ll never know.

It is common for Western Buddhists to emphasize the recognition of interconnectedness. Directionality, as you describe it, seems to include a gradual awakening to this fact.
Herbert Spencer said something like, “No man can be perfectly happy until all are happy.” That’s kind of the logic that a non-zero-sum relationship drives you to. The philosopher Peter Singer wrote a book called The Expanding Circle. It’s about how, over time, we begin to realize we’re all in the same boat. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Greek members of one city-state considered members of another literally subhuman. But eventually they reached a point where they decided, No, all Greeks are human, it’s just the Persians, you know, who aren’t human. Singer points out that over time our moral considerations have become more inclusive: the circle has expanded until most of us would say that people everywhere are human beings, regardless of race, creed, or color, and that they deserve equal rights, consideration, and so on.

Why is this conclusion the necessary outcome?
In many ways, we seem to be more at odds with one another than ever. My own answer gets back to this very trend I’m talking about: that as history goes on, we find ourselves in an ever-closer interdependent relationship with people globally. Even if only selfishly, you have to concede their basic humanity. If you’re doing business with people in Japan, if they’re making your minivan, you can’t very well bomb them back into the Stone Age. I think that’s one reason why this cosmopolitan ethos is most pronounced in nations that are most embedded in a globally interdependent economy, and it’s interesting that in this way the logic of history adds a kind of pragmatic force to the moral arguments. It’s in our interest to treat one another well.

And yet people do give in to anger, destroying themselves or others; and globalization, for all its implications of interconnectedness, means that there are now global threats.
Sure. Our minds were designed to navigate the social environment of a hunter-gatherer village. That’s the context in which human evolution took place. In an environment like that, often it was in your enlightened self-interest to express rage, because it taught people to respect your sphere. Murder happened, though not very easily, and could be “adaptive” in a biological sense. But there were two features that applied then that don’t now. One was that everybody you dealt with, you could expect to deal with again. You may have noticed that often when you’re driving along in your car and somebody cuts you off, you feel rage. Unless you’re a particularly good Buddhist, you may briefly want some harm to befall that person. Right?

Right.
Now examine the logic of that outside of a hunter-gatherer environment. That person’s never going to deal with you again, so why should you teach them a lesson? What’s the good of teaching that person that you’re not to be trifled with? In a contemporary context, it’s a completely irrational reaction; it was designed for an environment in which you didn’t have these anonymous encounters. That’s one thing that’s changed since evolution.

And the other?
There weren’t guns and nuclear weapons around then. In our early environment, physically expressing rage was not as likely to lead to death—certainly not mass death—as it is today.

Considering the many thousands of years of evolution that have shaped us, if spiritual practice is designed to counter what comes “naturally,” we face quite a challenge.
Yes, and I think the scale of that challenge is something that Buddhism implicitly recognizes. Evolution designed us to pursue self-interest and get our genes into the next generation. But it did not design us to be happy. In fact, happiness is something that is designed by natural selection to evaporate. It is designed not to last but to keep you motivated. If you imagine an animal that upon having sex says, “Okay, I’m happy forever now,” that’s an animal whose genes are going to lose out to a different animal that says, “Well, that was fun, but I want to do it again, you know.” This is the reason that gratification is so fleeting, and this is something that Buddhism addresses very fundamentally. Unhappiness—suffering—is a given, and at the very heart of the Buddhist teachings. Buddhism recognizes that it is an illusion to think that the things you desire are going to bring you lasting happiness; in fact, the opposite is true. Once again we will find ourselves in the state of thirst, in the state of hunger, the state of unhappiness. If you think about it, there was a crying need for somebody to diagnose the problem, to stress that happiness is fleeting and just leaves us craving more.

DNA, Up close and personal
DNA, up close and personal

But in this way it seems that cultural evolution—which makes attempts, however successful or not, to address suffering—can find itself at odds with or countering biological evolution.
Absolutely. Or, to put a finer point on it, you might say that cultural evolution can counter the drives and imperatives that biological evolution ingrained in us. And the Buddha is an example of that. On the other hand, another thing cultural evolution can do is compound problems that biological evolution built into us. Consider drug addiction. The existence of drugs makes it so easy to attain gratification without doing any work. The problem of fleeting gratification becomes even deeper than it would be in a natural environment. Or consider the existence of refined sugar, of sweets, of junk food. I’m sure there are people who have been driven to Buddhism by the specific problem of eating junk food. This is a problem that just wouldn’t exist if we were in the hunter-gatherer environment. Cultural evolution, by catering to our desires, has created things that compound the problem that the Buddha diagnosed. Even by the time the Buddha lived, this was true. He was born to great privilege, so he had a relatively easy time gratifying his desires. And, by virtue of being born to privilege, he may have experienced the problem more acutely than others did. Nowadays, a good a number of people in America, both rich and poor, can experience the problem very profoundly. Because even poor people can buy drugs.

Or food.
Or Hostess Twinkies.

Do you think that the freedom the Buddha teaches is realistic, given the power of biological imperative?
All I can say is that biological drives sure seem strong! Speaking as someone who perennially flirts with meditation and wrestles with the problem of self-discipline, it’s no surprise that if you’re going to seriously take on the Darwinian logic built into us, you really have to turn it into a rigorous spiritual practice. One thing that struck me in learning about evolutionary psychology and writing about it is that it illuminates the human predicament. It brings you into touch not just with the addictive nature of being human but also the myriad moral and defensive cognitive biases we have, like the way we judge our rivals very unfairly. But what also struck me is that just being aware of our selfish bias does little to help correct it. That’s why there is religious practice. That’s why people spend time meditating, or go off to monasteries; they understand the challenge.

In The Moral Animal, you wryly refer to children as “those endearing little vehicles of genetic transmission.” Funny as that description is, people are reluctant to consign their love to genetic self-interest.
Of course. But I think that accepting the biological roots of our makeup, and the selfish biological imperative, is the first step in moving toward enlightenment. It’s an amazing thing when you contemplate that the very contours of your daily consciousness—what moral judgments you make, how you think about yourself—is the legacy of this ridiculous process of selective genetic transmission. Still, that is the criterion by which human nature was designed—which traits will get the most genes into the next generation. The first step toward moral enlightenment can be to acknowledge this grim reality. Including the fact that ultimately the only reason you love your kids is that they are carrying your genes. (There’s a little footnote I’d add to that: you actually can learn to love kids who aren’t carrying your genes, but it’s harder, and you have to do things to fool Mother Nature.) It may seem crass to make love sound so mechanical. But I still think that realizing the arbitrariness of your love for your children is the first step in realizing the arbitrariness of your hatred of the people you hate. Or the arbitrariness of your indifference to the people you’re indifferent to. It’s all part of the same logic.

If you consider what we face, it gives a whole new meaning to the diligence dharma teachers tell us is required.
That’s right. You’re trying to counteract forces that were millions of years in the making and that are still very fundamentally at the core of your being. A lot of people might consider the cold Darwinian facts to be very depressing and leave it at that. But I think that understanding them is the beginning of dealing with them positively.

Your idea of directionality implies a predestined end point. Any thoughts as to what that might be?
I don’t purport to know what the end point is, and I don’t think anything is completely predestined. But I do contend that we are at a crossroads: I’d say that we either recognize that our fate is intertwined with the fate of others around the world and act appropriately morally and politically, or we are in danger of an epic global setback. Maybe not in the sense of literally destroying every human in the world, but precipitating a major social collapse, mass death, something that would take a very long time to recover from. In any event, we certainly have been growing in the direction of interdependence. More and more, human society has the cast of a kind of superorganism. It makes more and more sense to talk about the human species as constituting a kind of global brain: if you want to think of the entire ecosystem of the earth as one organism, then we would be the cerebral tissue. Julian Huxley said that evolution can be described as the universe becoming aware of itself.

Do you see an inevitable push toward awakening?
In a sense, yes. I think once the seeds of life were planted, consciousness was essentially inevitable. Given the basic nature of natural selection, you are likely, sooner or later, to wind up with an intelligent species that’s intelligent roughly in the way that we are, capable of reflecting on its environment and reflecting on itself. Natural selection seems to be a process that by its nature builds vehicles for ever richer forms of consciousness. That alone is spiritually suggestive. It suggests that maybe there’s some larger purpose here that we are in the process of realizing, that we’re a manifestation of. And as for what that purpose might be—it’s certainly interesting that the whole coevolutionary process has now moved us to a point where our very survival depends more and more on moral enlightenment, on realizing that other people’s interests deserve our attention. Further, the more we’re embedded in this technological web of intellectual interaction, the more it seems you could start thinking about a unified consciousness at the social level, progressing toward planetary consciousness. Of course, that could be a long way off. Still, it seems to me that from the very beginning of life on earth, the seeds were being planted for something very interesting and spiritually rich.

Darwin/Buddha image: © arttoday.com

DNA, up close and personal © Digital Vision

Positive spin on future of suburbia

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The End of Suburbia is a must see documentary about peak oil, arguing that it spells a hard crash for the suburban dream. David Holmgren here offers a counterview, a vision of a radically retrofitted, food producing suburbia. David Holmgren is the co-originator of Permaculture. http://www.holmgren.com.au

evolver.net

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Home

What is Evolver.net?

Evolver is a new social network for conscious collaboration. It provides a platform for individuals, communities, and organizations to discover and share the new tools, initiatives, and ideas that will improve our lives and change the world. Evolver promotes sexy sustainability, yoga glamour, and shaman chic.

Are you an evolver?

Evolvers are hope fiends and utopian pragmatists. We see the creative chaos of this time as a great gift and opportunity to rethink, reconnect, and reinvent. Evolvers appreciate pristine mountains, open source economics, and the precocious laughter of small children. Evolvers belong to the regenerative culture of the future, being born here and now.

Did you ever think:

Humanity has potential beyond our imagining?
We are a part of nature and not the bosses of it?
We could make a world that works for everyone?
We could collaborate instead of compete?
If so, you are an evolver already.
If not, maybe you should give it a try?

Why Evolver.net?
Because we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Because it’s our world to change.
Because the universe is deeply mysterious, displays an extraordinary sense of humor, and has a great dance beat. Maybe you don’t like social networks. Maybe you use too many already. Maybe you are sick of being IM’d and pinged, poked and stroked, prodded and friendstered.

Evolver is different.

Evolver.net brings together a global community that shares similar interests and values. It provides a platform that helps us find the resources, peers, news and information that makes a difference. Evolver.net is collaboratively filtered and professionally curated so that the best material gets disseminated widely.

On Evolver.net you can:

• Express yourself to your peers.
• Find inspiring news and helpful information.
• Share resources and swap services.
• Connect with pioneering groups and organizations.
• Find the collaborators you need to help you realize your vision.
• Meet the community off-line – at regular Evolver “socials,” film screenings, parties, and events.
The evolution will be actualized.
http://www.evolver.net

What to do with foreclosed houses—How about letting homeless families move in?

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What to do with foreclosed houses—How about letting homeless families move in? An innovative idea that’s also illegal.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/526/index.html

American streets are littered with foreclosed houses, but one daring advocate says these homes shouldn’t go to waste. He encourages and facilitates homeless squatting. It’s an idea that addresses two issues at once – homelessness and foreclosed homes—and it’s also illegal.

This week, NOW travels to Miami to meet with Max Rameau, an advocate for the homeless. Rameau’s organization, Take Back the Land, identifies empty homes that are still livable, and tries to find responsible families willing to take the enormous legal risks of moving in.

Rameau, who considers his mission an act of civil disobedience, says it’s immoral to keep homes vacant while there are human beings living on the street. But while these squatters have morality in their hearts, they don’t have the law on their side.

With the faltering economy separating so many people from their homes, what’s society’s responsibility to those short on shelter?

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/526/index.html

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

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A Hopi Elder Speaks

Via http://www.evolver.net/user/chibione/blog/hopi_elder_speaks

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered . . .

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time!”

“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly.

“Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

“The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

– attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder

Hopi Nation
Oraibi, Arizona

Via http://www.evolver.net/user/chibione/blog/hopi_elder_speaks

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

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A Hopi Elder Speaks

Via http://www.evolver.net/user/chibione/blog/hopi_elder_speaks

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered . . .

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time!”

“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly.

“Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

“The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

– attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder

Hopi Nation
Oraibi, Arizona

Via http://www.evolver.net/user/chibione/blog/hopi_elder_speaks

Break it down KRS

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Break it down KRS-One 1/3

Break it down KRS 2/3

Break it down KRS 3/3

Professor Griff (Public Enemy) says No to Barack Obama, Supports Cynthia Mckinney

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Professor Griff of the legendary rap group Public Enemy tells the world why he supports Green Party presidential ticket of Cynthia Mckinney/Rosa Clemente instead of Barack Obama. This interview touch on other topics such as FISA, NAFTA, Skull-N-Bones, Sean Bell, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, AIPAC, Israel and Obama avoiding Memphis on the 40th anniversary of the MLK assassination. This is part 1 of 2.

This is the conclusion of Professor Griff of Public Enemy explaining why he supports Cynthia Mckinney’s Green Party presidential ticket instead of Barack Obama.

It's on!

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The BBC’s Ben Brown reports on the violence at the RBS offices

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7977489.stm

Protesters stormed a London office of the Royal Bank of Scotland as thousands of people descended on the City ahead of the G20 summit of world leaders.

Demonstrators launched missiles and forced their way into the bank after clashes with police in the capital. A branch of HSBC also had windows broken.

Twenty-two people were arrested and some police and protesters injured.

Climate change activists have pitched tents in the street, while anti-war campaigners are holding a rally.

The protests came as US President Barack Obama spoke of the “sense of urgency” needed to confront the financial crisis after he met Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Downing Street.

World leaders are holding a series of bilateral talks on Wednesday to thrash out finance reform plans, with Mr Brown claiming that a global deal is just “hours away”.

The police estimated there were about 5,000 people taking part in demonstrations, and officers cordoned off a number of streets.

Officers later used “containment” then “controlled dispersal” and made temporary toilets and water available to protesters, police said.

At about 1800 BST, a small group of protesters faced a line of riot police in Threadneedle Street, near the Bank of England and the branch of RBS attacked earlier.

The BBC’s Rob Broomby said demonstrators were “angry, but getting weary – they’ve been held in just a few narrow streets for a number of hours now”.

A few protesters threw plastic bottles, banners and toilet rolls at police, amid chants of “Let us out, let us out.”

Riot officers

Protesters had smashed RBS windows with missiles, including coins and computer keyboards, and entered the building. The branch had been closed already as a precautionary measure.

Mounted police and riot officers used shields to push demonstrators back and officers said they entered the RBS building just after 1400 BST “in support of building security”.

Two people were arrested for aggravated burglary at the RBS, police say.

RBS has been in the spotlight after the £703,000 pension arrangement of former chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, sparked public anger.

By late afternoon, the BBC’s Dominic Hurst said a branch of HSBC had also been attacked and had windows broken.

Police say CCTV footage and other video evidence will be reviewed to try to identify those involved in crimes.

Earlier, officers were pelted with empty beer cans, fruit and flour outside the Bank of England as the crowd of demonstrators had attempted to reach a peaceful climate change protest in nearby Bishopsgate.

Police said officers suffered only minor injuries during the protests, although one was admitted to hospital. Scotland Yard also said its response had been “proportionate”.

Some of the protesters had been “provocative” and “determined to cause violence”, claimed Met Commander Simon O’Brien.

Seven demonstrators were taken to hospital for treatment for injuries.

Hundreds of Climate Camp demonstrators – behind direct action protests at Heathrow Airport and power stations in North Yorkshire and Kent – pitched tents in protest against carbon markets.

The BBC’s Mark Georgiou said there was an “almost Glastonbury atmosphere” at the demonstration outside the European Climate Exchange, which featured “music and meditation”.

But from about 1630 BST “a different sort of demonstrator has started to arrive – clad in black, masked and aggressive”, he said.

Several hundred anti-war demonstrators have also marched to a rally in Trafalgar Square from the US Embassy in central London.

The BBC’s Dominic Casciani said it had been “completely different” to the protests in the City, and demonstrators were in peaceful mood.

Crowds also gathered outside Buckingham Palace for the arrival of US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, who began a visit with the Queen shortly after 1700 BST.

The day began with protest groups under the G20 Meltdown banner marching to the Bank of England in the City urging those who had lost their homes, jobs, savings or pensions to join them in following four “horsemen of the apocalypse” to “lay siege” to financial institutions.

‘Greed’

Many City workers have dressed in casual clothes after banks and other institutions were warned they may be targeted.

Protester Daniel Blinkhorn, from Brighton, was among those marching from London Bridge station to the Bank. He said the G20 leaders had a “real opportunity to green the global economy”.

Housing association worker Tony Streeter told the BBC: “I’m here because I think people are angry about what’s going on in the world there’s too much greed.”

Scotland Yard said there had been 22 arrests related to the protests on Wednesday, following four arrests on Tuesday.

The four people detained on Tuesday were charged after officers were alerted to a group trying to break into a building in the Holborn area of central London, police said.

On Wednesday, police questioned demonstrators travelling in an armoured vehicle dressed in helmets and overalls.

Police say 11 people have been arrested on suspicion of possessing police uniforms and for road traffic offences.

Six police forces are part of the £7.5m G20 security plan, led by London’s Met.

G20 map