THE DREADED QUESTION:

For many concerned and informed people, this question comes close to home for many reasons, especially because they are suffering and in dire need, or because their taxes, votes, and voluntary donations are being variously used and misused in the name of humanitarian good will and philanthropic intent or proclamation. For others, it is a question that is long overdue because they share my discomfort in mega-philanthropic fund-infusions to advance human health and education in those countries burdened by poverty and too many mouths to feed.

Many of these peoples in communities that have not become shantytown squats surrounding the rich and consumptive cities following their mass disenfranchisement and now landless poverty and spiritual death, are rural. Some are located in and around critical natural habitat that must be immediately preserved, notably vital watersheds, wetlands fresh and salt, as well as tropical and sub-tropical rainforests, for the larger community that includes us all.

Not preserving these natural resources and ecosystems that are our only ally against global warming and catastrophic climate changes that will dislocate and disrupt nations’ economies and security, result in mass starvation and disease epidemics, and instead, primarily addressing child health and education (for what?) in these communities, and not also factoring these environmental concerns, short and long term, is misguided altruism at best. It stems from what I call shallow humanitarianism, the world view of human-centeredness that does not consider the whole and its parts and relationships, and by whole I mean the entire biotic community, ever creature and plant, wild and domesticated, as well as the land, water and other natural resources that indigenous peoples have shared sustainably for centuries. It is taboo for a Nilgiris Irula tribal, for example, to spit into the river or to cut a green limb from a tree, and for a Maasai, in what was once called Tanganyika, to break into the earth, as with hoe or plough, to cultivate the land.

Vested interests and corruption aside, humanitarianism in its present modus operandi causes more harm than good. There are many reasons for this nemesis of human centrism that few wish to address because they fear being judged anti-humanitarian, like those tree- and Bambi-hugging extremists who are lambasted and dismissed for putting plants and animals before people. There is even a People First movement that is funded to quell, discredit, and ultimately destroy the Earth First! and animal rights movements, whose activities have been investigated by undercover FBI and other government agencies, infiltrators and informants. One journalist even lambasted me in a national US business magazine for my supporting the animal and environmental protection and preservation movements, and linked me with the Unabomber, and with the rising threat of terrorism to the establishment.

One of my dalliances in 1985 before this establishment was to address what I believed I presented with reason and sound science, were the concerns of many over the genetic engineering of plants and animals, their patenting and cloning for commercial propagation, and the impact of same on the genetic integrity of wild and domestic plant and animal species. I was met with politely patronizing ridicule of the National Institutes of Health’s Genetic Engineering Committee in Washington, DC. The ethical and environmental concerns that I voiced over the genetic integrity of species were dismissed as mysticism and antiquated idealism that was not in step with scientific progress and the promises of this brave new world of biotechnology.

My testimony opposing the patenting of non-human life before the US Congress was heard, but ignored by those, I believe, who firmly believed, or were paid to endorse, the corporate dogma of the biotechnology industry that their way was the best way to feed the hungry world and to fight disease. To me this dogma was nothing more than a set of new clothes for the Emperor, devoid of any sound scientific basis. The philanthropic promises of this new technology were purely speculative, with promises lucrative for those countries that could get a head start in the world market place, risks and hidden costs being denied as corporate interests were cloaked in humanitarian concern. Money rules where ignorance prevails.

The US Government’s Food and Drug Administration, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and allied Bureau of Veterinary Medicine and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, heads and staffers of whom I met with on many occasions, but far less frequently than the well heeled industry lobbyists, quickly aligned with these corporate interests to essentially put them on a fast track to be first in the world market place with their new, improved and patented products, from genetically engineered bacteria and crop seeds and livestock feed to new generation drugs and vaccines and diagnostics for humans, and livestock production enhancers, like Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, (rBGH).

I testified before the FDA opposing governmental approval of this product that would be routinely injected into lactating cows to stimulate them to produce more milk, for the same reasons that it was outlawed by the Canadian and British Governments, and by the European Economic Community. But the US Government gave approval, and its embassies and consulates around the world got to work, along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, got down to work promoting these new life science industry products. That farmers in the Philippines became after harvesting one genetically engineered crop, others in India were committing suicide after their genetically engineered cotton crops failed, and their sheep became sick, many dying, after eating, as they normally would, any crop residues. I, who once played the title role in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, failed yet again to stop the Juggernaut.

In India, where cows are sacred, millions of milk-producing bovines are routinely injected with a manufactured hormone called oxytocin, that makes them contract internally, a milk-ejecting reaction that can also mean a prolapsed vagina, bladder or uterus.

One self-proclaimed animal rights advocate, (who was part of a disinformation and defamatory attack on our work in India, and who also lambasted at least one of my books opposing the direction that the life science industry was taking), advocated in his magazine the adoption of rBGH by the Indian Government as a way to reduce the cattle population, especially the number of unwanted bull calves. He argued that fewer cows would be needed to produce milk if more cows were injected with rBGH, and that would mean fewer births and surplus bull calves. But this is no solution, because of the cost of injections, increased health problems in treated cows, and their need for costly, high energy ’concentrates’ in their diet to meet the increased demands on their systems following the hormone injections that would be prohibitively costly to small farmers and dairy cooperatives, if even available at all.

This inane kind of ’techno fix’ solution, mirrors the biotech. development of genetically engineered "golden" rice that produces more vitamin A. which would purportedly benefit many third world children who sicken and suffer because their dietary intake of vitamin A is insufficient. This was marketed as a triumphal example of the promise of agricultural biotechnology as the way to feed the hungry world. Critics around the world pointed out that a vitamin A capsule or local curry leaves or some yam would satisfy children’s daily requirement for this essential nutrient, and that they would have to eat a kilo or more of this ‘improved‘ rice every day to get sufficient vitamin A from this dietary source. Anyone working in-field would know that traditional diets in most communities---that call for traditional farming practices and land reform to give disenfranchised indigenous peoples access to their lands--and advocating especially the consumption of rain-fed crops rather than irrigated, processed white rice as a dietary staple, would do much to improve child health and prenatal and early postnatal nutrition.

As I have learned, to question their motives and to oppose this nascent life science industry was not simply to be seen as a neo-Luddite, and anti-progress, but to be anti-humanitarian, and guilty therefore of putting animal and environmental concerns before those of the human race. Little wonder that this ’life science’ industry, that promised a better world through science and genetic technology, later opposed the US’s National Organic Food and Farming Standards that I helped put together, and sought to get patented varieties of genetically engineered seed varieties, (after they, the multinational petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies, had systematically bought out independent, conventional seed companies during the 1980‘s in order to gain monopolistic control of the world‘s seed stocks), accepted under the organic standards. They did not succeed in gaining control of the organic standards to further their own ends, but through American embassies and consulates, and via the World Bank and International Monetary fund, they are coercing these third and fourth world, ‘developing’ and impoverished countries, that are run by governments that if not already bribed and corrupted, are enchanted by the West, into accepting these seeds as the way out of poverty and hunger. But in reality, they hope for more lucrative crop exports. While India exports billions of dollars worth of wheat, rice, beef and other meats and dairy products and other lucrative agricultural commodities, even prepared meals to American fast-food consumers, millions of their own impoverished and disenfranchised people are severely malnourished.

Pointing to India, but with other corrupt and overpopulated third and fourth world countries in mind, the late US Senator Patrick Moynihan, before an appropriations committee, stated that ‘The only thing that India exports is disease."

The fact remains that malnourished and starving communities become the petri-dishes, along with their sick and malnourished livestock, of virulent disease epidemics, that with climate change and increased global traffic and commerce could be the nemesis of the West, rather than random acts of terrorism that is the top priority of America’s national security agencies, rather than global public health and human and animal welfare coupled with environmental protection, conservation, and restoration. Scientific tests have confirmed that bacteria and other harmful pathogens become more virulent after they have infected a nutritionally and immune-system compromised human or other animal.

I have discussed the philanthropic sham of Western aid and development schemes promoting agricultural biotechnology and other costly inputs with the tribal leaders and indigenous farmers in the Nilgiris, S. India, and with the government staff of agriculture and animal health in Tanzania. Most saw these developments as neo-colonial exploitation, and shared with me some of the adverse consequences of the earlier ‘Green’ revolution of high yield hybrid crop varieties and livestock breeds that require more costly inputs like agrochemicals, pesticides, and veterinary pharmaceuticals that only the rich land owners can afford. The net result was the further impoverishment of the people. Yet philanthropic individuals and foundations are blind to the vested interests behind them that seek to shape and direct philanthropy toward dependence rather than independence, and collaboration, rather than self-determination because of fundamentally conflicting interests.

The Maasai have no interest, nor do Hindu dairy village cooperatives, in raising cattle primarily for human consumption as ‘beef’. But the myopic beef eaters of the West, including the United Kingdom and other European donor aid and development countries, have sought to foster such values and industry. The consequences of this kind of misguided philanthropy and ecological and cultural illiteracy, funded by the World Bank in Botswana, for example, has meant that this country’s cattle and subsidized beef for export business to Europe and the UK has made a few people very rich, disenfranchised and impoverished indigenous peoples, and resulted in the deaths of millions of wild animals following the construction of ‘Veterinary Fences’ to keep migratory, water and grazing-land seeking wildebeest, antelope, zebras and other wildlife, including the major predators that follow the herds, and depend upon their free movement, from coming close to cattle, ostensibly in order to prevent the spread of foot and mouth and other diseases. But in reality, to reduce wildlife competition for grazing land and water by blocking all seasonal wildlife (and indigenous people’s) migrations by erecting thousands of kilometers of cordon fences is nothing short of criminal.

The causes and consequences of the Berlin Wall almost pale before these wildlife decimating, biocidal fences that the West gave to Namibia, the suffering and shame of which my friend, white South African film-maker, the late Ricky Lomba, reported to the world in his televised "END OF EDEN" documentary. In this film he even shows a weak and emaciated wildebeest, one that got through, at a watering hole, being stoned to death by a man with a herd of thirsty cattle.

First I must make it clear that I am not the antithesis of a philanthropist even though I am opposed to and sickened by many acts of altruistic philanthropy. On the contrary I am no misanthropist. I regard other humans with the same fascination and have the same respect and caution as I have for any other animal. Until I get to really know them, that is, and which, by the way, as a veterinarian and ethologist I am trained and professionally bound to do. Then I experience great love and gratitude, awe and reverence, or deep concern and responsibility, depending upon the situation.

I can never enjoy such intimacy and trust with most of my own kind since they are responsible for the suffering of others, be they human or non-human. Like no other animal we foul our own nests, polluting and poisoning the environment: And like a plague of locusts, cause ecological devastation, as by grazing too many animals, and destroying the forests and grasslands with axe and plough as they propagate themselves beyond the carrying capacity of the environment: And who drain swamps and destroy forests and watersheds to build luxury homes, golf courses and resorts for the affluent: And who raise commodity crops using poisonous agrochemicals, and propagate animals on cruel factory farms for the multinational food, fiber and beverage industries that contribute to the wealth of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, all at great cost to the environment and public health. Global swarming and global warming go hand in hand.

I can always trust venomous snakes and insects, as my work as a veterinarian and ethologist have taught me, along with the wolves and other wild animals whom I have come to know and respect in my line of work, because they are always true to their natures. In contrast, the human is a chimera, not to be trusted and held close without full awareness that to be human is to be angelic, half good, and demonic, half evil. Unlike other animals, the human proclivity for self-preservation includes the development of a psychological mask, a carapace of authenticity that can be so subtle and convincing as to make the facsimile of truth a reality. Otherwise how could a man of God become a perverted pedophile, and another be a respected citizen and father yet rape and beat his wife and abuse his own children? It is the same kind of man who rapes the natural world, fells the forests, drains the swamps, mines the mountains, dams the rivers, and is now harvesting and destroying all life in the living seas, and transforming the natural world into a wasteland.

Under conditions of natural selection animals and plants are healthy and beautiful to behold, but the human, a product of unnatural social and cultural selection and conception, can be horrifying to behold.

Ignoring the Karmic laws of cause and consequence, of harmful means begetting harmful ends, has lead to global climate change, more per capita human suffering and strife world wide than ever before in our short evolutionary history from being an omnivorous ape to now a global infestation and mega-predator and parasite. Also great animal suffering and an inestimable loss of biodiversity and natural habitats, terrestrial and aquatic, have resulted from this collective ignorance and indifference, as well as from our rationalizations and denial.

The road to hell is clearly paved with good intentions. Good intentions, like the best laid plans of mice and men ‘oft’ go awry, so often cause more harm than good. One business man, whose dog I treated while working at my wife’s animal refuge in the Nilgiris, S. India, advised me, after thanking me for seeing to his Doberman (that I said was a poor substitute for a good village ‘country’ dog), saying "Since you are coming into my country to do good work, you must be stealthy, kind sir, dear doctor."

I soon came to learn that to be ‘stealthy’ along the path of good intentions is to avoid the road to hell that follows the accidental and almost invariable linking of such intentions with the locally corrupt, and with vested interests from afar that have no in-field intelligence, and possibly no real concern outside of the sphere of their aims and investors; and also face opposition, even death threats from these same factions.

Few stand up to declare that it is wrong, immoral and unethical to put one’s own, and one’s family, class, tribe, and corporate interests before those of other people in the community. Many who do stand up and protest are assassinated or tortured and imprisoned, and their families scattered and impoverished.

Even fewer dare stand up and say that human economic interests should not take precedence over the well being of animals. The American Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights has recently petitioned the House of Delegates governing the policies and advocacy of the American Veterinary Medical Association, (of which, along with the British Veterinary Medical Association, I have been a responsive member for many years), to endorse their petition advocating opposition by the veterinary establishment to the prevailing situation and consensus of vested pecuniary interests that mean that human economic concerns take precedence over animals’ welfare.

It would seem that the jury and the populace are both asleep, those in power no doubt being mesmerized by the lures and triumphalism of a rising , global industrial biotechnocracy, already at war in the Middle East. And within itself. Those who are awakening from the trance of ‘progress’, and of what they have come to accept as the norm, see at once that the present is connected to the past, and that the future is really unfolding eternally in the present moment, of which we must be forever mindful, and responsible for, as conscious and conscientious, ethical beings. And especially as consumers with the power to exercise our rights in terms of the informed choices we make in the market place. That we are seeing an accelerating extinction of species and losses in biological and cultural diversity, as well as increasing acts of terrorism, assassination, rape and suicide, and also warfare and genocide, is a clear signal that on our present course there will only be ever more hungry children and adults to feed, and ailing populations in dire need of help.

We are all bearing witness to the collision course of Western commerce and scientific- techno- industrial materialism with the reality of a world of finite resources, especially of oil and pure water: And with too little land to sustain too many people and dwindling wildlife in the more eastern and southern hemispheres, ecological decimation, especially in the so called biodiversity ’hot spots’, is destroying the world’s once sustainable economy. The global climate is being disrupted by the carbon and other toxic emissions of industrialized and industrializing nations, from China to the US, and from India and Central and South America to the continent of the European Economic Community, that continue to put economic interests before animal welfare and environmental protection, because they are caught in the downward spiral of so called ‘free’ trade and world-market competition.

The burden of Karma on one generation after another is not all due to the bad things that people do, that some call evil, be it to each other, to other animals and to the environment. There is another burden arising from do-goodism, where those who would do good as philanthropists and altruistic humanitarians actually cause more harm than good. Part of the problem is that doing good is linked to feeling good, or looking good in the public eyelike the philanthropists who do not separate self-interest, be it corporate/materialistic, or paternalistic/maternalistic, from the long-term interests of those whom they would help, and the hidden ’externalities’ and unanticipated negative consequences of their do-good actions and policies.

This burden of ‘good karma’ is exemplified by the increases in infant survival in countries and other cultures that are already over-populated by people and their livestock, following philanthropic infusions from the more affluent West. The AIDS epidemic, and other epidemic diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, are one of Nature’s ways of human population control. This is precisely what the paltry family planning/population control programs of altruistic humanitarian organizations ( many being closely allied with the pharmaceutical industry) seek to accomplish more humanely, but continue to founder, no thanks to medieval Vatican policies with regard to the sanctity of human life, and to ‘safe sex‘ and related birth control that are considered to be sinful.

The increasing conflicts, massacres, wars and acts of genocide, tribe against tribe, nation state and religious belief against ’foreign’ countries, cultures and beliefs, are all a consequence of the convergence of three human activities that Nature will ultimately constrain if we continue to fail to rectify ourselves. But this will be at great cost to all sentient life. These three activities are our unbridled, legally protected and religiously sanctioned procreation, consumptiveness, and destruction of the natural world, from the wetland at the end of my own back yard in Minnesota, "The land of 10,00 lakes", (many now human encroached, polluted and critically endangered ), to the Maasai Mara grasslands of Tanzania.

Just like the little piece of wetland at the end of my back yard, ( that is part of the ecology of a small , glacial pot-hole lake within the City of Minneapolis, (whose Zoning and Planning Commission has condoned it’s annihilation by a Developer, in total disregard of community opposition), the Maasai Mara, one of the world’s original cradles of evolution in East Africa, where my wife Deanna Krantz and I have worked, that saw the rise of one of the earliest of human civilizations based on

the economies of animal domestication, is now, like many other places in the world, turning into a wasteland.

This is not some natural extinction process of ecological succession where the Maasai herders’ ancient way of life must come to pass under the ethos of human progress and evolution. The extinction of the Maasai, whose once sustainable activities helped protect wildlife and biodiversity, just like the San people in Namibia’s desert, who were forced to live there by colonial cattle ranchers and agricultural developers of their traditional lands, will parallel the extinction of the elephant, lion, wild dog , wildebeest and other indigenous species if all non-indigenous human presence is not immediately reduced, and habitat encroachment prevented. And if more effective family planning and health and welfare programs and protection of their land rights are not put in place to help these and other indigenous, original/aboriginal peoples.

The Maasai people, a long-indigenous livestock herding civilization, is now in dire conflict over a the use of, and access to, land and water for their suffering, thirst- ravaged and hungry, emaciated but still beautiful, yet pathetic cows, calves, bulls, sheep and goats, who strive somehow to adapt to these extreme conditions. Otherwise, like their herding human families and clans, they will die out, as another civilization supplants them. This civilization is based on the selective breeding and commoditization of various crop varieties, [and now, god forbid, even planting patented varieties of genetically engineered seed stock from the philanthropic, humanitarian West], namely the Bantu.

These peoples, whose population has doubled in half a generation, are displacing and in conflict with the Maasai and other tribal peoples who do not plough and cultivate the land. The Bantu, and many white and other colonial invaders and settlers, plough and cultivate the land. Large scale agricultural activities are destructive to the delicate savanna grassland ecology, and to all wildlife, with whom the Maasai seek to live in harmony, as they once did also with the Bantus.

Highland tea and coffee plantations, as in many parts of India, where I have also worked with tribal peoples with my wife Deanna, and also to conserve the last of the wild, so closely tied to the identity, culture and economy of the indigenous peoples, operated by colonial and local capitalists, have meant the destruction of upland forests and meadows. And their agrochemical poisoning and disruption of the entire watershed and hydrologic cycle now means less rain and pure water for all. From the Maasai and Bushman perspective, the locust-like activities of the Bantus and others are encouraged by the too often pecuniary, and otherwise self-serving, ‘feel-good’ philanthropy of neo-colonial, Western aid and development donors and agencies. Such agricultural exploitation of the grass lands are taboo in the spiritual and cultural traditions, economy, and beliefs of the Maasai because they destroy the ecological basis of their once sustainable economy of cattle, goat and sheep grazing within the wildlife communities of the Serengeti plains, the Mara grasslands, wetlands and waters that they traditionally sought not to harm.

This is but one example of how increasing human population pressures, compounded by colonial and other outside influences, bring indigenous peoples of different religious and other belief systems and way of life into conflict over natural resources that were once shared and cultural diversity preserved though local trade, barter, various conventions, and mutual tolerance if not respect.

On one visit to work with these indigenous peoples of Tanzania, as a guest and member of the Tanzania Veterinary Association, I leaned of the imprisonment of some Hanta tribals who were, as a culture, gatherer-hunters, like the much publicized and no less endangered San people, the "Bushman" of the East African bush or scrub-land desert country of Namibia and Tanzania. They were imprisoned for ‘poaching’ and illegally killing their traditional wild food animals on a wildlife preserve, conserved by Western donors, and lucratively exploited by legally sanctioned trophy hunter and zoo and circus exporting interests: And by a booming Western tourist industry, catering to thousands each year who want to see the last of the wild in East Africa’s cradle of human civilization, and primal, primate origins. Little of their moneys go to help save wildlife habitat and indigenous peoples who wish to continue to live their traditional, sustainable ways, and would be the best wildlife managers and policing protectors, well armed as is often needed against non-indigenous poachers.

Well armed and trained poachers of tigers, elephants, rhino and other species, including chimpanzees, bonobos, and monkeys, gazelles and kudus, for the lucrative bush-meat trade regularly invade wildlife sanctuaries, from the Masai Mara of Kenya and Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika) to the Mudumalai and Nilgiris Global Biosphere Reserve in Tamil Nadu, S. India, where I have worked with my wife Deanna. There is a lucrative traffic in tiger bones and meat, and other wildlife parts and products spurred by the demanding Chinese medical industry, as well as illegal and legal traffic in elephant ivory, sandal and rosewood, and other precious natural products from medicinal wild honey and herbs, to pharmaceutical company goldmines of virtually untapped biodiversity in forest, swamp, savannah and mountain that are fast vanishing, along with the indigenous knowledge of medicinal and other valuable plant products.

The best protection against outside poachers and thieves would be to train and arm indigenous people who should be permitted to graze some healthy livestock around wildlife preserves, and be allowed to engage in sustainable, traditional gatherer and hunter activities in a buffer area around a preserved core wildlife area where no human activities are permitted. And in their presence and surveillance, the wildlife and their shared habitat would be more effectively protected. But well armed they must be.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, heads of which I have with met on more than one occasion, have flatly refused to provide funds that would be used to equip these and other indigenous peoples with military weapons and anti-poaching technology. So money goes to primarily non-indigenous, would-be wildlife conservation agencies, governmental and non-governmental. Millions of dollars have gone to many scientists, some of whom I know, from anthropologists to elephant and tiger experts, academic professors all, who remain silent to the world, and to their Western donors, about what is really going on politically and corruptly to insure the extinction of the tiger, elephant, and other wild species, as well as tribal peoples like the Hazdas of Tanzania and the Honey Kurumbas of the Nilgiris.

My friend Gordon Leakey, who had his wildlife protection officers in Kenya shoot and kill, if need be, any poachers who would not surrender to arrest, was ostracized in some circles for putting animals before people. But without a well-armed United Nations coordinated, paramilitary conservation police force, all that is wild and beautiful, all the major places on Earth of biological and cultural diversity, that should be treasured and hallowed by all, will soon be gone.

I have visited the denuded wastelands of the Maasai herders in East Africa, and have documented their plight, as I have witnessed the urban shanty towns along India’s polluted rivers, teeming with children playing and living in unspeakable filth. These tragic communities of human despair and desolation, of courage and hope, have become the petri-dishes for new virulent diseases, in part due to their close proximity in some areas to disease-harboring wildlife whose habitats they are destroying as the human infestation spreads.

The accelerating, criminal loss of biodiversity, from baobab and banyan trees to elephants and whales, and of cultural diversity, from languages and seed varieties, to indigenous wisdom and unique world views under the crushing monoculture Juggernaut of the Western industrial-consumer driven global economy, is a tragedy of great proportion and divisiveness. With its militaristic imposition of ‘democratic capitalism‘, industrialism, and ’ consumer freedom’ under the guises of progress, human rights, the love of children, and paternalistic, philanthropic intent, with token contributions to conservation, and funds to artificially propagate elephants and other endangered species in captivity, the Juggernaut rolls on. Those who try to stop it are called extremists, terrorists, blind and brain-washed idealists, traitors, even mentally sick, like those who were not tortured or killed, but now rot in psychiatric hospitals and in government prisons as subversives and political prisoners, or languish under house arrest. They and others continue to suffer the injustices and harms of this Juggernaut, and the smaller juggernauts driven by tribal, ethnic, and religious conflicts, follow their own converging paths of mayhem and destruction, the victims of assassination, rape, mutilation, slaughter, child abuse and enslavement lying in their wake.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated," Mahatma Gandhi once observed. This is truer today than when he was assassinated soon after independence from British colonialism. Gandhi advocated self-reliance and self-sufficiency and living the simple life so that others may simply live. These virtues are critically significant today, but fly in the face of a consumer-driven globally-extractive and disruptive economy that the World Trade Organization is now orchestrating.

It should be noted that Gandhi opposed the humanitarian proposal of the British Raj to abolish the Hindu caste system because he felt that this would destroy Hinduism. So still today, in India, that purports to be the world’s largest democracy, has a class of people, the Dalits or untouchables, (whom Gandhi sought to placate by calling them "Children of God") who are regarded as being essentially inferior, sub-human: The "Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes" of Government parlance and administration. The current, (2006) Indian Government’s ruling that more Dalits, (since they are a majority class in India) should be allowed entry into medical school, was met with defiance by upper caste Hindus, and the threat of doctors going on strike across India.

This is but one example of India’s mythic Juggernaut in action that crushes, rather than carries the will of the people. And until the wheels of every juggernaut in every country are removed, by what ever means that does not cause greater harm than the juggernaut in question, there will never be justice and the rule of law for the oppressed and impoverished millions who will live in purgatory or quiet desperation.

Peoples’ liberation movements will only succeed when they are tied to the land through land reform, and eco-justice, fostering the sustainable cultivation, restoration, protection and preservation of the land and natural resources, terrestrial and marine. The liberation of the human and the entire biotic or life community are one and the same. A sickening and ravaged Earth means a sickened and ravaged populace.

Those who ride the wings of the Phoenix, rising above the ashes of the next fallen civilization, share the vision, informed by the history of humanity’s failures and fall, with those who have witnessed the wakes of juggernauts, and survived to care and act. That vision is of a Peaceable Kingdom, where all mothers of all beings,---including the Earth, Mother of all who dwell in this planetary life community that is indeed a miracle of our creative universe, ---must come first.

Giving primary consideration to all mothers, human and non-human, animal and plant, is a bioethical principle that can unite people of different cultures and establish a common ground with the animal and environmental movements that speak for animals and trees, oceans and forests, and yet are still misjudged and ridiculed for not putting people first. The animal rights and earth first movements will continue to meet opposition and flounder if they fail to establish a common ground of concern for all mothers, uniting with people liberation movements country by country to address the root causes of their far from conflicting and divergent concerns. Such a unified All Mothers First movement is a logical and essential extension of civil society’s social justice movement, and of the Jewish Tikkun Olum or Repair the World initiative, that in order to be effective cannot exclude the non-human realms from equal and fair consideration.

Such a pro-life movement that incorporates eco-justice and respect for life, and puts all mothers first, is the antithesis of the pro-life movement that puts human life above all else, and by ignoring and discounting all else contributes to the suffering of one generation after the next as the human population continues to increase beyond the carrying capacity of nation state economies and the natural environment. Rather than turning the human species into a global parasitic infestation or plague, the voice of reason that is the heart of boundless compassion for all living beings must be heard above the clamor of human need and greed, shallow, and help transform self-serving, feel-good philanthropy and misguided, human-centered altruism into a passionate commitment to universal service for the good of all. Otherwise the Juggernaut of the spreading global monoculture of industrialism and consumerism will not be stopped by concerted and informed human intervention, but by natural forces--- our nemesis of Nature’s retribution, from climate change to failure of our fisheries and farm production ---that will mean a legacy of devastation, poverty, disease and suffering for countless surviving generations to come.

Understandably, all Holy Men ---and Women---see that in reverence for life is our salvation and redemption. But it is reverence for all life and not just for human life. Reverence for human life is not an end in itself. Many people oppose abortion, and even contraception out of a reverence for the unborn, even the un-conceived. Human contraception would surely negate the need to abort an unwanted burden of human life into an already human- saturated, poisoned and denuded planet. Reverence just for the human species and for some hypothetical, as yet un- conceived, or as yet unborn human fetus, is unethical when the lack of reverence for other beings has harmful consequences.

While such reverence is a laudable beginning for Mankind’s awakening into a more Humanekind, in itself, it is a dead end when such a heart-felt loving tenderness is not extended to embrace all living beings. Without such an embrace, and broadening of our ethics and human moral standards, how can there be any hope of World Peace? People will only cease to voluntarily reduce their rates of procreation and consumption when they see all the consequences of unbridled procreation and consumption, that include speciesicide---the extinction of evermore animal and plant species, global climate change, and increasing human conflict, war, poverty, dis-ease, and suffering: And when their reverence for life embraces all that is not human, and not just that which is human in form and desire. Then there will be grounds for hope. And we see it now in the growth of humanitarian aid, family planning, women’s and animal’s rights, and in environmental protection and restoration. Indeed planetary CPR---conservation, preservation, and restoration, is being seen as a survival imperative, economically, socially and also spiritually by more and more good people around the world.

Human health and wellbeing are more widely recognized as being inseparable from the health and wellbeing of the environment and all who dwell therein---the biotic community. This means that human altruism and philanthropy are beginning to succeed because the world view of Mankind is changing, and the Golden Rule,--- of treating others as we would have them treat us, ---is extended in the equalitarian spirit of democracy to embrace all living beings.