Tag Archives: American Corporations

Un-Choking the Planet, Reading labels, and Ditching the Dryer Sheet!

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Who the heck has time to know about this stuff? Right. Well, there are a few of us out there. If you are reading this, you’re probably someone who reads labels. However, If you’re like most, you’re cramming as much as you can into your day, don’t like shopping and do it as quickly as possible

Think about it for a minute. If 7.4 billion people, give or take a billion here or there, are using Dryer Sheets, what are those sweet smelling toxic chemicals doing to those we hold dear…and life as we know it?

This thought about dryer sheets came to mind after reading about Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change agreement. His decision angered me. Then, while I was separating clothes into what I could dry quickly outside and what I would throw in the dryer, I reached for a half a dryer sheet, which I seldom use. Bounce was on the shelf. Concerned sustainability advocate that I am, I wondered why I had Bounce, and what the heck is in it? I’m sure this would be the last thing Trump would ever think about!

Bounce label reads,

“Safe for all washables, but is not safe for use on children’s sleepwear or other garments labeled as flame resistant as it may reduce flame resistance. Keep out of the reach of toddlers and pets to avoid accidental ingestion.Bounce contains Cationic softeners and perfume.

A variety of toxic chemicals found in fabric softeners, including chloroform, benzyl acetate, and ethanol (currently on the EPA’s hazardous waste list). In a study performed by Anderson Laboratories, and published in PubMed, mice were exposed to air containing the fumes released by several types of fabric softener pads. The mice exposed to these fumes showed irritation of eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, and some developed severe asthma-like attacks. The results provide a toxicological basis to explain some of the human complaints of adverse reactions to fabric softener emissions.

How about this ‘science’ President Trump? Does it matter? What do you think? Is it okay? Do you need to have your own ‘study’? I’m still pissed off with you about your denial about the human race having anything to do with climate change. Do you even know what our climate is made up of?

As an asthmatic from childhood (I ran behind trucks spraying DDT through alleyways), this doesn’t sound good. Researching further, I found my way to Alex Scranton’s ‘Women’s Voices for the Earth’. Nice website. Alex is looking into lots of cleaning products and gives detailed reasons why using some dryer sheets is not a good idea. Thank you, Alex, for doing the research and putting such a great post and website together. Alex says,

“Ditch the Dryer Sheet. Some contain harmful chemicals – including hidden fragrance chemicals that lots of people are sensitive to – that vent off into the air we breath and rub off on our clothes and then onto our skin. Yikes! And the kicker is that dryer sheets aren’t even necessary to our laundry – so they’re just an extra source of exposure to toxic chemicals”

So, if you take the time to read the label you’ll find out most of those dryer sheets going into 7.4 billion peoples, give or take a billion here or there, dryers is poisoning all the air you suck in, the water quenching your thirst, and the land growing your food. Despite what Trump says, the planet is gasping! Isn’t this behavior like ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’?

Serious choices require slowing down long enough to read a label. Doing so is essential to changing the fate of life as we know it. It’s serious business. Despite what Trump says, the planet is gasping! Isn’t this behavior like ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’?

I’m fairly sure that slowing down is not what the government, industry and corporate power have in mind for us. But, slow down we must. I know, I know, many of you want the glitz and glimmer that all the magazines, radio and television ads say you need more and more of while going as fast as you can and that you like how soft those dryer sheets make your clothes.

Okay, I’m ranting. The problem being is that tiny dryer sheet used by 7.4 billion people, give or take a billion here or there, is choking me, you, your kids, your furry friends, and our home. We can no longer rely on government or industry to get rid of all the poisons in our food, water, air, and land? We have to do the work.

Vote with your dollar! If you must have a ‘dryer sheet’ buy an alternative one. They’re out there. They don’t contain noxious chemicals! They don’t poison you, me, kids, furry friends and they do not choke our planet! And let’s face it…industry only listens to the microchip in your debit or credit card and the cash in your wallet!

Happy ‘Ditch the Dryer Sheet’ trails!

 

 

The American Dream: A Fix For America

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Walking the line between sensuality and reality leaves me a little dizzy. ‘Give me Freedom or give me Death’ is obsolete. There are varying shades of freedom and death in Blueray and Digital surrounding me. A colorful vortex sucks at my bones; luring me with promises that I know will leave me docile and apathetic. Jump in, be happy!

Jump in, be happy! The American Dream is your ‘fix’!  And, everything comes with a promise. How do you know who will keep their promise? Who can you trust? Trust is much more than a word. How do you chose without knowing? How do you find the truth? It takes a ‘pioneering spirit’ and time; you can’t buy time, control it, or ever seem to have enough. If you are not making time to filter through the muck; that colorful vortex is sucking at your bones, luring you with promises which are leaving you apathetic and docile! And the truth no longer matters!

Where to begin? Let’s step back in time and examine what shaped our society. Sigmund Fraud wrote about  ‘human psychosis’.  What does Fraud have to do with the ‘American Dream’? A little history. Fraud discovered humans had feelings we repressed because they were too dangerous: remnants of our animal past. As he witnessed the horror of war mounting; he believed war to be terrible evidence of exactly how we should have expected people to behave given the knowledge of our psychoanalysis.

I surmise that our ‘animal past’ gave us a limited ability to communicate; and as a result, we were more inclined to battle for what we wanted. However, our evolution into intelligent beings, with increased communication skills, should have curtailed our nature to battle for what we want. This being said; is it our ‘animal past’ that keeps us in the battle or is it purely economics?

It only took me a couple of minutes to ‘filter through the muck’ to get to this information.

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” 

―  Smedley D. Butler

How did people of our nation come to accept everything that the medias’ feed us? Without question, we believe the glossy advertisements as truth and we buy what is being sold.  We have to go back in time a little to look at how we were duped and continue to be duped.

We have let others tell us what the ‘American Dream’ should be! Fraud’s American nephew, Edward Bernays was the first man to show American corporations how to make people want what they do not need; manipulating the masses; linking mass-produced goods to our unconscious desires. Out of this came a new political idea of how to control the masses: by satisfying people’s inner selfish desires, one made them happy and thus docile. The start of the all-consuming ‘Self’ which is come to dominate the world today!

Armed with this knowledge, American Corporations learned how to package and present anything they could make a ‘buck’ on to the American people…war was dressed in patriotic speeches and love of country becoming the ultimate commodity for those who would benefit.

Education is a ‘pillar post’ to humanities foundation: And, if you take the time to educate and do research you will see how we came to our nation’s crisis; you will find yourself motivated to get out of the ‘muck’ and this crisis. You may also find yourself wanting to ‘shoot the messengers’ who present the facts of how we got here. Go beyond that notion. Go deeper. Their solutions may not be what you can take hold of, but their solutions will give you ideas to build on. You will discover solutions you can hold on to.  Solutions to our bleak reality do not exist in continuing the model we’ve created…it is NOT working for the majority of us! We need a new kind of ‘Paradigm’. I believe, whenever given the opportunity and mechanism to do so, people are good, kind and supportive. There are new ‘paradigms’ to build on. New ‘opportunities and mechanisms’ to be apart of…we simply must not give up our pioneering spirit.

I’ve worked hard for some piece of the American Dream for almost 70 years. I’ve come up with a tiny bit…and I could probably stop with what I have. However, my ‘pioneering spirit’ and my nature to be ‘good, kind and supportive’ will not let me be content. I have a vision that humans can be all that is good in the world. Through my ‘looking glass’ I’ve found some ‘new paradigms’.  If you are visionary enough and can learn to trust a little more you will seek out these ‘new paradigms’ and change our History! Here is one such ‘paradigm‘! There many out there with real answers and solutions. One, in particular, has caught my attention…Kate Raworth. Her Doughnut Economy: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist can be pushed into the light!

Happy Visionary Trails!