strickland founder of the pacific northwest trail a twelve hundred mile route from the continental divide to the pacific ocean ron personally scouted and explored the entire trail wrote  the areas you can see behind me there was no trail of all there was thank brush oceans spraying himalayan blackberry hundred foot tall douglas fir trees and we came through here worked out a route for the trail by marking the brush crawling over the brush falling in holes getting all scratched up this again it was starting from nothing and other no trails just runs idea and this vision that captured other people's imagination to join and help with the trail the idea for the pacific northwest trail for me when i was in graduate school at georgetown university hiked the pacific crest trail washington state in nineteen sixty eight and two years later i was desperate to return to washington state to hike again and trail by old first and friendly persuasion ron organized volunteers and we were idealist too and we we we believed in the dream and the dream is coming true you know ron is a master of getting support for the pacific northwest trail primarily just just perseverance and everyone he speaks to he works the conversation into the betrayal project ronde is a capacity to talk with a wide range of people and engage them whether they be miners cattle ranchers professors politicians what are requires through their theories and across is to have an ability to speak with all kinds of people persuade them of your car and then to be very persistent no matter how many years it takes we've come a long way in the last thirty years from my initial assumption of the idea nine hundred seventy two all the work that you can see here along the trail but there's something that remains to be done which is to add the pacific northwest trail to the national trail system as a national scenic trail well that's the key to the whole business national s they're called in the nineteenth century lighting out for the territory you come to love the spirit of independence of being out there able to decide just exactly what you're going to do from one moment to the other to look forward to walking rabbit to the national trail system until last year two thousand and nine i had been hiking the pacific crest trail in one nine hundred sixty eight and i had the idea that the countryside there in the north cascades was so beautiful and i would like to showcase this school people all over the country who could come and hike in east west through the new east west route from the continental divide to the pacific ocean and that's what last year president obama signed into law a new part of the national trail system and that is what this bill does from coast to coast it protects treasured places from the appalachians of virginia and west virginia to michigan's upper peninsula from the canyons of idaho to the stance sandstone cliffs of utah from the sierra nevada us in california to the badlands of war it doesn't need more than two million acres across nine states as well that is almost as much as was designated over the past eight years combined creates thousands of miles of new scenic historic and recreational trails you have to be pretty patient to get into doing something like this but on the other hand the reward is really tremendous i think the day hiker is the most important person on the trail because our trails won't continue to exist unless we have a lot more people on them what i really like is to be out for say a month and just keep going for the distant horizon and when you've been out for a month you suddenly transform your inner jogger feet in a sense that you feel at home where you are at that moment you're not looking back to where you came from or even so much through the final destination but you're at home where you are in the moment and so that itself is a very wonderful feeling well what excited excites me especially now is the idea of taking the trails to where people live you know this has been tremendous success with rail trail soul railroad grades that are transformed into trails so i am particularly interested in things like the east coast greenway a multimodal self propelled trail and i would like to get more of these added to the national trail system so we got support people's media but i do want to point this out folks this movement and tonight's of that was not covered by corporate media at all right but i do want to give a big shout out to any of you who are watching me right now let's just acknowledge you're watching it on people's media wherever it is that you're watching me right now some unpaid volunteer took the time to record it thank you some unpaid volunteer took the time to upload this to create the infrastructure for you to watch it so we got support people's media people media and yes to the local cable access program that this is going to be played on and also can we get a big shot up to your community radio station it is a people's own people's operated radio station so the point i'm making is this ma'am let's build alternative people's media so that we can talk to each other and let's have those kind of conversations and let's build political power that is serious that takes ourselves seriously because we have to because a just world is at stake and frankly not only a peaceful and just world but we know that the ecology that we depend upon for life itself is in the balance so let's do our work joyously but let's also be serious about fighting like little kids as told by salmon and willow and friends once upon a turn not so far in the future perhaps a thousand years from now or even less much less  lower telling the stories of how big fish and thinly came back home this is one of the stories they told i'm sure not like clockwork the same two kids would fuss and fight with each other their parents tried to resolve this their grandparents to the neighborhood the school the religion their friends and on and on they were quite talented they became adults their community in the world needed their talents to nurture a better world for everyone they needed to work together for the towns to come of anything they refused to work with each other at their loss and the communities lost to and the world's loss is to continue to live their lives this way fussing and fighting with each other year after year and after many years they had died community never benefited from their talents neither did the world this is a story of the blind stupidity to people then it happened in another place nearby kids locked into their petty fussing and fighting claiming ideas the other had the same old stuff what to do the people knew what would happen the community tried everything that had been tried before to became adults still the fussing and fighting continued and their real talents were never expressed because they would not work together after marriage years of fussing and fighting they to die a great towns were lost to themselves their community and the world every once in a while this happened in other places who knew the story everyone knew what would happen unless this stupidity would stop some shrugged their shoulders and got on with their lives others had the magic formula to resolve this nonsense the formula didn't work so notice this would happen between groups of people and businesses religion schools most any kind of group and between groups some h fussing and fighting would stop it didn't some told the story again and again the stupidity continued on and on and eventually the people fussing and fighting died then one day sa talking about the story sam and said what's the point of the story of people refusing to get along and use their wonderful talents they can only happen when each person helps out will replied yeah those careless few are making terrible messes of themselves their community in the world and if you focus on the careless feet and their endless fussing and fighting you like the two talents and miss the point forget about those yahoos pay them no attention don't waste your time and said look around and notice all the people that have heard this story have learned from this story have decided to resolve things with each other so they could multiply their talents and enjoy life they're the ones that nurture a better world for everyone people and nature and that my friend is how big fish and thinly came back home to learn once again that's all that was needed yeah that's it and a few more details in the next we haven't accomplished a whole lot in changing the way the government thinks and i think one has to realize that they are not willing to to change when they do change the government will respond that they don't initiate things themselves and we need our elected officials because they answer to us but i think we made a big mistake thinking  n the can we can be imposed and they will respond that they don't see they don't sit down and think well the right thing to do is to change everything we're doing in this bureau we'll hire some more people will let some people go and change the system no it doesn't doesn't work that way and somebody can come and ask them to change the system and it doesn't doesn't work that way either and that's why there is litigation and this country is so full of litigation and people hate it and other countries don't seem to need it but it's the only way we've found that actually get something to change because thing there will change when all when the laws and for us and we have still get the enforcement to work and the other the other thing is government people working for the government they expect environmentalist's and people who just are dissatisfied with something that they will give up after a while and a buddy who who is made these efforts know that you can't give up ever in something that you think is going to be easy because it's so obvious and this is right and that's wrong and have to hang in there and never ever give up and there is no passion is as inflamed and as long lasting but i do want to point this out folks this movement and tonight's of that was not covered by corporate media at all right but i do want to give a big shout out to any of you who are watching me right now let's just acknowledge you're watching it on people's media wherever it is that you're watching me right now some unpaid volunteer took the time to record it thank you some unpaid volunteer took the time to upload this to create the infrastructure for you to watch it so we support people's media yes to the local cable access program that this is going to be played on and also can we get a big shout out to your community radio station it is a people's own people's operated radio station so the point i'm making is this ma'am let's build alternative people's media so that we can talk to each other and let's have those kind of conversations and let's build political power that is serious that takes ourselves seriously because we have to because a just world is at stake and frankly not only a peaceful and just world but we know that the ecology that we depend upon for life itself is in the balance so let's do our work joyously but let's also be serious about it peace we are really in a dire situation republican or democrat it steams obama this government is dominated by the pharmaceutical industry and if it wants a drug approved it will get it regardless of the consequences to the american what fifty percent of america has a chronic disease something's wrong it means we failed at our health care system it means we have a disease care system but i don't think the public has begun to grasp the  symptoms which typically are further treated with other drugs as an ethical issue they never think gee this is going to kill people i shouldn't do it the pharmaceutical companies have one objective that is not the health and safety of the individuals this country but the almighty dollar the bottom line make them become chronically ill they're going to become chronically depressed that's the expected and have after approving drugs to go after national product manufacturers to make sure that there is no competition to their quiet the pharmaceutical industry one of the oldest activities in the world is in the name being economic  then to help people stay out of the house unfortunately our congress has not supported we the people it's really looking at trying to support corporate america we have to rethink our entire philosophical underpinning actually are in deep crisis not just for our poor here but for our democracy itself we have to have a system of medicine where our patients are not being killed by the treatments and unfortunately today they are being killed in such huge numbers that modern medicine as practiced in america today is a crime against humanity how can you possibly as a human being be willing to sacrifice others lives particularly the lives of  in order to placate financial interests we have a system of medicine that's broken that by itself is killing at least seven hundred thousand people a year some people are dying since they don't have health insurance but what about the number of people who are dying i loved what i did for a period of time because i was very good at it and i made a great living doing it but once that i lost my niece and i really went into the literature and started looking at the clinical data that's when i got compassionate that's when i got pissed off because i knew that the manufacturers knew that the drug that my niece committed suicide on with eight to ten times more likely to cause suicidal ideation than placebo and clinical trials megan's problems started when she was involved in a car accident and literally smashed between two vehicles she was standing at the driver's side window talking to a friend she was the base cheerleaders had a tremendous amount of strain physical strain and after the car accident she had difficulty participating in any of the things that she participated in prior to the accident and she got depressed she had been put on several different medications for pain and depression she was in her first year med school at indiana university and she was preparing to take her finals and she wanted to stay awake in order to study and she goes to the convenience store and gets etc to keep her awake so she can study i was in texas when she was  in indiana and i get a phone call from her saying mom something's wrong i can't go take my finals because i can't i'm a little loose in aiding and everything is black white and red and people are flying in the sky and i said ok i'll be there as soon as i can get a plane i'll be there in the meantime my mom who lives in indiana called indiana university unsaid a granddaughter can attend finals what do we do and any university says well we require a physician's statement you'll have to take her to the hospital or the doctor in order for her to be able to take her finals and so my mom megan to the emergency room physicians at the emergency room convinced megan to admit herself to the psych ward and that's where they kept her for a week and i got to the hospital and for three solid days they were fused to let me see the doctor my daughter's in a psych ward she's eighteen years old and of course i'm pleading with them i need to talk to the doctor this is i need to know what's going on i was treated horribly they were holding her against her will and drugging her with psych psychiatric drugs which i was so much more lucrative for the hospital then had they left her in the emergency room which wouldn't have resulted in just an overnight stay because she truly was having a drug reaction meghan was very astute and she said mom it's the drugs the drugs that they put me on that is causing this unfortunately we didn't know that all we had to do was to give written notice that she wanted to be released and that's all she needed to do and we were begging for them to let her go because we knew that her mental condition was declining it wasn't getting better and it was causing really bizarre behavior that we've never seen before and i was able to finally talk to the doctor on the last day he said your daughter's bipolar and you know she'll need to be on the psych drugs for the rest of her  to look at the advertisements for drugs across the pool on the t v stations it's a pretty penny it's a fair percentage of their revenue and for them to speak out or even broadcast mainstream media you know the media is supposed to question things it's supposed to be skeptical it's supposed to ask the questions as a proxy for the public but when it comes to conventional medicine and especially vaccines the media is blowing the horn of the pharmaceutical industry as an award winning journalist i'm very upset at the practices i see going on and reporting today when it comes to reporting the actual causes of disease in the american public and i find that journalists are accepting press releases there except in public relations rather than reading the actual science the direct to consumer ads are another area that are incredibly inappropriate the chuka two countries in the world that allow direct to consumer ads new zealand in the united states they spend five billion dollars a year on direct to consumer ads to try and convince you that the products that they're selling are products that you need the medical industry doesn't call what it does propaganda it calls it advertising shows healthy people and it shows healthy people doing healthy thing but in the background there is this message to tell you that this drug is very dangerous your teeth may fall out your both may crack and you may develop cancer however this drug is going to be really good for what we're telling you so the american people have to take their risk because now the pharmaceutical industry can absolve themselves because they can say well you knew the ris drug anyway and the connection between our human anxieties and this pseudo solution which is the product that you're supposed to buy which will solve that for you is the big law and it's told over and over and over again and it's one of the principal things that has gotten us into this  mess many mistakes with the health care reform that went into place number one they forgot to talk about vitamins and nutrients and how we prevent disease and then secondly they took away more freedoms so we used to have more freedom of choice as consumers and parents and even as cities and states they took much of that away and they forced people into a monopoly system a system that's broken it does not work except to create profits for the companies that benefit from disease and suffering the health care reform act like all of the governmental regulatory structures in place it puts a stranglehold over medical innovation we have the federal government coming in and telling doctors what they're allowed to do it restricts patients from choosing therapies that may be more efficacious we're not doing health care reform we're doing insurance reform right now we're talking about the economics of medicine we need not only to get everybody health insurance because health insurance or health care because it's a right it's not a privilege it's a right everybody deserves health care but it's insufficient to make the health care system work because it isn't  health care system it's a disease care system we have to shift the paradigm there are the the financial structural aspects of paradigm change of care systems that there's one insure the canadian system would be  of the paradigm you can bring it under to the particular patient population people at insurance companies are looking at their bottom line and recognizing that the way that they can maximize profits is to per day through doctors the least effective least mostly least expensive treatment unfortunately a lot of the arguments to achieve universal health coverage have not worked in fact since teddy roosevelt tried to achieve universal coverage in the states time what happened that day may commit suicide was had taken her shoestrings and try to hang herself from the ceiling fan and the ceiling fan came down on top of her head she carried the ceiling fan out to the garage and came back and to the house and took and oil  and poured it on top of her head and set herself on fire and when she did that she called nine one one and mediately got into the shower which was the worst thing that  we're seeing our practitioners are being attacked for practicing outside the standard of medical care when they offer dietary supplements or natural health approaches to health and healing we're seeing our industry members being attacked for example by the f d a being told to pull products from the market we're seeing consumers really perpetually being kept in the dark because the information that they can access about the benefits of a natural health approach are so totally limited by current law so much of what's been going on i kept under wraps because practitioners are forced to sign consent decree as closed doors the f d a will try to coerce them they have sort of a large hammer in force when hammer the hold up and therefore these companies don't oftentimes come out and share publicly what's been going on the mechanisms of communications about the alternatives or walks the framework of passing laws about the alternatives that's a greater preventive health policy are blocked all of this  individual who's at the end of an information and power system that gives them a very very limited number of choices and a m a is the foundation of allopathy medicine prior to that we practiced homeopathic medicine and zero were three times as many homeopaths as outlook that's what we need yes we need reform we need to understand that l l put the whole me up at the can exist that natural beauty can exist that registered dietitians that clinical nutritionist that massage therapist that acupuncturist acupressure is to all of these modellers have a place in medicine and wouldn't it be perfect to make it a ship of medicine but i did a little research and i discovered that homeopathy used to be taught in medical schools all across the united states where he certainly wouldn't find it there now it's considered very alternative and very suspect by mainstream medical people but the fact is that it was capitalist business interests that made offers to medical schools across the land to move all of medical education into drug based medicine education and that's what we're faced with today with huge pharmaceutical conglomerates that get away with breaking the law that are considered with already is that can convince doctors to use their products even when they know that their products have high risks associated with them because it was set up as a health care business you were being dictated to you must choose chemotherapy you can't choose an alternative system of healing you can even choose to let your own body heal itself you have to choose their system or if you're a parent and you have a child with cancer for example you could be arrested you could have your child taken from you by child protective services simply because you do not believe in the system of toxic chemicals that conventional medicine uses to treat cancer today we live in a world that has about a six thousand year history of empire building mode and it's the economic and political mode that humans have been in for that long a time it is in the business of building hierarchies that command and control everything below them i'm an evolution biologist so i look at healthy living systems and healthy living systems are whole lackies kind of like onion skins or russian nested dolls where living systems exist within each other every one of you up to hundred trillion cells as part of negotiations and the whole thing functions beautifully like a highly evolved ec system and when you have hierarchical social systems it almost forces lying and deception because there's the whole problem of keeping yourself in power at one hundred fifty million people now are buying out of the the dominant mechanistic materialistic health system and going into natural alternatives organic foods and so forth if we had a national policy for example that promoted  natural health food approach biodynamic or organic approach as a part of national policy we could improve the health of people in this country enormously speaking from my own experience with alternative medicine  as a young person i suffered from a very serious case of crone's disease in one thousand nine hundred ninety five i switched my diet to a vegan diet and that together with chinese medicine enabled me to be virtually free of any symptoms of crone's whatsoever preventive medicine is another version of an interesting paradigm can i can i prevent diseases can i can i work with a patient long term and prevent diseases the old chinese system of medicine was based on that when the patient got ill you actually made less money as a physician than if you kept the patient out of the hospital whether it's in yoga science or or forms of meditation and proper diet and  this to break the dominance of an ego based culture that is taking us down disintegrating us and causing our medical vast medical problems and until we break the hold that the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance compan on our political process it is going to be very difficult to be able to get to permit individual americans to feel the fullness of their own individual power to be able to determine the path for their own health what we are doing building public opinion in favor from each other and from the environment from the natural processes of healing and correction then we're not going to be able to build a model of medicine that's truly about promotion of healing and the integrity  if everybody learned how to alter their attention and recharge their energy and release stress so it doesn't accumulate right down to their d n a because there's good evidence of that now if people learned how to deal with their own minds and their negative emotions and make their mind fresh every moment and in the present by the time they were twelve this would be a really different society this is the guts of what the indigenous healer did and like the body mind and russian spirit and they spent time they did what they had to do to be with people because they were important and if they are important that's what you must do or they won't heal neither will you all over the world there are systems of medicine and there are healing practitioners in place right now in other countries who are getting amazing results with nutritional therapies they're really using ancient systems that are also timeless because healing and nutrition is a timeless concept and it cannot be censored forever it cannot be put out of the way it cannot be ignored it cannot be shut down healing is part of you healing is inside you we have to watch out for the fact that medical science world doing marvelously well with a mechanistic model is still missing the most important parts of the piece they are just a few areas where the mind body connection has been acknowledged by medicine the placebo effect the power of prayer now there's more and more appreciation by the scientific establishment that prayer accelerates healing we now understand to science the interrelationships of the mind in the body and the role of thoughts and feelings in our cellular life and it's actually one hundred eighty degrees different than the allopathy sick model and if we feed the body with the proper thoughts which is a form of nutrition we can really start to move into a true holistic model of creating health will become creative will change our lifestyle was january cannot mix well change our health past procedure but the tests to come from everything you do the smallest cars can produce a huge change in the outcome millstone here is going to firm up over here and when it's in the process of firming or over here that's when you can meld with a little bit for better or worse try to improve your chances of survival with the outcome in the new system if they're going to lead healthier life you have to after being taken off twenty pharmaceutical drugs sixteen months ago show night is improving show continues her recovery with the help of her husband in washington state i just someone's actually last couple summers if you can imagine the farther north you go the fewer sure trails are as so the last couple summers were mostly just following the compass to these beautiful untouched pristine mountains and but i do want to point this out folks this movement and tonight's of that was not covered by corporate media at all right but i do want to give a big shout out to any of you who are watching me right now let's just acknowledge you're watching it on people's media wherever it is that you're watching me right now some unpaid volunteer took the time to record it thank you some unpaid volunteer took the time to upload this to create the infrastructure for you to watch it so we support people's media yes to the local cable access program that this is going to be played on and also can we get a big shot up to your community radio station it is a people's own people's operated radio station so the point i'm making is this ma'am let's build alternative people's media so that we can talk to each other and let's have those kind of conversations and let's build political power that is serious that takes ourselves seriously because we have to because a just world is at stake and frankly not only a peaceful and just world but we know that the ecology that we depend upon for life itself is in the balance so let's do our work joyously but let's also be serious about it peace