critical relating (raos)

The Revolution will not be televised
The Revolution will be online
Because The Times They Are A'Changin

 

 

Little snips of scenes
more poetry than prose.
This is me just being,
in repose.
Wraith demurely flows
opens my eyes,
wrinkles my nose.
A captive faint melody
carried on nervous breeze
ripples along my inner skin.
This is my world between.
This is the "I" my dream admits,
emits
electric sensation
from visits outside. My mind
playing out on this stage
that is mine alone.

 

 

 

Of course the massive interest in current technology is manipulated by the artist, as cultural archetypes are. I see a lot of mixed media -- videos with expressive language and movement interplayed with cgi or other visuals. It's all happening. Then there's "air poetry" -- framing of heard conversation, or tweets. Artists explore. Yet art is not just about form. Often its function is psychological more than social or economic. The felt need to express will often find the most direct conveyance, whatever that is perceived to be.

 

 

 

People get the ego all wrong.  I do understand -- it is what we are taught.

Ego is meant to be the organizing principle in our consciousness.  It is a hard-working, important tool if we are to be social beings in a material world.  When ego is well used, it allows us to make sense of the flood of sensations, organize time/space/tools/intent into worthwhile projects, create appropriate interfaces for smooth social commerce, and generally function as strong, self-motivated, sane actors.  Because we are misinformed, we often grow misformed egos that are not well used or healthy.  This can create deep resentments, anti-social inclinations, general confusion about one's place in the world.  Rather than denigrating ego, we would do well to befriend our various strands and become more whole, more able, more socially useful and personally joyful.

 

 

 

The Troy Davis case points out the fallacy of capital punishment as a necessary evil. The evil is in the execution (both literal and metaphorically). The "law" to kill becomes the trump over any pretense of justice. If we were to stipulate that a death penalty has its place to remove from society those we deem too dangerous to live, that would presuppose a system whereby only those clearly guilty of violence and deemed still dangerous would be executed. Instead, we have a system in which the fact of sentencing is the rationale for the state to murder. Yet, how much sense does it make, even for the stipulated rationale, to coldly, deliberately, with much forethought and notice, murder people who are clearly caught, incarcerated, and removed from violent impact on the rest of us? The death penalty is not about justice, or fear of violence, or even ultimately revenge. It is about a culture that worships death and human sacrifice.

 

 

There is a strong difference between believing that one has the right to defend oneself and others from obvious attack and believing we have a combined social right to condemn prisoners, incarcerated outside of the social milieu in a way to prevent their violent, harmful action against us.

 

 

 

There are far too many confirmed stories of police acting brutally without cause. This needs to be taken seriously.

 

 

 

Modern technology and social changes are creating a new economic environment. In this "transitional time of untidiness" if we were reasoning beings we might reasonably develop a project to generally modernize regulations and policies.

 

Whether or not permanent jobs emerge, we REALLY need to fix the infrastructure that we all need to have any kind of economically viable country at all.

 

It would behoove us to join together public, private, and the kind of public we call government to increase and improve community-based healthcare.

 

You would think we could manage at a minimum to keep our water and air drug free.

 

Obama's about as capitalistic as they come -- part of his problem with the far left. On the other hand, the GOP seems more oligarchic -- not the free market, but the monied market is what counts.

 

How the economy grows is through fair play. When it gets too out of balance, it crashes.

 

The problem is not lack of money to invest. The problem is lack of investment. If the private sector won't do it, and if we are to grow as an economy it needs to be done, that is the province of government -- to promote the general welfare.

 

 

The way to deal with money interests in politics is to make it irrelevant. We the people must educate ourselves in critical thinking to see through media manipulations and well paid for lies. We the people must reown the truth and work together for our combined self-interest.

 

 

 

Congressman Paul is the only one in the Republican field with real gravitas. That ought to mean something to serious voters.

 

 

Yet again GOP talking points play smoke and mirrors with language, accusing the opposition of their own worst tactics.  Have you noticed how GOP talking points are so often them accusing their perceived adversaries of their own bad behaviors and rationales?

 

It is clear that the class which employs warfare is the cynical "right".

 

I saw them going after Google on C-SPAN coverage  -- I thought the right loved entrepreneurs.

 

People are always have our free speech rights trampled. Corporations not so much.  "Class Warfare" indeed -- Corporate "people" v. bio-people

 

What happened to respect and manners? People convincing each other that bare-knuckled brutality is the only manly stance.

 

debt came from war

 

 

We seem to have developed an erroneous mindset that mistakes fighting symptoms for curing the cause.  In the case of our relationship to "drugs," the problem is not in the substances, or the people who seek benefit from their use, but the intensive, deceptive marketing of panacea.  People thus become conditioned to believe not only that medicines will cure, but that we are dependent upon them, powerless.  A more useful paradigm would be to see these not as authoritative, but as tools.  We do the work, use our own power to heal, grow stronger, face and overcome our issues and ills.  In a great variety of cases, various tools can help us -- allies, not tyrannical powers.

 

 

At the edge of the real
At the plummet of denial
At the summit of all we pretend

Re-echoing ecstasy crescendo
No where to discover again
Drunk on this neverending run
To the End

 

 

 

Doorway into Scorpionic revelation -- severe, profound, grabs from beneath the conscious realm.

poems for change

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange

http://arts.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/18754/100-thousand-poets-for-change-goes-global/100 Thousand Poets for Change’ goes global

by Arts

 “100 Thousand Poets for Change”:

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange

 

 

Autumnal Vision

 

Wind, rain: a snuggle under the covers morning
Dreamtime -- 
 "dreaming of the way things might have been"?
Someone asked:  What short of revolution could remake
 the world to be
    more fair, peaceful, more encouraging of love?
My new mantra:  "lighten up":
 Eyes upward, facing mysteries of stars and heavens
 Heart lightened, to more merry, merry be
 I lighten the load to my aching shoulders, and find
   worlds of light and joy easier to carry
 I look to ancient wisdoms to enlighten my soul

 

        And I laugh, lightly, brightly,
   let loose too tightly inheld breath of 
  fear/hate/judgment.
Breathing freely, I inhale
 the exhilarating scent of changing leaves

 

 

 

Power

 

What is power?
Power is a word.
Power is an idea.
The Word is power.
The Idea is power.
Power is a distribution of energy, wealth, strength:
 Physical, material, mental, metaphysical,
  social.
Power is that which allows us,
 Or we allow others, to have
sway over their/our actions, emotions, limitations.
Power is a rush of air, of water, of electrons, 
 of words,
 of weapons, of will
-- the force behind movement
 or stasis.

 

 

 

Study War No More

 

What lesson can be applied?
When imperialist troops crash down upon a people's pride?
When might as right meets the instinct to survive?
When Midas greed lashes out to destroy?
We've been here before, o my brethren, o my children --
repeating the fouled lessons poured into our thirsty minds,
pushing back the horror before our eyes with blinding rage
forged into weapons by mortal foes
who hide in plain sight.
The only thing I know --
The lesson repeating agony in all our souls,
Haunted by the pleading eyes and bloody hearts
Of the slaughtered sacrifices to malignant gods --
There is something vital here to learn.

 

 

 

Between

 

There are places
beyond time and space
where we don't even know
we wander
delicately balanced
between what could be
and what we will allow.

 

 

 

Feudal Diffraction

 

It's not the color chart; it's the hierarchy.
Hoarders of permission slips for resources
thereby decide what gets done,
which brick gets laid, or even fired,
who lives well-rewarded,
who scrapes til they no longer get by.
It's not our dna that compels stupidity.
Perhaps it's a kind of manic compulsion,
depressive obsession,
mass psychosis,
St. Vitus line-dancing to a poisoned
caller's tune.
What to do?
Meme-web reconstruction in increments
paradigm warping mindwaves
realigning the pulsing macrosphere/microsphere
benign gibberish cyphoning through?
Take back your time.
Take back your right to self-valuation.
Take back your place
outside of the lines.
If our needs, self-fulfilling desires, greater
ecstatic glory and grace
are to be based
on solid infrastructure,
on fruitful interplay,
on free and freeing expression,
let us take hands in
an undulating, beatific dance
moving in multi-rhythmed
direction.
Let us be and do and feel
that which gives us permission
to be whole.

 

 

I Am Geni

 

Imagine
I am geni
Lifting
a veil
between
endless time
and the boundaries
of the permitted.
 
Imagine
worlds unseen
craft them, weave them
create a design
a designation
to allow
ever new
images
comfortable access.
 
Imagine
an engine
of becoming.
 

 

 

Manifestation Ritual

 

Create the vision.
Move into it.
Live there.
Feel it growing through you.
Play with it,
seeing it from a wide range of perspectives.
Delight in it.
Laugh, dance, weep.
Sing it out loud.
Sing it softly as a lullaby.
Now, slowly or quickly or however it feels right,
create a stairway.
Name each stair.
Give each a folder of possibilities,
more and more complete, concrete, living.
Live out the life of your stairway,
allowing it to lead you to the promises
you would have made yourself and your vision
as you became lovers entwined.

 

 

Pangea

 

My country is Peace
People of Peace
are my compatriots
Warriors of Peace
move human energy,
resources, time, minds
with weapons of art
active compassion
respect for the dignity of each and all
Words of Peace
speak beyond structured language
sharing profoundly
in joy
graceful dancing
to music of each dawn
enlivening Peace

 

 

on the threshold

 

before the eclipse
before the dawn
before we are given our missions,
sent forward in time
we must be ready
without map or guidebook to prepare
we must rise to the challenge
endure the patience to exercise
control over every capillary,
every synapse,
every fiber of our being

 

it's not in the believing, but
the seeing
a better world needs a new kind
of ware
be a ware
for peace, for change,
for consciousness
before the wake

 

 

 

Ringing the Changes

 

Seconds of afterlight, Sun lapsed into horizon
Quiet of new snow, cold blanket to trees, roofs, road
Gentle twilight, before the night, before all the freeze of laughter,
bubbling partying, high hats and hands, desperate to ignite,
to touch ice to ice and become.
New Year searching forward, blind drunken eyes behind,
leaking distilled tears denied.  We are jolly good one and all.
Revels, broken lyrics, misremembered, misunderstood;
gladly clapping hand against back, strapping together to
keep upright, sloshing through traffic mottled snow
slipping together, sliding to raucous tune,
old fools' show, commemorative legends to pull out over
brandy and fire.
Resolutions and revelations.
Look into the molten glass, sparking visions
Clean star twinkles ask not, glorying in terpsichore,
no written lines obscure wide sky, open beyond horizon
mistily expanding into rolling sea.  Drink to the season,
to oblivion, to ecstasies bequeathed in excess emotion,
rolling, amniotic, amnesia of expectation.  Breathe --
vestigial gills awaken.
This is the first measure of the first movement
a pirouette, a dervishly delightfilled whirl.
Cast upon this rocky estuary, dance inner wise
third eye calling dawn into destiny.

 

 

 

duelity

 

Duality, dichotomy, antipathy
All we see is
black and white
wrong and right
day and night
running blind into sharp edges
unneeded bloodshed
See:  the world round, encompassing dimensions

 

 

 

In Memoriam

 

Oh my children
Not so very long ago
probably in many places still
we lived in communities
in which we had pride and dignity
Small enough for everyone to
know your name
Large enough for a diverse
resource of skills
and personalities
Caring, squabbling, challenging
as family
Able to leap tall edifices
and find a way when a way
must be found
Entrenched in lessons of former days
while planning for breaking future ground
Not just a pretty myth
like solidarity of kith and kin
Community, living within
a solid sphere,
a social network of mutual support
often said to be what we are here for
(I hear you sneer; you who tear down magic,
hope, and trust)
It could be, community,
our prayed for cure (balancing salvation)
to the follies of humanity's
deadly love
of war

 

 

 

Prologue

 

Sun and Moon embrace
as one
for brief eternity
all mystery within

 

Black and White
create gradation
radiate kinetic energy
We can achieve
believe, begin, begin, begin

 

Gardeners, planting flowers,
planting food,
planting souls in
nurturing soil

 

Healers
perceiving wounds
to be sewn
relieving loneliness
revealing pain
held in, denied
twisting ardent toil

 

Teachers
admiring their wards
finding with them
questions, keys and doors;
realizing history is only destiny
when explorations cease;
invitations from space and time
come complete
with choices

 

A choir of voices
from softest spark
to fervent blaze
Troops of effervescent players
Symphonies,
drums at dawn
Inspiration and instruction
carried forth through song and stage
vibrant murals painting onward age to age
Taking up the challenge of the tale
that twists, turns, meanders
providing kaleidoscopic opportunity
ever to begin again

 

 

Body Language

 

Teach Peace
Dancing in the classroom
Body wisdom
Reaches through neural pathways
regenerates whole to whole
soul to soul
touching life
exactly
I feel you in my mind, my spine
Feel me dancing
elongating muscles
extending connections

 

 

 

Storytellers
 
We need to make up stories
to be able to create realities.
That's what separates sapien
from beast.
 
Speak to the feast
or famine.
Sage, carnie, beggar
Come to the play!
 
There was a Roman soldier bored with war,
with whores, with bloody babies.
Hoping to escape, he wrote a history,
moved into
his Holy fantasy.
It's but a Shangri-La, a piper's dream.
Metal men, formed from clay,
scream upon fields of battle,
when nerves
catch up with senses.
Soothed with martial melodies,
gratefully serve.

 

Listen, oh little one.
The wind will catch you up as you sleep.
You won't remember when you wake, weeping,
how small, insignificant you are.  Mommy assures,
you're her own little star.  Demons alone explain
your terror.  You determine
to do better.  You soothe yourself with stories.
You spin a tale of love within a dance.
You spin yourself the center of romance,
a home, a fortress, an emptiness fulfilled.
 
Like a child counting fireflies,
alive in the darkened air,
dare to immerse with sparkling wonder,
to share
more beautiful stories.

 

 

 

Acts of Magick

 

If it is to be done,
We must go out and do it
Action, once begun,
Has beauty and power to it
Aiming true to course
Needs thought and reflection
Feed movement from the source
Of our yearn toward perfection

 

The play is never done
Each and every one
Performing through their part
Reinvents our start

 

So join the song, and sing your tune
Dance strong beneathe a rousing Moon
Another day, another seed
Bursts out into the Sun

 

 

Rallying

 

The Secret to Happiness ~ We Are Happening!
Find what brings you alive; and do it.
(not what "I should" to prove that "I'm good," or good
at being bad)
Maybe meet people enjoying it too;
they who give layered texture to our view,
expand our field of play.
Lather, rinse, repeat
as necessary.
Take it out to the street when necessary.
Do what you need to be
what you want to see.
Do what only you can.
Make this happening grand!
Do it today.

September '11 harvest (raos)

The entryway, the liminal, the threshold -- this is the landscape of the creative voice.

 

 

 

There is probably no uniting of the "left" and "right" as long as we portray public identifications in this way.  I think the point is to get beyond labels, and work on actual projects that are obviously beneficial.  My question is:  where is the leadership promoting such projects?

 

 

 

It just makes sense: If we are miserable at work, where we invest so much life time, we are increasing the misery of life to no useful purpose

 

 

Life is a death sentence. We might do better in our thinking to care about quality of life for all of us. As we pointed out in the Women's movement, both oppressor and oppressee are harmed by oppression. We are all kept from developing our best selves when our energy goes to combat rather than cooperation. What nobody seems to be telling those with means is that they are actually limiting their own wealth by their stranglehold. Money is not wealth. It is merely math. It is merely a placeholder, an IOU, a gambling chip. The wealth is in the actual trade, the actual value-adding of labor, the actual lives made better by goods and services. The more there is at the bottom, the more is available all the way up.

 

 

 

As the Christ is famously said to have differentiated, we render unto god what is god's, unto Caesar what is Caesar's. ID, identification, names, designations, serial numbers are tools of the socio-econo-political world. We use them in that context. In the context of that reality not socially defined, they have no currency.

We represent ourselves to ourselves and others based on experience with the "caesar" world. To disassociate our representation from acceptance of the real, I believe it best to understand how this representation is useful and how it is not. Total freedom (nothing left to lose?) is not necessarily what is desired or desirable. Freedom within structure may be a more comfortable and creative state. YMMV

 

 

 

life is not about risk and reward

life is about living breath and beat and movement

to feel every ecstasy an expanding core

 

 

 

Love is but a song we sing
When the harmony arises
we are blessed with bliss

 

 

 

The thing is, we are each our own individual bio-chemical factories. One size can not fit all.

 

 

 

If you start with the assumption that government is the problem, you are negating the possibility of using government sensibly as an organizing entity.   If you start with the assumption that government is the solution you tend to look at all problems as demanding laws to manage.  If you start with the assumption that government is a tool for use by the people, you can start to look at where it is useful and how, and where other tools might be more efficacious.

 

 

 

I am always and madly in love with wind.  Even when it lays open my frailty to the cold, it is a longingly vibrant friend.

 

 

 

Of course it is the fanatics who feel compelled to go out and destroy -- just look at the religious right here as well.  It is not the Islamic fanatics as such we must fear; it is the allegiance to fanaticism throughout human hearts and minds.  There is power over and power to.  Creatives use power to expand themselves and give.  Fanatics use power to destroy, contract, take from us all.  Why is that?  Why are they not happier?

 

 

 

We could have low taxes on everyone once we pay for the wars, if we don't waste away our resources with any others.

 

 

 

The so-called tea partiers ought to be ashamed of turning away from their libertarian roots from the Ron Paul 2008 bid. The rabid right ought to be ashamed of their blatant ignorance upholding tactics. The mainstream media ought to be ashamed -- well, generally speaking.

 

 

 

The natural outgrowth of "conservative" capitalist theory -- to the cheaters belong the spoils.

 

 

 

Why not just save Medicare by giving us all a buy-in option. Do away with Medicaid by giving the poor a buy-in voucher to Medicare. Streamline the whole system to make medical decisions more transparent, outcomes available for comparative best practice information, go as much as possible to outcome based payment rather than procedure based. Do more with online consultation, easy access of patients to useful information, generally better information for individuals to maintain their health. Train more medical professionals at every level and useful modality. Develop a well-functioning healthcare system rather than making the issue about health insurance payment.

 

 

 

Why make perfection the enemy of progress? Perhaps what we really need is a process to periodically go through current law to update, delete, and amend in light of changing understandings about what law ought to do.

 

 

 

Why does the NRA want to arm and incite paranoids?

 

 

 

The types can be reduced to one or infinite
We who are in the know, and always ignorant
Today a bright star leads eyes past the sky
wandering minds wonder, "what?" "where?" "why?"
Tales told to guide us from the past
best come with caveat:  these rules won't last

all hale and fair well

 

Timothy McVeigh Is Still Dead

It's morning in America
The morning of June 11, 2001
A warm and beautiful Spring day
And in Terre Haute, Indiana -- a little after 7:00 am
--Timothy McVeigh is dead.
What more is there to say?
We all know the score:
Death: 169, Mercy: 0
The hero "bloody, but unbowed"
Silenced, but still proud
Ashes to scattered ashes
Death to death.

 

 

 

War Games

 

More and more
get less and less
the best sacrificed
to great God Success
Anger
building
brick by bloody brick
Is it a surprise
("Look!  Into my eyes!")
when the peasants cackle
resurrecting the guillotine
Raw power
hot metal shooting
making unmistakable mark
burning ragged skin and guts
and glory

 

Tell me a story, daddy
about before the war
when water flowed
in abundant freedom
when the air was pure
of the stench
of progress
when everybody had
a sacred right
to feel
and believe
and dance in the moonlight
when we could afford to be
young, untried, open
to possibilities not cut off
by a sacrificial knife
repeatedly deeply severing
vital organs
without regard to the waste
with no respect for place
or the people for whom that space
holds stories

 

Weapons forged in anger
built up shattered layers of
desperate pride, disrespect, grief
create festering wounds
poisoning the populace
unto the Seventh Generation
caught up in some grotesque
morality play

 

 

 

The Enemy

 

 Hiding from bombardments.
 Thick, black water;
 no thirst is worth this
 indignity.

 

 Running through rubble,
 recently devolved
 homes, commerce, community.
 Extended families,
 aunts and cousins,
 good neighbors,
 valued friends,
 devolved to shattered corpses.

 

 Wailing at a divisive wall in the name of
 humanity, freedom,
 chaotic prophecies whisper,
 imprinting reign of Hell upon
 modern Earth.
 Policy statements fly
 in protective formation
 "We can not give in to
 the enemy."

 

 

Lesson of The Great Depression

 

The machines stand patiently
ready to act on human command.
Workers expectantly arise
to resume their duties.
Tools, systems, routes, logistics
lined up for service.
Plants to sow and reap; structures
to build, maintain, repair, replace;
commodities to be united with
their markets; music to be played;
enchanting murals to paint;
shows that must go on; coffee
to be made; errands to run;
endless activities and professions
imposing order on entropy.
Teach the curious,
heal the sick or broken,
enforce the law,
tend to the poor.
Society's capillaries clogged by
a powerful voodoo.  All is
needing to be done, but stopped
dead or cancerously
receding from living
for want of the magic beans,
the mysterious force of money,
a social construct gone mad,
constricting the flow of life.

 

 

Red-Blooded

 

Let's talk about this.
Exactly what are we afraid of?
Different skins, different thoughts?
"These people are not like us."
Nor we like them.
Legends say we fear
and fight the barbarians.
A receding panorama
of battle upon battle.
Millennia of genocide
proudly proclaimed.
We must be strong warriors,
rough, sharp, explosive,
valiantly a barricade barrage
protecting Our valued and values
from Their predation.
Lines must be drawn clearly.
Womanly, childish fuzzy vulnerability
cast far behind, confined to
defended shelters
kept at bay with bitter laughter,
raucous play.
These patterns built up over
generations serve us well,
minimizing weakening contamination.

 

 

strangling heaven

 

How do you know that
you're strangling heaven?
Taught to irrelevant
standardized scales
Taught to be standardized,
Christian White Males
or wherever you're placed
and timed
Taught to believe the sublime
is but an affectation,
drug-induced hallucination,
not to be relied upon
when creditors come to call
demanding payment
for providing you with life.
Selling your soul for nickels and dimes,
the working-class creed.
Giving in to everyday crimes,
habituated to need
secondhand pleasures,
pirated treasures
that never succeed in
destroying the pain,
the long season of Hell
you strive to explain
"it's his fault" "it's their fault"
"it's my fault"
all victims of blame.
And you're strangling heaven.
You're making it impossible to survive,
denying your passion to thrive,
denying your worth,
the blessing of birth onto
this mortal stage.
You pace in your cage
as if castrated of will.
And heaven so wants you,
surrounds you, offers
your most deeply hoped for love,
boundless happiness, life eternal,
every pocket of your soul
exquisitely fulfilled.
Heaven offers you her open arms,
and you, in your hellish nightmare,
strangle her
unaware.

 

 

Gospel

 

Sally, won't you go
downtown
Pick up some teabag party
clowns
We'll teach 'em tricks of trade
from streets walled in by
degradation
Ain't this nation grand
for glad hands raised in celebration
of shames we dare not name.

 

Hallelujah  Hallelucinations
Hallowed ground baptized
in blood
Saved from the cleansing Flood
by sticking to our kind
however we're defining us today
If we were meant to live
a different way
wouldn't He have told us?

 

 

Freedom FOR Security

 

Either, by nature, you're plagued with paranoia
Or you've bought pervasive propaganda.
I do understand:
It was so cheap, and in your colour.
It wasn't labeled "Propaganda"
Sold as "News," common knowledge,
accommodation to the norm.
And it fits your internal dialog so well
"Danger is everywhere these days of disorder,
scary change."
Just like all the days
when Freedom seems such a flimsy wage,
a cheap exchange
for sham Security.

 

 

 

80's legacy (happy Independence)

 

Don't blame the GWB administration, it was Reagan and his merry crew.
Though we protested in the post-Vietnam 70's
hot and sure about every error
the point is, we had that luxury.  Yes, there was hardship,
discrimination,
individual need; but really no one need go hungry
for lack of a job, there was real community
spirit, especially on the lower rungs, but philanthropy as well.
There was a strong foundation that made sense
and could be reasoned with.
The 80's brought in a different worldview,
more wide and wild.  Days of cocaine,
champagne, glamour and celebration for sweet deregulation,
when every dreamer
could believe the capitalist vision of wealth unbound. 
Before it was found that
poisonous as plutonium in the gleeful arms of the truly greedy,
just what we
were free to become. 
Since then it's been spinning our balance to bits of
blast-warped brains. 
Such unbridled hatred and spitting disdain.  Psychic
Cassandras said at the time, his numbers are 666. 
A man possessed by
Hollywood fantasies of what we all should be,
folie a deux with the nation.
And here are those snowy yesteryears roosting
in our rafters, laying out
the macabre future of their disaffected dreams. 
Who are we, really?
Distanced from our history,
believing convenient lies, what are our chances
for recovery?

 

 

Mothers' Night
 
cascading shards
uneasy
echoes falling
"It's our calling."

 

Rape of Earth,
hot spurts of words
savage knives
Abiding Mothers,
sacred and mundane
twist into harridan
cold stars

 

wail, hurtling waves
Sad, old, crust of ages
sliced, screwed, carved up for profit
"It's not the color of the skin,
the culture of the smile"

 

the scent of danger,
the inborn stranger --
all excuses for Us (superior)
and Them (inferior)
"They are not like we;
but lower curs."
we may harm with unfettered glee

 

Cursed to be cut to our requirement.
Borders clear
"Here, fear fences in
our livelihood and wives."
Leave THEM to putrid pits
cunning jabs,
our pleasure.

 

Thus, all treasure that might regale,
heal, reveal true worth,
of man and Earth
sold for pittance of potash
to dance a weary jig

 

 

social net

 

Yes, of course we ought be fiscally responsible.
Yet of far more import is that we be rational.
Hyperbolic apoplectic, Apocalyptic rhetoric
reduces us from politic to stagey raving maniacs.
No need for such hysteria; learn from recent history.
The flagrant ways of LBJ, Reagan and GWB
found mitigation in administrations following.
The People, energized, expand instead of wallowing.
Exciting industries take hold, real worth -- not hollow gold.

 

The conversation we as a nation need
is not a war of virtue versus greed
or capturing the rules to win a game
or playing catch with sophistry and shame.
We need to ask and answer in sobriety
Who we best can be as a society

 

 

eve of 9/11/11

September '11 rains (raos)

love like breeze through leaves,

song of future longing,

autumn in the wind

 

 

 

The object is not in the doing, but the being. It is in developing ever deeper relationship with self, enjoying the jokes and music, being -- as that becomes.

 

 

 

don't worry over the work; feel the music

 

 

 

out on the interwebs, the cybercity

 

 

 

In this post-postmodern future, we can weave together knowledge from every source, be more resourceful.

 

 

 

Those who are avowedly anti-government, elected to destroy from within, are not going to put the necessary effort into making government function better for the common benefit.

 

 

 

Of course government spending grows the economy -- just as any spending does.  With the assumption that government is not just throwing money into the ocean, but is spending on useful projects, a variety of public good is created, aka wealth. 

 

If you start with the assumption that government is the problem, you are negating the possibility of using government sensibly as an organizing entity.  If the private sector were taking care of the people's business, providing needed infrastructure, safety net, job training, and so forth, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

There are goods and services best provided in the private market. There are goods and services best provided as public projects. All of the economic transactions, public and private, make up the overall economy. This doesn't have to be an either/or war of all against all. We could, you know, act like reasonable human beings and figure out how best to provide the benefits of civilization rather than get caught up in ideologies.

 

Government, along with private transactions are the economy.  The money does not come from the private sector, but from the US Treasury.  Government at its best is the backbone structure of public projects within which private enterprises can more successfully grow while providing for the overall good of market mechanics.  If government has become corrupt, that is just laziness all around.

 

The problem seems to be that neither government representatives nor private concerns are willing to take necessary risks to move forward.  Everyone wants to blame.  No one wants to be responsible.  No one wants to lead with both reason and vision.

 

Government literally creates the currency, and the system of laws, the infrastructure both physical and in values, on which the economy rests.  The private sector without some overarching system would only be barter of goods and services on a simple level.  Taxation, as it has come to be used, is not so much for revenue as for influencing economic activity.  Were we to have tax structure geared to revenue needs, it would most likely resemble some kind of flat tax whereby the costs of the national enterprise would be proportionately incurred by the public.

Yes, public/private partnerships are what make this country.  Government programs often are overly layered with outdated concerns and bureaucracies.  We could and should look to streamlining, creating a different paradigm for public/private projects that are open to scrutiny, clear in objective, and easily adjustable to changing needs, knowledge and abilities.  This will never be even looked into if the mantra is "government is bad".

 

 

 

Is it "moral decay"?  Or, is it, as that great poet Donald Rumsfeld might say, a transitional time of untidiness.  The world is changing in every way imaginable; and imagination falters in the wake.  People are, quite naturally, panicking, confused; the old order is no longer secure.  As people slowly readjust, hopefully wise leaders will show where the best possible futures can be built, help to create a new, more flexible order that is more suited to a new world.

 

 

 

Kindness can be an intuitive response to the wider survival benefit understanding of enlightened self-interest.  It is in our self-interest, for a variety of survival related and life enhancing reasons, to spread a kindness meme.

 

 

 

Why do those with nothing worth saying fill the air with hateful barbs cast at those offering thoughtful expression?
Why do folks project their so-called sins onto those they perceive as the opposition?
Why are they with nothing to say so loud?

 

 

 

Pushing kids into college as a lockstep after high school, unless they have a clear career requirement, is not the best course.  Better for most people to work for awhile, discover exactly what education they need for the next step, and how best to acquire it.

 

 

 

Perhaps better business models could be developed on ideas of small, local, community-based enterprises. I wonder why there doesn't seem to be broad-based leadership to promote unemployed workers coming together to pool their talents into worker-created businesses.

 

 

 

To feel like they are accomplishing something or at least occupied, people need better things to do than a great deal of destructive effort put out now in the name of "the economy". I love creative people's lack of such need. Creative people create, figure out how to get their "music" out even in crazily adverse circumstances. Perhaps what is needed is to bring out the creativity in everyone, rather than training so many to be so dependent on employers.

 

 

 

There is no keeping money out of politics. What we need to do is make it irrelevant.

 

 

 

Marriage is FOR people who want to marry. Apparently good marriages lead to greater health; bad marriages lead to horrible lives. Maybe we need better public conversations about marriage -- apart from trying to make it a divisive issue.

 

 

 

The problem with apocalyptic Christianity is that when one's purpose is to bring on the end of the world and God's Judgment, there is little to negative incentive to work to improve conditions in the here and now, or for the future.

 

There are Christian sects, some quite prominent at least in the US right now, whose avowed purpose (like the avowed purpose of some of their Congressional Reps. is to destroy the Obama presidency) is to end the world, bring the End Times of Revelations, asap. Of course, if their goal is an End to the Earth, they have no interest in making anything better. It seems to me that these people are mistaken when they accuse others of Satanism, because the God they worship is the God of Evil, Destruction, Death, and Despair. They have no interest in being loyal and good stewards of God's Creation. They feel entitled to destroy it.

 

But I think the real question is, why do so many people hate their lives so much that they prefer to live in dreams of ultimate destruction?

to rouse the rabble

It's not that government is bad.  Government is our imaginary servant.  It is we who are bad for relinquishing social consciousness, civic pride, and letting the old lady fall into such a pitiful state of mismanagement.  Then we want to whip her into shape without respect or compassion, or the right will and good grace to accept responsibility.  A bunch of lazy, undisciplined brats whining for our supper, complaining that "Jimmy pinched me!" "Suzy took my right to free self-expression!"  Squabbling among ourselves as if our jealousies were matters of state.

 

Grow up.  Take a good, hard look at just where you want to be; and get going.  There are beautiful vistas to climb to.  There are problems a'plenty that everyone can agree to wanting changed, even if we have a trillion intractably opposed solutions.

 

Start talking -- not screaming, talking, in measured tones, out of real self-interested concern, allowing that everyone else might also have legitimate concerns, allowing that we all deserve a chance to listen, think, exchange anger for enthusiastic energy.

 

Now, where was that, who was that, you wanted to be?

 

 

Wild, romantic energy

surging surrender

friends I never thought I'd see

out at sea, memory

laughs at how I care

a sudden scent of air

aching in places, ways, I

didn't know were there, in me.

When we begin, it's so thrilling,

surreal --

in the end

there's just too much to feel

When I dream, you no longer appear

in my scene.

Where have you been?  Thinking of me?

 

 

Taxation to pay for the national enterprise is part of the social contract.  You can get off the grid, off the dole, off road, into the wild and fend for yourself.  People do.  I guess it is harder with all the surveillance.

 

After 9/11 we insisted that the government keep us safe by any and all means necessary.  Any of us could have been in those towers in lower Manhattan.  Suddenly we are all in danger from terrorist attack.  That's why none of us can be allowed to be free.

lion meets unicorn (raos)

Think about the children
in every city, every half-assed town
on the street because nobody wants them.
Now, you tell me what a great, blessed country this is.

 

 

 

Humans, by virtue of our nature, create all kinds of ideas/beliefs/codes/agreements/ and so forth upon which we build our ways of being within this world, within ourselves, with each other.

 

 

 

Does there exist (or is there interest in creating) something like a wiki for governmental regulations?  I am thinking of a systematized site for the listing of regulations by number/name/other designations, the actual language, simplified language in common English and whatever other languages seem appropriate, basic background and arguments pro and con, a facility for comments and comment threads, a link list for places to find regulations and express opinions to regulators.

 

 

 

Where is the leadership to create job programs in communities -- not the government, but people who see opportunities and concerns?

 

 

 

Everyone should be an everyoneist -- it's not the gender, color, or other distinguishing characteristic to divide, but to intrigue

 

 

 

that surge of terrible beauty through the gut, the capillaries sings

 

 

 

Anyone too naive or willfully ignorant to understand that what you say online is never private, needs to be so advised. Of course Google, a business, does what it does primarily to create profit. That is their job. That they also provide useful service is primarily a social good. Of course we must as responsible buyers beware, make the decisions that are in our own interest.

 

 

 

The thing is, those with what we consider great wealth are not measuring themselves against the vast majority with much less. They measure against each other. They look for every advantage to struggle further up. There is no reason for them to look down.

 

 

 

share a little cosmic laughter with the universe

 

 

 

People who are already desperately trying to deal with serious medical conditions certainly do not need to have unnecessary legal issues compromising them as well. Recreational users deserve to be considered regular noncriminals. People who have medical conditions that can be made less onerous, though, really need immediate compassionate care.

 

 

 

A serious mistake that is all too common is seeing children as potential future people.  Children are people, living their lives.  The important lessons are not about reading, math, and such, but about how to live in a world of others, and how to learn.

 

 It's not about money or neighborhoods or ethnicities. Fundamentally, education is about relationships between teachers and students. Fundamentally, good relationships are about mutual respect. Why would anyone with any other option want to spend their time in a place where they are clearly not respected?

 

If you learn to learn, the rest will follow without need for "education" as such.  If you learn to engage with others in a mutually respectful desire for success, the rest can be figured out as needed.  I'm not saying we ought not learn to read and otherwise manipulate symbols -- just that these are not the most important lessons for a successful life.

 

 

 

Very clearly the poor do pay taxes -- usually in far excess of what might be considered a fair percentage of their net worth. Should they? Maybe the question ought to be, should they be poor?

 

 

 

Corporations are not "shipping jobs overseas". They are hiring and laying off based on what they see as their best profit options. Vilifying these businesses is not nearly as effective as creating our own.

 

 

 

If people really are having kids to get welfare money, the mathematical ability of the American citizen is much worse than anyone is saying.

 

 

 

Gold is only considered valuable because of historical reference. It is actually only somewhat useful, and heavy to carry around in quantity.

 

You know what is valuable? Skilled labor.

 

 

 

We only experience disasters because we expect what isn't. All these events are mere exigencies of life on a planet.

 

 

 

Ron Paul has more integrity and character in each white hair than Rick Perry in his whole do.

 

 

 

It could be that part of the limited demand has to do with products that are not accurately focused on what people do demand. There is far too much top-down thinking.

 

 

 

Lives and funds could be improved if prison time were confined to those who have acted violently. Nonviolent crimes: actual payment -- cash, service, or other methods.
It ought to, for those who are confined to protect others from their uncontrolled violence, be a place where rehabilitative programs flourish.

 

 

 

There is a reason economics is a "soft science". Just because you can put math around it, doesn't make it much more than speculation.  Economics, far from a science, is just a set of theoretical applications of group psychology.

 

 

 

When we as a culture promote the idea of buying a pill to solve any problem, it is ridiculous to be shocked that many become addicted.

 

Clever capitalists will find a way to market.

 

 

 

There is obviously energy enough in the public arena to gather together to oppose. Why isn't the energy, creativity, anxiety and time of the people going to local or innovative enterprises that could serve and employ without kowtowing to moneyed interests or political cynics?

 

 

 

The mainstream diet seems designed to kill us early. Religious groups in favor of bringing on the Apocalypse and ending the travails of Earthly life gain ever more support. Why do we hate our lives?

 

 

 

Since the money comes from the government anyway, why not do away with taxes altogether. Directly pay for all government programs. Then let the money trickle down to the private sector.

 

 

 

It's not just strangers. Danger comes often from the people we see every day. It behooves parents and others concerned with children to teach self-defense techniques and instill strong feelings of self-worth.

 

 

 

The problem is not climate changes as such. Climates change. Humans are meant to be adaptable. The problem is the poisoning we do without thinking, as a matter of course, everyday convenience, that leads to serious degradation of the health of humans and the destruction of vital resources.

 

 

 

We erect ideologies to worship because we are small and scared. We want to believe we are special, beloved, part of they who are cared for. We want the believe their are set rules of behavior and thought which will keep us safe.