Get Up, Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Rights

I went to the Solidarity Sing Along, which happens daily Monday through Friday at the Wisconsin State Capitol, in addition to feeling great about the continued protests, I found a forlorn potted cedar tree! When we tug at a single thing in nature, even our own heart, we find it attached to everything else. In addition to several hundred people singing, singing for their lives, we were given heart by the 185 students from Pulaski High School who played one of our protest songs, Union Maid, at the Tournament of Roses Parade. The progressives are not asking for anything more than we have ever asked for. We want our rights back, our teachers back, our jobs back and the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What we do not want is wage slavery, disenfranchisement and condemnation of the values that made our nation great. When peaceful loving people unite, those with power and control issues will always try to run us down, shoot us, arrest us, destroy our property, taunt us to act violently and judge our actions as class warfare. True class warfare involves buying representation and perpetrating lies that scare the populace into acquiescing on matters of  corporate welfare, lax environmental protection and continued neglect of infrastructure and our children's education. The real terrorists are the Rethuglicans who lie to themselves and others that there are two classes of Americans, "True Americans", those who accept the domination of the masses by global corporate raiders and the malcontents, who are protesting the wholesale destruction of our way of life. In fact, it is the majority who want their interests to be represented who are doing the bulk of the working and living and dying in this country who stand to gain the most from democracy, freedom and liberty. One of the greatest ironies is the impoverished right wingers who cannot understand that they are being used as pawns in an ugly campaign to divide and destroy our nation from the inside.

The same folks who have been made to swallow the bait of Calvinism are now being used as bait themselves to catch even larger fishes. Our victim culture has mushroomed into a mass of people swarming to blame others when their own actions cut off any possibility of success. Failed policies of the far right have come home to roost around the world and the left is still offering the same solutions that we have been in support of for the last several generations. Neotribalism and support for local communities, rather than obsene financing of CEOs and corporados is still the only way to create jobs, protect the environment from extraction, desecration and untold destruction. In Wisconsin, at this very moment, the head of our Department of Natural Resources is trying to find a way to fast track a mine that would forever taint the waters of Lake Superior. Please, get educated, get active and stop international interests from ruining the places we hold most dear. Becoming involved can be as simp[le as writing a letter to the editor, carrying a sign or speaking out in public against the ethical void from which these agents come. Mining is a no-win situation, except for those who own the mine and never set foot in the countries they destroy for their own wealth. mines and pipelines only enhance two parts of the economy, prostitution and drugs (including tobacco and alcohol). Take a trip through any mining district and see the multi-generational depression that accompanies the bust. Centuries can pass without recovery. the few places that have come back have been because gambling allows the same sorts of powerful interests to run gambling houses for the extraction of wealth from mostly old folks who are bussed in to sacrifice their retirement checks for a chance at luxury.

Things never make us happy. It is only through cultivating a deep and abiding love for our selves that we can find true happiness. once this is accomplished, we have abundant love to share with others. those who are weak and feeble of spirit can be taught to love again if only we share with them our truth and acceptance. The greatest salve for any scar is love. We are not fully human if we do not find it in our hearts to love our selves first and once this is accomplished, that same love flows out to others unconditionally.  I think of it this way. I'm sure we have all heard ad infinitum the admonition that "God loves sinners, but hates sin." We are all manifestations of god so we too have the power to love one another yet hate the actions that pollute our air, soil and water, the actions that cripple entire communities and the influence of greed, deceit and hatred that are perpetrated by powerful interests. We are far more alike than we are different. Those who seek to pit us person against person are doing far more damage to our culture and country than terrorists ever have, or ever will. Get angry if that is what it takes, flex your hate muscle just enough to understand it's power, but then take the next step toward healing and understand that the lies perpetrated by big business and capitalism have been with us for over a century, so defeating them and disarming those in power today will be a long and difficult road. know in your heart that the effort will be worth it. If not for our children, for theirs. If not in our lifetime, at least someday someone will look back on our time as one of making commitments to saving the people, the planet and the possibility of life on planet earth.