Thanks for “Occupying” My Disillusionment—For a Moment

 

When I discovered that Occupy Wall Street had assembled in Zucotti Park in September of 2011, my heart swelled with renewed respect for America.

My mind raced to devour any information about the movement.

I thought Finally! The people have had enough! They are crawling out of their cubicles, turning off the propaganda machine, waking up from the consumer stupor, and realizing we have been economical hostages to a cognizant dissonance that is unmatched by anything in history.

I searched, I Googled, I Facebooked.

I went into the street of my hometown to stand in solidarity in front of Bank of America with a few people who would join me in holding up signs to spread the awakening.

I found a Facebook site, initiated by a local couple, contributing to the multitude of similar sites that were popping up exponentially, representing towns and cities all over the country—and gradually, the world. The site promoted information and called to unify local protesters.

I was intoxicated with hope and ecstatic at the possibilities of retrieving our democracy from the jaws of financial saboteurs, political sociopaths, and megalomaniac corporations.

I truly believed we had awakened from our sleep of insidious oppression and complacency to take back our freedom.

Yeah, that was a great moment.

Then the adrenaline, the motivation, and the optimism became fodder to a new social system with which I had no experience—the General Assembly.

The GA seemed like a great idea to communicate democratically and allow everyone an opportunity to be heard. I assumed it was akin to the United Nations General Assembly wherein all had equal representation.

The GA meetings in my town became the true revelation to me in regard to what “Occupied” really looked like.

People were kept occupied by the structure itself. The process became the new oppressor with redundant hand gesture education, blathering over who should be a facilitator, and disruptive reprimands toward those who had a difficult time adjusting to this legitimized surrogate for authentic communication.

I watched many people giving up in lieu of speaking up.

The exasperation at trying to make an inquiry or a point became too much effort for anyone who was not savvy at social conformity.

The General Assembly in my town fell prey to those who had experience at proselytizing and maneuvering social structures with adamant personal agendas.

It became a Specific Assembly with no general population.

I quit occupying my time with the General Assembly but continued supporting the encampment of protesters who had established themselves at the local park. I took coffee when I could. I donated items; tent, tarps, sleeping bags, signs and materials. I visited the camp and watched the streamed GA’s on the Internet to show my support and learn. But gradually I became less motivated by what I was seeing and hearing there.

Also what I was reading on the web page designated toward community involvement in our local chapter of the Occupy Movement became a point of contention between personal agendas and cooperative ideals.

It seemed that a handful of people who rode in under the banner of the occupy movement became transparent in their need to claim territory and notoriety for their personal causes at the expense of fracturing the bigger ideal of the community.

I observed petty disagreements rising to the surface to crumble the movement into curds of spoiled individual goals. I watched as the main community withdrew from the shrinking group that held meetings, claimed self-righteous suffrages, and adhered to their own vision of what the movement was about with little tolerance for other views or methodology.

I continue to write to representatives, hold sacred the power of the masses, boycott big banks, and oppose legislation that undermines our freedom while serving a corporatocracy.

I have moved my money to a local credit union, and moved my body into a new occupation of my time.

 

 

Thank You for Divine Unknown Statistics

Divination: noun

The practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.

Folks love to explore their future and learn about themselves through various forms of card, chart, stone, body, and  psychic readings with mystic interpretations.

We love to know the unknown.

But here are a few ironic facts that Psychics will not tell you unless you specifically request statistics…

People that report out of body experiences and detachment from their physical bodies do not spend less on groceries, clothing, and other tangibles.

Economic growth impact for out of body experiences =0%

Walking the Astral plane is not like Walkin’ in Memphis. One’s feet are generally more than ten feet off the ground in the former and there are no guitars.

Odds of writing a pop country tune from the Astral Plane =0%

Odds of seeing the ghost of Elvis there: 50%

You can not see germs, microbes, or the inner activities of a colon under a Horoscope.

Medical research contributions from the invention of the Horoscope =0 %

Oracles and Mediums can’t channel spirits with laryngitis.

The odds of a spirit guide getting bronchitis correlates directly to the number of germs seen under a Horoscope— 0%.

Statistically, when a palm reader tells you that you are going to experience financial losses, she is always right.

Paying her fee proves her prophecy — 100%

Statistics for Past Life Readers telling you that you were an insignificant slob in history, instead of an Egyptian Princess = 8.7%.

I did not have to research any of these statistics.

They came to me in a dream.

Thank You for Not Washing My Internet with SOPA

This Blog will be Blacked Out on January 18, 2012 in Protest of SOPA

FREEDOM OF SPEECH MEANS NOT ALLOWING THE GOVERNMENT TO WASH OUT YOUR MOUTH WITH SOPA!

Thank you for Metamorphosis, Mutation, and Transformation

Sometimes change is just an illusion, not quite integrated, a visual veneer that doesn’t make it into the real fabric.
It’s kind of like a mean, unhappy person with an expensive face lift. The face lift is not a true transformation, but the surface change may contribute to a metamorphosis of the person by creating different responses from others around that person.

“When you smile the whole world smiles with you.”

This can induce a gradual change into a happy-almost adjusted-only-needed-a-little-validation-and-acceptance-person. It can also just confuse the hell out of everybody.
For a genuine transformation, there has to be more going on than verbal proclamations or painting over a dilapidated building.
Real metamorphosis must go all the way in, penetrate the chrysalis, mutate the conceptual genes of the transformee.
Authentic change is not like a corporation that can out source it’s labor pool, exploit the environment, and still appear economically stable and friendly in it’s home town. It’s not a nation that can legislate behavior to force it’s populace to be “nice” to each other, without being “nice” to it’s populace.
Real transformation has to penetrate the complete picture, the whole person, all the parts of the entity.
Sometimes we think we have changed or that someone we love has changed or that times have changed.

Have we? Have they?
Is life Mutable? I think it might be.
I want to mutate into the best human I can be to contribute to a transformation in the whole of which I am a miniscule part. It is the only way I know to instigate a metamorphosis—start with one gene at a time.

This is not so easy, but I am attempting to adapt without resistance.

Thank You for Not Driving me Crazy

If you can drive a stick shift, drink coffee, smoke a cigarette, talk on the phone, and tune your radio, simultaneously as you fix your hair in the rear view mirror and search for a map under your passenger seat, while brushing the crumbs from an Egg Mc Muffin off your center console and maintaining the speed limit…

You are probably reading this from your laptop on your dashboard.

Hi.

I’m the lady behind you, in the Jeep Cherokee, with red hair, grasping my steering wheel with both hands, wondering if this 4×4 Jeep is tough enough to swerve around a traveling sideshow without tipping over in front of oncoming traffic.

Yep, that’s me in the corner of your rear view mirror, behind your perfect hairdo.

You probably can’t hear me, but I can hear the music coming from your car— even with that diesel truck passing us both on the left.

Can you see me in your half turned rear view mirror, with my mouth wide open, yelling at the top of my lungs?

“Hey!  Your coat is hanging from the bottom of your car door!”

I hope you are getting this on your laptop, because that looks like an expensive coat.

Oh good, you’re opening the car door with your coffee hand at 60 miles per hour.

Ah, that nice coat is tucked safely back inside the door.

Now that I know you’re reading this, here’s what I really wanted to tell you….

I like your bumper stickers…

My Other Car is a Broom

and

Jesus is My Copilot

That other car is probably going to come in handy later—for your insurance company when they sweep you off the highway.

You probably should have let Jesus hold your coffee while you were reading this.

Thank You for Waving in the Middle of Nowhere

Have you ever been on a desolate country road, far away from home, and have a local farmer wave at you like you might be his neighbor?

I always wave back and feel like I suddenly belong there.

Waving started out as a distress signal because one can make oneself noticed from a distance. It has evolved into a greeting of Hello or Goodbye over the years. (except in some parts of Europe where it actually means No)

Waving is one of those gestures that allows us to let our guard down.

The act of being acknowledged with an open hand is comforting. It’s like saying, “See? Nothin’ up my sleeve!” or “I come in peace.” or “Here, read my palm so you can know who I am.”

We have to raise our arms to wave at someone so we must leave our bodies a little vulnerable. It’s an act of trust as well as an offering.

Imagine a world where everyone waved at strangers like those farmers on country roads.

We could all feel like we belong here.

Photo: http://www.wcs.org/

Thank You for Human Touch

We are beings who need to touch and be touched.

Marasmus is a form of malnutrition that occurs in babies who do not metabolize proteins. Research has shown that babies who are deprived of touch can develop and even die of this disease— even if they are well fed.

Touch is a part of our developmental process (starting in the womb, skin and the nervous system are connected in the role of primary assimilation of information).

The deprivation of human touch can cause all manner of developmental problems in babies.

The lack of human touch in adults can also cause some trouble with our sense of well being and even our physical health.

The distressing part of loneliness in our culture of individuals who pride themselves in independence and self reliance is the lack of human touch.

Yeah, we have lots of human “contact” over the phone, on the internet, on the street, at work, etc.

But if you live alone without spouse or family, many days can pass without human touch and it can actually hurt you when those days add up to a big chunk of your life.

Deprivation of touch can make your chest ache when you are trying to fall asleep. It can eventually make you jumpy, anxious, or even depressed.

I am so fortunate to have friends to hug or folks that touch my arm when they talk to me.

Though I am not a real touchy-feely kind of gal, I am thankful for the touch of others and all that it adds to my  well being.

Hey, reach out and touch someone!

Thank You for Do Overs

The end draws near.

Tonight… all the mistakes you made, all those things you wish you would not have said, all the opportunities you screwed up, all the junk food you devoured, all the toys you broke, all the changes you forgot to make, and all the ugly clothes you wore in public because everything else was in the laundry, will disappear at midnight.

At precisely 12:01, in whatever time zone you live, a stranger will kiss you on the forehead and yell “Do Overs!” and run away.

You will awake in the morning, smelling of champagne, with confetti stuck to your neck, mumbling “Who slobbered on my eyebrow?”

As you shuffle your way toward the coffee pot, it will hit you like a party horn blast and angels will sing (a little too loud) and you will realize you are the recipient of a shiny new gift that no one can take away—another year of your life!

Congratulations, you get 365 more days to try it again!

Happy New Year!

Thank You for Gargoyles, Water Spouts, and Listerine

The origin of gargoyles —those scary lookin’ creatures on Gothic churches and in some modern gardens— has a different root in different cultures, mostly as a functional water spout with mythological story telling agendas.

The word “Gargoyle” is linked to the french “gargouille” meaning throat and Latin “Gurgulio” meaning, uh, throat. And it sounds a lot like gurgle or gargle.

So you take a throat, add some Listerine, make a gurgling sound, and you got gargoyles!

Architecturally, gargoyles served to keep water moving from the roof corners of ancient buildings— the water made gurgling sounds as it moved from the roof through the throat, and out of the open mouth of the gargoyle.

Long before Home Depot came up with deep throated rain gutters, gargoyles were guarding us from roof damage.

But why are they so demonic and creepy looking?

Because humans love dual function and some religious guy said “Hey, if we gotta put these things on the roof, why not make them look like creatures so we can scare the bejeezus outa Pagans and encourage them to be good Catholics and bring us cattle and vegetables and stuff! … Amen.”

Actually, there are a lot of stories about grotesque figures, griffins, open mouthed fertility gods, and monastic faces without bodies that go along with gargoyle mythology, but my favorite one is about how gargling with Listerine can keep germs away and give you nice breath so people will bring you their cows and vegetables and stuff.

The gargoyle is our friend.

Thank You for All the Roads to Here

There is no There, only Here.

Every time I try to get there, I end up here.

Interestingly, everyone else ends up here too.

It does not seem so crowded as one would imagine.

Sometimes I think too much.

I think about Where I am going, with a capital W.

Will I get there?

What happens when I get There.

I’ll tell you what happens…

I end up here without a capital T.

I have done a lot of traveling, all over the physical world, far away to the imagination world, and deep into the tiny dark corners of my own internal world.

I have been to Here and back.

All roads do NOT lead to Rome.

They lead to Here.

I am thankful to be Here today.

And I am very thankful you are here with me.

Thank You for Cereal Killers

I don’t eat breakfast.

But if I did, I think cereal is probably not the fuel for my day.

It’s like starting the day with dessert, there would be nothing to look forward to after dinner.

That just kills cereal for me in the morning.

The word “Cereal” comes from the ancient goddess of the harvest, “Ceres”.

I never knew she was the goddess of Sugar Cane and High Fructose Corn Syrup. I thought she was all about the grains and corn and such.

I wonder if she ever even met Count Chocula.

The profit margins on breakfast cereal are somewhere between 40% and 90%.

If that’s not a cereal killer, then maybe this will deter you from sending Jonny and little Marybeth off to preschool with a load o’ marketing in their tiny bellies.

There is actually a company called “Sanitarium” (owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church) that makes cereal—and Weet-Bix too!

Be afraid.

Kellogg’s is in Battle Creek, Michigan. Wanna know why they call it Battle Creek?

Be afraid.

General Mills is a fortune 500 company that also markets Betty Crocker.

Maybe their cereal slogan should be “Let them eat cake.”

Be afraid.

Quaker Oats?

In the 1950s, researchers from Quaker Oats Company, MIT and Harvard University carried out experiments to determine how the nutrients from cereals traveled through the body. Parents of mentally challenged children were asked for permission to let their children be members of a Science Club at their school. States, such as Massachusetts, also volunteered children who were wards of the state for the program. One well-known school that did these experiments was Walter E. Fernald State School. Being a member of the Science Club gave the children special privileges. The parents were told that the children would be fed with a diet high in nutrients. They were not, however, told (and the consent form contained no information indicating) that the food their children were fed was laced with radioactive calcium and iron. The information obtained from the experiments was to be used as part of an advertising campaign. The company was later sued because of the experiments. The lawsuit was settled on December 31, 1997, as chronicled in the book The State Boy’s Rebellion by Michael D’Antonio.

Be afraid.

Be very afraid of the Cereal Killers

Thank You for the Destiny of Raindrops

People are like Rain.

You can observe almost every personality type, every limited belief system, every social behavior, by watching raindrops on a window pane.

You can personify each individual raindrop, name it, and watch it glide to it’s destiny.

I usually attribute my own name to the raindrop that takes the path of least resistance, zig zagging across the pane, barely touching other raindrops on it’s gravitational path.

Some raindrops get stuck.

They don’t seem to move until some other raindrop comes along and adds weight to their path.

Others hit the window pane and fall straight to the bottom, clinging to all the raindrops in their way, taking them down.

There are raindrops that stay along the edges, spending their lives being absorbed into the window frame.

There are raindrops that stand in the spot where they landed, untouched by other raindrops, separate, just waiting… for the sun to come out and evaporate them.

Once in a while there is a raindrop that seems to defy gravity, appearing to ascend, quivering in resistance, catching a random gust of wind that lifts it, upward, above the others.

Little raindrops, cleaving to the glass, creating patterns that will define their existence, running into each other, resisting the fall, growing larger when they unite with others, creating new paths of direction in their connections, influenced by the winds of fate, making beauty.

The only way for a raindrop to get past the pane is through an open window.

Thank you Sharon, for living as long as I do, just the way you are.

A friend of mine is very sick and may leave us soon, to return to where ever it is that humans return when they are done lighting and loving the way for others.

She has a devoted husband and family around her and many who love her.

I have made the conscious decision to not watch her die.

I have made the conscious decision to keep her alive for as long as I live.

For as long as I live and my mind is in tact, my friend Sharon will live as I think of her, speak of her, laugh at her antics, and reminisce on the magical moments, the silly miscommunications, the very clear conversations, the clever quotes, and all the love and revelations that have changed my life for knowing Sharon.

Sharon will live in Las Vegas. She will live in Jackson California, in San Francisco, Napa, Bellingham, Marina Del Rey, and every other place we’ve been together that has enough room in my head for her giant smile. A smile I will keep, without allowing mortality to taint it. I will not watch her smile be stolen in front of my eyes.

It is not every friend that a person can do this with.

Most would make you feel guilty, or tug at your heart with all those traditional things you are “supposed to” feel and behave accordingly.

Sharon has never really been traditional in that sense. She would never allow “supposed to” to dictate her behavior or encourage anyone else to let it control his or her own.

As a friend, maybe I’m supposed to go sit by her bedside and watch her body betray her by imprisoning her enormous spirit in an increasingly tiny body.

Maybe I’m supposed to call her every day and ask “How are you feeling?” so that she can be brave and make jokes, and exhaust her precious energy to make me feel better about her pain.

Maybe I’m supposed to go to her house and help her to the bathroom or fluff the pillows under her fragile head and fix the blanket over her numb limbs.

Maybe I’m supposed to read her stories, entertain her, talk about the autumn leaves that she cannot enjoy or walk through as she dozes in and out of the conversation.

Maybe I’m supposed to act according to the social rules that say you must treat the dying  in a way you never treated them when they felt strong and vibrant.

Supposed to is not how Sharon lives.

She often says there is no “I love you, therefore…”

She says even more frequently, “I love you.”

For that and many other reasons, I will give Sharon all the years I have left to live as she is known by me.

Presently, from the other side of town, she is looking at me through those bright blue eyes that will never close, and she is quoting Werner Erhard…. “You are perfect exactly the way you are.”

This photo was taken by another friend. I like it because it has the maternal figure in the background that demonstrates unconditional love.   Sharon is like that.

Addendum:

OBITUARY

GUEST BOOK

Thank You for The Light

It seems a lot of folks are in the dark about the future these days.

People are losing their homes, being laid off from jobs, and lost in the dark forest, where the American Dream is sound asleep.

Though we are placing our hope in words we need to hear, we don’t really know how those words will manifest into truth quite yet.

Things seem a little undefined but change is immanent, eminent, and imminent .

We have a new Guardian in the White House but it seems some of his minions come from the same old dark castle.

I am hoping they will see the light and show us a way out of the evil forest, through the fog and into the new future we are hoping for.

I am trying to see the light but some of those old tree branches are between me and my view of the light.

Still, I am thankful for any light at all.

Photo by me

Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night, 

Old age should burn and rave at close of day; 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 

Because their words had forked no lightning they 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight 

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 

Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I wanna believe.

Photo by me again

Thank you for Occupying a Cold Reality and Not Freezing My Ass Off While You Do the Right Thing.

 

 

 

How come I’m sitting here at my computer with a vicious cold while Wall Street Criminals are sitting at a fine dining establishment, enjoying some haughty conversation and relegating the Occupy Wall Street Movement to entertainment for Fox News zombies?

Okay,  I marched. I stood with my sign. I donated supplies from my meager camping gear and limited resources.  I moved my money out of Bank of America into a Credit Union two years ago. I drove to Seattle. I stood outside in my hometown. I went to a few General Assemblies. I learned new social skills. I laughed. I cried. I yelled. I sat silently and listened.

I caught a cold.

I am thrilled to see people taking to the streets. I am ecstatic that my fellow Americans are refusing to be pushed around by playground Bull-ies and greedy war mongers and Banksters. I admire the passion that is rising from those who, increasingly, have nothing left to lose and I am a big fan of having a big mouth.

Now.

Now I have a cold.

All my bravado, all my rage at the machine, all my righteous indignation has been funneled into a flesh bag of mucus and fever dreams.

The occupier’s creed is to occupy Wall St until change happens. I respect that fortitude and I will offer whatever I can to assist.

But sitting here with my box of tissues and my sudden revelation that I am a woman in her fifties with a low threshold to bad weather and a stressed immune system, I must explore options to pneumonia martyrdom. I must learn what that change looks like. I must figure out  how I will recognize the signal that it is time to go pick up my loaned tent from the local occupy camp.

I’m not an academic, not a politician, not an economist, or even an articulate speaker of observations. But I am a human being with eyes and ears (and a stuffy nose). I can see the devastation that has been ravaging through our democracy at the hands of those who have sold out their own children to a perilous future for instant gratification of their greed.

While I can’t head out to the occupation camp in my down comforter, all hopped up on cold medication, to support the movement, I do have a moment to reflect on why I think it is important and why I think the movement better get focused on what tangible change would send everybody back home before all those wonderful people camping in the snow and rain catch my cold.

Personally, I would settle for a little bit of simplification within the present system.

How about 3 simple steps that leaders can execute to prove they mean it when they say they are for the people and not the financiers of a toxic inequality?

3 Simple Steps:

(These are just the ideas of an under-educated and limited woman who talks to her cat and paints pretty pictures, but you smart politicians could have your writers put these 3 simple steps into more palatable words, I’m certain.

 

Step 1: Tax Reforms

Shred the incomprehensible, convoluted Tax Code and establish a simple, and clear process that allows us to support our nation in a way that justifies our participation.

Enact a new Tax Code in which *everyone pays the same percentage of income tax across the board.

*Everyone who derives income from employment, accrued interest, real estate rentals, exchange of goods or services, donations, or revenue within the United States of America, separate from retirement plans.

They are;

• Working Individuals and Sole Proprietors
• Small Businesses
• Corporations
• Dividend Traders and Moneychangers
• Trust Fund Beneficiaries (on previously untaxed interest only)
• Churches
• Foreign Contractors selling goods or services in the United States
• Politicians
• Landlords and Property Leasers
• All persons or bodies who receive monetary benefit using American infrastructure, services, commerce, employees, congregations, tenants, or clientele.

No double taxation on any transference of property, capital, or inheritances except toward a previously untaxed additional income generated by the recipient of such.

Eliminate those complicated tax credits and loopholes designed to benefit the few.

Tax credits will be limited to those who monetarily contribute to Public Services and Utilities (PSU defined below) in which they are not personally or financially associated.

Those tax credits shall be in direct proportion to contributions.

Add an individual tax credit stipend applied to every American who votes.

All American citizens shall hold the right and responsibility to vote, which cannot be revoked for any reason, no matter how many times they get arrested for smoking pot.

Election days shall be considered an American holiday and treated accordingly, with paid time off to workers so they can exercise voting rights and responsibility without financial reprisal.

Nonprofit and tax exempted 501c3 organizations shall be integrated into Public Services and Utilities if they’re really doing something for the public.

All religious or faith-based entities shall be considered private industry separate from Public Services and Utilities and shall be taxed according to income minus PSU contributions.

Step 2: Social Reforms and Establishing the Public Services and Utilities

There will be no privately owned Public Services and Utilities and all public services and utilities will be supported by tax dollars and individual donations with any profits derived to be reinvested into Public Services and Utilities.

Anything paid for with our tax dollars shall be owned by us.

 

All American citizens will have equal access to Public Services and Utilities and shall be charged a sliding scale fee determined by income at the time of service. This fee will be considered a public services and utilities contribution and be eligible for tax credit.

There will be no preferential treatment given to any American citizen for access to Public Services and Utilities for any reason.

All Patents affecting the well being of American citizens shall be publicly owned with awards and monetary incentives given to individual innovators for the public good.

Scientists, engineers, and innovators shall be considered contractors of Public Services and Utilities and paid the same as government officials.

PSU Divisions:

*Public Services and Utilities shall be defined as structures, services, and institutions established for the benefit of all American citizens and governed by public vote.

Pay scale for employment positions in PSU, as well as elected political representatives, shall be determined by public vote.

• Education
• Health and Medicine (to include medical patents, healthcare services, and medical institutions)
• Food and Environment (to include public parks and lands as well as sustainable food production, food safety, farming guidelines, and food manufacturing and enforcement of negative ecological impact fines)
• Transportation (to include infrastructure maintenance and development, efficient and sustainable modes of public transportation and travel)
• Public News Media and Broadcasting
• Utilities (to include Water and Sanitation, Energy Resources, Public Banking,)
• Public Safety
• Industry and Production Facilitations
• Other Divisions Determined By Someone Smarter Than Me

Step 3: Political Reforms

• Eliminate private or special interest lobbyists.

• Only publicly elected representatives shall approach other publicly elected officials to represent public interest.

• Election campaigns shall be publicly financed through tax exempt donations, not to exceed 100.00 per individual and shall be promoted by publicly owned news media only.

• Public news media coverage shall be free of charge to persons running for offices to represent the people.

• All campaign platforms shall be in accordance to issues submitted by American citizens.

• Taxes will no longer be an acceptable platform for political campaigns.

• All public officials are subject to the same laws and codes of the general public and in accordance with PSU shall be paid equally to all PSU employees and contractors.

Thank you for Evicting the 1%

Notice of Eviction to the 1%

You have hypnotized us with svengali financial subversion to our democracy.

You have taken our jobs and replaced them with credit cards and bankster loans, promulgating a dangerous illusion that we still had opportunity to afford an American dream.

Under hypnosis, administered through your store bought media and marketing conglomerates, we were deceived and coerced into destructive consumerism to feed your interests in the oligarchy and elitist 1 %.

This occupy movement announces our wake up from conglomerate and financial hypnotism.

We have snapped our fingers and awakened.

And in this moment of awakening, our anger surfaces as a clear catalyst for change and reform.

We’re not talking about waiting on some vacant promise of change, here.

We’re talking about making this change now.

All across this country we are rising from hypnosis, snapping our own fingers, to demand that you withdraw your manipulations from our Democracy, our Legislative Process, our Representatives, and our Country.

We reclaim our Government.

You will no longer infiltrate our political system with your insidious lobbyists and coercive financial terrorist tactics.

We reclaim our jobs and initiate our own businesses.

You will no longer outsource our livelihoods to exploit desperate peoples of third world nations.

And we will wean ourselves from the products of the exploited.

We reclaim our children.

You will no longer engage them to fight and die in your profit wars under the guise of patriotic slogans and deceit. Nor will you steal their educational institutions.

We reclaim our public broadcasting.

We shun your mouthpieces and financial hostages of privatization in the field of journalism.

We reclaim our stolen money.

We withdraw your life support and redirect our finances into credit unions and public owned banks.

We will no longer be controlled through fear of your vapid threats to damage our credit scores.

We are not pieces of plastic or paper numbers that you can manipulate.

We are people and we will not serve you as political or financial tenant farmers on our own land.

Consider this a notice of eviction as the next step in our awakening.

We destroy your liens and leases on us. We cut up your credit cards.

Your credibility and your credit is no good here anymore.

The 99%                The fall of your power over us….Priceless.

The fall of your power over us….Priceless.

Thank You for My One Demand: Prosecute Financial Terrorists via the USA PATRIOT Act

One Demand

Prosecute perpetrators of Financial Domestic Terrorism under current United States law set forth in the USA PATRIOT Act. The prosecution shall commence at a Citizen Tribunal, established by populist vote.

A list of Corporate “Persons” and individual Financial Terrorists accused, with the charges against them, will be submitted by American citizens through peaceful and civil means and shall be collected through legal channels set forth in the USA PATRIOT Act, Title II, Section 215 Advanced Surveillance procedures upon establishment of the above said Citizen Tribunal.

The above charges include but are not limited to;

Insidious use of financial terrorism and coercion, as defined in the USA PATRIOT Act, against the American government, representatives, and American citizens in an evident attempt to undermine and destroy our democracy by way of subversive manipulation of our financial system and the American citizens who own it.

Any Government Official discovered to be in collusion with perpetrators of said crimes of financial terrorism and coercion may be tried for treason against the American People in conjunction with the prosecution of financial terrorists at the Citizens Tribunal.

The punishment for the above said crime, separate from treason, shall be incarceration at a facility with no privatized media to protect the American People from further coercive terrorism.

In addition to incarceration, the convicted shall be fined in the amount of all monies derived from crimes committed.  All fines collected shall be confiscated from privatized banks and placed in people owned banks and credit unions to be applied to the following:

Reparation of damages to the Democracy of the American People, their Educational System, Environment, Financial Institutions, Health and Agriculture, and all other damages incurred through Conglomerate irresponsibility and criminal financial coercion.

Please note the comprehensive fine print below;

We the people, will no longer serve as pawns on the chessboard of the Oligarchy. Check Mate.

Under current United States law, set forth in the

USA PATRIOT Act acts of domestic terrorism are those which:

“(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

Coercion noun;

force, compulsion, constraint, duress, oppression, enforcement, harassment, intimidation, threats, arm-twisting, pressure.

 

occupywallst I thank you for inspiring me.

Thank You for The New Religion of Politics

“Religion is the opiate of the Masses.” -Karl Marx

“Politics is the placebo that placates the powerless into hoping for change so they will be more easily herded into submission to the corporate agenda” – Lea Kelley

Has the political system changed or was it always this insidious, always a shill to keep the people feeding it with blood, sweat, and tears?

Has organized religion always been this way? Or has it changed to mimic the very system from which it is exempt from paying taxes and to keep the people feeding it with  donations and tithes?

A society is based on economy.

Whoever controls the economy controls the masses.

Economy is the opiate of the masses.

Religion has found a new Opium—Faith Based Non-profits.

These faith based non-profits are designed to take the burden from Government run social service programs while accepting money from government contracts and grants.

Same system, different tone of voice.

The statue of liberty does not look as pretty next to a crucifix.

Is it the fear of what would happen that keeps us adhering to this blatant illusion of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of being saved by Jesus?

Why are we not bailing ourselves out instead of bailing out the cling-ons from JP Morgan’s philosophy of finance?

Why are we not saving ourselves instead of asking the church to save us?

It’s all in the marketing, all in the verbiage of a mission statement, all in the documentation of revenue disbursement, eh?

Marketing is the new opiate of the masses.

I’m having a day of disillusionment.

Thank You for Counterfeit Stability and the New Humility

Every time I talk to someone I hear about another person who has lost their job, must move from their home, or is looking for a new way to survive in these uncertain times.

The system we have been using is not working for many of us.

We have traded our place in the cooperative tribe for an individual rung on the corporate ladder leading to nowhere.

The ladder is collapsing and some of us are caught on the broken rungs.

As I watch friends and acquaintances extricate themselves from these broken rungs, with splinters in their hands, I am wondering where we go from here.

What is the alternative?

How do we return to stability for our families and security for the future?

Is there such a thing anymore?

We have bought into the illusion of stability with counterfeit dollars and inflated our survival with the helium of false pride while we have insulated our illusions with superfluous consumer goods and shiny toys to represent our success in this system.

We did not succeed. We merely hand fed the whales at the top with capital plankton until they got too fat and fell on us.

Now what?

Here we are, surrounded by whale fat and broken ladders. It’s humiliating.

We don’t have the fortitude to go back to the drawing board, right?

We don’t have another two hundred years to start over.

Some of us don’t even have two months before we are looking at moving into our car.

Remember those folks who didn’t fit in well? The ones who couldn’t seem to get the hang of Capitalism, the under-educated from lower class backgrounds?

We told them to “Go get a job at McDonalds, Pull yourself up by the boot straps, Make your own opportunities—adapt!”

Maybe they will not judge us for not knowing.

Maybe they always new it was counterfiet and they can teach us how to be humble enough to live like there is a tomorrow.

Maybe they will teach us how to survive these interesting times. They’ve been practicing for decades.

Thank You for Initiation into the Small Tribes

One of the oldest rituals is the initiation ritual.

Some religions and social groups have elaborate rites and ceremonies to bring in the sheaves from the fields of Humanity.

Others are very subtle. A person may not even notice they are being initiated until they are face to face with the Grand Poobah of our tribe.

We introduce people to family and friends, keeping a close eye on their response and the reception of other members.

We test people for endurance and extract information to assess viability of newcomers into our clan, neighborhood, clique, group, or family.

We seem to like folks who are like us, but even if they look different than us we like to think they are willing to do what we will do to be a part of our tribe.

We are clannish, us humans. We like to stick together. Yet, we like to make it challenging to be a part of our tribe.

There are dues to pay, trust to establish, commitments to make.

Fraternity hazing is an initiation. Being baptized is an initiation. Marrying the Farmer’s daughter is an initiation.

Paying club house dues comes in many forms—some of them are not so obvious to the initiate.

A social initiation can be established and tribal bonds tied with some very interesting threads or dues to prove worthiness.

Do you know of any tribes that incorporate these initiation rituals?

Suffer for us 

Suffer with us

Give us your stuff or money

Conform to our beliefs, superstitions, ideas, or behaviors

Bring us a present or an offering

Pee on your motorcycle jacket and wear it to a dangerous bar

Beat up one of our enemies

Learn our complex secret codes and never speak of them again

Eat something strange like a drug, a goldfish, or horse meat cooked in the tradition of our family

Play Truth or Dare

Shed blood, sweat, or tears for the sake of us

Smoke this cigarette and don’t tell Mom

Kill some guy named Vinny

Start out as our slave and struggle your way to being our boss.

redress yourself to look like us

Buy stuff that we buy

Be an individual, just like us

There, now you’re in!

Thank You for Hybrid Humanoids and Terminator Seeds

With the advent of pesticides, biotechnology, genetic patents, and other nature altering mechanisms like the terminator seed, we are depleting our historical roots to nature and becoming more dependent on corporate farming—which is not like farming at all, but more like production.

The terminator seed creates a crop that does not reproduce a second generation of seeds.

My mom might have had a couple of these seeds in her womb.

Only one of her four offspring had progeny.

I wonder if my mom ever talked to anybody at Monsanto about this.

If Human seed production fell prey to the same corporate patents and gene splicing that food has been subjected to, we might be a little bit more resistant to pestilence, but we probably wouldn’t need to worry about our offspring—on account of… we wouldn’t have any.

We are beginning to see some of the ramifications of not adhering to that old adage “Don’t mess with Mother Nature.”

I’m wondering how far we will let this go before we understand that we really will reap what we sow.

Presently, humans cross pollinate.

We have the capacity to generate our own seeds and plant them wherever we want.

Nature likes it like that.

It creates human diversity and healthy people if they don’t breed with their cousins.

But what would happen if Monsanto decided they wanted to patent human seeds and create a terminator gene for a more sturdy crop of humanoids?

What if they told us it would better the world, alleviate diseases, and create a bountiful crop of shiny, happy people holding hands?

But what if the catch was…

There’s only going to be one crop of these people because they have a genetically modified terminator gene?

If you wanted more people, you’d have to buy breed seeds from the folks who held the patent and eliminated all the previous breed seeds through propaganda and lawsuits against organic birth givers.

Then what?

I’m just sayin’.

Maybe we should reconsider where we plant a terminator.

Thank You for Love and Memorex

Is it Love, or is it Memorex?

I think if a person takes the time to get through all the different stages of love without abandoning the endeavor, that amazing things can happen.

I also believe that once you have loved a person, you can never unlove them.

The initial experience of love may transform into other types and stages of love, but you can never take it back, or put it back into the original packaging the way you discovered it.

It’s astounding, the way time and love work so well together to metamorph into something one could not have imagined— if you let them.

My favorite kind of love—aside from the love of humanity— is that kind that has lasted over decades, gone through transformations, seen everyone at their worst and continued along the bumpy road to the comfort of balance and loyalty, many years later.

It’s hard to come by, because it takes years to develop.

In this culture of immediate gratification and fantasy romance perspectives, we often give up when things don’t flow as smoothly as they do in the movies.

We are quick to move on, looking for other fish in the sea, or we try to capture the spark in some other match, instead of nurturing the initial flame of the one in our own hand.

I think this may have something to do with the way we address conflict in our lives.

We seem to think conflict is a bad thing, something to be avoided, or to flee from.

Love is loaded with conflict.

But these conflicts are magical opportunities that teach us so much about ourselves through the eyes of another.

Love is not limited to romantic partnering, child parent relationships, or siblings.

Love is also something that blesses friendships and other kinds of human interaction.

If we take all the stages of love and apply it to every kind of human relationship, I think we could experience many of our interactions with a little more understanding and perhaps a different perspective about what we are cultivating with our fellow human beings.

I think we could apply these stages to friendships, work relationships, casual community encounters, and all manner of communications, even a single conversation.

(1) mutual attraction, commonalities,

(2) romance, idealism, or effort toward the highest part of ourselves

(3) passion, intense agreement, personal connection

(4) intimacy, trust, acceptance, and acknowledgment of flaws, balanced by keeping the highest qualities in mind

(5) commitment, loyalty, and the intention to cultivate understanding without withdrawing during the conflicts or giving up when the two sides of an interaction do not look identical.

Yeah, I think maybe if I live my whole life like it’s one long love relationship, that maybe in the end I may discover that it was the real thing, not just Memorex.

Thank You for Green Pills (eco-pharmaceuticals?)

When I was a kid, the older folks would say “Don’t be such a pill! Go outside and play.”

This was their response to questions they did not want to answer, and my first negative association with the word Pill.

Then I discovered Pill bugs, a hard pill to swallow, pill box hats, and She took the easy way out with a handful of pills. 

“THE Pill”  was the symbol of sexual freedom and the portent of dread if one “forgot to take her pill”.

There were pill parties (probably still) in which prescriptions of the attendees would be mixed in a big bowl on the coffee table like a party snack and randomly selected for the ultimate mystery adventure.

These memories are from a time when pharmaceutical companies were prohibited from advertising their wares to the public.

These days, there is a pill for anything which we find difficult to accept as human beings.

We are a pill popping society of legal drug addicts, imprisoning derelicts who don’t get their coping problems solved through socially acceptable “drug dealers”.

The word “Medication” has replaced the word “Pills” in our vocabulary.

I once met an old guy in San Francisco that called Bourbon his “Medicine”. People chuckled at this like he was one clever fellow to disguise his blatantly destructive alcoholism under the blanket of acceptable disease prevention.

Laudanum (opium tincture) was called “Medicine” and dispensed in the early 19th century to cure every ailment (including attitude) under the sun.  It was also cheaper than a bottle of wine at that time.

We know what followed that brilliant stroke of ingenious pharmacopoeia!

I am in no way implying that I am adverse to the amazing discoveries in medicine which have healed, cured, and continue to alleviate genuine medical conditions that are unbearable to the sufferer. My own mother was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and I am convinced her medication saved her life and prevented further violence to others—even with the drawbacks and sad side effects.

I also have friends that would not be here without life saving medical intervention and treatment plans for which I am grateful.

But…

My concern (and confusion) is with the marketing and promulgation of pills to the general public as miracles and problem solvers to replace coping skills and promote “the easy way out with a handful of pills”.

I wonder where this will lead.

I wonder who is really benefitting from this new pharmacopoeia?

I also wonder why we think it’s okay to eat pills from pharmaceutical companies but it’s not okay to smoke plants from the Earth.

This does not seem to be a “Green” philosophy (unless the green has a picture of a US president on it).

Thank You for Accepting the Pariah to Starve the Piranha

Pariah: Outcast, persona non grata, undesirable, black sheep, unperson, nonperson

Piranha: A freshwater fish that typically lives in schools and has very sharp teeth that are used to tear flesh from prey.

It has a reputation as a fearsome predator.

Which came first, the Pariah or the Piranha?

In this society, when you banish a person from the social order, making  them a pariah, or outcast, you may be creating a survival machine, feeling alone, on it’s own, without community or emotional connection to others.

This could relegate them to becoming a piranha or predator of that social order to survive.

Social Pariah are not born.

They are created by us.

They are created with our intolerance, our judgmental opinions about different, and our ignorance and lack of acceptance in regard to others.

Piranha are born with razor sharp teeth but their mouths are generally very tiny.

They are often schooled by groups of other piranha because they are less likely to survive all alone.

Pariah frequently find Piranha to hang out with, because piranhas will hang out with anyone they might be able to eat, and pariahs get lonely, in need of friends, so they adapt to the piranha lifestyle and learn to survive.

The process of making a piranha out of a pariah is really obvious in this culture.

Look at the prison system, the division of social classes, and an educational system that leaves so many behind, to lose their way in the dark waters of ignorance, seeking a place to belong.

We all seek a place to belong.

So the next time you feel like excommunicating someone from your church, or disowning a person from your family, or kicking someone out of your neighborhood, or ignoring a plea for acceptance into your elitist clique by a person you consider undesirable, stop and think of this:

They may come back to bite you on the ass —or chew off your leg!

Thank You for Important Messy People

Some folks believe that cluttered desks and messy spaces are indicative of a spontaneous, over achieving person who accomplishes more when surrounded by chaos.

Einstien had a notoriously messy desk.

But that’s like saying a Zen monestary invites dullards and sloths.

I’m no Einstein.

Too much clutter inhibits my creative faculties.

Nor am I a Monk.

But I can concentrate better when my environment is clutter free.

Some people say “ I don’t have time to clean my house, I have too many other things to do with my time.”

I have seen this in action and believe it to be true.

Often that time is used looking for keys, trying to find a clean cup for their coffee, apologizing to guests for lack of available seating, moving things around to find other things they need, and mumbling I know it’s here somewhere while a friend is being held hostage, waiting for the book borrowed two weeks ago to be returned.

If that time was used to put things away instead of searching for them, would their lives run more smoothly?

Probably not.

I have a theory that these messy folks want to believe they are busier than the average person.

If you cleaned up their desk you would probably find only two or three things that were actually on one of their many to do lists, pasted all over the place.

But that messy desk gives the illusion that they are an Einstein.

Some overworked folks keep things messy as a visual reminder that they are not available for silly questions or superfluous errands.

It keeps the wolves of expectation at bay.

It also reinforces the notion that the messy person is very important in their busy-ness.

They have an important life to tend to.

In a culture where the average person takes on more than is humanly possible to accomplish, messiness is becoming more of a defense mechanism and justification to reject any more pending tasks.

It is a way of saying leave me alone for a minute, I am overwhelmed —see?

There was a time when one would be embarrassed by a lack of housekeeping skills.

This no longer applies in an era of working mothers and multiple jobs to keep up with the demands of modern living.

Not only is this attribute of modern living reflected in our personal lives, but it is also reflected in our larger home — Earth.

We don’t have time to clean up after ourselves, we’re too busy being important and over extended.

We have so much to cope with that we can’t possibly take the time to recycle, clean up a water supply, plant trees, put things back in their place, or clean house before future guests arrive.

We are all Einsteins and we are overwhelmed by our genius.

We are just that important.

What if there was a God and God looked like this?

Would we think he was a more important genius?

Would we stop pestering him because he looked overwhelmed and come back later to see what he invented?

Or would we say;

Look, Dude, you’re gonna need to clean house. We have a planet to tend to here, and your housekeeping skills have gone to Hell!