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Maura Kelley's avatar

Indeed. Action (or activism) IS FAITH; IT IS LOVE, at least for me.

Often, my activist colleagues/friends used to express an incredible amount of hate toward the fisherman of Taiji, Japan, for the incredibly barbaric, torturous, and inhumane treatment of hundreds of dolphin pods: highly sentient closely-knit families.

These fishermen go out, about a dozen boats, from Taiji harbor at around 5am. We call them the “bangerboats” because they use a banging sound to disrupt, terrorize and disorient these dolphin pods who rely upon sound to live = echolocation (like bats) and drive them into a small “killing cove”, secluded purposefully. I was there to document this, constantly followed by Taiji police and the Japanese mafia was around as they profit in the ILLEGAL trade of Taiji dolphins.

But we need to look at the larger picture -

After these dolphins witness the psychologically excruciating, PAIN-filled, slow-stabbing of their family members and are forced to swim in their blood, the “pretty” ones are violently captured, and then isolated and starved in order to train / mind control to perform physically painful “tricks” for the aquarium trade. Each trained dolphin is valued at about $350,000 and more.

The bigger picture here? The people who buy the tickets to see these dolphin shows and a “picture-with-a-dolphin" venues. Capitalism, in a bad way.

But friends, our call is TO EDUCATE OTHERS. People are propagandized and that IS the problem!

So I say what I do is from a place of LOVE, NOT HATE, LOVE for these dolphins. I see all Non-human beings as my very own brothers and sisters. This is where my personal FAITH comes in. My Spiritual mentor: Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, currently Franciscan Richard Rohr (www.cac.org). This is just one example of my own personal activism experiences. It’s out of LOVE, NOT HATE, and out of MY FAITH. Do I cry about it? YES, so much. Am I sad? YES, always. But I live through it, understanding my life-purpose is to fight for those human-voiceless, and I only find PEACE in where God resides, in Every-Thing.

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Mankh's avatar

The poet in me finds the "doomer" and "consumer" comparison evocative. As such, the title could also be "Are We Consumed?" Are we consumed by doomer negativity? Are we literally being consumed?...something that Trudell mentioned, the systemic feeding off of humans' minds and spirits, converting humans into energy to run their machine.

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