The Aristrocracy of Rebellion

Hola mi gente,
I have to say that one of the consequences of being unemployed is the tremendous amount of stress. Stress kills and right now, I’m at the tipping point. This in spite of the fact that I meditate on a daily basis, am vigilant regarding the few principles I do value (so as not to add to the mess), and try to maintain an awareness of my frame of mind. Not working just saps me of energy.

It also impacts my passion, which in turn impacts my writing. For better or worse, in order for me to be an effective writer, I have to be feeling it. Stress just kills it for me. For example, I have an unfinished piece on Hillary Clinton’s email transgressions and I don’t have the energy to shape it up… Instead, I was feeling the following.

Why I Fight

Dorli Rainey, age 84, reacts after being hit with pepper spray during a protest

Standing for equality and a just society is hard work. In fact, it’s not only hard, but oftentimes not every rewarding. It certainly isn’t rewarding in the economic sense, that’s for sure. I will very likely die before I see a country where children won’t starve needlessly, for example. I probably will not live to see an economic system that works for the majority of the people and not the few. But, as Alice Walker said, “Activism is my rent for living on the planet.”

I might not even live to see meaningful electoral reform, or elections that aren’t won or lost by how much money a candidate can amass from the richest 1%.

Shit, I probably won’t live to see a time where we will all get together as a nation and have a real heart-to-heart on race and inequality. But yet, these are some of the things that I have stood for -- for a long time. Oftentimes with little support. Until very recently, in fact, people like me operated in silos -- disconnected from one another, doing impossible work with little resources and only reasoned passion to sustain us.

When people ask me why I bother to fight, I tell them the following true story. The thing is, as powerful as the story is, I almost forgot it. So I write this down so I will never forget. I write it down to honor the fact that I am part of a long and storied lineage of resistance and rebellion. I write it down so you can put it in your heart:

I was once marching in DC with tens of thousands of other protestors and on that particular day, I really wasn’t feeling it. I was tired. And what I mean by tired, was a bone-weary fatigue that was physical, psychological, and spiritual. I was there, marching and seriously reconsidering the whole mess. What's the use, I thought to myself. We’ll protest and tomorrow things will go back to normal. And the people who should be out here with pitchforks and torches will be watching reality TV or some such nonsense.

It was at this time that I turned to an elderly lady who had made the trip with us that day. She was well-known in her community, having been an elementary school teacher for decades. She was, like, everybody’s teacher, a universal mother archetype. And there she was marching with the help of a walker -- a woman that I knew that had marched in countless protests, from the Civil Rights movements of the late 50s on.

So I turned to her and expressed my doubt. I questioned the validity of protest and dissent. I expressed my uncertainties, my frustrations, and feelings of impotence. “Why do all this, Mrs. Robinson? It doesn’t make a difference.”

She stopped, turned to me and with a light in her eyes, she said, “If you’re a Latino, it’s very likely that you have an ancestor who fought for freedom and died fighting though they knew they would never see the light of a free day in their lifetime. Then she turned to a young woman standing next to me and said, “You probably have a woman in your past who fought against violence against women and for the right to vote, and for women to be treated as equals although she probably paid a great price for that struggle and she did so knowing in her heart that she would ever see the day where women would be treated with respect and as equals.”

She turned to a young white man and said, her soft voice tremulous with a fiery spirituality, “You probably have an ancestor somewhere in your background that got his head busted in by strike breakers for fighting for a fair day’s work and the right to bargain collectively. Then addressing what was now becoming a small crowd, she said, “In fact, you all probably have a long line of ancestors who fought for social justice and freedom though they knew their world would never be like that.”

“And you know why they fought? They didn't fight because they knew for sure they would change the world. They fought because not fighting meant that they would be a party to condemning their children to live enslaved. So when you march today, remember that you honor the sacrifices of those who walked before us. When you march today, remember that you are passing that honorable legacy to the children who come after us.”

Then she took my face in her old, gnarled hands and said, “Even if we never accomplish anything, Eddie, what matters is that we fought and struggled and stood for something, because the ripples of our actions today will reverberate and find seed in the hearts of the children where it will flower as freedom, or a yearning for freedom. It doesn’t matter if these clowns don’t change. What matters is what you stand for. Anything less is slavery.”

Since that day, I have never questioned my mission for social justice and whenever I get tired, I remember my teacher and her plea to honor my ancestors.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Awakening

Hola Everybody,
Well, it seems our goober HillBillies have fucked up a wet dream (again). That HillBilly is barely edging out Trump (and in some polls trailing), is a testament to her inability to lead. SMDH

Awakening from the Trance

The planetary crisis we’re facing is an awakening signal. If we don’t shift our consciousness... we can destroy ourselves.
 -- Barbara Marx Hubbard

I am a radical, but I understand that the only revolution that’s going to make a real difference is one that transforms us into human beings more capable of intelligent responses to the many crises we face.

Though we have confronted major problems throughout our shared history, the challenges we face today are unique in one important aspect -- they now affect the entire globe as a whole system. Never before has humanity been on the cusp of wiping out the earth’s biosphere and crippling its ecological foundations for countless generations to come. Never before have we been faced with the very real prospect of being the first species to make itself extinct. Never before has the entire human family been challenged to work together to build a sustainable and meaningful future. Never before have so many been called to make sweeping changes in so little time.

Today monarchs, dictators, or even elected governments no longer control the world. We live in a world controlled by multinational corporations. Most of us work for them, we eat and drink their tainted products, we are exposed to their pervasive assault on our senses via their advertising campaigns, and we live on a planet that provides the raw materials for their endless “production” and the storage for their endless garbage. Corporations have become more powerful than the governments that are supposed to regulate them, and in fact, pay for the process by which a government can afford to be elected.

Throughout the world McDonalds, Coca Cola, Nike, and corporate marketing are invading local cultures. The danger of this encroaching corporate presence lies in its basic motivation. Corporations are primarily responsible to their shareholders. Profitability has more value than the health or well-being of a population. Creating and satisfying short-term goals and profits are more important than environmental sustainability or social justice.

In this way, the gifts of the earth are all being patented and made into commercial products.

In the past oppressive regimes such as the British in India or Nazi Germany exploited a population and were eventually rejected by revolution or the intervention of outside forces. The power of corporations, however, are more insidious. It’s a power similar to the relationship between a drug pusher and an addict, a power that runs on the addictions of a population, without necessarily serving their deeper well-being. This is the collective trance of a consumer society and the global economy it creates. It works only because our collective feeling of lack. It thrives on the inner sense that something is missing, that there is something wrong with you and me and our lives. 

It’s quite simple, actually: you’re compelled to believe that you need to buy their product. Drink this soda, this machine or pill that will make you less fat, this car, this house, this grill; fly to this great place for a vacation and you will feel better. Look at all the happy people smiling in this photo here. They feel better. See?

The global economy as we know it would not work with a population that possessed an inner contentment. You would have a hard time selling endless plastic gizmos to people who feel connected to themselves, to their environment, and who feel whole, who are generous and grateful, and who know they have enough. This trance of lack recreates itself endlessly; it never reaches a level of contentment. You want more, and more, and more... and it does not bode well for our future. We live in this trance from birth to death.

It will take only a very small percentage of the world’s population to wake up for there to be a global awakening. This isn’t some pie in the sky optimism. There is evidence that one man’s stand against gang violence, for example, was directly responsible for the decrease of overall violent crime in New York City. The more people raise their consciousness and wake up, the more those people will be affected by a collective awakening. And the more they are open to that, the more it will facilitate their own awakening, and that of others. So it becomes a positive feedback loop. It is like a snowball gaining momentum as it rolls down a hill.

If you awaken from the trance, then one or two around you will resonate with your awakening. They in turn will affect one or two around them, and that’s how real change happens. It’s always been like that and it is the only thing that will save us.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Thinking Outside the Box

Hola mi Gente,

I will be voting for a third party candidate this coming fall. I am voting my conscience.

In other news, my beloved Mets are on a winning streak, the sun is shining, and the promise of spring is everywhere. Life is good.

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The Unisphere, 1964 World's Fair, New York City

The Human Potential

We throw our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

-- Anonymous

Just the other day when I mentioned that only a mass grassroots movement would be able to address the inequality and racism in our country, a Facebook friend dismissed that idea by stating, “Yawl have been trying to do that for decades.” 

Whenever I hear this crap, I have to wonder how otherwise intelligent people seem to have forgotten that grassroots movements have been singularly responsible for bringing progressive values to fruition. The civil rights movement wasn’t a Democratic Party project. It was a movement. The reason women have the right to vote is because it came from the demands created by -- you guessed it -- a grassroots movement. Over and over, if you look at our shared history, you can’t help but come to the awareness that anything we have that is worthwhile came from the ability of a small group of people to continually bring positive change.

The thing that I most detest regarding the Clinton campaign is how it rests on the myth that we can’t do anything. Her campaign rests on the notion that what we claim are the core values of the progressive project is impossible. Single-payer? No we can’t. Free postsecondary education? No we can’t. If one were to do an analysis of the Clinton campaign’s platform, you can easily come away with the feeling that its motto should be, “No we can’t!” If this were the 1950s, the Clinton campaign and its supporters would condescendingly dismiss the notion that diners should be integrated.

I like to think that I have the mind of a scientist and the heart of the poet. I believe that only when we fuse the two that we arrive at true wisdom. Better put, wisdom is found at the intersection of the mind and heart -- when they become one. I’m not saying I am wise, just tryin’ to get me some integration up in this piece I call “Eddie.”

Without this important integration, we are blind and our rational minds are literally half-cocked, as blind in its quantifying obsession as the superstition it ridicules. Idolizing the power of reason does not banish the old passions and irrational fears. Reason without passion is an illusion of control based on a myth of predictability. Our obsession for certainty grew out of a misunderstanding of science in its original sense. The word science comes from the Latin scientia, knowing.

I know I’m losing you, but hold on for a moment. LOL!

Our ancestors spoke of “science and conscience” in one breath. They pronounced it “con science” (with knowledge). In ancient Latin, conscientia meant knowledge with another person. In English, it came to mean “a knowledge of one’s inner truths,” or as the Oxford English Dictionary quotes, “deity in the bosom.”

What I call uncommon sense is science tempered by the heart. Rather, reason tempered by passion. This is science not the scientism we have made into a modern god. Our inordinate obsession with mindless materialism threatens, well, our material existence. Take, for example, the unquestioned assumption of the power of free markets or global neoliberalism to alleviate social ills. Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that there is no such thing as a “free” market: all markets are supported by government institutions. This allegiance to free market ideology is something similar to a superstition. A superstition that demands that only that which generates economic growth is worth doing undermines our sense of responsibility to our communities, to our ecology, and to our quality of life. An awakened consciousness would tell us there is something terribly wrong with this form of thinking.

We have to wake up... We have to become aware of the collective dysfunctional behavior patterns that keep us mired in ignorance. Our ability to become awake is more vital to our future than anything on our political agendas. Our intuitive sense tells us that specific problems all revolve a few core issues:

Can we become kinder, more rational beings?

Can our intelligence be enhanced?

Can we transcend the boundaries of our ego-centered goals and see the bigger picture?

Visionaries throughout history have debated the issue of human potential. Revolutionary philosophers have argued that “ordinary” people are potentially smarter and more evolved than they’re cracked up to be. I tend to agree.

Today, the issue of human potential is literally life and death for our species. In the Dark Ages, sailors refused to travel beyond a certain point because they feared falling off the edge of the earth. Today, we have a similar counterpart: some call it a “Flat-Earth Psychology” -- the assumption about human limitations. On the other end of the spectrum, there is exists a human potential movement. Just as in the Dark Ages, there were people who knew the earth was round and dared to journey past human-created limitations; today there are small groups of people who “dare to dream while in the day. People who dareto have visions. Visionary thinking is uncommon sense in action. Vision is an imagined goal that serves to organize our intelligence and set fire to our reason. Vision sees beyond limitations and prepares us to grasp the larger picture -- the world beyond a particular road.

The ability to see the possible and how to get there is the human potential for evolution and social progress. Vision is the cutting edge of human intelligence. Throughout history our ability to think experimentally -- or “out the box” -- has shaped us. What marked our Paleolithic ancestors was their remarkable ability for creativity and inventiveness.

I can’t help but think that there are forces today, as one conservative pundit proudly proclaimed, that “sit athwart history.” Those were the very same forces that dismissed the notion that we could put a human being on the moon before ten year’s time. Yet, that is exactly the kind of vision we need today, but we consigned ourselves to be led by a flock of fools too enamored of ideological dogma. We need to wake up before it’s too late.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Sunday Sermon [When Doves Cry]

Hola mi Gente,

First Hill-Billy Clinton, and now Barry Obama are attempting to brow beat the rabble in order to get them in line. Barry has no business checkingthe Black Lives Matter movement, especially seeing as his former top aide and now Chicago mayor, RahmEmmanuel, who most likely colluded to hide crucial evidence in a police execution in Chicago. Oh, yeah, then there’s the Chicago police operatingan off-the-books interrogation house rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

And we’re supposed to stop “yelling”? And what, go to the table got get what Obama got by groveling to the GOP? You know, like95% of the wealth generated since the Great Recession to the richest 1%? No thanks, neoliberals need to take several seats.

The following is an adaption of sorts of a Buddhist teaching story I heard many years ago…

* * *

When Doves Cry

A pair of doves, male and female, decided to share a nest together. In autumn, when the nuts were ripe, they worked hard to gather them and fill their nest. After some time, however, the nuts dried up and shrank. This caused them to take less space and give the appearance that there was less -- filling up only half the space. 

Well, when the male dove noticed this, he got pissed off and said, “After all that hard work we went through gathering these nuts and now you've gone and eaten half of them you greedy slob!”

The female dove, hurt by the accusation, answered, “I didn't eat them! All the nuts are here, they've just become smaller.”

The male dove could not be persuaded and he became even more furious. “If you didn't eat them,” he said, “then why are there less?! Don't get all brand new on me, bitch!” Then in his rage, he pecked at the female dove with his sharp beak until she was dead.

Several days passed and a heavy rain fell, then nuts got wet, reconstituted, filled up, and again there was a full nest of nuts. When the male dove saw this, he was ashamed and thought, “She didn't eat them after all. I killed her for no reason.”

Throughout the forest, you could hear his cries of grief, “Where are you, where have you gone?”

* * *

There are many among us who are lost in a cloud of confusion. They pursue pleasure as if it could last forever and don't understand that life -- by its very nature -- is impermanent. People often do as they please, in the process breaking important boundaries and prohibitions, and later they feel remorse and grief. What purpose does that achieve? They are like the dove that mistakenly killed his mate.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…