To What Do We Owe Our Deepest Allegiance?

In the deepest sense, we owe our very existence to our ancestors. With all their flaws, they gave us this chance at life. Intact cultures all exhibit some sort of ancestor worship. Under our current capitalistic system, "the banks" claim to lord over us some sort of power. Legalized thievery seems to carry the day. There are those who came up in the hippy era who are still peaceful loving people, some who carry the stories of our history, but we have become fond of giving them nothing but ridicule and innuendo designed to estrange them from us. Our political leaders, for the most part, fall flat for not only being undeserving, but antagonistic to our true desires or pressing needs. What parent can deny the allegiance we have to our children. If ever they present us with a need, we set ourselves to the task of helping them.
Many among us have a real and pressing desire to honor the next seven generations so that our bond with them can be as real, evident and as respected as possible. The vagaries of geography and the impending nationalism that can grow out of arbitrary lines drawn on maps has proven that we cannot abide these sorts of allegiances. Perhaps, as we approach singularity, our deepest debt lies with all of humanity. Yet in these times, we are forever pressed to play out the cowboy scenario, go it alone, be independent.

It would be funny if it were truly farce, but when we really begin to believe the schlock that passes for news, intellectual discussion, or political discourse, we have crossed a line into depravity from which return becomes unlikely, difficult and fraught with danger. The ad campaigns that have been funded to make up your mind for you are so deeply entrenched and subtle as to evade most of our perception. Remember the first time you saw an ad that made you want to buy something? chances are, you had seen thousands of commercials before that, they just looked like "real life", encapsulated into brief vignettes.
Finding out where the money comes from that seeks to drive our opinions and attitudes can be very enlightening, but the tangled webs of funding for certain types of speech are difficult at best. Spend some time, do your homework and you will find some very dangerous sources of funding for many of the biggest think tanks and speakers bureaus. When talking heads appear before you, remember that they are more adept at pushing an agenda than you can imagine and that their facts are presented to warp your mind around their goal, regardless of how it might affect you. Before you go lining up with anyone, get to the business of finding out where your own ideas and attitudes come from, weigh the truth between your own heart and soul, see if your own decisions and actions line up with an ethic that reveres the entire human family, then decide where to put your money, what to invest in and ultimately what sort of future we will create for future generations. Let's all get on with the business of beating a path back to wellness and an intact culture.

One Thousand Decisions

Friends of mine once tried to coin the term consicion, a cross between concise and precision. Although I thought the concept deserved merit, the flow of the word was problematic. The very fact that this came up at all was that all of my friends were frantically working to change the world for the better. As community organizers, we spent nearly one hundred hours per month , talking to people and trying to make the most sense during relatively brief intervals as possible. Like plants being adapted to feed on sunshine, we were honing our skills as communicators to feed on the awareness of others.

By the time we are adults, we are adept at decision-making, even our bad decisions are made with aplomb and dignity. Imagine just for a moment that each and every one of our decisions up 'til now amounted to absolutely nothing, imagine having a clean slate with no physical, mental, spiritual or emotional baggage to prop up, take a stand for, or defend. Imagine staying in that zone for your next thousand decisions. The older we become, the more quickly we can perform many tasks, but some of the sacrifice that we make for speed is related to how profoundly we consider any, or all of our actions.

I have been caught up in a whirlwind of late, too busy to really even keep up with the news. Rather than regretting it, I seem to thrive on this deep focus on decision-making, uninfluenced by outside forces or even, for that matter my own proclivities, predilections and presuppositions. My most recent thousand decisions were all focused on one thing, the renovation of our house. In a home that has been around for well over 100 years, there are not only hundreds of characters who have passed through the doors, but an unbroken history, complete with a large portion of bad decisions incorporated into the very bones of the house. Re-using and repurposing as much as possible, we were able to do a great deal using very few resources. The prime directives in every decision was will it make the house last for a second and third hundred years? Will it make it comfortable for Nancy and I? What are we but agents of change for the next hundred years and what are our efforts if not for both this moment and all that follow?

Why The #Occupy Movement Has To Be Evicted

Happy Holidays and all that! Where would we find places for all of our revelers if they were to see tent cities across this great land of ours? What would the throngs do if their attempts to view the annual tree lighting ceremony and the 99% got in their way? The news has been telling us that we are spending like drunken sailors and the stock market was obliged to make some headway in spite of itself today as well. What many have not yet been able to understand is that the networking, communication and feelings of brotherhood engendered by these protests has worked a sort of magic over those involved as well as those who finally heard about the movement through major media outlets. The thorn that the movement represents in the side of the power brokers has to be removed before their numbers grow to dangerous levels. In our day, everyone knew who the enemy was, but now it is getting a little harder to tell. The same cops that protect the biggest dogs are under the gun if they try to protect the 99%. they know the score as well as those being evicted.1%-0 99%-9.9 for their effort and ability to stay on message, even when under assault from a media empire designed to torture the truth and piss on all we hold sacred.

The faces of the many, being rousted from their encampments reminds one of the clearing of the "frontier" in an attempt to make it safe for settlement. If corporations can have their "speech" protected, then the average person must surely have the same free speech rights, this sad reality will go undeclared and unspoken in the media because they too are corporate giants, just pretending to care about the needs of the 99%. Even the reasons for the evictions have a disingenuous ring to them. Some claimed drug use and dealing was taking place in the tents, others were upset because homeless people were flooding into  the parks. When any group of people cares deeply for one another and makes sure that no one goes without food, they become suspect in the eyes if the super wealthy. In their world view, competition, not cooperation is not just the rule of the day, but an eternal fact of our existence. Demonizing people willing to endure difficult conditions to save their country comes as easily to those in the one percent as firearms came to white invaders of this continent five hundred years ago.

If we let people exemplify the lifestyle that says take your cash and shove it, especially during the spending season, the whole ship of state might turn to a pillar of salt. There might be places and times to speak of trying something different, but from Thanksgiving to Christmas, don't even think about telling the truth or making any waves. The kings may get a new fiddler from time to time, but they always must play the same old tunes. Bright young people have been saying many of the same things for the better part of a century, the fact that there are real changes afoot scares the living daylights out of those who stand to lose the most if we convert to a more just system.

In my own way, I would like to offer time, skills and talents to the movement. There are so many places that the message of the 99% need to be heard. Although I'm busy, I wish to always have the time to learn and grow, ask the hard questions and sift through the answers I'm given. My tent cannot be removed because I live in a tent the size of the Great Lakes. Those who want to define the debate, shift the blame to those least able to defend themselves and characterize the motives of the protesters as less than patriotic are morally bankrupt. It is not the least bit unusual. It is the way they have always worked.

Rant

When confronting greed, deceitfulness and abject poverty of spirit, it is well to realize that we are not alone in this world, it is not a competition and that our choices say more about who we are than those we seek to “overcome”.  A reputation is built over a lifetime of making sound choices that line up with our morality, ethics and world view. Our reputations cannot be plastered over like a crack in the wall. No amount of saying the “right thing” or promising what we wish we could do can save us when we begin to let fear, lies, and greed steer our actions. Being good is far more than saying the right thing, it comes from our hearts, takes root in our thoughts and actions and becomes us, over a lifetime of remaining true to our essence, our spiritual life and the respect we show for the spiritual lives of others. 

It seems childish to let greed overcome sanity, family and the good will our forefathers bestowed upon us. Their lives were spent living according to their own standards. I’m very sure that they tried to do their best. Their legacy is tainted if we revert back to the worst behaviors that they had to deal with in their generation. What parent or grandparent could stand for their loved ones being hurt and cheated by one another? Have we utterly lost our sense of self? So many years ago, someone wished well for their family, made the arrangements that would exhibit their care for the next generation in meaningful ways that they understood. Now we have the chance to see their wish granted. Our many lives could be made better by their good fortune. We must try to remember our own part in the circle of life.

The flippant use of what was left for us, our trust for education, without the honor required to repay those loans, the petty bickering and the dishonest approach to the very intent of the trust that holds all of our inheritance threatens to erase all the goodwill with which it was established. As we carry on from this day forward, we need to think of our own part in the circle of life. We can either continue to reflect the fear and deceit with which old money used to hold for the “lower classes”, or we can rise above bigotry and hate and see one another for what we are, brothers and sisters in the same great family. As Nickleback  says, we could feed the world on what we throw away. Living in harmony with the planet can help us to live with one another in peace, security and with a wealth of spirit that is difficult to explain, but for those who put the planet first, it is hard to deny the wealth that can be discovered when living in harmony rather than discord with creator and the planet he/she has bestowed upon us.

No longer should the tiniest fraction of the world’s population consume the lion’s share of the resources and energy. No longer should we demand such a vast supply of materials. Let us begin to value the more important acts that can humanize our lives and tend less to the gardens of despotic tyranny over all living things. Spend less on fuels, poisons and waste producing technologies. Let us find in our hearts the time each day for reverie, cultivating sacred space and the wherewithal to appreciate that which remains obscured by those blinded by greed, deafened by media and dumbfounded by the truth.  Rest assured that none of us get out of this experience alive. Nothing that exists after a dollar sign is real and the things that matter most are never available to us no matter how much we spend on them.

Ingenious Series of Code

When I began writing it seemed to me to be an ingenious series of code, meant to convey information. As I developed “sophistication” with the language, I discovered that to be adept with the written word, sometimes what was left unsaid had more power than the words themselves. In my usual stubborn manner, I still tend to say much more about what I mean and leave little to the imagination or more subtle factors in my message. This method of blurting out the truth rather than leading people to it has a power of it’s own, but frequently I fear, there is too much of a jump for the casual reader to absorb new images, ideas and icons that I have understood for most of my life. As a child, I wondered at the inhumanity of man (mostly the men I might add) toward other men (but mostly to the “fairer sex”. I hesitate to even use this language because it is seated in centuries of male domination and subjugation of women. So many of the words we use are carrying the baggage of this sexual slavery and exploitation that it is hard to write for long without bumping in to one or two.

It is high time that our civilization renounces the old way of thinking about the females who make up a slight majority of most natural populations. In cultures that select for men, inevitably society will have unmarried men who live shorter and sicker lives without the care of mates. Rather than getting bogged down in the aberrant sex selection practices that have been favored by some forms of state controlled childbirth policy, I want to qualify this statement partially. Although it is true, mated pairs may not be exclusively bi-sexual, the vast majority are. The very cultures that select for sex usually have taboos about same sex marriages as well, creating undue stress for the loving couples who stray outside social morays.  When America stole the concept of the Iroquois confederacy, they failed to utilize the most important factor in selection of representatives; the grandmothers were the only people who could vote. Imagine our culture if the cultural memories of the grandmothers were unleashed in policy making.

At once, those who were given flags instead of their children back from the war, those whose children have been damaged by drugs or environmental contamination would finally have a cohesive voice. Those who had lost children to violence, or poverty or the ravages of bad food and overwork, would have a say in how we treat the corporations (mostly men, and women who act like them) who currently receive the lion’s share of welfare in our country. The direct subsidy of allowing public air, water and soils to be contaminated for profit of a tiny few would end overnight. I say, if you are ever considering action of any kind, consult the grandmothers. The messages that I have chosen to send throughout my life have been in defense of the tribal cultures that we can all trace our roots back to. Their cultural intelligence has been lost, along with the power of the grandmothers. To regain any semblance of hope for the future we need to establish sustainable systems that have been proven over time through a long, handed-down chain of events that needs cultivation, not stigma.

We are, after all, tribal by nature. If we had a lick of sense, we would honor those who have seen the most, respect those who have given us life, endeavor to hold sacred the rejuvenating forces of Mother Earth and revel in our power to guide the coming generations. Until we get the intestinal fortitude, good sense or gumption to make the decisions that need to be made, we must resign ourselves to ever decreasing quality of life, more insidious poisoning of our environment, and ever dwindling rights at the hands of the most behemoth of corporate entities. Take time this Thanksgiving to appreciate the cornucopia of giving that belies the Earth’s Spirit and reflect abundance in all of your actions. If you feel run down, empty or depressed, realize that you have the right and the responsibility to change the world for the better.

Where Has All The Talent Gone?

When I was young, there were hundreds of statesmen, perhaps thousands who had a talent for mediating and placating all sides of a debate to reach beyond the limitations of class, party or ideology. There were many hundreds more who developed a gift for singing their messages and creating interesting and diverse types of music to elaborate upon the culture that was available to them at that time. There seemed to always be a few who knew intuitively what would surely come next, if we all just cooperated. Since Ronald Reagan started slashing national education budgets twenty or more years ago, oh, wait back up to when he was Governor of California, there has been a concomitant dumbing down of American children. This is putting the most severe damper on our economy that many of us will ever see. The failure to prepare our children for the future might be the surest way to create either an all-out “Idiocracy”, or allow the wealthy to purchase our government outright. There have been “civilizations” that allowed the wealthy to drive them to ruin, do we want to become another example of what not to do?

By dumbing down the Republican Party, are we now trying to appeal to all the dumb folks we have not educated and can seeing stupid people running for the highest office in the nation help the stupid to feel better about their own limitations? We’re not running a corporate cheer leading session or trying to placate anyone. These are just a few valid questions that deserve thoughtful answers. Being trained as an educator, I have always sought to spread the good word to folks. As I have matured I have begun to like the motto: Comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable.  Those who feel themselves on a steady trajectory toward certainty need a bit of a shake up from time to time. Those in complete free fall into destruction can often use a bit of comfort. I by no means want to take anything away from some of the talented individuals, who remain, but the ratio seems to be way down, especially judging by what passes as music, film and art today.

Where will the race to bottom end? I have heard disturbing numbers of people saying candidate X, Y or Z would be their pick for someone they would like to have a drink with. Not the credentials one would hope for in a world leader. I have said it before, but at the risk of being boring, who decided to let all the cheaters who used to sit behind us in school gain access to the halls of congress?

After all, who can argue with people so ignorant of world affairs, that they think that knowing where Libya is or why it might be important is too much to ask of a presidential candidate? I declare the season of stupidity in full swing and we are fully one year away from the Presidential General Election. What will be left for the Republicans if they can’t find anyone of substance in the next year? If we all hide our heads in the sand a little while longer, we might be able to ignore the writing on the wall. The get big or get out crowd has run roughshod over local economies for nearly all of recorded history. The outcome is always the same. Redistribution of wealth can only come in one of two ways. One route to revolution is bathed in the blood of the martyrs, and of large numbers of innocents. The preferred route in my opinion is in taxing polluters to help pay for the social costs that unbridled capitalism has foisted upon the vast majority of the world population.

Lobotomies Must Be On Special

I have recently been distracted, as many others might be, by the recurring theme of those lining up to secure the Republican slate of choices for the United States' highest office. I do believe that we should hire the handicapped, just not for the position of President. In lieu of statesmen, ignorant and uneducated individuals are being held out as viable options in the realm of public opinion and political discourse. For all those Republican "candidates", let me explain, discourse is not about being on the wrong course, or even being relieved of a course, but actual give and take discussion. See figure "A".

Figure A

It has become something of a phenomenon to make stupid comments and to exhibit pride in the fact that what one is representing as fact is indeed an opinion. For instance, the guy who recently posted that he took a $25K cut in pay because his moral fiber didn't allow him to continue to take unemployment compensation benefits. I would like to know what kind of soul sucking job he had before that allowed him to collect over double the median income. I am still working, have been doing so for over thirty years and still have not broken out of the working poor designation. Each time I would knock at the door of getting out of poverty, they would raise the threshold. I think it is ironic that he could lose more income than I have ever made in a single year and in their new job still works sixty hours per week. Sounds like someone isn't being straight with us. Unless he is in a sub-minimum wage position, the numbers just don't add up. Poor people who think that republican ideology will save them are sadly mistaken. Remember who got us into this mess? Think hard now, but don't hurt yourself!
I am not the biggest fan of Obama, but he is our commander in chief, duly elected by the people. It seems to me that just as with the George Bushes, we get what we deserve. Sadly, the corporate dogs, the ones who are truly in charge, don't see fit to allow the rest of us to ever make ends meet. Now that the Supreme Court considers money as speech and corporations "people", with "free speech" rights, the only chance we have is in defeating any candidates they put their money behind. As far as the statement that "90% of taxes are paid by 10% of the population," stop lying to yourself. The burden of taxation falls much more heavily on the poor and disenfranchised. Corporate welfare flows liberally to the people who need it least. Considering the cost of money, those who "get back" all that they put in during the year are still getting ripped off for their interest! Try to find a bank that will loan you money without interest. Tax loopholes allow much of what you hear in the way of propaganda is either tax deductible for the very wealthy, or revenue generating for mock non-profit organizations. As difficult as it has become to educate one self, the value of knowledge has increased significantly. When people "serve" you information on a gilded platter, beware. Don't bite the hand of the masters who are serving you, but don't line up like lambs to the slaughter either. Greed and self interest recognize no boundaries. Ask, "Who stands to gain?" by each and every lie that gets perpetrated. You will very quickly realize that the ultra wealthy have made slaves of us all.
Tony C. Saladino blogs at: paganspace.net as Saladman, blogger.com as The Otherfish Wrap and at wordpress.com as Permaculture, ECO-ethics, Trees. He is a father, grandfather, husband, shaman, artist, writer, teacher, interpretive guide for ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. (a local not-for-profit that has planted over 100,000 native trees across Northeast Wisconsin) a long time advocate of sustainability and a professional stagehand. 

At this time, I have been in the midst of remodeling my home for about two months and am trying to do it as much as possible with reused and re-purposed lumber, nails, cast offs from construction sites and sweat equity. It has led to a great creative release, but less time to blog, so if you read me routinely, be prepared for about twice as many posts in half the time, because I'm raiding my word perfect files for post-able stories and relatively topical material for use this month. Don't forget to go to your local #occupy events. It is time once again for us to take to heart the sentiment behind the phrase, We will hang together, or surely, we will all hang separately. Blessings to you and your loved ones and may our humble actions and inaction lead to the possibility of bountiful lives for the next seven generations