Looks Good From Far, But Far From Good

Who are the people who wield the cameras? Are they all mindless schmucks? It seems that the folks who are recording the images and soundscapes that inform our collective attention are either completely devoid of morals/ethics or are entirely motivated by greed. If it isn't vitriolic, invasive or prurient, it certainly isn't chosen by the editors to see the light of day, much less the overly produced shock imagery of the media as it exists today. With a tiny sliver of humanity, those on the ground floor of media-making, the camera people alone, could wield substantial power over the media's unethical twisting of imagery that i contend is equivalent to domestic terrorism. We all know the adage, X% of all statistics are made up on the spot. The lower number you substitute for X, the more you want the listener to consider your "truthiness" in a positive light, often making the point that you would never do the making up of numbers on the fly. The higher number you substitute for X, the less viable you want your listeners to think the numbers are. My problem is that I often use existing figures from reputable sources, but the hostile, hyper-mediated culture that we exist within makes my calculations seem impossible.

For instance, who has not seen relatives scarred for life in a foreign conflict that was ill-conceived and useless, except for corporate welfare for dubious corporations? One third of families have at least one member in the military. most people who speak plainly on their return from war explain that there are no good ones and that if you are not a mental case before you go (and it helps) you will be one when you get home. Why then do we continue to hear stories that somehow our "freedom" depends on doing that to them? My own family bears several scars of war and I can tell you plainly, we are perpetrating crimes against humanity each and every time that we glorify aggression. Every single dollar that we spend on defense is perpetrating destruction, of property, of lives, of our own economic interests around the globe. Power and control issues need to be taken on wherever we find them. This is 100% about giving massive government help to economic structures that, on their own, would collapse. We are funding the powerful at the expense of the weak.

In my personal experience, the first strike close to my heart, was the loss of a neighbor's son. I saw him outside, playing basketball and hanging out, riding his bike and playing board games. He never came back from Vietnam and his parents got a flag, the one that draped his coffin. In that war, we fought against people who had brought education, sanitation and health care to the impoverished people of the region. We poisoned vast acreages, forever, sterilized fields, firebombed whole villages, etc. We also snuffed out a vibrant life and forever handicapped a family, pruning off an entire family tree. When my mother married a vet, she did not know that he was addicted to the pain meds that he associated with his deliverance from the front lines. Let me tell you, the worst thing you can do with a pedophile is to send them to a place where conscience is a liability. Closer still to home, my brother has described his whole life "like living in boot camp." My eldest daughter has married a military man as well. Since the suspension of the draft, there is less corruption down at the draft board, but the bite that the military has taken out of society continues to be disproportionately out of the fabric of the poorest classes. The more dismal you make a person's life and the less vibrant their options, the more desperate for security people become. Even playing the lottery of death or dismemberment seems worth it when you look at the imagery that we are fed on a daily basis.

To appreciate the desperation fully, you need to imagine that there is a world out here that is full to overflowing. We have so much abundance that we throw away about 40% of our food supply in these United States of America, yet people go to bed hungry every night. We spend more on health care, than any other country (18% of GDP. the next closest spends 12%) and have worse outcomes than any other developed nation. Yet, we are told by our illustrious media that health care reform will cost "more". We are asked to turn our heads and cough while insurance companies are emptying our pocketbooks. That's not scarier than Obamacare? The mileage that the right has gotten out of the threat of "death panels" is only sickening when you realize that right now, today, there are rooms where non-doctors are deciding reimbursement rates for every kind and type of procedure and what they will and will not allow people to "have". People are dying each and every day because they have been denied coverage or have gotten the wrong treatments, simply because insurance would not pay for what people really needed.

The real world America has nearly 100,000 public schools. The average school year is 180 days. Even if we had one school shooting per year, there would be a one in eight million chance that your child's school would be the site of the attack. Within that statistic lies another, if twenty out of several hundred children got killed, the chances would increase exponentially. One chance, perhaps, in one hundred million. Now, there are companies selling "bulletproof backpacks". Only three hundred dollars or so can allow parents to rest easier when they send their children into harm's way. Please, people, let's try for one moment to get our collective head out of the sand. The facts will not lie, let's try to look at them! Let's try to get a grasp of the situation. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) is lobbying the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to classify motorcycle use as an epidemic, because of avoidable costs that are posed to our health care system by motorcyclists. Several hundred thousand people die in car crashes each year. Less than one percent of those deaths are people who were on two wheels, yet the motorcyclists are the problem. It seems that we are again having a hard time understanding the reality of our situation.

Interpreting data can be tricky, but for one minute consider the consequences of a myth, so firmly held by many motorcyclists as to be considered dogma. they even make bumper stickers and t-shirts that say: "Loud Pipes Save Lives". Many, most noteworthy, Harley owners subscribe to the belief that the roar of un-muffled explosions within the motor, somehow makes them more noticeable on the highway, or in traffic. In the jurisdiction I live, if you can hear music coming from a car more than fifty feet away, it is considered a ticket-able offense. I have heard Harleys from well over five hundred feet away, but no "crime" has taken place. Add to this the flinch factor when the same idiot blows by a blue haired old woman on the highway at eighty and you have potential for disaster. The damage done to both the rider's hearing and that of those around them in traffic costs society billions per year in lost hearing alone, yet the "liberty" of the idiot dishing out the damage is considered sacrosanct. I once again call Bullshit!

When we look from afar, like Disneyland, there is definitely a complete picture being created for us to sit back and watch. However, unlike an audience who has cued up and waited in line for entry, expecting a show, we think what we see is real. We often forget that the bill of goods that we are being sold as consumers of media, has been massaged to show us only what the producers, and ultimately the shareholders of media conglomerates want us to see. Clearchannel has helped put our local theater on the ropes and continues to pummel them into submission which in turn requires that I drive hundreds of miles each week to work in a distant market, plying a craft that my family has participated in for three generations. The wealth continues to concentrate in the highest echelons of our economic system, but somehow, because I'm a member of a union, I am vilified in the media. When we come in close and get a long look deep into the eyes of the beast who controls our very discussion points and vocabulary on these and other subjects, seeing the fires stoked by greed and fed with our children's future, it is both mesmerizing and stupefying that we continue to be taken in by their lie factory. I'm sorry to those of you who tire of me saying it, but lies need to be constantly propped up, but truth stands alone. When we start to see behind the mask of media, no amount of made up statistics can take away the scars and depravity that we see underneath. Whether of not demons can be tamed remains to be seen, but their time has got to come to a swift end if we are to reclaim any part of the American dream that was worth saving.

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.

Wall Street Protests Pop Up Like Mushrooms Across the Nation

When I first heard of the protests planned for this fall, my heart jumped. I felt at once excitement and terror. When I was young, the protests turned ugly from time to time and the last thing one wants to think about is peaceful loving people being beaten, abused and potentially killed by the police or national Guard. We do, however, have to think about it. The wealthy in our country have enjoyed the tacit approval or outright subsidy of their operations for far too long. Our ruling class has turned a blind eye to their overwhelming support for criminals and greedy SOBs because they look much more alike than different. Heck, many of them buy their suits from the same tailors. There is an excitement in both the air and the voices of most people that talk about this long overdue revolution, the sad fact is that the executives and CEOs are adept at asking all the wrong questions and when confronting the truth, doing it obliquely enough as to lack any effective relationship with it.

These same corporados have had their boots to our neck for years, but the difference between their brutal and terror tactics and those of the police is that the death of a thousand cuts that the corporations foist upon us are from behind closed doors, or by digital communications issuing from their yachts or their private offshore islands. The tax dodges that they participate in are taking away from "invisible" people, far removed and often their tactics allow them to steal pennies from billions of folks, spreading the pain slightly. Their methods have broken through to a new level with the current economic crisis. In our case, owning three homes at the start of the real estate crash, we lost nearly $100,000 in equity within a few months. Multiply that by the millions of homeowners and you will see what we are up against. Cops may mace you, or beat you, but they do it close up, where they can see you wince.

There is a reason for us to stand in support of protesters on Wall street, the local titans of industry, or the state and county courthouses across this great nation. If only to let our message be heard. "No one benefits from enriching the coffers of the wealthy at the expense of the poor, the disenfranchised, the students, their teachers, the elderly or the infirm. The greatness of a nation is reflected in how they treat the least among them, not how easy they make it on the rich. Things have already turned ugly, so the violence that has been perpetrated on the true patriots, who are standing for what they believe in, has been documented and shared by those who seek the truth of events unfolding across America. This powder keg that is the other 98% of the population has been awakened to the fact that we do have a voice, by joining in with local protests across the nation, perhaps our elected officials will get the message. We may not pay for their multi-million dollar campaigns, like their wealthy friends do, but we vote and if need be, we will hold our leaders' feet tot he fire. We are demanding change. We voted for it and got nothing but rhetoric and obfuscation.

Wishbone Ash said it best. "Time was, when there were things around to be afraid of." Now it is do or die and we must all stand together. Although it has been said thousands of times, love means letting go of fear. Do this in honor of your children, their children and the lineage that you will help long after your passing. Without this revolution, there will be no future for the vast majority other than serving the elite that could not care less about us. To them we are only units of potential production and they have become adept at getting what they want out of us for an ever diminishing cost.

Over Four Trillion Dollars Languishes In The Hands Of The Wealthiest Americans

The average man and woman in America have been told repeatedly to spend, spend, spend. After 9-11 remember the admonition to get back in the skies? How we were told to go on vacation and make purchases to "Not let the terrorists win."? Well, the big boys not only didn't get that message but they have played their cards closer to the chest than ever in these difficult economic times. While the American public is fearing the "double dip" recession, the folks with the cash to get our economy going again sit pat, waiting for the prices to drop further, those of us that work for a paycheck to get even more desperate, or for the govie to extend them sweet deals that will maximize the buying power of their fortunes.

To try to understand the vast amounts of money being kept out of the economy, it helps to divide by the number of people in our country to understand how much money would be in circulation per person if the wealthy would just spend what they are holding on to. 4 Trillion (cash on hand) divided by 360 million (Americans) comes to $11,111.11 per person. Roughly half of this money is held by banks and about half is in the hands of the rest of the fortune 500 companies. My bank, who I reluctantly pay over $1,000 per month, stands to make a quarter million on my house that is actually worth less than $100,000. I have put over $30,000 into repairs so that this home will retain as much of its value as possible into the future. However, if I refuse to put money into it from now on, I will surely squander what little equity might accrue over the life of my loan on the property.
Imagine what just dividing the four trillion amongst all of us might accomplish. In our home, that would represent nearly a year free of mortgage payments. For many, this would be equivalent to half a year of working for an income. It could pay the lion's share of childcare costs so that a young family might get ahead from work outside the home rather than just "getting by".

11K per person is more than enough money to set up grid tied solar electric on every home in America, which would be a fine way for industry to begin to give back to the public for defiling the environment. I think that putting this money into  the economy would cover the difference in cost between the cars of the future and the gas guzzlers that most Americans drive today. This money has so many possible benefits that it is unpatriotic to just hold it and the whole economy hostage while the ultra wealthy wait for the stars to align and for their power to increase further. The refreshing thing that I am seeing is that the people on the bottom of the economic scale are learning to reign in their waste generation. They are buying more local, which has been the admonition of environmentalists since the eighties, and slowly, very slowly, our collective average carbon footprint is edging down. In very real ways our cutting back has led to reduced emissions from fossil fuel use and as the cost of energy continues to rise, we will be forced into making even greater efforts to reduce our bottom line.

What must it be like to never suffer from want or to desperately need to reign in our desires, or try to deny our needs? Just look to the ultra wealthy to understand what it is really like. I have recently had several republican reactionaries tell stories of folks buying lobster with food stamps. I have less problem with someone making those choices than the well-heeled financing mergers and acquisitions with corporate welfare. "Creating jobs" in the right jurisdiction can pay better than the labors of workers. This sort of government waste is not only delusional, but just plain wrong. As we know, the person in poverty overspending their food stamps gets a nearly immediate result from their less than perfect spending habits. If they want to eat lobster one day, by the end of the month they will be living on oatmeal. For the filthy rich, their bad decisions are either insurable losses or they can be assured that the government will bail them out, as long as they can claim to be "too big to fail."

Long ago, I  worked at a marina, fixing boats. We saw routinely what a pitiful price is paid for wealth. Many folks experiencing new money buy a bigger boat than they need, to show off. The first few times out they make a mistake or two and end up crashing into the dock or some other immovable object and the boat is removed from the water for service. Fees start to accrue and repairs may, or may not be made, but then as we used to say, a newish boat will come on the market for a fraction of the cost. Now, we are seeing the same thing being done with the entire economy, one of the largest on the planet. The Reagan Revolution that swept in did create a new elite. These were nearly all new money folks who sailed the ship of state into uncharted waters. The rewarding of greed and over-consumption wove the fabric of our society into a Mobius band of  wealth accrual. The dollars, rather than trickling down circulated back into the same hands time and time again. With the help of tax breaks for the rich, the combined efforts of government to "deregulate" and "privatize", the few protections that the lower classes had come to reasonably expect have been eviscerated. There is just one shattered hull lying on the shore today, it is our still steaming economy that has provided over four trillion dollars worth of cash to the suit wearing elites that decide what we will do for a living.

As with all revolutions, ours will be fought over who will decide our fates for us. If you want to tip the scales toward those who already hold the power, just stay with the fanatics who claim that industry and the economy are inherently benevolent. for those of us that want our lives back and the freedom to decide for ourselves what waters we feel comfortable sailing into, get off the couch or away from your keyboard and let others know where you stand on the issues of the day. It is not the time to be waiting in the wings, our entrance is necessary to push the story to the inevitable resolution. Forcing the hand of the ultra wealthy will not be easily accomplished. Getting many of these folks to act responsibly may turn out to be the hardest thing we have ever done as a nation. Failing to do it, however, will assure the global economic collapse that the ultra-wealthy are counting on to secure and concentrate their wealth further. Each and every gallon of fuel we purchase puts half the money we spend for it in some rich bastard's hands. The real cost of burning that fuel is approximately double when you factor in government subsidy and perhaps triple when you factor in the environmental damage associated with mining, refining, fabrication, assembly and distribution of the vehicles and their fuels.

Creating sustainability is well-worth whatever effort we expend to get it. once established, sustainable lifestyles pay back infinite rewards. Imagine, a world of abundance and distributed wealth, not the one we have in which the top 400 folks (calling them wage earners is an obscene lie) in our country make as much each year as 160 million of the rest of us. Imagine a world in which the air and water are not tainted with industrial waste. A world in which cancer rates are dropping rather than rising. A world where education and the wisdom of the aged are revered rather than made to be to scapegoat for those who want to extract more cash for themselves. As I have said before, and thank-you John Lennon, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." I am trying to resist the urge to decorate my car with bumper stickers, but the sentiments of one in particular has been resonating for months, perhaps even years. "The cost of apathy is to be ruled by evil men."-Plato

Of course, if you don't get a bit depressed from time to time, or angry, you are not paying attention. What is necessary now is the wholesale opposition to more of the same when it comes to attempts to solve problems. austerity on the part of government in the face of hard times never works. Cutting back can work within the microcosm of the home, but on a national scale, it only degrades the opportunities for individuals to thrive. rather than cuts, our nation should be spending. To balance the books, we need to tap the unbridled wealth that has accrued to the few during the crisis of ethics that began with Reagan. We cannot let the biggest players walk away from the table with all the marbles. when I was a child, I got in trouble with a bully once for winning all the marbles, then dividing them up and giving them away so that we could play some more. He blamed me for ruining the game. I guess rich people will always feel the same way about money as this boy did about the marbles. I'm just glad that I taught the four other boys playing in the alley that day that there is more to life than greed and if we are all willing to work together, there will always be more to share than if we let our greed obscure the truth of our community.

I speak for those who have not yet found their voice, the trees, who speak a different language and the myriad of organisms that depend on our decisions for their blossoming or demise. I hope that the words that I arrange on these topics are more easily understood than the disingenuous ones put before us by the major media outlets. Expecting the rich to tell the truth about themselves is like asking an organism to survive by eating itself. Money itself and the wealthy who pursue it are not gods. It is time for us to see through their self inflated egos and get down to the business of redistributing wealth so that we might all have enough.

Contemplating the Inevitable?

We have set ourselves up for a rude awakening. As the old saying goes, the chickens are coming home to roost. We can only hope and pray that we will be ready for them when they get here. There has been an overwhelming lack of interest in and commitment to our collective future and by thinking only about the next quarter, as so many businesses do, we have sacrificed many of the opportunities that have come our way over at least the last twenty years. Sadly, thirty or fifty years ago, we were already throwing our hands up at many of the ills that have grown into, what seem to be, insurmountable problems.

President Obama, speaking about the recovery of the Gulf Coast, hinted at one of our county's most difficult problems to face. Each year we inject billions of tons of soil into the Gulf of Mexico. Current agricultural policy has rewarded those who strip away the very tilth of our nation's soil, those who drag implements through marginal land, and those who keep expanding their operations to the point of not knowing a single acre well. The lion's share of our tax dollars that go into agriculture are to a relative handful of operators, each with many thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of acres. The Mississippi River carries soil and it's contaminants to the Gulf faster than it can be created or protected from deadly chemical treatments.

There are now precious few rivers in our country that harbor healthy fish populations and the record that we have in cleaning them up is extremely poor. Wildlife biologists have spoken for generations about indicator species. Like the canary in the coal mine, many species speak to us about environmental quality. As we learn more and more about our surroundings, we continue to find evidence about how out of balance nature has become. Our water and soil resources are not alone in this respect. As we can see around us, our efforts to clean up environmental degradation are usually done in a one step forward two steps back fashion.

Air pollution is a perfect example. As a nation, we used to drive a relatively small number of cars. As our children began to show signs of lead poisoning, from the emissions from automobiles and lead in paint, we "cleaned up our act". However, we drive more mile every year, and the emissions of other hazardous chemicals increases over time. My own children have been found to have high lead levels and because of that I had to learn about herbs that can help rid the body of this dangerous metal. My own health was affected by toxic compounds in the environment during my bike ride around the Great Lakes. Luckily, I had the loving care of a wise woman who knew that there were steps that I could take to expel them and heal the damage that they were causing. Not everyone will be so lucky. It seems that every time we find a solution to a single problem, we are confronted with a cascade of other problems that dwarf the first one. Cleaning up water for example has increased groundwater or air pollution, because the materials that we take out of the water through sewage treatment end up being incinerated and/or landfilled.

Many of our problems today come from being totally ignorant about our lifestyle and the effects that it has on the quality of the environment.

Shopping at big box stores is the perfect example. I have seen dozens of local businesses vacate the city, my city, the one I grew up in. I know of hundreds of folks who used to have secure livelihoods whose employers could not compete with the Targets and Wal-marts of today. The environmental cost has been that most of the best land in my city has disappeared under black top and the "new" mega-stores' sprawling roofs. I would estimate that the commercial real estate, now left vacant, is at least three times the size of the new "development". The blight that these empty establishments have created are a depressing reminder of friends lost and the many pillars of our community that have lost jobs to the mega-retailers. Heck, when I was a child, there were a dozen groceries within walking distance. Now there are many more places to get beer, soda and cigarettes, but only one that has carrots, potatoes and onions. That one surviving store is at the limit of walking distance, probably beyond the limit for most folks who live in my older neighborhood.

Even education has taken a hit. It was back in the eighties that I learned that the average college textbook is written at an eighth grade reading level. I sincerely hope that it has not gone down further since then. You don't have to go any further than Jay Leno's "Man On The Street" interviews to see that we, as a nation, are becoming ignorant at an alarming rate. I asked to see my daughter's textbooks when she started her Junior year in High School. Her Social Studies book had two sentences on union history. Two sentences? "Although unions helped establish such benefits as the weekend and the forty hour week, many of their victories came as the result of violent protest. Many union activists were anarchists and criminals whose motivation and methods were questionable." Really? No wonder so many are working so hard for so little. Education cannot be accomplished through more testing, it cannot be guaranteed by buying technological equipment. What we need is a complete overhaul of our educational system that allows competition to flourish.

I don't know how we can pull ourselves out of the tail spin that we find ourselves in. I'm not even sure that we will try until our ass is in a sling, or we hit the wall catastrophically. Most of us try to patch things up as best we can and muddle about in our usual way, ignoring the consequences. There are bright spots on the horizon. Luckily, many have seen the writing on the wall and will not abide further destructive tendencies. The growth in organic agriculture, permaculture and local food movements has been exponential. Granted, it is still a tiny fraction of one percent of our food production, but the growth is real. With the election of our current President, the public made a strong call for change. The problem that we face now is that many Americans don't realize that any worth while change requires long-term commitment and dedication. Our vote is just a temporary measure of public attitudes. Sustained effort will be required if we are to overcome the pressing issues that confront us now.

I Refuse to be Made an Enemy Without My Consent

Last evening I was at a party. I enjoyed my time there immensely, and it was at a beautifully restored farmhouse in the country. It is an annual event that we were invited to last summer, but for some reason or another, we were unable to attend. Several dozen people enjoyed a large spread of food, including booyah (a local favorite), the beer trailer, fireworks and a giant fire pit raging with a great pile of wood. There were about a dozen people that I had met before and a few close friends who meet monthly for a roving campfire group that meets all Spring, Summer and Fall as well as part of the Winter for great conversation, visiting with old friends and meeting new ones.

Everything was going great until I approached the garage, where the food was set up. In addition to a large banner stating "You Are In Steeler Country!" (which I cannot tell you how out of place that is in our normally staunch Green Bay Packer Fan country), there were several political signs that made me feel a bit unwelcome.

Liberal bashing is apparently becoming trendy, but it seems that some people forget how to abide by the rules of a democracy. When your side loses, you have to accept the consequences. I have held the same values and many of the same opinions since before most of the right-leaning activist groups touting inflammatory rhetorical statements as reason enough for their existence and dubious "evidence" as "proof" that we are on the road to ruin, were formed. In all my years of voting, the first time that the person I voted for got elected was this last Presidential Election. Talk about taxation without representation! I should be the one jumping up and down yelling "We need to take our country back." In our culture however, majority rules, or at least it is supposed to. The revolution that can only take place in the voting booth has occurred, get used to it. When the popular vote went to Al Gore, say what you may, the public's will was overthrown by the Electoral College. The majority has been seeking change for quite some time, they have only now wrested the power of the White House to help beat back the greedy elites that have dictated policies for the last half century.

"Deport Liberals" was the most ridiculous and perhaps the most upsetting sign that I saw hanging in the garage. As if there is something less American about people who believe in the same founding documents and the same process that we deem American, but have a different view about how to assure liberty, freedom and security. I am struck by the similarity that politics is taking to the old ways that bullies took to win at any cost when we played "friendly" games of ball as children. If the rules change to meet their needs and are designed at a moment's notice to allow them to win, how long can the charade last? I began hating baseball when bullies brought their baggage to the game. Eventually, no one wants to play with you. Win at all costs can't possibly be worth it if you have to sacrifice your morals or your standing amongst nations of the world. Isolationism never works in a democracy.

One of the reasons that I developed an interest in politics is because I was told that in that realm, one would win or lose on their merits, their intellect and their astute observations of society, the ability to understand it's ills and by finding ways to create a more perfect union, meeting the needs of many through efforts of the few, as well as protecting and meeting the needs of the most vulnerable few by the deeds of many. I actually studied democratic values, civics they called it back then. I have read historical accounts, studies and scientific reports, gleaned data from countless Blue Books, done the difficult tasks of knocking on doors, raising public awareness of issues that impact our lives daily and occasionally thought about running for office, but somehow I deserve to be deported? For doing my best? For developing an acute sense of what is truly screwed up in our land? For treating others the way I would like to be treated?

Those who refuse to consider my position valid may choose to assault my beliefs this way. I however, do not deserve to be painted with such a wide brush. Astute observation can reveal truth, but people who jump to conclusions regardless of evidence, cannot be allowed to have their lies stand. Those who deny evidence that Saddam Hussein was right about slant wells coming from Kuwait into Iraqi oil fields, which started the first Gulf War, still believe that terrorists threaten U.S. "interests". Their math skills are seriously deficient. The death toll of innocents killed by our forces dwarfs the numbers killed in all terrorist incidents (including homegrown terror) combined. These same, "righteous" followers of fiction turn their wrath on "liberals" for leading our country to ruin. This just turns my stomach.

Conservatives have eviscerated our collective conscience. This in turn creates spiritual scars that may remain for centuries. Perhaps it is they who need to either: "Love America or Leave It." The tide has finally turned in favor of the little guy, or so it seems. Identifying with the captors is an age old tradition in slave circles, but We the People need to remember that we all have a lot more in common with other wage slaves than we do with the aristocracy that welds it's power against us. If we allow others to dictate the terms of our arguments, or forget that they will always defend one another, no matter how awful their behavior, leaves us to toil at their behest forever. Our system of government is supposed to give us power, not keep us captive. The tables have been turned however, to make us believe that we are free, while our liberties are stripped away. We are constantly told that we enjoy free choice, while our desires are manipulated and corrupted. The American dream has been bought and sold to the highest bidder and we are left with crumbs. The extreme fascination with positive thinking, psychology, body image and self-help are all reflections of our perceived lack of self worth. Can we afford to overlook the part this plays in our society? We have endless ways in which to hate our selves, but people in charge know that this is just a first step to hating others. The reason that I stand up and refuse my consent to be made into an enemy is because I believe in democratic principles. I believe in the concept that all men and women are created equal. No greater expression of self respect can be made than to respect another.

I honor the right of others to disagree, but do not abide people demonizing others either. When we use fictitious pigeon-holes to segregate people into deserving and undeserving categories, we also debase ourselves. Our country, if it is to remain a beacon of hope for the oppressed masses around the globe, must not undermine the high aspirations of our founders. We must hold to the spirit of the words that they penned over two hundred years ago. In a free society, we must all be allowed the freedom to make mistakes. We must regain freedom of thought, association, and belief, even if that puts us at odds with others. We must also be willing to engage our opposition in constructive discussion rather than combative rhetoric. If we base our belief in the need for change on lies and deception, the change we welcome will be dark and oppressive. Seeking truth must be an all out assault on ignorance, tempered with compassion and understanding of everyone, even those we may disagree with. I am a friend of free thought and a defender of liberty. Those who would write me off as a single word, and deny my right to freedom will not be free for their hate and lies will consume them. I truly hope that the close-minded reactionaries come to their senses before they ruin what may very well be our last chance to right the ship of state that has foundered in rocky times.

Our "ship of state" is in trouble. I offer my words as an inspiration start to bailing, if enough people band together, we might get it right. Working together always gets more done than toiling in isolation or putting down those you do not agree with or understand. Rather than being cheerleaders for a dubious "cause", screaming slogans that don't make sense, what we need is a true political rebirth, one that allows us to grow beyond the us-them schism and learn to honor and respect one another. The urge to kick people out needs to be replaced with the goals of getting rid of hateful ideas and rhetoric. Our nation needs to concern itself with eliminating greed which has the power to override good sense. Our people need to come together and make a plan for ending our reliance on dangerous and violent ways of getting our "needs" met and we need to set our sights higher than putting down the other guy, because that will always diminish us. The race to the bottom needs to end and we need to respect the rights that we all had, that have been taken away by fear mongering and deceit.

Aquisition as Ethos

Our culture, in these United States, has become one in which commercials and jingles have their own special power over our thoughts and actions. Some people go so far as to watch the Super Bowl, "...for the commercials...". If I were to say, "Where Quality is Job One!", "Have it Your Way!" or "_____ Adds Life!" I might have to explain to a few what Corporation I was hawking, but most of us know it in our cells. Even logos reach into our subconscious and have literally changed us. The filing cabinets of our brain create relationships between these audio-visual messages and the territories that they use to get our attention. Sellers know that they have to sell you on more than just product, they sell experiences. Any product not promising more than it is worth won't stand a chance in competitive markets. Even knowing this intellectually can't save one from the onslaught. Hitting the primary emotional centers, images we see, hear and think about tell us that products being advertised will make us secure, healthy, rich, happy, vital well-adjusted and well-liked. Who wouldn't want that after all, it's just good sales. Being better than someone who doesn't have the product is just a spin off from the original theme. Even when the main competitor isn't mentioned directly, the implication is that those who make that choice are "square" or at least misguided. Even writing this passage is bringing on torrents of associations, we have been inculcated with. The most peculiar catch phrase that has stayed with me and will never be far from my awareness is "Hush Puppies aren't such a fancy shoe, or a phony shoe, they're just Dumb!" It was probably the shortest-lived ad campaign ever, but the images were great! It was from the time that the Japanese were kicking us with quality the first time, Probably, early seventies. Two Japanese guys in lab coats were inspecting the shoes with calipers and scientific instruments. After deliberation, they looked at one another, and the camera, in astonishment and declared, "We can make them better, but we can't make them dumber!" I still see the Hush Puppy logo and get a charge out of it. I even look at their shoes, even when I'm not shoe shopping, not caring whether or not they are my size, I just feel good looking at them. Multiply this effect by billions of people, thousands of advertisers, and in some cases, hundreds of purchases each day, and you begin to see a pattern being established. My intent in bringing this phenomenon up is to plea for it's opposite. Making decisions on the basis of value, (which I define as life-affirming) rather than the spurious intent of some executive in a far off corporate office, whose salary is determined by his ability to sell us thin promises. As you might expect, I see this as life-denying. Let's try a concrete example: Confronted with natural thirst, we need water to live. Do not succumb to the opinion that you should have sugar-laced brown liquid to make you anything. You are, endowed by your creator with a propensity to slake your thirst, that alone is a great gift. Sanctify that by giving your body the most pure water that you can find. One caveat, I do not want anyone to drink Distilled or Reverse Osmosis water exclusively. The first because mineral supplementation is required, and the energy footprint skyrockets and the second, because it is extremely wasteful, flushing many gallons of water away for the tiny fraction used. This one decision has greater effect on your ability to be healthy, secure, rich, etc. than any sugar water you can find! The choice of fresh and pure water will profoundly change a whole series of other choices that will come along. What we call into our lives has great resonating impacts that ripple out across the landscape. Again, staying with the drinking water example. Carrying a re-use-able vessel that sates our thirst over longer periods can have it's own, often unseen effects. The energy used creating a stainless steel container is equivalent to the energy in about 2000 plastic bottles! Associated with the steel or aluminum, are impacts like mining, refining, transport, etc. The plastic on the other hand has the specter of oil in it's past, can leach chemicals into our drink, and present special disposal problems. Even when recycled, there are transport costs and energy requirements that follow from our decision. When burned, plastics release toxic compounds. We can follow the fate of each and every item that we use if we take a bit of time to think about it. Pre-cycling is probably the surest way to make an impact on lives around the world in a positive way. This is making choices on the level of where they come from, what they do, and where they go in the end. My own water container will get recycled when it is no good any more, but I can't see how it could fail in my lifetime. I suppose that I could leave it sealed and full in freezing temperatures, but I guard against those things conspiring against it, and it should last indefinitely. I'm not encouraging everyone to go back to animal bladders, just to take the time to think about yourself as deserving of the recognition that you are good and whole already, without the packaging du jours, the "swoosh" of Nike, the Lightening Bolt of sports drinks, or the red of Coke, red,white and blue of Pepsi, or any of the tools of psychological bondage that are proffered up by corporations that try to make us buy anything! There is an annual Buy Nothing Day, I urge you to make that day today! It can have an incredibly liberating feeling to not buy anything for just one day. Instead, use the time you would waste shopping researching the best choices that you can make when you put your next dollars into the marketplace.

Hundreds of Known Killers Evade Police Daily

Having lost a third loved one to Cancer this year alone, my perspective may be a bit skewed, but the facts speak for themselves. Over four hundred compounds routinely created & released by humans fall into the category of known or probable human carcinogens. There are other substances that are called mutagens, which create genetic mutation in humans and teratogens, which cause genetic damage in the person's offspring, not the person exposed. Remember DES? Dimethyl-ethyl-stilbesterol was given to women during pregnancy and resulted in horrifying genetic damage. Even after this compound was banned for humans, it was still given to chickens to increase productivity.

Although nothing can take back the damage we have already done to our bodies and the environment, certain simple steps can reduce the threat posed by these killers and eliminate the deaths of millions of loved ones in relatively short order.

There are dozens of crazy things that we do on a daily basis. I'm not going to recite the litany of insane, stupid or senseless things that humans do. I'm just flabbergasted that chemicals are extended consideration that people would never be given. If I were responsible for the deaths of thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of people, millions over the course of a generation, would I be exonerated because it would hurt the economy? No. People are "innocent until proven guilty", but these chemicals, even when proven guilty, are used with relative impunity. They continue to get away scott free. I'm struck by the odd dichotomy that exists in our heads. When a person builds a commercial workshop, they may be required to vent toxic or carcinogenic compounds out of the building, "protecting" workers from exposure to these harmful chemicals. Neighbors are then exposed to the same chemicals that would eventually kill workers or sicken them if they were in the contaminated building for eight hours per day. Shut-ins who live down the block are then exposed to these chemicals all day long, even in their sleep. Back in the Seventies, I lost my first grandmother to Cancer. Back then, commercial interests claimed that they knew nothing about dangers of hazardous compounds like perchloroethelene, merchloroethelene, or the other commonly used dry cleaning chemicals that killed her.

Doctors wanted to try to fix a lifetime of poisoning, but they were unwilling to say that the chemicals killed her. In private, they would admit that the chemicals she used daily were surely the cause of her suffering and death, but they wanted us to fund cancer research rather than blow the whistle on the true cause. The results of our actions cannot be divorced from our actions any longer! Hoping to stem the rising tide of Cancer without stopping the creation and release of these culprit compounds only points out a mass hallucination or nationwide (worldwide?) psychosis.

We have plenty of evidence on the hundreds of compounds that are killing us. We just don't have the will to protect ourselves from the damage that they cause. Since we have a history of looking the other way, these chemicals and compounds are not even questioned, taken into custody, or locked up forever to prevent future deaths.

I often wonder why we wear pink ribbons, walk or ride our bikes to fund "finding a cure", when there is more than enough evidence to ban these substances outright. It takes a fraction of the will needed to change public policy to wear a ribbon, to give a dollar (or hundreds) or to walk or ride a bike. Personally, we all get to prioritize what is important to us, what we are willing to do or work toward, but we don't get to decide which of our friends and loved-ones will be taken from us by Cancer, or when. The pain and anguish is always the same. If we all made concerted efforts to reduce our dependence on these vile killers, it would go a long way to saving our friends and family from early, and immensely painful death. Even "Cancer-survivors" go through living hell. Living under the cloud of remission brings it's own terror and no one should have to live with that either. We need to spend our time educating ourselves about where these carcinogens come from, who stands to gain from their use, and why we have not realized our own part in their creation and distribution. Rather than just taking (absorbing) our unfair share of these offenders, we need to treat them as the killers they are. Stop accepting death as the wages of business as usual, ask the hard questions, and act with the knowledge that humans are more important that some fool's pocketbook.