What would we do without the UN? Just this week we find that august body of thought and deliberation on the shores of Turtle Bay in beautiful New York City is readying itself to look out for the least among us.
Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.
Be still my throbbing heart. Mother Gaia can finally move away from the card table and piano bench and have a seat at the big-people table for Thanksgiving dinner.
That document speaks of the country’s natural resources as “blessings,” and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution.
It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature’s complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.
Who says “activist and other groups” are the sole voicers(?) of nature’s rights? Why can’t a mining company voice them?
“We’re not saying, for example, you cannot eat meat because you know you are going to go against the rights of a cow,” he said. “But when human activity develops at a certain scale that you (cause to) disappear a species, then you are really altering the vital cycles of nature or of Mother Earth.
I’m confused. Isn’t the noble cow part of that great tableau we call nature? Who will speak for the cow? If not us, who? Does not the stalk of grain enjoy these very same rights?
In other news of the UN, the Palestinians are ready to form a state of their own.
The Palestinian Authority is ready to run an independent state but will struggle to make further institutional progress due to the restrictions of the Israeli occupation, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
If they can only get those pesky Jews to stop occupying and oppressing them. It would also help if they would stand still so it would be easier to shoot them.
The United Nations said deep political divisions between the PA and the Islamist group Hamas, which runs Gaza, added another complication to the drive to Palestinian statehood.
However, the report said the main constraint to the creation and successful running of a Palestinian nation remained the Israeli occupation. Israel still controlled 62 percent of the West Bank, including major road links, it said.
“The current situation leaves Palestinians significantly constrained in terms of movement of people and goods and access to land,” the report said.
A spokesman from the Palestinian People’s Front said, “Those People’s Front of Palestine splitters in Gaza are messin’ it up for everybody.” He then added, “But it’s mostly those pesky Jews.”
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