Entropy Vortex

It is becoming painfully clear that there is a dynamic and influential cadre of people in the world that cannot help but destroy all order and sanity around themselves. They destroy infrastructure, or just build it so poorly that it self destructs. They find ways of passing their time that hinder their own progress as well as that of others and they have debilitating attachment to "the way things always were", but that imaginary concept in their own mind is so peculiar and provincial that even believing it ruins any chance of creative action or intelligent thought which is necessary if we are to meet an insurmountable wall of delusion that strangles all life from new approaches to the world around them. This orientation has crippled our understanding about elementary facts and seeks to undermine foundational ideas that could lead to positive change, public support for investing in quality rather than quantity and, in turn leads to myriad abuses of basic physics. The tragedy of the commons was terrible and debilitating when people grazed livestock on communal pastures, but in the modern world the costs are perhaps even more deadly for nature. Effects in our current milieu are just shifted further away in space and time. Instead of leading to eventual starvation and death of a community food supply, our entire culture lies in the balance.

A multimillion dollar upgrade is being undertaken along a section of highway near my home. Traffic has been slowed through the area for several years. One of the biggest overpasses that just recently got finished got run into by an oversize load and is now being dismantled so that it can be rebuilt. After less than a year, the edifice is junk. Even though many extra dollars got spent making the concrete and steel structure pretty, I guess, no one thought it prudent to label the height restriction that it imposed along one of the busiest traffic corridors in the state. Oddly enough, even when the height restrictions are clearly posted, as they used to be on the old overpasses, that were not as pretty, some folks disregard them or do not realize how tall the vehicle they are driving is. I have seen many damaged overpasses in the past, but a new one that has just been built seems particularly expensive to replace. The spiraling out of control that we experience daily seems to be one of the most serious and powerful forces working against change in our culture.

It seems that the shit storm that is preparing to fly is in a swirling chamber, like turds circling the drain. We frequently get glimpses of the other side of the vortex, but the vast majority of the jumble of activity that we brush up against constantly and swirl amongst is obscured by the most proximal or biggest perceived threats in out immediate vicinity. I frequently research and try to understand discreet problems or issues common to many, but spoken of by few. It is my belief that the answers to most of our problems lie in the same course of action. Whether it is the commodification of the water resource or the mushrooming cancer rate, the solutions are the same. I have worked as a Bradley Method Childbirth Educator, a teacher, sign painter, counselor, community educator, silk screen artist, shaman, tree planter, guide and stagehand, however none of those things defined me. I was first a student. Looking for information that may prove useful is my nature and this forum is where I polish the ideas that I have dug up after five decades of paying attention.

I have seen, and occasionally participated in a bit of self-destructive behavior. I'm not proud of it, but I do not regret it either. How else can someone learn about one of the most popular ways that people try to  escape the veil of tears that shrouds much of human experience. Rather than trying to be all gloom and doomy, I just want to state a fact. Especially at this time of year, when many infuse themselves with cookies and candies, give thanks and gifts, pig out on rich foods and make their resolutions, someone needs to be stating the obvious. Our species seems to be the only one on the planet that preoccupies itself with "holy books" and the question of why we are here. Personally, that is why I'm acutely aware of what other organisms tell me by their actions and states of being. Humans seem to have been trained to attempt to get something for nothing, even when they know that the best things in life cannot be extracted, they must be given away to exist at all. The shit that we all hold onto so desperately will always obscure anything that lies beyond it.

Perhaps it is not one bit odd that our culture is so enamored with Biblical "truth", religious thought, or fundamentalist ideals. Who would not want some guidance when the entire planet seems to be filled with threats and dangers, hopelessness and grief and dissolution and regret? The ego is so adept at creating defense mechanisms that we forget to question why. Many do not even realize when they are being part of the problem, it would sting too much and allow doubt to creep into their world view. Just in case you know people who believe in Yahweh god, urge them to get out their Bibles, check our Genesis and give it a close read. Not only will they6 see that the word Elohim is used to describe the gods. Yes, both male and female ones, who created the "other people". Outside the Garden of Eden, there was a whole and intact civilization completely apart from Adam and Eve. When this Yahweh god told Adam that he would surely die as a result of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he outright lied. Adam lived to the ripe old age of 900 years. When even your God is a liar, it must make accepting the entire litany of lies that we are spoon fed the rest of our days just a little bit easier.

Perhaps a story about an interaction that I had with my father-in-law will help to illustrate my point. For nearly a decade we had a running argument about buying quality and investing in things that last. He claimed that without planned obsolescence, the economy would crash. The way he put it, if consumer goods lasted twice as long, businesses would fail because they would have nothing (technically half as much) to do. Sales, in the scenario that he envisioned would slowly fall off and at some point would not make further production lucrative. My argument was that if indeed we were able to flood the market with products that would last a lifetime, and demand fell off because of it, we could turn our creativity and productive capacity to other much-needed products. Our discussions along these lines came to a head one week when his car, a luxury one that he claimed to be extremely well-built, the microwave, refrigerator, vacume cleaner and humidifier all went bunk. During our discussions about this issue, I frequently spoke of planned obsolescence as a sort of reverse lottery, one which participants could only lose. After pointing out the fact that the week of break-downs was the result of consumer goods being designed to wear out and fail to work, he began to understand the value of buying quality rather than nearly always buying based on price.

It is funny how one can hold such strong opinions, but act contrary to them in some cases. His luxury car for instance was consciously purchased as a way to show off his wealth and status. Lots of people would see it and he wanted the peace of mind that can come from buying quality. He delighted in placing notes under my windshield wipers that looked as if a passerby thought my car was junk and needed to be towed away for scrap. He always wanted to buy new cars, or ones that were just a few years old, that would show off his success. Mine, on the other hand, were frequently over a decade old and both fuel efficient and rarely, if ever in the shop. My current vehicle is sporting a few rust spots, it would never be mistaken for a luxury car and has been scratched and dented by hundreds of trips to the wilderness. One night a thirty foot long piece of tree fell on the fender, dimpling it and the roof has been scratched by countless canoe scrapes, but it still gets fifty miles to the gallon (saving more than two thirds of the fuel bill per mile that Dad paid) and gets me where I need to go. If I had to show off, there would be many more cost-effective ways to do it. Of course, no car will last forever, but mine is over 260K and going strong. It also cost less than half of what each of Dad's last three did.

If we can learn to ask better questions, like what is right, what is best and what is good, we may find that we can see through the lies that have been foisted upon us by powerful economic interests, religious leaders and the educational system. I strongly believe that surviving the coming shit storm requires cutting through the swirling crap that surrounds us daily, caring for our selves and our loved-ones in ways that do not require mindless consumerism and getting tot he bottom oft he question, Does this make sense?

Codified Narcisism

In honor of the "government shutdown" here in the U.S.A., I feel that it is only right that I share a few thoughts on a problem that underlies this once great nation. Years ago, if you were an uneducated fool, a psychopath or sociopath, the vast majority of our population knew enough to discount your ridiculous raving, your bad mouthing of "the system" or random attacks on innocent people trying to make a living around you. We actually had a level of compassion for people hurting so bad inside that they had to lash out at the world around them. However, we knew enough to not vote these bad actors into office. What we are facing down in the House of Representatives right now is a group of outliers so devoid of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required to participate in politics that they cannot understand or adapt to the responsibilities that come with holding office.

We have used a series of tools to keep them under the delusion that they are not only worthy of respect, but that they are "God's" gift to society, even though their actions reflect ruthlessness beyond compare. I often harp on the ruling elite, the monied class and the oligarchy in general and this post, sadly, will not be much different. To even mount a political campaign for the House of Representatives in our nation is something only multimillionaires can afford.. Winning a House seat in 2008 was 1.1 million. Four years down the road, with the Citizens United case that made it through the highest court in the land, money and donations to political campaigns is now considered speech, allowing the campaign coffers to swell exponentially with less and less oversight. Winning a senate seat is nearly ten times as expensive.

This is the "cost" of our current system from a direct financial cost perspective.

With the advent of taking idiots and assholes seriously, our governing bodies have been hurt terribly. In our current system, as long as you pay to play, the media will point their cameras at you and "reporters" will flock to your press conferences and spread the "news" in your press releases whether there is substance behind your words or not. This is akin to babies playing with their own shit. If you continuously reward them each time they "make" it and tell them that they have made a great thing, they will never get over their creations. We have developed a new sort of system that rewards obstructionist rhetoric, bases entire campaigns on single issues, a system that demonizes those who cannot afford to defend themselves and unwittingly props up the cult of ignorance with million dollar graft and corruption.

Thinking that the uber-wealthy will be content to sway politics in a single district is foolish on the face of it. The billionaire class uses these fools whenever and where ever they find them, with donations from large donors crossing as many state lines as their ruthless tentacles desire. The minions (our supposed representatives) are thoroughly convinced that it is their ideas that are valuable, their "stance" against cooperation and their "moral" values that the wealthiest Americans are lining up to fund. This is akin to the person who has been bruised and battered in a car wreck wandering around in shock telling people "No, I'm fine, I don't want to go to the hospital." These people are so in love with their image of who they know themselves to be, that it is difficult to tell them anything different.

If one tries to inject a little truth into their swollen, ego-driven self image, it is easy for them to brand you as a heretic, a "taker" (as they like to call those who they call "the problem" with our nation) or a litany of catch words or phrases that exempt them from having to consider anything but their illusions as real. We can see the ignorant, bigoted, hateful , spiteful and obstructionist representatives behaving badly in nearly every political debate, each evening on the nightly "news". We can read about them in the papers, yet the idea of them being horribly destructive to our nation, our political system and the rest of the world economy never seems to come up. The self-love that they must feel, combined with the funding of oligarchs, has created a master class of self love, lies, deceit, corruption and vehemence that makes Ronald Reagan seem tame.

The vast majority are being beaten into submission by less than one third of the Republican representatives to the House of Representatives. That body is only supposed to hold one half of one third of the power of our great nation, the childish fit that they are throwing is harming not only our country but the world economic system. However, the wealthiest class, who own the media outlets are still telling us that 10% of us believe that the President himself is to blame for the recent government shutdown. To those of us who try to make sense of the litany of lies and pablum that get passed off as news, this hardly seems possible when only one in twenty folks polled think that Congress is doing a good job.

When our forefathers first stepped onto this great continent, those who were here already had made their peace with the land. Since that time, it seems, we have gone to every effort to rape and destroy this place. Virtually nowhere can we find a spot that has not suffered at the hand of "development", not been exploited for profit, not sustained irreparable damage for the sake of profiteers. Letting those same interests steal our elections will surely be the ruin of all that is left.

Desperation and the Trickle Down Effect

Having survived the "Reagan Revolution", and the ensuing decades of republican inertia has taught me a few things about education, politics, economics and our social fabric generally. We have been duped into thinking that the richest individuals are benevolent. The sickening refrain often spewed by those in power, "A rising tide lifts all boats." only applies to those wealthy enough to have a boat. Just this week I saw several things that drove home the idea that the only thing that has trickled down due to the enacted Republican Agenda has been desperation. We have seen the failed policies play out in nearly every field. Our schools, having suffered from endemic underfunding over the past generation are crumbling, poorly maintained and often nothing more than warehouses for our youth. Gone are the days of hope springing from educational institutions. Just yesterday I heard a story from a teacher that her Principal told her not to worry too much about a certain pupil. "You can't expect much from him he said."
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because he is black." responded the Principal.
I'm sad to have to relay this story on Martin's Birthday, but the truth is sometimes unsavory, and needs to be accepted and understood as fact to help us to move beyond the shackles of hatred and the tyrannical chains of oppression. No person is unable to develop, unless we prevent them from accessing the tools that they need to better themselves. The way we develop is often a response to factors that we do not see or understand. What we do see and make sense of is frequently the result of actions that remain hidden from view or misunderstood because the driving forces behind our lives know that they can be just as effective keepers of the wage slaves while remaining out of sight, or hidden behind the corporate shells that we think are in charge.
The many lies perpetrated upon the American People have no basis in fact, but repeated often enough, they have led to a total abandonment of good sense and decorum. We have been taught that there are "two sides" to every story. Truth has become a malleable term to be debated by the most reactionary people that the media can get their hands on. Now, we are able to distort fact and fiction until they not only represent one another but supplant one another when that becomes necessary.
Terms like "too big to fail" fly in the face of free market economics, but the same people who decry the need for massive bail outs also confer the laurel wreath of respectability to corporate raiders and the gambling house we call the stock market. Corporate welfare is class warfare, but the only time that the media uses the term is when the poor begin to fight back.

Late last week I saw a neighboring property with a gigantic heap of trash our front. The poor woman who lived there moved away, but her things were piled as tall as a person and both twice as high and three times as wide. More than a dozen people came and went from the pile, hoping to find something of value. One took every electrical cord they could find, another took a broken toy, still others took musty clothing and pots with missing lids. One fellow came early, before the pile had formed and removed every metal object this lady had amassed in the year and a half that she had lived there. In spite of all the rifling through the pile, it never seemed to get any smaller. The density of the pile was something to be amazed at. The density of crap that has been injected into the public debate is similarly dense.
Two decades ago, there were two old men who had junk pickers licenses in Green Bay, now there are several dozen people and many are young families with their children in tow. No longer are there other opportunities to make a living for these folks of meager means.

While I watched the endless parade of folks digging through the trash, another neighbor came home with a truckload of pressure treated wood that he will feed into his wood burner. In spite of the fact that he knows that toxic materials will be released when he burns it, the warmth is worth the cost in his mind. Ashes laden with poison will make their way into his garden and onto his dinner plate, but he needs the warmth to survive the coming cold weather. Life is preferable to the alternative, but he should not have to poison himself, his family or the neighbors just to get by.

What is necessary now is a reemergence of what we used to call good old common sense. The fact that we must lead, so that the leaders will follow has never been more critical than today. Ask those in charge any questions and there is a good chance that they will respond with canned answers that have been regurgitated for the better part of two decades. The same people who claim that they stand for "life" will let babies cry themselves to sleep from lack of food. Those who are opposed to sex ed. will blame young mothers for their difficult position and claim that somehow telling them what their sex organs are for made them use them. The same people who claim that government should not provide a safety net for those who fall through the cracks of capitalism wouldn't give a dime to help others whether it would be for education, homeless shelters, food programs or through a church. The crowd who focuses on "liberty" understand that word to mean that whatever they want should be theirs for the taking, whether or not it harms another or leads them to not have their own needs met. The "pursuit of happiness" crowd is similarly attentive to their own desires for freedom but without responsibility for fellow humans, future generations or the world around them. These ideals that have formed the basis of our culture for over two hundred years have never been as misunderstood as they are today and the ability of our schools to counteract the debilitating claims made by the media about what we are to make of the lies are both underfunded and under attack.

I continue to harp on the rampant beliefs of Calvinism, only because many believe them without even knowing where the ideas come from. The problem with common sense is that it has become far too uncommon. I heard an excellent saying today. The only thing that the poor lack is money. In the world that we have allowed to develop, this alone is enough for those in power to judge them as thugs, criminals and people who lack morals. Actually, the opposite is more often true. The oppressed under the current system are often the most benevolent. It has been proven time and time again that the poor give a greater percentage of their meager income to charity. The white collar crime that goes unpunished creates a level of mayhem and dislocation that far outweighs the petty theft and property crimes that poor people engage in to help them survive in our capitalist society. Rather than try to defend moral choices that people make, I will resist the urge to share what I believe and try to stick to what I know. wealthy or poor makes no significant difference in many moral choices, but the privileged classes seem to think that they have the right to justify any action whereas the poor often blame themselves for the bad behaviors of others.

Much as we might like to turn our heads away from salient facts, we are living in a time characterized by the lowest crime rates America has seen in thirty years, not because the criminals have all been locked up, but because no one thinks that they can get ahead through criminality. As desperate as we have all become, we know that stepping out of line will only rain more shit down on our heads. an entire generation of black youth has been imprisoned and the wealthy thieves are receiving bailouts paid for by the taxpayers whose children go to bed hungry, are failing in school and ready to pump out the next generation of folks who will have even less chance of their needs being met. What has worked along the way has been the deep and inspired outpouring of love that is not part of any party. The sense of community responsibility that many outsiders share. The thousands and hundreds of thousands of humble servants who operate homeless shelters, food pantries, after school programs and not-for-profits picking up the slkack that government feels is necessary to balance their books.

Anyone who studies the matter will tell you that governments are not like families or business. Austerity in hard times never works for governments, unless you are seeking to force dislocation and social break down on the populace. Austerity on the level of the household makes sense. We all need to survive until next month, so cutting expenses to pay the bills only makes sense. Government relies on deficit spending always. They are doing the work of improving infrastructure and services that pay off dozens and hundreds of years later, you have to borrow to do that kind of work. The far right, anti-tax crowd are cutting public good off at the roots. Without teaching our children, we will surely handicap our hope for the future. Cutting social programs hurts many more people than it could possibly help. By amassing more and more capital in fewer and fewer hands, we assure the continued exploitation of the greatest number of people. If we looked at taxes as the price we pay to live in a civil society rather than a penalty for working, things could change overnight. The nature of the debate could include issues such as caring for one another, the difference between wants and needs and how to find abundance through making sustainable choices. Changing minds is easier than one might think, the best place to start is by seriously questioning who is being served by the lies that are foisted upon us.

Look Who Is Using The Term Class Warfare!

Shame on the Republican shills for big oil, big energy and big media! In all the coverage of our President's new economic recovery plan, the lap dogs of the ultra wealthy have once again dominated the airwaves. Whoever owns this country, or whoever thinks they do, keep telling us their corporate line BS and expecting us to swallow it hook line and sinker. Well my friends, the American public just isn't that hungry. Class warfare has been going on in our country for generations. Just look back at the early attempts unions made in bringing humanity to the workplace. The American worker is still not treated much better than slaves. In some cases they are treated worse. At least slaves got three hots and a cot. After a long day of work for most employees, their paltry wages are still dwindling down to nothing as the costs of food, transportation and housing continue to outpace wages. The same plutocratic minority is in charge, the same dangerous workplaces exist and the same rampant disregard for the lives of those who create the wealth of our nation are looked upon with disdain and suspicion.

I work in a place where the wealthy elite come to play. I see it routinely. From concerts with two tiered distinctions between VIP seating and VVIP seats to the ordinary and bizarre distinctions between "going to see the game and having luxury boxes. Now how can we say there is not class warfare when the extraction of capital is practiced against the impoverished while the amazing majority of that extraction flows to fewer and fewer hands? For instance, as with the luxury boxes at our local football stadium, the five thousand dollar price per game equates to 71.5 regular seats. Don't you think that the fellow buying that sky bow knows that he is worth 71.5 times as much as the peons who are seated down below? Just as we denigrate the poor in the media, blame them for our country's economic woes and for their own lack of "education" paired with sexual and drug induced immorality, we have the nerve to make sweeping judgements about the entire class of poor people, just as we used to do with Italians, Poles and yes even the Hungarians. you know, I have a friend who is poor, and he's not like the others...

The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that started when the news covered an ignorant and duplicitous agent of industry who has floated to the top of the shit heap of young Republicans in the House of Representatives continues to nag at my sensibilities. For one, I have been on the lower end of the income scale all of my life. I maxed out near the end of Clinton's time as President at 32K. From there, it has been a long slow fade out. I work at least as hard, at least as long and at least as often as I did back then, but the rewards are less because capitalists find ways through any rules one might put in place to protect them from their bosses. They know what they want, more money, and have the talent of being able to work around any attempt to secure a better livelihood for their workers.

That being said, I have to qualify the statement with information that is also true and to some extent growing in the minds of a sliver within the corporate world. Some employers take a different tack altogether. Some workplaces, and they are mostly in the small is beautiful movement, mostly made up of folks who were disillusioned with their own status when trying to climb the corporate ladder. They have turned to the marketplace as producers with conscience and are attempting to give their workers a better lifestyle as well as better wages and benefits. Frequently these companies realize that their workers represent whole people with needs and families that are important to them. One company here in Green Bay wanted their workforce to be educated and therefore paid tuition for up to three credits per semester for anyone employed full time. Sadly, when the company was purchased by a multinational corporation, that was one of their first cost cutting measures. small business has a chance to do the right thing, but once you get a chance to play with the big boys, your focus changes.

Of course there is class warfare going on in our country, it has been with us for centuries. to deny it is to fly in the face of fact, but it is not contained in the recovery plan which has so recently been targeted by the Speaker of the House, no, the President is trying to reign in the top dogs who have not only fared the best in our economic collapse, but who have consolidated their wealth beyond comprehension. Of course the agents that they hired to raise holy hell in Washington are squawking about it. That's their job. If they only realized how beholden to the super rich they are, perhaps they would rebel against them as surely as we all must. for without the stranglehold the wealthy have over the rest of us, change would not only be possible, but unstoppable. Through the systematic separation of goods and services from sources of capital and the estrangement of our population centers from sources of income, we have marginalized greater numbers of people than ever before. After 9-11, we had a brief moment to reassess our decisions to live further and further from where we work, where we play and from those who really matter to us. Having neglected the opportunity to make sound decisions for the future, we have mostly relegated ourselves to focusing more and more of our time and  ever more effort to support the wealthy as opposed to the poor in our country, no, in fact, the world. We are being tormented by those who would use true words being applied to false subjects and subjecting truth to the ultimate crime, being rendered as falsehood in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In time, I hope we can all look back on this dark period in our history, see it for what it truly is, and guard against this sort of rhetoric and misunderstanding ever making their way into the minds of our leaders.

The top 10% of wage earners are still doing quite well and if they are not going to spend their money, then we need to find alternatives to getting the over 4 trillion dollars that they are holding hostage back into the economy. i understand that they are afraid of a black man being President, but taking their marbles and going home is simply not patriotic. Spouting lies and trying to scare the general public has been generally accepted as heinous enough to be considered terrorism. In this case, we need to seize their assets and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care if they hold public office or not, duly elected or not, those who inject fear and lies into public discourse are dangerous and need to be stopped. The media who claims to be even-handed in their coverage without even understanding the issues is even more dangerous and thanks to them, we have a situation in which truth or lies are less important than how stirred up we can get people. It is a sad day for democracy when the rich get whatever they want and the poor have to find their own way to cope, with little help for the government and none from their neighbors because they have fallen on hard times as well.


Corporate Welfare = Class Welfare

Bless Us Every One

Now, I'm not the only one who has noticed the utter break down of society. We have had two major news "events this last week or so that point out the utter failure of the media to mediate our experience of events that take place daily in our world. Initially, I had hoped that it was just an isolated incident, but it has proven to be systemic. First, we heard of the "Tucson Tragedy", the senseless shooting of innocent people in a parking lot in Arizona. One frustrating thing about the coverage was that the rarity of the event was ignored completely. Over three hundred million of us were not threatened in any way that day. Our chance of getting shot was less than one in fifty million. The salient point was not that hundreds of newscasters/cameramen/producers and their equipment were employed to bring us photos of blood stained concrete, but that half a dozen people died that day. We barely remembered to mention that one of the dead was a vibrant nine year old. In the coverage since, we have focused on the "target" of the attack, the woman who still doesn't know what went on that day. This is not like the "Four dead in Ohio" that reflected the government's war on it's own people, but a fluke caused by an insane person having access to a gun with a clip that allowed him to keep firing without reloading. My heart goes out to those whose lives have been changed forever. I'm glad that Gabby will recover, but I'm sick at the ignorance that is reflected in the coverage of her plight at the expense of the families of the dead.

Similarly, the raid at the Philly clinic that was the site of so many tragic incidents, and apparently many more deaths, ignored the real story in favor of what they wanted us to hear. Instead of telling us that this type of facility can only exist when there are so many without access to health care, says to me that the people covering the news don't have a clue. Worse, they have an agenda that they want to push down our throats. The a-word (abortion) was in the headline and once people had been stirred into vehement hatred, the facts mattered little. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people who obviously needed care enough to seek out this clinic that was dangerous because it was poorly staffed and un-funded. There was an opportunity to tell the story from a different perspective, but the powers that be dictated the rhetoric. I agree that vile and reprehensible things take place every day in our country, but the coverage of events that we see every day rank up there with the events themselves.

Like a magician producing a rabbit from his hat, the news producers tell us where to look, when and for how long. Too often, it is away from what really matters in our lives. The "Tragedy in Tucson", boiled down to three words cannot possibly convey the dramatic outcome of failed gun laws, nor can the "Clinic of Death" story explain the tragic state of health care in our nation. I am one of the millions of Americans who has to choose between being homeless and having health care. Having been homeless in the past, I don't want to devolve into that state again. Having seen insane people wielding guns as well, I recognize the threat that they pose to the rest of us. Neither of these stories had much bearing on reality. Instead, they have soft pedaled fiction over substance, presented us the happy face while finger pointing at paper tigers rather than the real challenges that we are facing in these troubled times. Millions of us face challenges daily that are never mentioned by the media. When they are covered, the distorting light of the media comes and goes so quickly that nothing substantial can be seen.

In my work as a spotlight operator, my living is made by showing people what to look at. The myopic lens of the news camera is thousands of times more effective than my light. God help us if we cannot learn how to use it's awesome power for good. now, more than ever, we need to look critically at our world and figure out how to improve the lives of us all. Our humanity depends on recognizing that old maxim, a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic. Each of us is a reflection of God/ess, perhaps it is expecting too much to want our media to reflect reality. Is it too much to expect these "entertainment" sources to at least try to reflect reality?

Community Center As Close to Ground Zero As Strip Club

This issue was seen as a lightening rod by such political savants as Newt Gingrich. The trumped up public vehemence comes not out of logic or proportion, but of their frustration with the plans for what will happen on those specific 16 acres(Ground Zero.) Before the pile of rubble and body parts had cooled, I voiced the opinion that we should reforest the site. Ten acres would accommodate 3,000 trees, one tree per person would create a massive statement in lower Manhattan. This sort of memorial would leave enough space for 3,000 park benches commemorating the dead. The trees would be the most awesome negation of the efforts of the terrorists. A living testament to those innocent lives that would recreate a woodland in the heart of the city. Nature heals, that is the whole idea of National Parks, we are nurtured by nature in ways that cannot be duplicated any other way.

It figures that rather than keeping discussion about this on a very high level, we use hatred and distrust of our own system to lash out at others who can establish plans and make effective change in the general area. Having been a resident of NYC, I can tell you, there is nowhere in Manhattan that I have found few places that bear any relationship with the community around it. Imagine being able to go underground every ten blocks or so and being magically transported to any other sector. Everything is virtually a subway, and/or bus ride away from every other place. The best way I can describe it is the largest neighborhood in the world. What is really needed in that city is the open space that parkland provides. This too reduces necessary services, while providing space, which is so badly needed, especially in that part of town.

What has instead been allowed to creep back onto the site is a smaller version of what it had been, a place for us to return to business as usual and the politics of greed that made us a target in the first place. The audacity of our corporate keepers is unparalleled in human history. I wish only the best for New Yorkers, but in their hurry to abolish the "free establishment clause within the Bill of Rights because of their unresolved feelings over 9-11 make the rest of us pretty upset.

The Art of Deception

We abide by sets of rules based on lies. To tease them all out would take a treatise the size of several volumes, but we all recognize the most pernicious ones. "Marriage is forever and between one man and one woman.", might be a good one to start with, especially since that is where we are all supposed to have started ourselves. I'm sure we all know a number of people who also know that it is a lie. The institution of marriage is between the "loving" couple and the state, their church, sometimes two families and occasionally God/ess. Before you have a chance to discount this fact, I recently spoke with a wonderful and lovely woman who told me that when she married her husband, she didn't respect him. I put love in quotation marks because what one calls love, another might say is infatuation, pathological lust, usury or flat out abuse. What I claim to be an essential part of love, may not fit in with your belief system. I claim that the truth of the matter is that no agent on this earth can mediate a true marriage. It is between two souls and their creator. Do I need to say, "regardless of sex"? Because it is true. I'm sure that our creator isn't hung up on genitalia. My point is that we all accept many limitations of a culture that despises free though and action. We have been told so many times that long suffering and self control are not just means to an end, but the be all and end all of our existence, that we shy away from truth as surely as we were born.

Arbitrary rules that came about centuries ago, when we needed more humans to exploit and the planet seemed infinite were based on a certain truth that existed then. We have surpassed Earth's carrying capacity and even the deaths of ten thousand children each and every day from lack of clean water is not enough to stem the burgeoning tide of affluenza in other regions. Marriage must now be de-coupled with procreation, there are too many children being abused and neglected than we can handle already. Science has proven that humans are naturally cooperative, helpful and compassionate. The lies about "human nature" that have relegated generations of human souls to crushing oppression perpetrated by ultra wealthy and powerful forces has led to systemic power and control issues being played out across the entire planet. It is the birthright of all humanity to live unmolested and free from both abuse and neglect from our own people. Breaking free from the lies that we have been carefully fed proves far more difficult than one might expect, but the first step in recovery is recognizing that there is a problem. The more you learn, the better equipped you become at calling "Bullshit!" We have the right to seek truth and when we find it we have a responsibility to share what we have learned.

I regret having to bring all this up, but the truth is really treated as a quite unsavory thing. We are forever being told, "Don't sugar coat it.", as if harsh truth is revered, but not one of us wants to hear that our ideas don't matter, our problems were brought on by making bad choices, or that our treasured pictures of our children or grandchildren are uninteresting. What we fail to realize is that we are all one with god/ess. We are forever convincing ourselves that we are unique, that our dear reality is true and to be trusted when nothing could be further from the truth. The whole bloody thing is made up. Virtually every single thing that we know is either untrue, or a shallow reflection of something that would have been true if things were different. Take this for example...I love the fact that I recently heard someone who had gone to Vietnam, remark at how astonished they were that the Vietnamese called it the American War, not the Vietnam War. Sadly, differences in perception like this only account for a fraction of the lies that we artfully keep alive between us. Generation gaps, sexism, racism, political debate, advertising, education, religion, even our diversions and entertainments are rife with lies. If we all didn't subscribe to the same ones, where would we be? One lie that seems particularly egregious to me is the perception of lack. The concept of a harsh world, with mankind locked in a brutal battle to the death with nature just unnerves me. I don't think that there is anywhere on the face of the planet where one could travel a mile without being able to scare up a meal or two and perhaps a remedy for whatever ails you. In areas more desolate than that, cultures have developed that keep their food and fluid stores on the hoof and bring them with them across the harsh areas. That said, there are plenty of "educated" people who will tell you how harsh a world it is and how you must screw the other guy before he screws you. One of the first lessons of sustainability (permaculture) is to equitably distribute the abundance that is produced when we work with, rather than against nature.

Our egos are so wantonly out of control that we actually believe in our own self-righteousness. We pray to an idol of our own "unique" expectations and desires. Our very hopes and dreams are based on a book of lies that has an infinite number of pages. We were told centuries ago that we are hateful, callous, mean tempered brutes that are designed to be greedy, competitive, rude, selfish and crass. Science has proven otherwise, but we use this lie and others like it to justify our aggression, bad behavior and lust. Lucky for some, there is a salve that we can use to soothe our souls at the end of the day. Some of you may not like it, but I will reveal the myth of the hour, or perhaps the century, Christ. He died for his own sins, not ours. He, if he existed at all, he sought to expose the great lies of his culture and for this he was supposedly put to death. No contemporary historian of "Jesus" mentions him. You would think that for all the stories of him feeding the masses, healing the sick and walking on water, someone might have made at least a passing reference to this "King of the Jews". Nothing. Nada. Zip, Zero, just a giant void, silence. Granted you can't prove a negative, but hey, this story is as old as the current age. Half a dozen of sons of virgin birth came before Christ, were baptized, taught the people, had twelve apostles, were betrayed by a trusted friend, were crucified, languished in a tomb for three days and were resurrected. But, I guess, if we all believe that it only happened once, it's gotta be true. I for one, cannot believe something that reeks so terribly of plagiarism. With no savior to fall back on, we all have to live a little better lives. The only one with the power to forgive is you!

Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies

I have been amazed at the number of people who have become enamored with a book and movie called The Secret. Although our beliefs do play a large part in our "reality", as the book and movie claim, positive thinking alone cannot determine outcome of our behavior nor can our will alone determine the future. Action is still able to "speak" more loudly than words. More importantly, when our beliefs override good sense or eternal truths, we set ourselves up for the proverbial fall from grace.

Books and videos may foist one belief or another upon us, but it is in our best interest to examine each bit of information that we receive, considering the source, exploring the motivations behind the message and trying to understand the goals that lay behind the "curtain" of secrecy that most of us allow to exist between production and consumption of ideas. As a stagehand, I am literally one of the people behind the curtain and I assure you that profit for the few and wage slavery for the rest of us is at the heart of most of what you see in music, film, television, sport, newspapers, books, the internet and the entertainment industry generally. We are in a difficult position when spirituality enters the realm of entertainment. The recent deaths of seekers who attended a mass sweat lodge, set up by one of the presenters featured in "The Secret" attests to the dangers of mixing spiritual questing with the profit motive.

I am only now beginning to realize that the end of Uncle Sam's war in Vietnam, that I worked so hard for as a child, would turn into an obsession for so many souls. Just yesterday I overheard a conversation that could have been forty years old about the lies upon which the war began, was executed and reported by journalists. The torment was thick in the voice of the veteran who was still educating people about that war and what it meant for him. The spiritual motivation behind our cause, and the love that we felt for those we did not know had little effect on the lives, or for that matter the deaths of people whose blood, sweat and tears stained the soil halfway around the world. Our rulers, and they are not elected, found that involvement in Indochina was no longer convenient and that the curtain was beginning to rise on the true nature of their motivation as well as their influence on our involvement there. Our government would like us to think that they suddenly developed a conscience, but that is truly not the case. The sense of victory that coursed through the peace movement was palpable, but the power dynamics remained unchanged.

War is always good for the power elites who own the means of production. It is good for those who stand to lose nothing. For all of the rest of us, nothing is gained, and for many all is lost. I believe that we have the power to change this dynamic, but there is little we can do about the unelected leaders who determine when and where our nation shall go to war, unless we understand that they are indeed there, and make changes that will allow us to see their influence as plainly as if the curtain were not there at all. The recent victory felt by many when Obama was elected is noteworthy because, like the end of the Vietnam War, it created a feeling of positivism that reverberated around the world. Even though the world economy was teetering on the brink of collapse, we felt as if change had truly come. We will have to look no further than the morning news to see that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Those who seek to control us and keep us wage slaves have had an extremely long time to hone their skills, develop methods that work and create the structures that benefit them while fleecing others. The real secret, as far as I am concerned is that we are all held captive by our own chains. Those who seek to control us are deft in their use of rhetoric. They are magicians of the first order, getting us to look away at precisely the right moment, and believe what they need us to believe to get the responses that they desire. If the Thompson Twins song "Lies" is not reverberating in your head yet, it should be.

For years I have developed a costume for Halloween that was born of my sub-conscious, grew over time, and continues to blossom in meaning for me. It all started after I participated in the "restore" after my first event theater experience. As a stagehand, I was able to scavenge dozens of short lengths of chain from the dumpster. I remembered a great line from literature, and had to immediately run home and check the Gutenberg Project for a specific series of lines from "A Christmas Carol". After reading Charles Dickens and his description of Jacob Marley's Ghost, I endeavored to become, if just for one night each year, this personage who spoke to me through the ages. His greatest line, "I forged these chains in life." touched my soul so deeply that I wanted to repeat it again and again for others to hear and learn from. Hopefully, it has touched a few people over the years.

Each of us is shackled to a world view that we alone have forged. The power elites know how we do this and why. They also give us the tools we need to make our most basic decisions. Religion, money, education, national pride, etc. become the tools of our own oppression while we are distracted into thinking that they can save us. My pagan beliefs are often turned into a reason to judge, hate or distrust me. Those who feel that their God can be threatened by my beliefs actually have no concept of Gods or their powers. Lies need to be constantly propped up while truth stands alone, forever. Even the fact that their "god" is based on dozens of gods before him, which ultimately was passed down from sun worshipers, cannot assuage their loathing of my pagan way. Similarly, when I renounce affluence and the consumerism which most folks believe in, they have derogatory words that they call me. Telling the truth about the dollar really irks folks who otherwise seem to be mild mannered and astute. Even Christians who practice voluntary simplicity get upset when I share my understanding of our monetary system, and the exploitative and extractive nature of economic power elites. Teachers might just be the worst. They believe so thoroughly in their craft that they are nearly unreachable with logic. I have read textbooks that they have used to teach my children. I know that they are full of lies and omissions that make a huge difference in how children think, and occasionally, their ability to think at all! Regarding Nationalism, has anyone not seen the photos of the earth from space? Are we not able to see the fact that we are all one? Some of my ancestors come from an island culture. Although some of their cultural practices are not things I would encourage, at least they know about the finite nature of the land that supports them. The ruthlessness reflected in the way we seek out resources can only continue under an "us versus them" mind set. When we understand that everyone has equal right to having their needs met, the artificial boundaries that we create on the planet will fade and hopefully we will begin to treat one another with the respect we all deserve.

Speaking truth to power has led to many of the concessions that the power elites have yielded over the centuries. It is up to us to determine when they will fall. As long as we accept their lies, we can never be free of their power to affect the quality of our lives. Love truly does mean letting go of fear and the primacy of fear in the emotional rhetoric of the power elites should be self-evident to anyone who has studied the history of politics, religion, economics, agriculture, energy, transportation or education. Fear based behaviors are the whole kit and caboodle for those who would control us. Love truly has the power to conquer all. Not love of "god", not love of money, not love of country. Just good old fashioned love. The love that I have for mankind may not be as pure as it could be, but it is as pure as I can muster and I continue to refine it. I truly care about your health, your sanity, your sanctity, and your prosperity. I have a deep and abiding love for mankind as a species and that alone means the world to anyone who can fathom the depth of love that is reflected in that statement. I am not motivated by the profits of the next quarter. I have no agenda but to care for the well-being of those I share this planet with. I have seen the results of our current approach, and have understood the need for change since childhood. I invite everyone to refine their world view to include love and peace as the basis for change. It truly is a beautiful world and there is no need to exploit another to express our own wealth.