IF YOU WISH TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS LIST FOR ANY REASON just send an email to listserv@netcom.com containing only the line: unsubscribe snuffit-l DO NOT WHINE TO THE POSTMASTER. DO NOT SEND UNSUBSCRIBE MESSAGES TO: snuffit-l@netcom.com, listserver@netcom.com, coe@netcom.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's sermon will be delivered by one of our most distinguished members. Founder of the Council on Economic Trends, author of _Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World_, as well as _The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era_, and most recently _Beyond Beef: The Rise and fall of the Cattle Culture_, he is a tireless advocate of the Green Revolution who needs no introduction. It is with great pleasure that I give you Jeremy Rifkin. May the Great Spirit grant each and every one of us the heart to realize his unique vision, in a world no longer dominated by the ruthless paradigm of efficiency. >>>> The elimination of beef will be accompanied by an ecological renaissance, a grand restoration of nature on every continent. America's western range will come to life again. Ancient rivers will flow, their waters bathing and healing thousands of damaged riparian zones across the great plains. Native wildflowers and perennial bunchgrasses will sprout and bloom, spreading a verdant carpet across the western landscapes. Cottonwood trees will shade the prairie once again, providing refuge for thousands of native birds. Streams and springs will come to life, bringing back freshwater trout and other native fish. The large mammals of the plains--elk, moose, pronghorn, antelope, bighorn sheep--will repopulate the western range of restored grassland. Predator species will thrive. Coyotes, wolves, bobcats mountain lions, and lynx will steal their way back onto the great western range, performing their traditional role of culling big animal herds to ensure that native species do not exceed the carrying capacity of the plains ecosystems. Buffalo will once again roam the west, sharing the grassland with wild horses and burros. In Central and South America, the dissolution of the cattle complex will idle tractors and bulldozers and silence the familiar drone of thousands of machine saws cutting their way through the thicket of ancient forest ecosystems. The thousands of fires that have been set across the Amazon forests will be snuffed out. Countless species of plants, insects, and animals will be granted a reprieve from what once appeared to be sure death at the hands of cattle ranchers and multinational corporations. Millions of creatures, many of whom have inhabited this earth for millennia, will regroup, reproduce, and repopulate the forests, bearing testimony to the wonders of God's creation. Future generations will have the opportunity to know, interact with, and appreciate these many diverse life forms; this multitude of wild and exotic creatures that creep, crawl, dart, fly over, swing through and stalk the ancient forests, all fellow travelers in the unfolding evolutionary saga. In Africa, the spreading desert will be slowed, allowing nature to regenerate. Wildlife, once abundant in the sub-Sahara will slowly return. So too will the rich native flora, turning a semibarren continent back into the world's richest garden. Wildebeest, elephants, zebras, rhinos, and lions will roam again over the open savannas, a collage of creation bursting forth, repopulating ancient habitats. In Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia, the dissolution of the global cattle complex will lead to a similar restoration of ancient forests and grasslands, as well as native flora and fauna. Fewer cattle will lessen the strain on the world's remaining freshwater reserves and decrease the emission of global warming gases into the atmosphere. While the biosphere will still be choked with man-made chlorofluorocarbons, the worldwide reduction in cattle will greatly reduce methane emissions as well as carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the burning of forests and other biomass to provide pastureland. The biosphere, the thin chemical envelope that stretches from the ocean depths to the stratosphere and that sustains all of the life on the planet, will be the ultimate beneficiary of the historic decision to transcend the beef culture. As millions of Americans, Europeans, Japanese, and others make personal choices to move beyond beef, the artificial protein ladder, erected during this century, will begin to collapse. The societal decision to forgo beef will profoundly affect the economics of human survival in the coming century. In the new world that is coming, millions of human beings will voluntarily choose to eat lower on the food chain so that millions of others may obtain the minimum food calories they need to sustain their lives. This grand redistribution of the earth's bounty, the most spectacular and far-reaching in history, will unite the human race in a new fraternal bond. A new species awareness will begin where the rich meet the poor on the descending rungs of the world's protein ladder. Moving beyond the beef culture is a revolutionary act, a sign of our willingness to reconstitute ourselves, to make ourselves whole. Restoring nature, resacralizing our relation ship to the bovine, and renewing our own being are inseparably linked. They are the essential elements of a new postmodern sensibility, the harbingers of a new earth-centered awareness. The dissolution of the cattle complex and the elimination of beef from the diet of the human race portends a new chapter in the unfolding of human consciousness. By doing battle with "the world steer," a new generation expresses its sensitivity to the biosphere and its regard for the plight the poor. By eliminating beef from the human diet, our species takes a significant step toward a new species consciousness, reaching out in a spirit of shared partnership with the bovine and, by extension, other sentient creatures with whom we share the earth. <<<< On August 20th, 1994, at the same time that the Sun Dance was occurring at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, "Miracle" arrived. A North American Bison, she was born on a "buffalo" farm in Janesville, Wisconsin. Not an Albino, she is a *white* buffalo--a unique phenomenon in nature. The farm's owner has sworn to protect her granting full access to indigenous people, 24 hours a day. According to the philosophy and theology in the legends of the Northern Plains Native American people a great event was to occur in 1994. It has happened. The White Buffalo has returned and this significant incident is a message heralding what is to come. The fourth and final age of humankind is upon us and with it comes the spiritual awakening for the human race. All indigenous people of the Earth today know of this final age of humankind, and we feel that the ceremonies, songs, and paint are the key factors in maintaining the balance of the Earth and our connection to Her; as well as direct action to prevent Her desecration. We still acknowledge the spiritual and natural laws governing this planet who is a living, breathing being. White Buffalo's return is a sign that the age of reconnection to the Earth is upon us, giving us hope and guidance for the times ahead. -Coyote ------------------------------------------------------------------- Rev. Chris Korda The Church of Euthanasia ftp: ftp.etext.org /pub/Zines/Snuffit gopher: gopher.etext.org Zines/Snuffit gopher.well.sf.ca.us Zines/On-line Zines/Snuffit www: http://www.paranoia.com/other/ To receive the printed version of _Snuff It_, send $2 to: C.O.E., Box 261, Somerville, MA 02143 SAVE THE PLANET! KILL YOUR *SELF*!