It has dawned on me numerous times that, in America, people are generally divorced from life. I don't mean that to insinuate that they aren't paying attention to their daily affairs and enjoying themselves, it is a much different alienation. In America, people are largely alienated from what gives us life. In an era where most people run to the grocery store for food and turn on the faucet for a seemingly endless supply of water, the true givers of life are often hidden.
Food doesn't come from a grocery store. Yes, you can buy it there, or at your local farmer's market, but that isn't where it comes from. It comes from the soil. It comes from clean air and clean water. Yes, people understand this, but they don't often think about it. Rather, they think about money. "You need money to survive" goes the saying. Well, no, money is not a necessity for survival. Food, water, air and shelter are necessary for survival. But in the capitalist society, where profit and property drive everyday life, it begins to seem as if money is a necessary part of life. However, it's only necessary because we have allowed it to become so.
I listened to a YouTube video today by an urban dweller named Ron Finley who has begun to grow food in every possible space he could find (link below). He said that "Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act that you can do." He compares it to growing your own money. He further says that in order to change a community, you have to change the soil, and that we are the soil. To him, and I believe he is right, the act of growing food is empowering to those who participate. It is the act of fostering the source of life.
We are too far removed from the source of life, just as we are removed from death. Death has become a sterile, distant experience. People increasingly die in nursing homes and hospitals rather than at home with their loved ones. Further, we no longer care for the bodies of our loved ones. We have professionals to do that for us. So far removed are we from the experience of death, that we often see it presented as a shock, or a tragedy, rather than the arrival of an inevitable destination.
Maybe this alienation from life and death helps to explain why we don't shout at the top of our lungs against the pervasive pollution created by the quest for money. If money is necessary for life, more necessary than digging our hands in the soil to produce life giving plants, then pollution seems like a necessary evil. Without the pollution, how would we make money? How would we live?
The earth gives us everything we need to survive. Men have claimed ownership of the land and resources and demanded that we hand over money for that which is a birthright. I don't mean to say that everything should be given for nothing, everyone who is able must labor to survive; that is a general law of nature. However, people should not be born into a land where money matters more than life. Access to food, clean water, clean air, and the materials and land for shelter should be automatic. What gives one man the right to withhold these things from others just because he was born first and laid claim to it? He will die. But upon his death, these things don't revert to the ownership of the commons. Instead, it is passed down to his heirs in a childish game of finders keepers. Meanwhile, this earth, that has the capability of supporting us all, is being poisoned while people are starved and homeless.
Capitalism didn't always exist. Neither did Kings and Lords of the land. There was a time when people were born and could freely survive off of the earth's bounty. Maybe it is too late to turn the tide away from capitalism, maybe it isn't. All I know is that spring is here. Soon I will be outside plunging my hands into the soil of the containers that make up my garden. Later, I will watch in tenderness as the plants grow large and healthy. I may not be able to survive off of the small amount of food I can grown here, but I will have a reminder of the true source of life.
Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
The Police State
The link below is from November of 2012. A homeowner was trying to protect his home from igniting due to a fire at his neighbor's house. The police were on the scene, but no firefighters had yet arrived. The police told the homeowner, who was using a garden hose to try to wet down his home, to let it burn because that is what insurance is for. As the situation worsened, and firefighters were still not on the scene, the homeowner reached again for the hose; at which point the police officers used a taser to subdue him.
My question is this: Since when is it acceptable for the police to interfere with a man on his own property who is doing nothing to put anyone else in danger?
Too often, police are engaging in overly aggressive behavior. I run across stories like this everyday. Police increasingly use deadly force on unarmed 'suspects' or use much more force than necessary. Since when did our police lose the ability to communicate? Why is it that they are increasingly inclined to use brute force, rather than dialogue?
I'm of the opinion that this is just another sign of how off kilter our society has become. At the root of the problem lies the dog-eat-dog, ruthless, social Darwinism brought about by the Ayn Rand aficionados and the ensuing corporate culture that has robbed us of our sense of empathy and practically destroyed our sense of community.
We can do better than this.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Christmas 2011 - Status of America
As we stand on the cusp of yet another pagan variety abortion of what is supposed to be a religious holiday of celebration, let us reflect on the values we hold as a predominantly Christian nation. Christmas is supposed to be a time for Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It should be a time to reflect on his teachings and examine our behavior in light of his lessons.
Right after I get past the Black Friday sales…
Right after I get done with this week of work, after school activities, homework, Christmas shopping, cooking dinner, cleaning house, taking the family to pick out a tree and then decorating it and the house….
Right after another week of work and kids and house and cars, and oh yeah, Christmas parties and sending out Christmas cards spouting off phrases that hardly anyone epitomizes with their actions. No time for reflection yet…
Another week goes by. Christmas is almost here. Still have all the usual errands and have to race around the over packed shopping malls to get last minute gifts…
Before you know it, Christmas is here. Damn. The kids opening presents, family coming to dinner or driving to some other family’s home for dinner. Thank goodness, we’ll finally say a prayer at dinner time. We’ll say we’re thankful for baby Jesus and for all our blessings, offer up a prayer of hope for the less fortunate, and stuff our faces like gluttonous animals.
Meanwhile, in our own towns and cities and in the rural American countryside, and all around the world, children and adults will go hungry. It is easy to forget about them though; when little Capitalist Jr unwraps his new video game system and jumps around the room screaming with joy as Dad video tapes the ignorant display of greed so he can later post it on YouTube for friends and family near and far. Never mind the third world countries where indigenous people were forced out of the lands that they have survived off of for hundreds, or even thousands, of years so that huge transnational companies could rape the earth of the natural resources required for video games and cell phones and computers and ostentatious flat screen televisions. Never mind the children who will lose their homes and slowly starve all the while working as slave labor not even making enough to feed themselves on a daily basis while the lands are deforested and polluted so badly that they will never be able to return; all so we can buy another Xbox, iPad, or 60” flat screen.
Never does it cross our minds while we are out getting family pictures for Christmas post cards, or taking our kids to sit on Santa’s lap that thousands of children of “illegal immigrants” are sitting in foster care across the nation. That isn’t “our” problem. “We didn’t break the law.” Their parents broke the law and got what they deserved. Never mind that they sit in for-profit prisons that have no incentive to aid in these prisoners ending their sentences by deportation, or validation of their status which shows they are here legally. Never mind that the system is so broken that many of the parents have absolutely no idea of where their children have been placed, or how to get them back. We can sit here in the knowledge that they are bad people. They are less than us somehow and don’t deserve basic human dignity or concern. They are ruining our country. Meanwhile, crops rot on the vines in Alabama after the state passed a series of laws so strict that it terrified the farm workers into fleeing. Many are quick to jump up and down and talk about how much these people are costing the taxpayer. That rant is so easy to spread. In our materialistic world, money is our God and King. Heaven forbid our tax dollars went to support someone less fortunate. I have to wonder in this largely Christian nation, why we don’t ask ourselves, “What Would Jesus Do?” Would he let the children suffer? Would he condone our treatment of these unfortunate people whose economy has been gutted; in no small part due to the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement which was designed specifically so our American transnational corporations could benefit with little thought of the effect on Mexican (or American) citizens?
The list of transgressions of our corporately owned government doesn’t end with illegal immigrants. They wrongs are too numerous to discuss here. But the sentiment is obvious. We hate these and other people. It’s as if the Golden Rule was rendered obsolete and replaced with some fascist dictate. The question that keeps me awake at night is, “Why?” I know why, or at least I have a pretty good grasp of the manner in which we got to this dismal state. The unfortunate reality though is that many Americans don’t even realize there is a question. Some have a sneaking suspicion that there should be a question, yet the system is set up to distract them from reflection and to keep them in the mind trap that says we live in America, “The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” “We spread democracy across the world and seek out evil wherever it hides!” The America I was told about as a child never did exist; history lessons for American children are full of myths, all designed to nationalize children so they will grow up and defend the flag without question. The problem is that America is far worse now than ever.
America has become a place where not only is acceptable to hate groups of people, it is cheered when these hatreds are publicly announced! It is acceptable to hate immigrants, both legal and illegal. It is acceptable to hate prisoners, if they are there; they deserve it, especially those on death row. Never mind if we know we have executed innocent people or that our justice system is not often just. Never mind that America, The Land of the Free, has 5% of the world’s population yet 25% of the world’s prisoners. It is okay to hate people who support abortion; after all, we should cherish life. But we don’t consider that our endless wars kill millions of innocent civilians or that our state sanctioned murders of hundreds of death row inmates teach people that only some life should be cherished. Well, if we are only going to cherish some of it, who are you to tell anyone to cherish the life of an unborn child? It is okay to hate homosexuals, it is okay to hate Muslims, it is okay to hate anyone whose political views contradict your own – the list goes on and on.
And while we sit here and fight amongst ourselves about who to hate and who not to, the corporations continue to grab power. With the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court broke the last barrier. Now, with the passage of the 2012 National Defense authorization Act, our corporate puppet of a President will wipe out all that remains of Constitutional protections for the American people. The final piece will be in place. The government has already taught us to hate one another for various reasons. The President will have the power to indefinitely imprison anyone he deems a threat – he has already authorized the murder of American citizens without providing any due process – and American citizens will have nowhere to hide. The corporate owned media doesn’t tell us the truth, rather they add to the fear, hatred and misinformation while working in collusion with the government. The stage will be set for a repeat of the fascism of Nazi Germany.
I watch otherwise kind and generous people spew hatefully language - in sound bites provided by mass media - regarding these “others” who are far removed enough to be more of an abstract idea than human beings of flesh and blood. My heart and stomach are tied in knots of anxiety. I think of the world my grandchildren will inherit and I cringe inside. I worry about them growing up in a world where hatred and authoritarianism are the norm. I wonder why Americans cannot pull themselves away from worrying about buying ‘stuff’ to look at what is going on around them and to realize that this country, founded on freedom and tolerance, has become a world leader in intolerance. The ideals this nation was built on are slipping through our fingers. There isn’t much left to grasp.
Merry Christmas.
Monday, November 14, 2011
We Are The Many - Makana
Lyrics:
Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
’Til you do
The bidding of the many, not the few.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Why the US Government is so Concerned About Greece's Economy
Greece is trying to decide if it will default on its debt and withdraw from the Euro. Currently, all economists are in agreement that there is no foreseeable way for Greece to be able to pay its debt. The US banks once again have been at their games and the their puppet Obama is at the G-20 trying to strong arm Europe into forcing Greece into ruin to save our big banks.
The attached video is very long. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, you can scroll about a quarter of the way down the page and read the pertinent portion of the video in the interview transcript. Very informative!!
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/3/wall_street_v_greece_g20_opens
The attached video is very long. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, you can scroll about a quarter of the way down the page and read the pertinent portion of the video in the interview transcript. Very informative!!
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/3/wall_street_v_greece_g20_opens
Monday, October 24, 2011
Propaganda 2.0 and the Rise of ‘Narrative Networks’
Propaganda 2.0 and the Rise of ‘Narrative Networks’
George Dvorsky
Sentient Developments
Posted: Oct 19, 2011
George Dvorsky
Sentient Developments
Posted: Oct 19, 2011
DARPA, the Pentagon’s advanced concepts think-tank, is looking to take propaganda to the next level, and they’re hoping to do so by controlling the very way their targets perceive and interpret the flow of incoming information.
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