Ten Thousand Flags Spelled Out Freedom From Oil In Front of the Washington Monument.

Joseph Raglione
Gentle readers of this American Chronicle, they depend on human greed and human need to continue selling us Oil. They call it an economy. I believe our economy can work better and faster and cleaner with only a small and limited amount of Oil and Coal. An amount so small and limited it is hardly worth mentioning...>

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June 30, 2010

10,000 Flags Planted in D.C. to Urge Freedom From Oil

Veterans, union leaders, and environmentalists gathered on the National Mall on June 30 to urge President Obama to end America's dependence on oil.

What started as an online campaign to plant 50,000 "virtual flags" in front of the Washington Monument turned into a real-life flag-planting, as volunteers planted 10,000 American flags on the Mall spelling out FREEDOM FROM OIL.

"These flags represent tens of thousands of Americans who have watched the BP disaster in the Gulf and want to make sure it never happens again," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, below, at a press conference.

"We haven't even stopped the massive flow of oil from BP's gushing well yet, let alone respond to the damage it has wrought," Brune said, "yet the oil industry and many others want to keep drilling off our coasts. They claim it's the only way to boost the local economy and keep people employed. It's unconscionable that Big Oil and its allies would like to declare the region a dead zone in which the only jobs to be had are from more oil drilling."


Brune said America's addiction to foreign energy sources represents a dire security issue. "Our country must take serious steps toward freedom from oil by developing solutions that can end our oil addiction and make our nation more secure."

"The BP disaster a wake-up call," Brune said. "We can't return to business as usual and face another disaster like this. It's time to stand up to the oil industry, increase our transportation choices, and embrace clean energy solutions that will create good, lasting jobs while keeping our fresh air, drinking water, and oceans intact."

Also speaking were George Kohl, above, Senior Director of the Communications Workers of America, and Jon Powers, below, a former Army Captain and Iraq veteran, now Chief Operating Officer for the Truman National Security Project.

"It is a shame that we will let another Fourth of July pass us by without ending our unnecessary dependence on oil—a dependence that is funding the bullets that our enemies fire at our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan," Powers said. "It is for that reason, and many more, that the fight for energy independence is being fought here at home—a struggle we hope more Americans will join in support of those who are fighting abroad."

The Sierra Club is calling for President Obama's leadership to deliver a plan to end our dependence on oil over the next 20 years. Learn how you can join the effort to move America beyond oil.
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Joseph Raglione

About Joseph Raglione
Hi! I am the executive director of the World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement. I began as an environmental activist in 1969 and basically, never stopped! I Graduated College in Social Science and registered as a non-profit corporation in 1988 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I am one of a very few non-profit and generic freedom loving journalists left on Earth, and I continue today to study and to understand the problems connected with human activity on this Planet. My affiliates include: GreenPeace, the Nature Conservancy, the Bio-diversity organization, the Sierra Club, the David Suzuky foundation, the WWF, Amnesty International, World Vision, the IUF organization; as well as the wonderful and independant N.A.S.A. scientists studying our Planet's weather systems. Of course NASA also studies the mysteries of the Eternal Universe with satelite generated images and, over the years, have generously allowed me and thousands of our world scientists to study over their shoulder's via the Internet.
In spite of some past U.S. government repression, NASA continues to provide solid evidence of global warming.
NASA has provided me with pictorial evidence of Rainforest deforestation within: Jakarta, Peru, Africa, Brazil and even in Western Canada!
The motivation for such destruction continues to be (often illegally) for: lumber, for bio-fuels, and for Cattle ranching. Today, the perceived future profits for Palm Oil and for Bio-Fuels are prime motivators for environmental destruction. Small crop farming also contributes but that may be changing as farmers learn to protect the Rain-Forest.
With NASA imaging, there is proof that large city heat traps are helping global warming, and with (infrared images)there is proof that several hundred million gas burning vehicles (including ship and airplanes) presently create a hugh quantity of pollution tracks across both Oceans and Sky.
With oil, gas, Coal and Bio-Fuel heated buildings around the world creating C02 emissions, and with Methane release from all animal species...giant Ozone holes have been created and continue to exist above the North and South Poles. Ozone holes allow the Sun to radiate the Ice Caps and to accelerate the Ice melt, which releases more Methane into the atmosphere, which continues to thin out the Ozone. A vicious circle created by human need and also, unhappily, by human greed!
I have been asked to write to the Prime Minister of Japan to ask him to stop the murderous assault on endangered Whales. Every year, thousands of Whales are killed in the Antarctic with GreenPeace volunteers placing themselves between the Whales and the grenade tipped harpoons, and peope like myself, (I did not forget this is my "Bio," putting my old neck on the line attempting to change the situation by writing thousands if not millions of words!
Are words dangerous?
Over three hundred journalists were killed within the last ten years. You tell me if words are dangerous!
As I write these words, the desperate and starving in Darfur are waiting for rescue. I motivated a few kind hearted California Actors to visit the region and to report back. They did! They then created the Darfur coalition and they continue to fight to save the innocent victims trapped in tents in the desert of the Sudan. Darfuri's were attacked and moved from their homes because somebody believes there is Oil under the Sudan desert.
As I write this, a few sick and desperate people in Iraq are wrapping bombs around themselves in order to die in the name of God, and the list of humanitarian disasters continues. I also contribute information to the Reuter's news service. It is time for a change. Please help make it happen!

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