Asking the Right Questions

In the age of media saturation and torrents of digital data heaped upon our supersaturated grey matter, finding ways to sift and winnow are exponentially gaining importance. We used to turn ideas over and around in our minds, deciding, like we sometimes do with pebbles found on the beach, whether to pocket the novel ways of thinking about the world around us, or whether to toss them back into the shoreline from which they came. The inspection of elements warrants less and less of our attention as the data stream increases. What we are experiencing now is similar to the entire beach being crammed into our pockets, without a good way to stop the ever increasing burden of more. some helpful techniques and tools lie at our disposal, if we only take the time to look for them or to employ their simple and elegant design. We can benefit immensely by stepping out of the torrent, reassigning value to things that really matter and making choices that link us to a more humane world view, way of life and relationship with one another and ourselves.

First, we must understand that we are more than a perceptual apparatus, seeking stimulation. In part we may be just that, but we are so much more if we just take the time to step away from our addiction to stimulation. By periodically unplugging ourselves for our typical sources of information we can become more facile with communication generally and begin to unleash our tethered minds from the bondage of imagery that people are paying to maintain. In the past week, I have allowed myself to be exposed to several things that I almost never experience. One was "real life crime dramas", a sort of heavily edited and condensed crime show where the whole thing becomes a tease, to get the viewer through the next series of commercials. It was seductive and disorienting to say the least, but the most interesting part of this programming was the sort of commercials that they run. One was pairing Coca-cola with health and fitness imagery, as if you could get healthy and strong from drinking their brand of poison. another tried to do the same thing with fast food, making it look like a healthy part of a good diet. The questions that these images and ideas brought up in me were twofold, "Who is paying to have these images and ideas broadcast?" and "Who is the intended audience?"

Frequently, just asking the "Who?" question is enough. Billionaires and multinational corporations rarely, if ever, have our best interest in mind, they are too busy tending to our brainwashing to consider us as human beings. We are simply the tools that they use to concentrate more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands. by their design, we are reduced to infinitesimally small units of consumption, nothing more. Some other interesting advertizing techniques caught my eye as well. One in particular was for a retail chain that used children doing a rendition of the "Yo' mamma so fat, she..." but with a twist, they were building one another up and praising the virtue and style of mammas who shop at corporation X. This was hilarious in that it not only didn't make you want to shop at corporation X, but just brought up how out of touch the Madison avenue commercial production corporation was as well. Not only were they not savvy to the folks who they were trying to appeal to, but they probably never set foot in the discount retail chain stores. they don't have to shop where the poor people go to save money. Keeping in mind that the vast majority of what you see on a day to day basis is either the result of the 1% trying to convince us of something, or it is the fallout from them having their way with us. The only difference is that we pay for the second one with our day to day living and dying, while the first is subsidized by us in higher costs for the products we do consume.

What are they trying to say versus what do they mean is another important set of questions that we need to understand if we are to have some level of control over our own exploitation. They may be trying to say, "Our soap is better than their soap." but what they mean is, "Since there is no difference between our product and the kind you can make yourself for a tiny fraction of the cost, we will offer you a false sense of status, freedom or wealth if you purchase our soap rather than making your own. Anyone interested can find recipes for soap now, but the powerful elites are bargaining on their brightly colored packaging, secret ingredients, and NASCAR sponsorships to keep their product flying off the shelves. Pairing every sort of grave fiction with the stark reality of paying far too much for far too little is the way advertizing has been allowed to work for centuries. One look to the ancient tombs of the Pharoes and one can see that these were just massive ad campaigns to prove the supremacy of regular guys. In the end it was just a subsidy of elaborate pawn broker schemes when the tombs were looted, the money and wealth got laundered and the artifacts smelted down for subsequent generations of rich folk.

The "When?"and "Where?" are nearly constant and seemingly everywhere on Earth simultaneously.

That brings us to the great "Why?". In our country, the good old U. S. of A., there is an interesting quirk of tax law. Every single penny a business spends on advertizing , no matter how intrusive, foolish or filled with lies it may be is taken directly off the top of corporate profits and as such is non-taxable. So when hundreds of thousands of dollars get spent putting the corporate logo for Tide on a race car, guess what, no tax is paid on those dollars. If a corporation spends a billion dollars telling us that they are on our side, or seek to improve our lot in life, that money is tax exempt even if the corporation is in the business of of exploiting us and ruining the environment. Supplanting human interest for self interest often leads to asking better questions or asking the right questions to begin to make sense of what it is that we are actually seeing on a day to day basis. Unplugging from the media torrent can also help us to see what is going on more clearly. Talking to one another, our neighbors, families, friends and co-workers can begin to yield clarity about how and why we are so harshly treated by the media and when we begin to see ourselves as worthy of better treatment, perhaps we can ask ourselves even more important questions, like what can I do and where do I need to take a stand to help create a more compassionate and humane world? We really need to get to the bottom of the question, "How can we take our world back from those who would desecrate it and exploit us in the process?"

This is what Northern Wisconsin looks like today and what it would look like under the exploitation of mining that has been proposed for it by wealthy out-of-state interests. The 1% have purchased and installed a Governor here who is more concerned about their wishes than our own. The fascist dictatorship that democracy has morphed into serves only to disillusion our young people, circumscribe their option in the future, poison the planet and degrade our quality of life. When will we begin to be the advertisers of truth? How will we step up to meet the challenges that the ultra-wealthy are throwing at us? We need all the vision, creativity, and strength we can muster to defeat those who would sell us out for their enrichment. Please, ask the right questions and teach your children to do the same.

Meaning Making, Story Telling and Camp Songs

As much as we would like to think that we have modernized and become intellectual and as fully invested in "reality" as we seem to be, we make the same silly decisions time after time and allow our decision making to be informed by the same myths we have had for two centuries. We make meaning from the predominant stories that we are told day in and day out. I fancy myself a storyteller, but I frequently diverge from the formulaic story telling of the ancients. I try, most often, to craft my stories using real life events and salient observations that reflect both the things that remain the same throughput time as well as the changeable world that we find ourselves in. The "take away" message (and oh, how I hate that moniker) is not at all like take out food in a styro-trash clam shell. I might find a way to incorporate such an iconic and ubiquitous element within a story, but only to act as a placeholder for a larger picture, a deeper set of values and actors within the story. We each have the power to make our own meaning from whatever story we are told and for that matter the entire internal landscape of our minds is our responsibility. The story teller is only entrusted with the stories, civilization is based on the myths within the stories and those are eternal. the way we look at them may change, but birth, death, love, hate, joy, pain and life remain constant.

The most topical stories often reflect age old struggles between power and weakness, lovers and haters, the rich and the poor or the dreams and realities of individuals who act as stand ins for all of those elements of ourselves. How we reflect upon the stories and what we infer from them are our own part in the age old process of deciphering the ciphers. Now, the best story tellers have the power to lead us right to the precipice, where the view is expansive and the danger is great that we might plunge over the edge into madness, but also keep just enough ground under our feet that we can remain sane. As can be seen from a study of many folk tales from a variety of cultures, there has been an attempt to soften many of the messages and events that they spoke of, seemingly to avoid scaring the children. This paired with the rampant depiction of death and dismemberment that children are exposed to on television seem odd, but that perhaps is better left for another post.The myth that we operate on today seems to be the one about our own intellectual development. As greater minds than mine have said, "Our belief in the myth that human-caused climate change is debatable has been manufactured by many of the same people who told us that the scientific evidence that smoking is bad for your health was either unclear or make-believe."

The greatest story tellers have a very deep well of stories inside them. They have stories for nearly every occasion and to teach a myriad of principles that societies across the arc of time depended on as touchstones and points of reference over the ages. One of the most useful functions of the storyteller is the ability to allow us to look at upsetting or difficult data sets and make sense of them in light of a longer view. The worst story tellers, and we are facing greater and greater threats from these, distract us from what is important and hides truth from the listeners for the sake of driving us over the edge of that cliff I mentioned earlier. The words of Ozzy Osbournes "Crazy Train" come to mind. His story was designed to be a warning, though many did not understand it at the time. For some, this song has become an anthem for self-destruction, but it was a cry for sanity in the face of overwhelming craziness. Ozzy's admonition was to step off the crazy train, or a call for help to everyone to step off. Who on Earth today can't relate to that?  We are dangerously close to the edge of environmental catastrophe, social collapse, political annihilation and intellectual collapse. Whenever times get hard, it causes stress. This stress is frequently accompanied by increases in fundamentalist religious beliefs, rebirth of old stories and old myths that got us through the last period of stress. Today, we see this happening. Trouble is, myths are only helpful when everyone shares them. The world is shrinking around many facts that disprove many of the myths we based our civilizations on over the eons. If we are to grow and prosper in the future, we need to develop more inclusive stories, that allow us to grow out of dysfunctional myths of the past, band together as a cohesive crew on Spaceship Earth and move beyond the limits or "us-them" thinking.

At the risk of sounding like a Dr. Bronners Soap Bottle, "ALL ONE!" Humans are beginning to see the truth of the matter. We are all more akin to a single organism than an endless series of individuals. For some, the myht of individualism will die hard, but for those among us who have understood this for years, it comes as no surprise that the shrinking of the intellectual landscape that has been possible through the internet means that we can plainly see beyond the arc of the Earth. Events that may take place in my tiny corner of the planet are inexorably tied to things that happen in Australia, Denmark Slovenia and Bolivia. Oddly enough, even streaming a few electrons into "the cloud" can have effects worldwide. Strangely, just in the past decade or two, the myth of the butterfly's wings being able to create thunderstorms halfway around the world has been surpassed by the power of electrons which are even less discernible. The power of moving electrons has now toppled despotic leaders in several countries and the instability is growing. The patriots who fight for the souls of their countries are growing in number and strength, in Madison, Wisconsin, across the nation with the advent of the #occupy movement across the United States and in nations across the planet. what is needed is the intestinal fortitude to relinquish out-dated myths in favor of a more universal set of ideas and insights that allow us to understand our new world order and how we can affect positive change for the next seven generations.

Anyone who has ever gone to summer camp knows the power of the myths that they teach, the songs and stories that get passed around the campfire. When I began to sing them and tell them, I wondered about the origins and meanings that each one conveyed. Oddly enough, the older I get, the more meaning I find in them and the more important they become. The camp I worked at, College Settlement Camps of Philadelphia, provided services for many of the most difficult children of the "City of Brotherly Love". Many of the children who come to that camp have had the hardest of lives. without security, comfort, or hope, many young people who came to our camp had handicaps that are not evident on the surface. Our programs were designed to heal some of the damage caused by poverty, malnutrition and neglect. Some of our campers only had three meals per day for two weeks each summer and for many, knowing that they were cared for took a bit of time to begin to make sense to them. Our myths were not about rugged individualism and harsh realities of the streets, but of abundance and caring for one another. It was occasionally like trying to speak Chinese to chickens, but oddly enough, pairing the same messages with compassion, love and honesty slowly began to make sense for many of our charges. Sadly, at the end of their two week respite from their harsh lifestyles, we had to turn them back over to many of the worst neighborhoods of Philly. Just as the experience helped me to find my way and my voice, I am sure that the songs and stories that we shared each night at campfire are still a peart of those people's experience. what they do with it is ultimately up to them, but at least they heard the truth once in their lives.

Wherever you are, whatever station you find yourself in, never forget the powerful act of storytelling. Sharing your stories, especially if they help us to approach the most horrible truths safely, have the power to transform culture, inspire positive growth and change that has the power to outlive us. Be careful about the stories you choose to believe and even more careful about those you choose to share. The future of humanity may depend on making the right choices today. The planet surely does, and we all depend on the abundance of a healthy planet. As has been said many times before, you may be on the right track, but you will still get run over if you do nothing. Even something as ethereal as a story can help move our culture forward. Have fun and in closing, peace, Love and pass the ammunition!

When Will The Dark Overlords Learn-Humanity?

Many of us concern ourselves with the challenges of making sure that we have enough for survival, to keep our homes, have enough to eat, and perhaps, if we are lucky, a trusted companion to procreate with or at least raise children with moral values, a sense of truth, justice and compassion. The exception seem to be the same flesh and blood as us, but their motives, tally sheets and focus is on unrelenting deceit, their imagined power and the lust after all things physical. Our culture, or lack of one seems to have spawned a cadre of individuals who believe in Calvinism, though they probably never heard that name for it. their justification for abusing their power and squandering vast fortunes is that they alone, are "best suited" for their station. somehow the justification for their lust for money and the material wealth that it represents. After all, in their way of viewing the world, poor people could have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps if they were good and god fearing, loyal and true to those in higher stations, or just not been so lazy, hedonistic and devilish. Since I was a child, I mulled over the possibility that there might be some truth in their perspective, but over the years have learned that the exceptions in this area disprove the rule.

Fortunately there are those kind souls who do no wrong, care for others, often those they do not even know and those who take it upon themselves to live true to the holy books. A special few give ceaselessly throughout the year, inspired by their heart's message rather than those given to justify greed, self-aggrandizement and hatred for those who are different. The humility that comes from knowing that we are all just one stock market crash away from homelessness leads to a deeper level of giving, one that actually feels the pain of those we help. I know that for a time, I was in the position of a single parent. it changed forever any thoughts I may have had about the hows, whys and reasons for the ever increasing number of them in our country.

Another thing that has always concerned me is the root word of humanity being human. I can surely cop to being human, but the activities that pass for humanity are terribly out of step with what I have understood humanity to be for nearly half a century. Greed, deceit and hatred are decidedly inhuman. Research shows that human beings are innately compassionate, kind and giving. Only through abuse and/or neglect can they be made selfish, greedy and abusive to others. Why can't we understand this and change our ways? The terrible truth behind such phrases as boys will be boys, the old ball and chain and she asked for it is that they have been designed to provide cover for unacceptable behavior. If we cannot fathom the true costs of our blatant disregard for human welfare, needs and honor each and every person as a manifestation of possibility, then we truly have gone wrong. The dark overlords know that they cannot trumpet the truth behind scientific research into humanity, because it would admit the fact that they are unprepared to lead. We have been spoon fed a complete fabrication, developed over a century ago by those who could not fathom many scientific facts. The concept of limited resources and the competition for them that necessarily follows is what allowed domination of "primitives" and violent extraction of resources paired with missionaries filled with zeal.

Even though we have learned that these practices are bad, we forget to jettison the philosophy that they were based on. We need to teach, from the early years up, about the mistakes we have made along the way. How else can we expect the next generation to do better? Assuming that we are around several more generations, would we not rather leave a bit of the Earth cleaner than we found it, more liveable than we have made it or better suited to fulfill the needs of our relations over the next few hundred years? I have been on an Odessey that defies my own ability to explain Remaking my house better suited to life. More spacious without changing the footprint. It has been transformed into the essential space for flow. Is that not what life is all about anyway? Flow? Humans may be uniquely suited to ask the question, Who am I? Sadly, all too often we follow that with "What have I done?". Those who hold the lion's share of the marbles in the World today have been hurt deeply, cheated and led astray by a work of centuries that would have everyone believe that we survive by teeth and claw, rather than cooperation and compassionate sharing of what we hold most dear. It is actually sad that for so many fear and ignorance lead them to treat one another so terribly and that, so often, their actions are designed to keep others at a distance rather than really opening up to hear about their hopes, dreams and needs.

In the Procession of the Equinoxes, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius coincides with the next hundred and fifty or so years. Just like in the olden days, there were those who carried the water, and those who used it. In the Age of Pisces, we became used to the way things had been for centuries, it was just the age. The time is now to forge a new mythology, build the basis of a culture that respects, nay follows the water carriers. Lord and Lady know there has been too much masculine posturing for humanity's good. A great factoid has been traveling around the internet, about hockey, I believe it sums up my feelings about living in a male dominated world where power and privilege flow from your sex organs. The athletic cup, or hard plastic protector of the groin was in common use in hockey for one hundred years before the helmet became common. When we begin to live in the Aquarian age, we will never have to ask why some of these things occurred, because it will be self-evident. The shift from mankind to humankind may take hundreds of years, but without substantive change now, rest assured the folks with all the marbles would rather not share.

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.