Freedom is priceless: First they came for the homeless…then… we became homeless too.

A city in Florida is making it illegal for homeless people to carry possessions in public places.

My question is, how will they know whether or not a person is homeless? Are they just going to target people who are poorly dressed, assume they are homeless then take away whatever possessions they are carrying with them? If someone is walking home from the grocery store, carrying a bag of groceries and looking poorly dressed, might the police not stop that person and demand he/she give up the groceries? Suppose the police officer is hungry, for example, hasn’t eaten in hours and then this rather homeless-looking person shows up carrying a bag of groceries in a city that doesn’t allow possessions to be displayed on public sidewalks?

https://www.tumblr.com/think-progress/83441673147/florida-city-about-to-make-it-illegal-for-homeless

http://wonkette.com/547183/fort-lauderdale-will-magically-fix-homelessness-by-stealing-homeless-peoples-stuff-basically

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/city-pass-law-allowing-cops-seize-homeless-peoples-belongings

Am I trying to be funny here? Just a tongue-in-cheek little anecdote for today’s Mad Bag Lady blog entry?

Look, I know most Americans don’t care at all about the homeless. Whether you’ll admit to it or not, most of you still believe in the “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” nonsense. You think that if you keep supporting the system, keep working hard at tiny wages for bosses who act more like slaveholders than business owners that one day someone will recognize your good “attitude” (slaves are notorious for having good attitudes toward their situation) and promote you to CEO of corrupt corporate America. So you dare not speak out on behalf of the homeless. After all, they’ve just made “bad choices,” obviously. Otherwise, they’d be temporarily embarrassed millionaires too.

Believe me, I get it. I get it.

But remember this: dictators always choose a scapegoat, deprive them of their civil rights first and convince the rest of the population to support it. But the real agenda is to deprive everyone of their rights. It’s just easier to start with the most unpopular people first. The homeless are just guinea pigs for an overall plan to eliminate our public spaces, privatize everything, and take away all of our rights (unless of course we’re wealthy and can afford to buy the streets and sidewalks so that we can do whatever we want on them.)

So Hitler attacked the Jews, for example. But ultimately, no one was free under Nazi leadership. What many people don’t know is that Hitler went after union leaders too.  Union leaders, communists and democratic socialists–anyone who wanted more civil liberties for the average person (as opposed to the wealthy elite) was the enemy of Hitler and the Nazis.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005686

http://www.johndclare.net/Nazi_Germany1.htm

This might surprise many Americans who’ve been brainwashed into believing that “socialism” is the enemy. In fact, Hitler was strongly against democratic socialism and communism.

Think about that for a moment. Please. Please think, and think for yourself, if only for a moment. Because it’s important to remember that “communism,” “socialism,” “capitalism,” etc., are all just labels. None of those systems are practiced in their purest forms (at least to my knowledge.) Most countries use ideas from all of these systems and combine them to create their own systems. (More about this will be addressed in a future blog.) The Nazis may often be thought of as socialists and may have claimed to be wanting to help the average German (who was struggling during the Great Depression) but the Nazis persecuted union leaders, democratic socialists and communists, threw them in prison or executed them. What the Nazis said publicly and what they actually did were often two different things, as we now know from history. (Oddly, I had a hard time finding any videos online about this. Most were filled with propaganda about the Nazis. However, I’ve read the history of Nazi Germany, and I urge you to do the same, so that you don’t believe the lies being told by people who assume you won’t take the time to actually read about it for yourself.)

 

But back to the point. Laws restricting the rights of the homeless to sleep on “public” sidewalks, to ask for money and now to own possessions of any kind affect all of us. Homeless or not, should you decide to “hang out” in public, you may be accosted by the police. And now, in some cities, you can have your possessions taken from you.

Is this what you want, America?

Perhaps I’m an unusual person because I value freedom over everything, including money. (OMG! OMG! You value something over money!) Yes, people. And I’ll even say it again. Freedom, civil liberties, civil rights–are more important to me than money.

I think we’ve all read about wealthy people who’ve been very unhappy in spite of their material wealth. Marilyn Monroe was a classic example. She was beautiful, wealthy and famous but very, very unhappy. She was not free. That’s right, Marilyn Monroe did not have freedom. As a woman, she was oppressed the way all of us females are. She was a mere sex object. And that’s all she was allowed to be. No matter how often she cried out that she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress, that she didn’t want to be a “joke,” the business people who managed her career would not allow her to be herself. To be herself and a serious actress would have meant speaking in her own authentic voice, not the child-like, false-innocent ingenue voice that had made her famous. Being herself meant not flirting with every man–perhaps there were some men who irritated her. Perhaps there were times when she didn’t feel sexy, when she didn’t want to wear makeup or do her hair. Perhaps there were times when she thought about civil rights issues and politics herself. (From what I’d read, she’d had democratic-socialist ideas. That’s not surprising as she’d grown up poor.) But a sex object does none of those things. A sex object is pretty, mindless and always eager to please.

So tragic. So sad. Ms. Monroe seemed to have it all. But the one thing she didn’t have was that which is priceless, that one thing money cannot buy: freedom. Should she have dropped everything to pursue her own desires, she would have lost all that money, all her connections. And then what? Happiness, maybe. But money? She could have lost it all. Instead she gave up her life. So ultimately she lost it all anyhow.

Personally, I don’t see the point in that. But then who am I? I don’t have a lot of money myself, so I suppose nothing I say really matters, does it? Believe it or not, I was faced with similar choices to Marilyn’s. In some ways, my childhood was similar, and I too–yes, me, the mad bag lady!–was thought of as rather, shall we say, sexy… I could have slept my way to the top…

But I chose a different route. And look where I am today! Woohoo!

I haven’t committed suicide because I chose to be myself and not be commodified, but I, obviously, paid a financial price.

However, it could have been different if I’d had a large following. What I mean is, if millions of Americans had also chosen freedom –and we can do it now, all of us, we can choose freedom today!–if Americans were to choose freedom then the few of us who value freedom wouldn’t be the outcasts, the dregs of society. We’d be the heroes.

But today’s American heroes are sellouts. They live like Marilyn lived. It’s fun for a while until the years go by and you start to find you can’t be a commodity any longer. If you’re an intelligent person, eventually, you’ll start to realize that there are aspects of yourself you’ve had to suppress in order to appease those you’ve allowed to have power over you.

And increasingly, it’s getting dangerous to hold onto our humanity, to be ourselves. We’re all under surveillance. We go to work and our bosses are watching us via cameras all over the building. They watch us as we drive into the parking lot and park our cars. They see us applying that extra dab of lip gloss and straightening out the wrinkles in our clothes before we exit our car. They’re watching while we think we’re alone in the elevator and pulling the crease out of the back of our skirt when we forget someone else is there (behind the surveillance camera.) Even some public restrooms have surveillance cameras in them. But we ignore all that, telling ourselves no one is really watching us, and we adjust our bra strap, maybe remove our blouse to fix our bra, and all the while a man is watching us behind that camera in the restroom where we thought we were alone.

We have no privacy. No time to be ourselves, even when we’re alone. No time to lock ourselves in the bathroom to have a good cry–because they’re watching us there too. But that’s not enough for them.

Now they want the right to stop us and confiscate our belongings–but only if they think we’re homeless.

Well, guess what, Americans? We are homeless! All of us. They’ve taken our country away from us. We grew up living in the Land of the Free and the Brave, the land that claimed, “Give me your tired and your poor…” but our land was taken away from us.

So where do we go now?

 

 

Bitcoin Blues… Are they trying to kill Bitcoin?

In case you don’t know, Bitcoin is an online, open source currency. It allows anonymity and freedom from government intervention (although there’s speculation that Germany might have plans to regulate it.)  http://www.cnbc.com/id/100971898   It also provides unwelcome competition for some of our biggest banks. Needless to say, some people, particularly in some parts of the world, don’t like Bitcoin because it is currency that’s difficult for governments, and those with power in general, to control. Money is power in our society, and Bitcoin is not really money in the traditional sense of the word.  It’s a form of currency accessible to the masses and an alternative to standard currency.  One might say that Bitcoin creates a new way for powerless people to access financial power.

The concept of alternative currency is an interesting idea and some people are still only just learning about it…   More info at the web sites below…

http://www.WeUseCoins.com

http://www.BitCoin.com
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/24/138673630/what-is-bitcoin

But, as I said, some people don’t like Bitcoin. Nope, they don’t like it at all. It doesn’t serve their best interests…  Knowing this, I was a bit startled when I learned that a Bitcoin exchange CEO, Autumn Radtke, was found dead under mysterious circumstances. :

http://nypost.com/2014/03/05/bitcoin-firm-ceo-found-dead-in-suspected-suicide/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2573863/Bitcoin-exchange-CEO-dead-home-suspected-suicide-age-28.html

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101468694

Uh, yes, another “suicide” on the part of someone attempting to change the world for the better while bravely going against what some wealthy, powerful, influential peeps want her to do… Not that I think Ms. Radtke was bumped off or anything. Nah, governments don’t bump off activists–especially here in the USA ’cause we’re so lucky that we have freedom of speech here in the USA. We have, after all, a government by and for the people–all the people, rich and poor. Yep, we’re a “democracy” over here in the USA.

(Hey, you in the corner, stop your snickering. I’m not joking over here. The USA is a bastion of freedom and liberty. USA! USA! USA! USSA!  Gosh, I’m so proud of being American. I’m so lucky that I’m an American. Those people in other countries, like Denmark and Sweden, for example, don’t know how bad they have it. It’s great here in the USSA. Stop laughing. I’m not joking. I’m telling you this country is GREAT! And I LOVE IT! So please, put the gun down, Mr. Homeland Security-NSA-Patriot Act Protector, sir. Look, I wrote what you asked me to write on my blog. I didn’t write that other thing, you know, that other thing. That thing you told me not to write–I didn’t write it. Put the gun down. If you shoot me now, it’ll be obvious to the…the… No, I’m not suicidal. Not any more than usual, that is… Please, put the gun down!

And so the man in black put down his gun and left with a sneer. He is in search of another blogger, one with a much bigger platform. But he’ll be back. They always come back. But she’ll be ready with a watered-down, noncontroversial blog post next time. Next time, she’ll write about pizza and how much homeless people like pizza. Yes, that’s it. Homeless people like pizza but a lot of pizza shops won’t let homeless people inside. What to do?  Well, you’ll just have to stay tuned…)

Okay, now that guy’s gone, so I can return to my original post.

Ms. Radtke was found dead on Feb. 28th, nearly a week ago, and the cause of death is very mysterious. The fact that it is only just now being reported, nearly a week later, seems a little odd to me too. But what do I know? No matter which news report you look at, it all looks pretty spooky. CNBC says she died “under mysterious circumstances.”  The report adds there have been a “rash of suicides in the financial industry…”  The NY Post puts the word “suicide” in quotes, pending the results of toxicology tests.

Around the time of Ms. Radtke’s “suicide,” some strange events have occurred.  According to the Daily Mail, Radtke was living in Singapore, having decided to base herself in South East Asia where there was a lot of government resistance to Bitcoin, particularly in China and Vietnam.

And coincidentally, Ms. Radtke’s death follows a collapse of Mt Gox and the disappearance of millions of dollars, apparently stolen from Bitcoin entities.  Was this all due to computer hacking? Who was doing the hacking?

Also coincidentally, just following Ms. Radtke’s death is the death of Flexcoin, a bitcoin bank that just closed down due to hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins that were stolen from it. Apparently, this just happened yesterday.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101463888

Even more coincidentally, Ms. Radtke’s death follows the resignation of Mark Karpeles (who was CEO of Mt. Gox in Tokyo and who did not commit suicide but has received death threats), from the board of directors of the Bitcoin Foundation of which he was a founding member.  This happened less than two weeks ago.

Additionally coincidentally, Charlie Shrem, the CEO of BitInstant, a Bitcoin exchange, was arrested and charged with money laundering. That happened less than two months ago.

http://www.businessinsider.com/report-ceo-of-major-bitcoin-exchange-arrested-2014-1

http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/27/technology/security/bitcoin-arrest/

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101366511

But there are so many coincidences… All just coincidences.  It just happens that political activists and people who want to make the world a better place for everyone–rich and poor, people who want to create “a level playing field” as they say, people who want to democratize things, just happen to die young.  American history bears me out on this.

Perhaps we should rephrase the lyrics to that old country song, “Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be activists.”

Now, can we get Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson to accompany the Chipmunks and sing these new and improved lyrics–updated for modern times? Or will they be too afraid, like everyone else (except the ones who commit “suicide”) to challenge the status quo?

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/17779/is-someone-trying-to-kill-bitcoin

http://markmaunder.com/2013/12/05/banks-declaring-war-on-bitcoin/

Gone are the Good Old Days of Rebellion

Aside

Gone are the days of rebellion, the days of revolt, the days of speaking out, standing up, standing out, standing for something or someone. We no longer watch each other’s backs. And none of us has the courage to stand alone, completely alone. We can only watch as things just happen. Things just pass us by… ’cause that’s the way it is.

Ya’ know, that’s just the  way it is, so ya’ll had better just accept it.

Why are you such a rebel? You’re going to have trouble in your life because you’re just too rebellious. (That’s what they told me when I was very young.) Guess what?

They were right. I thought I grew up in a conservative city. Little did I know… Now I live in a conservative country–so conservative that I don’t recognize it anymore, and…   Guess what else?

I feel like a foreigner in my own country.

Gone are the days of activism, of activity, of shocking revelations, of refreshing words of wisdom. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is not free at all. In fact, it’s scared to death. And it doesn’t even have a home anymore. It’s homeless. And those of us who belonged to that land, that erstwhile land, are homeless along with it. Where shall we go? What shall we do now?

Yes, those of us who remember the USA, the real USA long before surveillance, before outrageously expensive rent, education and health care, before chronic unemployment and jobs with tiny wages that don’t meet the cost of living, before increasing poverty and homeless, those of us who remember will soon grow old. We’ll be replaced by those who won’t remember, those who find surveillance to be the norm. Heck, they might even enjoy being groped by the TSA. But there was a time, and not so long ago, when there was crime but we didn’t believe in fighting it by violating people’s privacy, keeping each other under constant surveillance, and hiring cops so aggressive that they’re more dangerous than the criminals who used to scare us. And we still had the courage to talk to our neighbors in those days. We also had the time and money to socialize, to go out and have fun. (Do you remember this, people?) We weren’t quite as afraid of each other. And odd, unique, rather strange people were all around us. They dressed differently, walked differently, talked differently, had strange ideas and accents we couldn’t quite place. We didn’t know where they were from but we respected their right to exist. And so, even though they were different, they walked among us (without worries of being tasered or beaten up by militarized police forces who can no longer solve problems nonviolently.)

Not anymore. Today, such characters are taken away. Are they jailed? Forced into homeless shelters? Perhaps there’s another Guantanamo secret prison set up especially for people who are just different from the norm so that the rest of us don’t have to deal with them anymore.

Here now are the days of conformity, complacency, and acquiescence at its finest. Today we say nothing that hasn’t been said before. We say nothing.

We say what’s already been said, say what we’re told, do what we’re told, think what we’re told. Over and over again.

The same songs play over and over again on the radio. Slightly different lyrics but the song remains the same.

The same shows play and replay on the same TV stations–all 1000 of them.

The same movies we’ve already seen show in all the theaters all over town. The same actors, the same directors, writers, announcers. It’s always the same. Different screenplay, same story. And all the characters look the same. They’re all pretty. They’re all thin. They’re all glamorous–even after running a marathon, the leading lady isn’t sweating and her makeup isn’t smudged. No one farts or burps… Well, not usually. Sometimes in comedies, but only to keep the audience from thinking serious thoughts.

Heaven forbid we allow anything new. That might make some of us think. Might form new synapses, change our brain chemistry in ways the pharmaceutical industry never dreamed of.

And we don’t want that.

We censor our own thoughts. We cannot think for ourselves. We dare not even think of thinking for ourselves. What will the boss say if he finds out I voted for the Green Party? What will the wife/husband/crazy neighbor think if they find out I’m a socialist? What if I don’t agree with what everyone else is saying? What if I have a different view?

Americans like to talk about diversity. But “diversity” (along with “family values”) is like the weather in America. Everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it. We “embrace diversity” and we’re so “politically correct” yet we see the same ideas, opinions, TV shows, films, songs, rock bands, movie stars, celebrities, experts, newscasters, etc., over and over again. We see cookie-cutter houses being built–each one the same as the other–because it’s more efficient to build them all the same way.

What if someone built a purple house?

Have you ever walked into an office and seen a diverse crew of employees hailing from different races, age groups and genders? Have you ever worked within a truly diverse work environment?

I HAVEn’t. But I have worked for people who claimed to embrace diversity. (I suppose on some level they did: somewhere inside the deep, dark recesses of what little was left of their imagination, they embraced diversity. Hugged it real tight. Real tight. Then they let it go forever.)

I wonder if I’m the only one who gets bored with it all.  In school, my teachers kept repeating the same things over and over again. I suppose some of the other students needed that repetition. Perhaps they hadn’t learned it yet. But I had. And I was bored. Very, very bored. Please, please, teach me something new. But they wouldn’t. They just wanted to repeat the same things over and over again.

Over and over.

Over.

Again.

And if I yawned I was in trouble. If I skipped a class, I was in trouble. A teacher threatened to fail me once because I wasn’t coming to class. “Seriously, why don’t you give me a reason to come to class?” I wanted to say. Sorry to say, I am not so polite anymore. But I wish I could go back to school, a real school where I could actually learn something new. But then maybe my brain would explode from the shock. And since I seem to be the only one who is bored with all this mindless repetition, this endless conformity, this nonsensical drivel that passes for “news” and “entertainment,” I suppose there’s just no point. No point at all. It’s over, folks. Over. (The USA, that is. The rest of the world might survive, but not the USA.) The USA is a goner. Over. Finito. How does one spell “sayonara?”

Over and over.

Over.

Again.

So here’s my drivel for the day. Sorry ’bout the mess. I’ll go grab some tissue and pick up as much of it as I can. Then I’ll be more careful with the next blog entry… and there will be at least one more.

Some millionaires lost their homes last month…

Warning: what you are about to read may be painful, a real tear-jerker. Please have plenty of tissue on hand. Don’t mess up the environment with your bodily fluids! Rein it all in with some tissue! This story will make you cry, as it is very, very heartbreaking. (Oh, and please make sure to place your used tissues in a recycling bin. Recycle those tissues! We Americans are going to have a lot to cry about in future months and years.)

Okay, so here I go. The heartbreaking, tear-jerking, soul bleeding, miserable tale begins here:

Some millionaires (and possibly some billionaires!) lost their homes recently. Yes, huge, beautiful mansions were damaged when a fire broke out (as it often does) in California. Beautiful mansions were hurt, seriously hurt! Possibly some art and furniture worth millions of dollars may have been destroyed too. One can only speculate.

And the servants? What of the servants?! Did they survive? There was nothing mentioned about them in the news reports, so I guess we’ll never know. (If anyone reads this blog and finds anything out, please, please let me know.)

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Brush-Fire-Glendora-Angeles-National-Forest-Wildfire-240493431.html

(Looks like I can’t embed the video of the news report, but you may view it by clicking on the link above.)

Thankfully, no one was killed by the blaze, but a few mansions were killed and several other mansions were injured. January was a very dry month for California, so the risk of fire was high. In fact, the true cause of the fire was California–it made the fateful mistake of being located atop a desert. Some millionaires made the choice to build mansions atop that same desert, knowing full well that fires in the region are common. (But we really need to find a poor or middle class person to blame so we can practice hating each other and scapegoating each other for things that go wrong in our world, right?)

The suspects, apparently, told authorities they’d started a campfire and “the wind picked up.” So can we blame the wind? Can we jail the wind? Can we sue the wind? Naw, it’s easier to just go ahead and blame some homeless people.

Now, as I said, such fires occur frequently in Southern Cali because of its arid environment. Last year (2013), a rim fire was started by a hunter who started a campfire the authorities had deemed “illegal.” However, the hunter was not arrested as he was not homeless, apparently, at the time. (But the fire fueled the war on drugs by enabling some people in the media to make the FALSE claim that the fire was started by marijuana growers!)  Way to go, corporate media, when you do report the news make sure to embed some outright lies within it to manipulate the public toward whatever cause you happen to be supporting at the time. (Looking for excuses to imprison more Americans? Do the prisons need more money? Or do we just need another war? Hmm…the war on marijuana growers. Yes, let’s blame marijuana for EVERYTHING that’s wrong with our country right now. I think that would make things very interesting indeed–especially since lots of rich people smoke marijuana, and worse drugs…) By the way, I am NOT a marijuana grower or inhaler, just curious as to why the media feels the need to attack certain segments of our population and blame them for crimes that have nothing at all to do with them.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/05/us/california-yosemite-wildfire/

What about you, erstwhile reader, are you curious? Or would you rather just accept things as they are and not ask any questions…i.e., are you a typical American? Or will you dare to be different by thinking uncensored thoughts?

I like to ask questions which is why I have journalistic tendencies. But I gave up my interest in being a journalist when I sent out resumes and never got a response… I’m not a white male, don’t hail from a wealthy family, have absolutely no connections and…most important disqualification of all…I’m not a Republican who hates poor people, women, blacks, etc.

But if I were a journalist and had oodles of money, I would like to have traveled to the French Riviera, or wherever these millionaires were at the time their “homes” were damaged by the fire (yes, the media describes their mansions as homes! Ha Ha! No wonder they wouldn’t hire me as a journalist!)  I’d also like to talk with the servants.  How did they feel when they were evacuated from the “homes.” Was it nice having some time off from work? Are they worried they’ll lose their jobs, that their employers will sell off or tear down the mansions, thus removing the need for their employment? Will their employers give them huge pay raises so that they never become homeless and go out in the woods and set fires to warm up? Will all employers all over the country make a firm commitment right here and now to raise salaries and to hire more employees and pay them well to help curb the homelessness problem? Will banks all over the country agree not to foreclose on struggling homeowners so that they don’t become homeless and start fires? Will universities lower their tuition fees to zero for unemployed or underemployed people so they can go back to school again, acquire a marketable skill, get better jobs and not become homeless and start fires? Will the government (oh yes, our wonderful, caring, just and loving government!) provide welfare for anyone who can’t find a job and can’t afford to go back to college so that they don’t end up homeless and starting fires?

Gosh, I’d love to ask these questions.

Ah, but we’ll hear none of that because, you see, I am not a journalist. They are “journalists,” and they care absolutely nothing at all for average, ordinary working people.

But back to this dreadful fire that has rendered so many millionaires and billionaires “homeless.”  Diamonds and pearls tarnished with a smoky smell that can’t be removed! Oh dear! And what of that mink coat! Was the Cadillac hurt? And what of the illustrious owners of these mansions? Where will they stay when they’re in California? Will they, heaven forbid, need to stay at a hotel? Not the Hilton, oh please God, not the Hilton. Please, don’t make me stoop so low…  sniff, sniff. (Now, before you get mad at me, remember, I warned you that you’d need tissue, that this was a heartbreaking story indeed! Why, some of them will have to remain in the French Riviera indefinitely! While others might need to stay in their alternative homes in Manhattan. Perhaps instead of firing those servants they could just transfer them off to their other mansions? It’s just a thought.)

Indeed.

So the fire was, apparently, caused by three men who’d started a campfire the authorities have decided was illegal. Why were they starting a campfire? Why were previous fires caused by “illegal” campfires not resulting in arrests? Could it be… Yes, it must be true… Were the three men, by any chance, homeless? Were they starting a fire to warm up on a chilly night? To cook up some food perhaps?

Yes, I’m asking this question. (And again, I’m frustrated that I don’t have a larger platform for this because no one else seems to be asking these kinds of questions.) Were the three men arrested homeless? Why are they being arrested when previous “fire-starters” were not? Why are they being held on $500,000 bond each? Do you think that three homeless men are capable of paying for the damages done to rich people’s homes? Was the damage done to the rich people as a result of this fire equal to the damage done to these poor men’s lives as a result of homelessness, poverty and despair? How will the millionaires who owned the damaged mansions benefit from the destruction of those three men’s lives? Haven’t they suffered enough in this world?

Apparently not.

What kind of sick, twisted injustice is this? Oh, that’s right, I live in the USSA now, I forgot. Justice is a word, a mere word. And most Americans don’t even know how to spell it anymore, much less define it.

So let’s recite America’s new motto once again: Give me your tired and poor so that I can step on them over and over again with well-heeled shoes (shoes they never could afford for themselves, ha!) and crush them. Crush their bodies, crush their spirit, crush whatever’s left of a soul. Crush ’em all! Darned homeless people!

Ha ha, I just censored my words up above because I know that someone from the FBI, DHS (or the “A-Team”–CIA, NSA, TSA & God knows whatever other A), is reading this.  In fact, Homeland inSecurity may be the only folks who are reading this blog! So, hey, thanks for reading!

Gee, I hope homeless people don’t set any more mansions on fire. I’m really strongly against such activity. And, seriously, I’m so sorry that our poverty and despair causes so much discomfort for you wealthy, privileged folks. Really, I wish I could end my own poverty so that it wouldn’t hurt you so much. Really. That brings me to the disclaimer/faux legalese that I must add at the end of this blog for the benefit of the A-team, etc. Please read the sentence below. It is very, very important.

Disclaimer:  No mansions, diamonds, pearls or million-dollar artwork were damaged in the writing of this article.

Why are you going along with it? Please stop… so we can make them stop. Please!

Ah, I wish I had a bigger platform because I have, oh, so much to say!

If I were standing at the top of a mountain and had a very loud speaker in front of a powerful microphone situated right in front of me, I would announce the following question:         If you’re unhappy with the way things are, why are you going along with it? Why? Oh, why? Just stop right now! Stop going along with it! You don’t need to have the courage to camp out with Occupy or to risk getting tasered, beaten and arrested by attending anti-war protests. I understand your fear. I’m afraid too. Believe me, I’m scared to death. Do you think that little old me, with this quiet little blog and my itty bitty videos is innocuous, harmless, small fish in a big pond? Oh no, as far as they’re concerned I’m a terrorist and probably at the top of their list of fish to fry…in the hottest oil they can find.

But then again, so are you, my fellow American. You see, we are all terrorists, to the extent that we are thinking. The moment you start thinking for yourself, you’ll start questioning things, as I am doing now, and you may also begin to ask, “Why?” Some people don’t want you to ask such questions. And the simple act of asking questions can get you into trouble in some circles.

So again, I’ll repeat the question. Yes, I understand why you’re afraid to attend the protests, but why do you continue to go along with everything that’s wrong with this country?

Here’s an example of what I mean.  There has been a HUGE protest against Youtube for its privacy violations, forcing people to use their real names when setting up an account, forcing people to join Google Plus, etc., when most Youtubers just want to make videos. Some of us have political views that offend certain people in power, so we relish our privacy that enables us to speak out without being terrorized by the wealthy and powerful who don’t take kindly to “upstarts” who don’t know their place.

By the way, the petition to stop Youtube/Google from violating people’s privacy is here:

https://www.change.org/petitions/google-change-the-youtube-comment-section-back-to-its-original-form

http://www.zdnet.com/forced-google-plus-integration-on-youtube-backfires-petition-hits-112000-7000023196/

http://edwardspoonhands.com/post/66425515182/ok-so-my-friend-emma-puts-this-video-of-her

Heck, even the original founder of Youtube is protesting against this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10449741/YouTube-co-founder-joins-protest-against-comment-changes.html

https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/google-is-ruining-youtube.114860/

Don’t get me wrong here. I think it’s great that people are speaking out against Google/Youtube’s privacy violations.  (Facebook is another Internet evil altogether.)

But I still have this question in my mind that I’d like to shout loudly to the masses: Why do you continue to go along with it?

Yes, I understand that “everybody” is on Youtube but that will change if “everybody” starts posting their videos on DailyMotion, Vimeo, Livestream, Justin.tv, Ustream.tv, or another alternative site.  Because they don’t violate privacy as much as Youtube, it is very easy to set up on one of these alternative sites. One can certainly maintain their Youtube site but set up a second or even a third site on one of the alternative video hosting services and get their viewers to increasingly gravitate to their videos on the other site. It’s not hard to do…but most people aren’t doing it…

So again, I ask why?

Leave Google/Youtube and go to DailyMotion, Vimeo, or wherever and just encourage your viewers to go there. Of course, if we all do this, Youtube/Google will be forced to change their policy back to the way that we the people would like it to be.  (And maybe the original founders of Youtube could get together with some peeps to help create another alternative to Youtube… Heck, what an idea!)

But then, I’m still mystified as to why people open up accounts with Bank of America instead of a smaller bank or a credit union and why people choose to shop at Walmart knowing how corrupt that company is when there are other discount stores available.

We still have the right to shop and bank wherever we want to and Homeland Security, the NSA, or the multiple “security” agencies that spy on us won’t come after you for simply shopping where you want to…yet. Because, yes, as ObamaCare/”Affordable” Care Act has shown us, the government can force you to buy things.

But right now we have the right to choose from whom we’ll buy and whether or not we’ll buy anything from anyone at all (for the most part.)

So again: Why do you keep going along with it? Why do you keep buying their stuff? Why do you protest, complain, suffer needlessly while you continue to feed the machine that’s killing you?

I think I know why. Guess I’ll answer since you won’t. (Not much of a platform here and it’s sad, but most likely, no one would answer my question honestly anyway even if I could present it to the world.)

Here’s why you keep feeding the machine: You know that no one will support you if you protest. You don’t want to go at it alone. Americans are very disconnected from each other and, frankly, Americans don’t love each other. I’ve written about this before–unrequited love amongst the masses. Americans hate each other. We struggle but we attack our friends and neighbors who are struggling: “Oh, it’s her own fault she lost her house. She wasn’t paying her bills!”

So you go along with it. You feed the machine. It’s killing you. It hurts. You’re suffering. And everyone around you is suffering. Yet you keep feeding the machine.

What would happen if you stopped buying products manufactured by companies that outsource labor to third-world countries and hire children to work 14 hours per day for only a few dollars per day? What would happen if you thought before you purchased anything? What would happen if you stopped shopping at Walmart AND wrote them a letter telling them why? Or maybe you could write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper about why you are not shopping at Walmart.

Yes, there are small things like this that we can all do safely. The cops won’t beat us up for just not shopping or banking at places that are doing things we believe are wrong.  The NSA/DHS/TSA, etc., aren’t going to stop and frisk us (at least not as of this writing!) for switching to DailyMotion or Justin.tv from Youtube!

But you’re addicted, aren’t you? Aren’t we all? Addicted to these big corporations, to the promises they make, promises of fame and fortunes, promises that we can be like them.

Which leads me to my next question:

Why do we want to be like them?

You and I are not temporarily embarrassed millionaires

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html

http://www.polisci.ccsu.edu/trieb/InfluGov.html

“Help! Help! I’m drowning. Please, please, someone help me!”

He cried out as loudly as he could, given the circumstances. His body was rapidly getting weak, and that was his last real cry. His arms flailing high into the air, he was desperately searching for something to hold onto–a tree branch, a rock, something tangible. But…there was nothing. “Please help,” he attempted weakly. But it was only the sound of the voice in his head. His vocal cords had stopped functioning. There wasn’t enough breath to get the words out into the air.

Now, he was sinking. Soon his flailing arms and outspoken voice would be submerged beneath the water, along with the rest of him.

Who would have thought that something as harmless, as ubiquitous and gentle as water could be such a strong killer? How he had underestimated the power of this translucent, flowing stream that runs through all things? In the past he would drink it or sit beside it as it trickled lightly over the rocks. There he would meditate to the soothing sound of running water. He thought water was a healer, that demons couldn’t cross it, that beside water he would always be safe and sound. And now, it was killing him.

“Save me, someone, please. Oh, please, please help!” he thought he cried out. But actually he didn’t. At this point he’d gone delirious and the current was pulling him in.

It’s not as though he was alone, mind you. People heard his cries, watched his tears drop from his once rugged, impenetrable eyes then drop into the river that was killing him. “Oh! Another whiner!”they lamented. “Some people are so negative. All they do is complain. What did he do to get himself into that situation in the first place? I’m not stupid enough to go near the river.”

And the sounds of his crying irritated them so. And so they closed their windows, their doors, pulled down their shades, turned up the music to drown out the sound of his drowning and just tried to take their minds off of his incessant crying.

It was just so annoying to hear him complain about suffering!

But there was one man who approached this dying soul. Watching him drown, he dared not risk his own life to try to rescue him, especially since it was his own fault, after all, for approaching the water in the first place. But he wanted to show the world what a nice man he was, that he was a caring individual. He was the man who built this river, you see, and he wanted people to know that he never intended for anyone to drown in it. He resisted strongly any efforts to study the water’s current, insisting it was completely safe. It was safe. It was safe. It was safe. After all, it was his river, so of course it was perfect. No one could stop him from having his river. And if anyone dared go near his river and fell in… Well, some people just make bad choices.

Still, he didn’t want anyone to think he, the creator/owner of this river didn’t care. He gave to charity, after all. And so he offered the drowning victim a pair of shoes. “Here you are, sir. I’ll help you. A pair of shoes is all you need.”

And he dropped the pair of shoes by the side of the river not too far from the spot where the drowning man’s arms had reached out for help. But it was too late to donate shoes to a drowning man. The current was just too strong. No one could guess how fast it was moving. That would take some investigation, and, frankly, no one was up to that. People are busy these days, you see.

So needless to say, the current was very, very strong. Suddenly, it yanked at the drowning man’s feet and thrust him downward to the bottom of the river, silencing him forever. The man felt the rocks tear at his skin as he was pulled downward. He would no longer cry or struggle–even if he were able, for he no longer wanted to live. Now, he hoped for death. Would it please happen quickly? The pain was intense, swift, sudden. He would never ask for help again. But the pain has stopped.

He was dead.

Whew. What a relief to all around him. They need not hear his cries any longer. The neighbors could open their windows at last. And turn down that loud music! Now they could rest in peace. The philanthropist picked up the shoes when he saw the man disappear under the sea. He would donate them to another charity. Perhaps another victim would be more grateful. Next time he’ll focus on suffering children, as adults are a waste of time. They just don’t try hard enough to rescue themselves. And they never seem to appreciate what you do for them.

Meanwhile, the definition of “drown,” according to “The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,” 4th edition, remains available (at least as of this writing) to the general public, for all to see. Thus far, no one from the US government, a.k.a. corporate America, has tried to censor, redact, or “drown” its definition. In fact, anyone may view it on display in practically all English dictionaries which may be accessed free of charge in public libraries (still available, even to poor people, and even in the USA.) Yes, the word “drown” is alive and well. It shall not be suppressed! (Perhaps because we need it so badly.)

drown — ” 1. to kill by submerging and suffocating in water or another liquid…

2. to drench thoroughly or cover with or as if with a liquid…

3. to deaden one’s awareness of…

4. to muffle or mask (a sound) by a louder sound…”

And so this poor man drowned, but it wasn’t the water that killed him…

Even a bouncing ball needs a little help now and again…

Ever hold a ball in your hand then let it drop?  What does it do?

It bounces.

And bounces.

It continues to bounce for a little while.

But if you just let it go and don’t give it any more assistance, the bounces will gradually get smaller and smaller, and fewer and farther in between. Eventually, the ball will stop bouncing altogether. It might roll around the floor for a bit till it stops or hits a wall and is forced to stop. But it won’t bounce again until you pick it up and drop it again. (That’s if you don’t intervene and just let the ball bounce on its own, of course.)

But if you drop it then keep tapping it with your hand, you can keep it bouncing, maybe even get it to bounce higher, higher and higher! That ball reacts to your touch and depending on how hard you touch it, it could touch the ceiling, it could rise so high! If you hit it hard enough, your energy might propel it out the window.

Even inanimate objects require some attention.

Do you ever find yourself getting angry at that lazy, dependent ball that can’t bounce on its own, that keeps needing your help to bounce?

“Hey you, get your own bounce!”

Yep, inanimate objects are lazy. They don’t want to work and often refuse to move unless prodded by a human to move. That’s right, you’ve heard/read it here first. Inanimate objects are codependent socialists! Why, some of them are outright communists.  Think of the old-fashioned toilet that won’t flush itself, for example. The door that requires you to open and shut it. Or the road that doesn’t build itself, requiring a large group of human beings (collectivism!) to come together, cooperate and work as a team to build it. Yep, toilets, doors and roads are only some of the seemingly ordinary inanimate objects that support socialism. Don’t be fooled!

Sometimes even living creatures are commies. They may not talk about it, but it’s obvious from their behavior. What of the house plant that requires you to water it from time to time? Sure, if it were outdoors it might absorb water from the rain (still a form of mooching, if you ask me.) But there you are fostering dependency by keeping it in your house and taking responsibility for watering it. Why? If you were a truly self-sufficient American, truly devoted to ending communism and socialism around the world, truly patriotic and loyal to your country, you’d get rid of that houseplant (and any pets and children mooching off of you) immediately. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and tell them to do the same! Show us how to do it by setting an example. As Chris Gardner wrote, “The calvary ain’t comin’!”  Nope, no one’s coming to help you. You’ve got to do it all yourself because that’s what life is all about–self reliance!

So I urge you now to not be a hypocrite. Stop supporting the nanny state, codependency, communism and socialism. Stop helping others and, yes, that includes the houseplant. Keep it outdoors, let it soak up the sunlight and mooch off the rain water. Heck, it should just go out and get a bloody job already! What? “They’re not hiring house plants,” you say? Nonsense. Plants give off oxygen, dumbass. And everyone needs oxygen. Put those plants to work. Lots of people will pay for air. If you bring it, they’ll come.

Whew. Sorry for the rant. But honestly, I’m just so tired of the hypocrisy. We owe it to ourselves as Americans to be as selfish, egotistical and unhelpful to others as possible (again, that includes inanimate objects, pets, children, lovers, etc.)

…Otherwise…

(We need another drum roll, please. Oh wait. Dear, sweet, gentle reader, you’ll have to beat on those drums yourself. I certainly won’t do it for you. Beat those drums silly ’cause we need a drumroll! Or you can just imagine it. Can you hear the drum rolling in your head?)

Because otherwise…

Otherwise, we’ll be advocating socialism. Or worse, communism. Or equally worse, collectivism. And we absolutely don’t want that! Look how well selfishness and greed have solved the problems of billions of people around the globe…people from places like…

like…

like…

Okay, I’ll think of a country in a moment, but they’re out there. The countries thriving and living strong due to selfishness and greed are out there, and, eventually, I’ll be able to name them. Aren’t you listening to conspiracy theorists these days? We’ve all got to turn into selfish so-and-so’s immediately before it’s too late. If someone (or some thing) in your life seems to need your help, don’t be fooled. Explain to them that their problems are all their own fault, that they need to clean up their attitude, and you are not going to lift a finger to help them by enabling their laziness. Listen, help someone and they won’t help themselves. Refuse to help someone and they’ll… well, maybe they’ll rob a store for the money or maybe they’ll break into a bank or check into a homeless shelter, or maybe they’ll die because they didn’t get the help they needed, or maybe they’ll sink into depression and start drinking, or maybe the stress will cause them to develop heart disease, multiple sclerosis or cancer, but at least you won’t be advocating ‘socialism’ by helping them because socialism is very, very dangerous. At least you won’t be assisting their laziness. Besides, in attempting to rob a bank, some poor slob might learn skills, including independence and initiative, that might make them more employable once they’re released from jail. (No, I’m not advocating criminal activity, robbery, or theft. I don’t work for corporate America or the government, so why would I advocate such behavior? I’m simply stating what employers, sadly, are seeking from potential employees.) Most employers today look for “money-motivated” types, so being able to risk all for money is in vogue. Socialism is, on the other hand, helping other people. That’s what the word means. Don’t let those dang “liberals” convince you otherwise. And if you do something stupid like help someone in need then find out they weren’t a very nice person in the first place, well…

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

And my memory travels back to a distant time when I was younger and had more faith in people. Perhaps now I’ve become more cynical and impatient. (Ya’ think? Though even in those days I was told I didn’t trust people enough, just to give you an idea of how far down the rabbit hole of mistrust and misanthropy I am right now.) Anyhow, I had moved to a new city and was looking for a new street. I got off the subway and looked around, but this small, suburban street was nowhere to be found. I asked a passerby about this elusive street. Do you know where XXX Street is? And I remember her answer to this day, as it will never leave my mind. It was just so typically American.

“I don’t like to encourage dependency!” she gruffly announced. Then she shoved a map in my face and told me to find the street myself. I looked at the map, dumbfounded. I didn’t know the area at all. In fact, it was the first time in my entire life I’d even been in that city, much less that neighborhood. I spent a few minutes searching the map, but I didn’t even know where I was located on the map much less the street I was searching for, so I didn’t even know where to look. I was very confused. After a few minutes of watching me look over the map, the woman became exasperated. “Oh!” She abruptly grabbed the map away from me. (It was her map, after all, and these days you can’t be too careful. Lots of map-theives out there looking for a handout, looking for someone to “help” them, the lazy bums…)

She then motioned toward the street with her hand. She knew exactly where it was but hadn’t wanted to tell me until now. She just didn’t have the patience for someone as “dependent” and “needy” as I was anymore. So she told me to turn right, head down that major street then turn right again and I’d see the small street I was looking for. She acted as though I was the dumbest person on earth and that I had a lot of nerve asking her for help. Why couldn’t I just pick myself up by my bootstraps and find the street myself?

I followed her instructions and found the street I was looking for. At the time, I was very young, so I didn’t judge the woman too much. I was puzzled by her resistance to just quickly direct me to the street. Honestly, it would have only taken a minute for her to just motion with her hand and say, “It’s just over there.” I was literally only a five-minute walk away from that street. So what exactly was the problem?

It seemed she felt strongly that she had to make a point that everyone should be independent and take care of herself without asking other people for help or directions. She felt she was perpetuating some sort of cycle of dependency by helping me find a street!

And yet if she had taken a simple moment out of her time (less than three minutes, really) to just send me in the right direction, I would have continued on my way and not taken up more of her (or my own) time. She prolonged the time it took for me to find my street by insisting I find it myself when I could not. She had knowledge but wouldn’t share it. (Nothing for free here in the USSA!)

Her resistance to helping me slowed everything down, impeded progress for both her and me. It took me longer to get to my destination and made the trip frustrating. If I hadn’t been able to find the street, I might have given up and just turned around and gone home. Simply put, it would have been much more efficient if she’d just pointed me in the right direction in the first place instead of wasting everyone’s time by attempting to make senseless argument about independence. So we’re not allowed as humans to get lost and ask for directions? That makes us lazy and dependent?

Sheesh.

Look, when we need help, we need it right away at the time it is needed AND we need the appropriate type of help. When other people resist us, judge us, assume we’re to blame, etc., that just creates a distraction that slows us down, sometimes discourages us altogether. This, my friend, is the reason why some people stay poor, remain on welfare, remain homeless, etc. Helping people empowers them, gives them the safety net they need so they can take the risk to jump out into the world and pursue their dreams. Attacking them for needing help when they actually need it just frustrates people, makes them feel helpless and hopeless and, quite often, causes them to give up.

Yes, sometimes we need help. Quite often, we need help. Almost always we need help from other people. And when we don’t get help when we need it and we can’t solve our problems without help, we can deteriorate, sink into depression, get overwhelmed and overburdened, develop health problems, behavioral problems, etc. (Poor people don’t live as long as rich people for this reason.)

That is what happens to poor people, to people who collect welfare for long periods of time, to homeless people, etc. No one wants to be poor or homeless. No one. People get stuck–not because they’re “dependent on handouts.” They get stuck because they aren’t getting the help they need when they need it. American “handouts” are half-assed, incomplete forms of shoving a map in a lost person’s face and telling a person to find the street herself.

Who’s helping the poor here in the USA?  Who’s really helping the poor? No one. I’m telling you right now. NO ONE. When someone’s lost and you send them in the right direction, you’re not perpetuating dependency. You’re being a kind, decent human being. You’re allowing progress. Let that person continue on their journey while you continue on yours. When one needs help from the other, the other will be ready because we share this world. We have to share. Now, I’m not speaking to kindergarteners here, am I? We’re all adults, no? Didn’t your parents/teachers/surrounding adults teach you this when you were five? We have to share because as individuals we can’t do it all alone. It isn’t physically possible.

We’re all connected. We all depend on one another, always. That will never change. Should you choose to leave society and live alone on a deserted island, you’ll still be dependent on nature and the changes taking place within it. You’ll be interacting with storms, crops that refuse to grow, soil that needs to be left alone for a while, animals that are hungry and want your food–or perhaps you as their food. Sorry, but rugged selfishness doesn’t work. Never has. Never will. Being kind spreads more kindness. Someday, it will come back to you and you’ll find that someone somewhere is kind to you when you most needed it. It’s wonderful, really, to live in a world in which people are kind to each other. And we could have that world, even here in the USA.

BTW, a note about the above videos:

The first video was produced by a former lawyer and homeless woman who creates provocative and intriguing political commentary, and has continued to create these videos even while she was homeless. Amazing. Just because you aren’t making money doesn’t mean you aren’t contributing to society. This woman is a perfect example of that. Making videos takes a lot of work.

The second video impressed me because this priest exuded kindness and peace. What he said about us breaking down the walls between us was beautiful and poetic. He honestly means what he says. He honestly cares.

The last videos of the young college students made me cry. “I’ve got a pretty good life,” the young man begins (and the tears began to flow–from my eyes, of course, not his.) So often I lament the lack of empathy and compassion in our spiritually impoverished nation, then someone like this guy comes along who causes me to have faith in the human race again. (Well, for a moment…)

I wish we could support the above video makers. Turn off the TV set and watch videos like the above, movies made from the heart and soul by people who are passionate about something important. Frankly, I found the above videos more entertaining and enlightening than anything I could watch on TV. (But then again, I don’t watch TV anymore, so I guess I’m not all familiar with the *$%#* gobbledygook screening on the idiot box these days. “Junky off!” as my granddad used to say.)

So there.

2012. It’s here. We’ve done the deed. We’ve allowed time to catch up with us. So now what?

Aside

We Americans, who think we are so much in control over everything (and everyone), cannot control time. We cannot stop it from catching up with us and we cannot prevent the consequences of our actions.

We think, for example, we can abuse our kids and that that will be okay because when they grow up and exhibit all sorts of psychiatric symptoms we’ll just take them to the doctor and have them medicated.

We think we can abuse our fellow Americans by outsourcing jobs to third-world countries then blaming people for not being able to find decent-paying jobs and not being able to pay their bills.

Or by blaming people for getting sick then depriving them of access to good health care.

We think we can abuse women, minorities and poor people by blaming them from suffering from discrimination and social injustice while we refuse to take responsibility for how we choose to treat others.

We don’t need to discriminate against women and people of color when hiring for certain jobs. We don’t need to pay our employees tiny wages. We don’t need to refuse to provide our employees with health insurance.  We don’t need to charge unreasonably high rents to our tenants.  We don’t need to charge unreasonably high prices for items we sell.  But we choose too because that’s a higher profit, more money, for us. And that’s all we care about–US, right?

Us. We think we can pollute the environment and that will be okay because we can just use scientific knowledge and advanced technology to make it all go away when the s**t hits the f*n. (I mean, hey, there are other planets, right?) If we get sick from the processed food and the pollution in our air, food and water, we’ll just take some medication or have the body parts that are damaged inside us surgically removed. Heck, I’ve met people who have rods in their spine.  Some people pick up radio signals, they have so much metal in them. Some people have pacemakers that help keep their heart beating no matter what.  Lots of people have tumors removed, so does it matter if cell phones can cause tumors?  Does your stomach hurt?  Have it removed or surgically modified.

Does your heart bother you?  What about your mind?  Your conscience?  Your soul?  (Hmm… I suspect there are some things we can’t have removed or surgically modified, though I could be perfectly wrong. Am I?)

Oh yeah, we Americans can survive anything. But what’s more important is that we can do anything we want. And no one can do what we can. We’re just better than everyone else in the world, right?   Greatest country in the world, right?

Ehem.

On this day, December 21st, 2012–doomsday or day of transformation, I wanted to share my own personal observations and predictions for the future (if there is one) of this country.  Yes, I’m not so well-known.  If I’m lucky, I’ll get 3-4 readers of my blog per day. (And some of them are mere paid trolls hired out to discourage us “liberals” from uttering dissenting voices on the web. Yep, we’re on to ya’, so don’t even bother.)  That’s okay because I haven’t had the time or the desire to promote this blog, as, like most Americans, financial concerns “occupy” my mind most of the time, unfortunately.  And in a sense, it doesn’t really matter. Famous media personalities such as Michael Moore, Naomi Wolf, Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman have tried and continue to try to inform the American masses. Yet I continue to meet Americans who have never even heard of any of those people despite their collective decades of activism.

So there ya’ go.

A lot of people (quacks in my not-so-humble opinion) have been predicting a transformation on this day. A spiritual transformation. Suddenly human beings will no longer be human beings. We’ll suddenly stop hating, stop war-mongering, stop being selfish, greedy, etc. We’re going to transform into loving, spiritual, god-like creatures no longer capable of social injustice.

In other words, we’ll all cease to exist as humans.

But what is actually happening today in everyday America is exactly the opposite of that.  We’re continuing to hear of layoffs, employees losing their jobs, companies outsourcing labor to third-world countries or downsizing (trying to get more work out of fewer people and for less pay) while we’re also hearing the propaganda–that the economy is getting better, that jobs are being “created,” that poor people are lazy and don’t want to work, that some people are creating their own problems by causing themselves to get sick then complaining they have no access to affordable health care, etc.

Yep, the propaganda machine is alive and well, and we will hear more of it. People will continue to lose their homes, their jobs, their friends and sometimes their families. Without a livelihood and with no hope for a better future, many people are finding themselves isolated in a society that values money over everything else. What, you don’t have a car? You don’t have a computer? You don’t have Internet access at home? You can’t afford to go to the concert?  To eat dinner at au restaurant on the hill?  Heaven forbid, you have no home? No job? Are you collecting public assistance? Horror of horrors! What kind of person are you?

A human person.

But that’s beside the point. Rather than a spiritual transformation that makes us kinder and more loving, I believe the opposite is happening and will continue to do so.  The transformation we’re undergoing is making us less human–that is true, but not in the way the new-agers were expecting.

We are changing, transforming, into drones who care for nothing or no one, who follow orders mindlessly, who never even think of thinking for ourselves. We don’t even ask for permission. We just wait for our orders which we obey without question. Soon the human race (that of thinking, rational, compassionate and empathetic creatures, capable of creativity, imagination and sometimes questioning authority) will be one we might read of in history books or hear tale of from our grandparents–if such history is allowed to be told.

Yes, revolution is possible in some parts of the world. People who suffer for long periods of time are bound to develop some discontent and rebel. But, of course, a mass rebellion requires one thing that we wealthy/formerly wealthy Americans just don’t have: cooperation.

In order for people to rise up and vent their dissatisfaction with the social order of things, people need to be able to cooperate, to work together, to trust in each other, and yes, to help each other. Americans have been conditioned to believe that helping other people makes the people receiving the help lazy and dependent. How many times have we heard about the cycle of dependency, the “nanny state,” or heaven forbid, the dangers of “socialism?”  Your next-door neighbor is just another dog in a dog-eat-dog society who’ll eat you if you don’t eat him/her first. So be glad they lost their house, their job, their car… That’s one more house, job, car, etc., for you!

We’ve become a nation of rugged individualists with each one of us thinking we are some sort of island or fortress that can stand against the world. Problem is, we can’t.

A society, by definition, is people, a group of people, working together, collaborating together, sharing and helping each other. A society is not a collection of selfish people who don’t like each other, are afraid of each other, are unable to trust each other or to make sacrifices for each other. No, what we have here in the US is not a society at all, and that is what is disturbing.

Because no matter how bad things get, no matter how many surveillance cameras spy on us, no matter how many stories we hear of political activists dying mysterious deaths or finding their careers ruined, we, the people, outnumber the wealthy elitists who’ve taken over our country. We, the people, ultimately prevail, and those in power are afraid of us. Yes, they are very much afraid. That is the reason, after all, for all the surveillance and the taking away of our civil liberties. Attempting to oppress millions of free people is dangerous indeed. But what if the people aren’t free? What if they all hate each other? Are afraid of each other? Can’t trust each other? Can’t cooperate or work on projects with each other? Can’t trust each other? Are completely dependent on authority figures to tell them how and what to think?

We the people could change this entire country in an instant. In fact, the entire world could change in an instant! (Yes, perhaps I could market this idea because I think I’ve just solved the world’s problems just now… Or have I, my dear naive, capitalist friend?)

And yet it is true. Painfully true! Everything could change in a heartbeat. All we have to do is change ourselves. Instead of “waiting for superman” to rescue us, protesting what other people are doing, complaining, crying, lamenting, etc., we just need to stop going along with it. That means becoming the peace, freedom, change or whatever we wish to see in the world. That means stop buying from large corporations. Stop supporting them. We know they are greedy for money and power. Let’s stop giving it to them.

We can stop watching television. We can recognize their propaganda and resist their fear mongering.

We can visit our friends and neighbors and start congregating in public places again. We can have barbecues and invite our neighbors over. We can stop stealing from and assaulting each other. We can start being kind and loving rather than judgmental and vindictive toward each other. We can welcome our differences, for they make us interesting, rather than attack each other and discriminate against each other for them. Men, women, rich people, poor people, red people, brown, black and yellow people, fat people, thin people, smart and not-so-smart people. We are a diverse humanity. Some can run faster, think faster, shoot faster, talk faster than others, but that’s what makes life interesting. Our weaknesses are also our strengths and vice versa. The one who moves slowly might have more patience for solving complex problems. The one who runs faster might have trouble stopping and listening to others and may be slow at understanding.

Once we understand that we realize that no one is really “weaker” or less important as everyone has something to offer to the world. We need the slower among us along with the quicker. Those we label as “weak” might have strengths we’ve ignored. An elderly relative wasting away in a nursing home has tremendous wisdom that is left untapped. Why? Why do we throw away people when we, the people, are all needed so very much? Everyone has inside him or her something great and wonderful, some special form of knowledge or experience that can heal someone else if only it were shared.

Yet we don’t share. We’ve forgotten how to share. And those who still know how to share are often prevented from doing so. We’ve forgotten how to appreciate and show gratitude to those who want to share by preventing them from contributing to our society.  Remember, the person collecting the welfare check may not contribute by working at a regular “job” but contributes to society in many other ways. Raising one’s children properly, lending a kind hand to a neighbor, giving helpful advice to someone who’s lost, inviting someone who’s hungry or lonely over for dinner, being a good listener or just a good friend to another human being in need are only some of the ways in which everyone can contribute, regardless of employment status.

On a certain level, we used to know all this. I’m not saying/writing anything new here. But somehow we’ve lost our way. We’ve forgotten who we are as human beings. We’ve allowed a tiny minority of wealthy aristocrats to manipulate us into becoming like they are: greedy, selfish, egotistical, self-servingly ignorant–instead of giving and selfless, connected as a part of one race, the way we were meant to be as humans.

Why?

We’ll never be like them. Most of us will never become nearly as rich, as social mobility in the USA is not very common. Most Americans  remain in roughly the same socioeconomic class within which they were born. But why do we want to be like them? They’re never happy, never satisfied. We hear them always complain about having to pay taxes. Poor babies–a simple tax return they don’t even fill out themselves (but that their accountants fill out for them) is enough to shatter their entire world. Inner turmoil sets in at the very thought of having to give anything to anyone else. They were born with money, they continue to make more money and yet they hoard their money. Most of it goes nowhere, just sits in bank accounts, trust funds, stocks, bonds, etc. Still they live in constant fear of losing even a mere penny of it. What a sad life they lead. They own several cars, houses, mansions, private planes, servants, etc., but they are never satisfied. It’s just never enough for them. Like the alcoholic who never has enough to drink, the greedy money-hoarder never has enough money and/or power over other people. And for what purpose? To what end? We will all die someday regardless. We can all get sick–rich and poor. We all have to use the bathroom. All of us vomit. All of us pee.

And when you’re alone in a hospital room vomiting nonstop, your makeup, your fancy hairdo, your diamonds and pearls won’t make you any better than human. They won’t save you from dying. In fact, the makeup will smudge, your hair will get messy and the jewelry might need to be removed during surgery. And people who have less money than you (who you think of as inferior) will see you undressed, unadorned–wrinkles, warts, farts, and all.

Sorry, wealthy elite, aristocrats, one-percenters, “illuminati,”reptile peeps, or whatever you prefer to be called, but you aren’t any better than the rest of us. You’re just as human, just as messy, sloppy, oily, smelly, and imperfect as the rest of us.

Except on the inside, you’re much, much uglier.  Often you even lack a soul. When we try to see inside you, we see something dark and evil and sick, or we see nothing at all. It’s very frustrating really. And I truly pity the psychologist who tries this.

But physically, you’re just like the rest of us. Whether you like it or not.

Yet Americans want to be you. Americans think they can be you. Wow, you’ve sure done a great job of brainwashing Americans.  And on a weird sort of level, I admire your ability to control the minds of so many people. Americans really think they can be rich someday, just like you. But what’s even worse, they want to be as cruel as you are too. Where does this come from, this need to be cruel, thoughtless, selfish and to show general disregard for others? Is it a result of anger? A need to feed the ego? If I’m cruel to you it shows how powerful I am?  A sense that others haven’t been fair to us? Or is it just coming from our general disconnection from each other? Okay, I digress here.

Goofy comparison I suppose, but we’ve become a lot like the oppressed humans in the Ann Rice novel “Vittorio, the Vampire.” They are so afraid of the vampire conquerors that they forget that vampires have a weakness humans do not share. Vampires cannot go out in the light. When the light shines on them, they die. And everyday the sun rises. Yet we are afraid to expose them to the light. All we have to do is shine the light on them and they’ll burn out into oblivion.

But instead we continue to try to be like them, those vampires who’ve decimated what was once a great society. (Yes, I do think the US was once a great country that did have the ability to influence the rest of the world in a positive and democratic way.)  But we’ve thrown that all away. Now our country sinks further into fascism.

We could change that, of course, in an instant. I could snap my fingers now–snap!–and make it all go away, but that would require we change ourselves, that we start loving each other and making sacrifices for each other again. We can stop supporting celebrities, CEOs and billionaires and start giving to each other. We can acquire some integrity and decide that a pair of sneakers aren’t worth $100, especially when manufactured by a corporation that put millions of Americans out of work by outsourcing labor to third-world-countries, hiring children to work like slaves for meager wages then stealing from its customers by charging $100 for a pair of sneakers that probably cost 50 cents to make.  We can entertain each other instead of relying on corporate-controlled TV programs or radio stations that play the same songs over and over. Over. And over. Over. Again.  (Before the advent of television and radio people played musical instruments for each other in their homes. People read books to each other. People drew, painted, composed poetry, etc.)

But I’m speaking into the wind. A wind that’s blowing in my face. (And it smells like the aftermath of a forest fire.)

Sadly, the American people just aren’t going to change anything. Perhaps there is hope for the rest of the world, but the hope is not here in the USA.

I predict for 2013 and beyond that there will be no revolt, no revolution in the US, because Americans can’t come together and work with each other on anything anymore. We’ve been fragmented, disconnected, disconcerted, discombobulated by fear, selfishness, greed, the human ego, and worship of the very wealthy, whom we’ve decided are better than us simply because they have more money.  (Americans worship money, and so it is ironic that our country is losing just that very thing we “love” so much.)

Right now, many Americans are getting assistance from friends and relatives. College students, aged 22, are graduating with massive debt that sometimes amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But their parents and grandparents had better lives, so they often have the money to provide them assistance. A few decades from now, those students will be parents and grandparents themselves. They will not have social security or pensions. They will not have life savings, as all the money they’ve earned from working will have gone toward paying off the massive student loan and/or credit card debt.

So what then? What happens when the future generations of struggling Americans are faced with not only the lack of government safety nets but the lack of social safety nets as well? What happens when kids ask their parents for money only to find their parents ask them in return? ‘Have no money to lend you, son, ’cause I’m struggling myself. Sorry, grandkids, can’t celebrate Christmas this year.’

What happens when families lose their homes but their parents and grandparents are also homeless? There will be no sister, brother, mother, father, cousin, aunt or uncle to move in with. No living room floor to sleep on. No extra room in the basement or attic. No friend/relative to help you get a job at his company. No $1000 we can borrow from Grandma to help us catch up on the rent or mortgage. At the same time, we’ll continue to hear the propaganda: if you’re poor, it’s your own fault. Get a job! So our friends and acquaintances who are doing better than us won’t loan us the money, won’t put us up for a few weeks–or perhaps years!–while we search for a better job, a job that may not even exist–won’t help us to survive.   No, more than likely they will shun us because everything they hear on the “news” tells them the economy is getting better, jobs are being created, and poor people are lazy and just choosing not to work. They won’t want to “enable” us and our “dependency” by helping us. Dear me, no! Jamais de la vie!

You bum! Why don’t you get a job?!

That’s what we’ll hear. Until they lose their jobs. Then they’ll understand. But of course, we won’t be able to help them ’cause they weren’t there to help us so… Oh yeah, it’s a lot like that famous poem, a poem that haunts me frequently these days as I watch Americans get meaner and meaner toward each other: “when they came for the communists, I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist…”

Oh yeah, history repeating itself. Again. What else is new?

I guess what is new here in the US is fascism. Don’t think we’ve experienced it before. So it’s almost impossible to get the average American to recognize the obvious symptoms of it.  (I’m sure if we traveled to Europe and talked with people about fascism, most would agree that that is something to be concerned about. But Americans seem to think we’re immune only because it hasn’t happened here…yet. A young country, we forget that it has just taken time for fascism to catch up with us, that there is a Hitler in every country, everywhere in the world just waiting for the right, fertile environment to let him grow into the great dictator he intends to be.)

So yes, we will continue to deteriorate. Ignorance is bliss, but only temporarily. Many people will suffer here in the US. As we’re unable to cooperate with and trust each other, Americans will not come together and revolt but will instead begin attacking each other, and the country will implode. We’ll kill ourselves really.  When people lose their jobs and cannot find another means of supporting themselves they will have to find some other way of feeding themselves and their children. If they can’t do it legally, they’ll do it illegally. If there is no friend, relative or anyone to help them, to show them kindness, they will learn that it is a dog-eat-dog society and each one of us must fend for him or herself. That means, I can’t care about you because, after all, you don’t care about me. If I am hungry, painfully hungry, and I need to eat, I know that you won’t feed me. You’ll judge me. You’ll attack me for being hungry. You’ll accuse me of being some sort of lazy bum because I don’t have a job. There is no government assistance for me and no one in my life to help me. So what am I going to do?

For most people the answer will be crime or violence. People will be forced to steal their food, to break into each other’s homes, to hack each other’s computers, to steal credit card numbers, or to somehow find a way to survive outside of the normally acceptable means of earning a living (as those normal means–i.e., jobs–have been taken away.)  We’ll be able to trust each other less and less, become even more disconnected and fearful, and this will result in more policing, more military force being used against us as the American people become increasing violent and dangerous to each other. And the more threatening we are to each other, the less threatening we’ll be to the wealthy elite who’ve created this mess in the first place. Of course, that’s exactly how they’ve planned it. (Yes, I’m a conspiracy theorist on this one, babe.)

Now, I’m running out of time. Aren’t we all? Perhaps I’ll have time later to edit and to elaborate.

But what I’ll say now (to the air blowing back at my words) is this: the future is bleak in the US.  It is too late to turn things around.

But…

if you really are a diehard activist who refuses to give up then please, take a look at the power and strength of community: Bringing people together, getting people to work together and to help each other again, to feel connected with each other again. If we the people could start loving each other…if we could trust each other…then, yes, a revolution would be possible.

That is why the US government dislikes the hippie Rainbow gatherings so much. People coming together and loving each other is too reminiscent of the 60s movement–a worldwide movement in which people began disobeying authority (heavens to Betsy!) People were empowered, united, and striving for peace, kindness and love. (Or at least they claimed to be.)

My, how times have changed. In these days, when peaceful, loving people are seen as ‘weak’ while aggressive,  violent people are seen as ‘strong,’ political activists would have a difficult time changing the mindset of the average American, but I, for one, would love to see the effort made.

Requiem for a country…

Aside

How sad this country has lost its way. The US was supposed to be the Land of Opportunity, a place where anyone could pursue one’s dreams, not have to throw away one’s talents & gifts to conform to what someone else decides is a “practical” major & spend their lives toiling away at jobs they hate and for little money. Quality of life was supposed to be better here–unlike the third world where poor people are expected to do whatever it takes, right or wrong, to earn enough to get by.

The reality is there are perhaps billions of people all over the world that are incredibly talented but will never live up to their full potential, never be able to contribute, never be the best they could be because they live in extreme poverty.  The child starving in an African desert will never know she was built to be a ballet dancer, may not even know what ballet is.  Another child is struggling in a housing complex in the Bronx. He has the intellect and personality type that would make him a gifted scientist.  But he is surrounded by gangs and drug dealers, so that is where his future lies.

There’s a saying: “If you think education is expensive, consider the price of ignorance.” We are paying that price now. It would greatly help this country if more Americans studied the liberal arts–particularly history, sociology, political science, and psychology. I guarantee you, Americans wouldn’t have gone along with the surveillance, the destruction of our civil liberties, the dismantling of our Constitution, the outsourcing of our jobs to third-world-countries, etc., if they’d were well-educated in the above subjects.  Study some history and sociology and learn about how peoples all over the world and all throughout time have lost their freedom the way Americans are now losing it due to their own ignorance.  It’s amazing how history repeats itself when nobody listens.

I suppose this is why the following is also true: disdain for the arts is one of the early warning signs of fascism.

It’s just so much easier to oppress the “money-motivated” Accounting majors.  They don’t have lofty ideals of making the world a better place.  They simply think about themselves, their money and their potential to make more money, so of course they can be easily manipulated.  Americans have made a decision to reward thugs without ideals, compassion or love for their fellow human beings.

People get the governments they deserve.

Protect the Rich and Famous! …Er…Protect IP ACT, PIPA/SOPA This is urgent!

What are PIPA/SOPA? Well, the letters stand for Protect IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  (Interesting Orwellian terminology, non? PIPA gives the impression that our IP addresses are somehow in danger and they need protection. Sounds like one of those feminine hygiene commercials we used to laugh at when I was a kid. SOPA’s terminology gives the impression that there is some sort of violence online–pirates that need to be stopped, riding online the wireless waves, their swords pointed toward wifi towers as they shout, “Arrgh, arrgh, I’ll surf the web, matey!”) Yes, there’s fear in the words chosen. We need to protect our IPs and stop those pirates just as we need to defend ourselves nationally (with the National Defense Authorization Act) and be more patriotic, or else (Patriot Act.)

Essentially, our Congress will be voting on January 24th (yep, it’s comin’ up quick. That’s why, even though it’s 2a.m., I felt compelled to write about this. No, I won’t have time to write about everything or to proofread anything, but if I’m able to inform even one more person of the importance of this then I’ve done my job!) Please, everyone, write, call, email your congressperson and let him/her know you are against this bill. Even if you learn about this after January 24th–it’s never too late! I believe that Jan. 2th’s vote is a “test vote,” whatever that means. But we must let those…uh…people in congress know that we’re paying attention and we won’t just sit back and let this draconian law be passed against us. And it is very much against us, against Americans and everything this country stands for. Just remember how television and radio were once free and available to everyone. The reason for this is that we are supposed to have access to information in a democratic society. It is necessary for people to have easy access to information. In order for people to participate adequately in a democracy, people must be well-informed. In a fascist or tyrannical society, however, it is necessary that the people are kept ignorant. Otherwise,  they might protest against injustice and unfairness.

This bill will greatly restrict our creativity and freedom to use the Internet. As a musican/writer/filmmaker, I can tell you that the people who will be harmed the most are us artists! Of course, in its Orwellian fashion, our government is doing the usual and trying to convince us that we are “stealing” from artists when we watch their films or listen to their music on the Internet. Nothing could be further than the truth! Do you think I spend hours writing these blogs free of charge because I’m hoping to get some money out of you? Certainly, we artists would like to get paid for our work but we give away our creations freely and we hope that if our work is of value that, eventually, the money will come. Of course, the money, recognition and appreciation will never come to us if we are not allowed to display our work publicly. This is even true of the wealthy, famous, celebrity artists (yes, the only few who will benefit from this USSR-like law.) They too must give away some of their work in order to get noticed. This is why there is radio and television. But I don’t care about them. I care about the starving artists, those who aren’t famous or rich yet who rely on the Internet as a platform that has helped democratize the Arts & Entertainment industry (an industry that’s notorious for NOT being democratic but for relying on nepotism, on people using other people as stepping stones.) But don’t even get me started on that one. Point is, this bill (SOPA/PIPA) will damage art, creativity, innovation and freedom of speech. Do we need to do more damage to our Constitution and Bill of Rights than has already been done by the Patriot Act and the NDAA?

From http://www.FightFortheFuture.org and http://www.AmericanCensorship.org as well as our very own WordPress.org I was led to a petition that began as follows. Beneath the quotes, you’ll see what I added to my own petition. I urge you to please write, email or call your senator or representative (or both) and let them know you’re against SOPA/PIPA

http://vimeo.com/33845671

“I am writing to you as a voter in your district. I urge you to vote “no” on cloture for S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, on Jan. 24th. The PROTECT IP Act is dangerous, ineffective, and short-sighted. It does not deserve floor consideration.  I urge my representative to vote “no” on SOPA, the corresponding House bill.

Over the next coming days, you’ll be hearing from the many businesses, advocacy organizations, and ordinary Americans who oppose this legislation because of the myriad ways in which it will stifle free speech and innovation.  We hope you’ll take our concerns to heart and oppose this legislation by voting “no” on cloture. ”

(my words added to the petition are below:)

By the way, I myself am a musician, filmmaker and writer. My work has been available for people to view for free on the Internet for several years. Most of us artists want our work to be seen and are grateful for the chance to present our work to the world via the Internet. Creative people of all types, musicians, photographers, fine artists, actors and filmmakers who are not yet wealthy and famous will suffer as a result of PIPA and SOPA. Only a tiny percentage of people (perhaps the 1%?) will benefit from this fascist, undemocratic and unAmerican bill. Many of us Americans have gotten the impression that you folks in Congress do not care about us at all. Please show us that you do not support draconian or tyrannical laws such as this one. What had made America great was our freedom of expression. This time in history (if future historians have the freedom to accurately record it) will be reported as a dark time in which there was very little innovation or creativity thanks to draconian laws such as PIPA/SOPA.

But maybe you don’t care about that, nor do you care about the many artists and creative people who’ll be harmed by this Soviet-like bill. Nor do you seem to care about the Constitution or Bill of Rights and the fact that the US is beginning to resemble the USSR. My guess is, though, that you do care a great deal about yourself and your money. So how about this:

This bill will not help you (or your wealthy donors) to make more money. It will not make you happy. Most Americans, particularly young people, spend a lot of time on the Internet. Americans will notice this censorship. This bill will cause tremendous discontent among Americans. Americans will not ignore this attack on their civil liberties.

We cannot afford to pay for everything. This will prevent people from listening to music, watching films, reading literature.  As someone who has spent years writing books, producing films, creating music, I know how much hard work artists put into our work. We don’t want to prevent others from having access to our creations. We just want to get credit for our work. Most of us don’t get paid for our work. Only a wealthy, privileged few typically earn a living as artists. Obviously, this bill is targeted toward helping those wealthy few to greedily attempt to get more.

It will only backfire, as most Americans are struggling financially right now. We cannot afford to buy all the movies and CDs you want us to buy. The mean-spirited greed and selfishness behind SOPA/PIPA will result in more dissatisfaction with the government and corporate America, less buying of CDs and DVDs, less innovation and artistic expression and less freedom and democracy and more tyranny, more resemblance to the USSR. This is both scary and sad.