shits and giggles

 

I am privileged to not have the

luxury of giving a shit what people

think of me, so I can say what makes

sense to me, rather than what I think

they want to hear.

 

 

 

We so often hear the US is the richest

country in the world – but how is that

richness reflected?

We also hear that in the richest

country in the world children go hungry,

the sick go homeless, people suffer

desperate lives of deprivation.

Our sorry little sin is that the land of

freedom and democracy is a clear

oligarchy where the vast wealth is

the power of a private few who use it

to oppress and rule, cruelly.

 

 

 

Always thinking the worst of you.

Expecting you to think the best of me.

Telling ourselves they – big, bad they --

are monstrous instead of knowing you

are just another guy, trying to get by,

never knowing the rules any better

than me, laughing and faking while

hoping no you will see and use my

weakness to defeat me.

 

 

 

People made it.

People can change it.

It’s not a matter of can, but will.

 

 

 

organize with local businesses and leaders

to create the goods and services people want

meanwhile offer direct subsidies to consumers

for basic needs like food and fuel, paid for by

a tax on "windfall" profits

 

 

 

people are saying: let's have some

commonsense rules so so many people

don't stupidly die

you say: they're coming for our guns

 -- SHOOT them dead!

 

 

 

 

I don't want all student debt "canceled"

because a contract ought to mean something

I do want free state education through the

graduate level so no one needs to go into

debt to get an education.

I want policies whereby debt is forgiven for

doing designated deemed important work.

I want renegotiation of debt and a lowering

of interest rates.

I want bankruptcy protection for people who

have no way of paying these debts.

I want financial education and a requirement

that a person going into debt has a clear

understanding of exactly what they are getting

themselves into and how to avoid it.

I want a savings bond issued to every US born

infant sufficient to pay for a first class education

or start a potentially successful business or buy

remunerative property.

 

 

 

6/18-23/22

learn to be

 

 

To judge, file people

based on inborn traits

makes no sense to me.

I don’t identify with my physicality.

I see my body as utilitarian conveyance

-- happy with it when it does as I desire;

unhappy when it won’t.

Who I am is multitudes

permeating time and space as mind,

imagination, interface with

contextual information, emotional

empathy, feeling beings not me

based on commonalities that transcend

physicalities.

 

 

 

We don’t choose to be reviled.

They choose to hate.

 

 

 

If all sexual behavior is sin, then

God doesn’t want us reproducing,

all children are damned by their

creation.  Why so much of life

is suffering.

 

 

 

Chaos, confusion, drama, and the

serious self-talking to

my process of unfolding what I need

to know, what I need to tell you,

despite your interest or response.

How I learn to be me.

 

 

 

Evil isn’t about sex.

Evil is about cruelty and the self-entitlement

of believing one deserves to rule the world.

 

 

 

All the almost infinite ways we can be

outsiders.  How are those designated

inside in any way superior?

Inside whose walls?

 

 

 

So easy, entertaining, to complain.

Far too lazy to take on the menial work

day by day,

responsibilities of real leadership.

We don’t really want to be free,

to be decent, to be realistic, to be what

we claim to want to be.

So easy to play our habitual games,

ride neurochemical highs, believe

flattering lies.  Letting our lives,

your lives, all life unravel, run out of

disguises, numbed from marination

in pain.

 

 

 

hey, capitalists, want to prove the worth

of your theory?  get your acts together and

end these commodity shortages -- do it

competitively thus prices will be what

we want to pay

 

 

 

ha ha, money is a social construct with

no actual existence -- no there there to carry us

 

the real value is in people, what we can

do, what we can imagine and learn to do,

how we can make each other and ourselves feel

 

 

 

6/13-16/22

 

 

 

fixing a whole

 

 

why do x hate y

why do a persecute b

why do we, human and alone

fend off, deny, make enemy

it's not them -- it's we

 

 

Maybe the mass US insanity is a result

of deinstitutionalization of the paranoid

psychotics and sending them to the streets?

 

 

 

It wants the blazing glory:

“a world on fire!”

But this sad little world is

tawdrily wasting away.

 

 

 

 

Rights don’t come from the government.

Rights are protected by the government,

if, and only if, we, the People, do our

job to elect representatives who

do their job.

 

 

 

Not helpless under the trance

Instead bullied into inability

to thrive.

When a whole world denies your

reality – is it real?

How have any idea what to say

that could make a difference,

make anyone listen?

 

 

 

you may be getting skewed views

from watching CNN, or Fox.  I don't. 

They are too loud, annoying and distracting

from the actual facts.  I prefer tv news from

the C-SPANs and BBC World.  If I am interested,

I do my actual iternet research -- not watching

some propaganda video, but going back to

orgininal sources to find out what really happened.

 

 

 

Capitalism as a working economic theory has

by now tentacles laid out far beyond the clearly

"economic" field.  It has become an integral part

of certain cultural operating thought systems. 

Thus, it is usually not even questioned when

apologists insist that no matter what the unfortunate

side-effects, capitalism gives us growth, prosperity,

is the best way for the economically disadvantaged

to get a leg up or in fact find low cost items they can

buy at their low wages because of the wondrous

magic of competition.  The ultimate value, it is

understood, is economic growth, wealth,

accumulation of resources, directly or through the

metaphor of money.  One would be considered a fool

to insist that human values are not about cut-throat

competition to be the king of the heap of vast wealth,

that human values are about play, self-expression,

relation to each other, relation to our world, relation to

ourselves, doing work/engaging in projects that

give us pride in accomplishment and let our passions expand. 

 

I am not saying there are no values in using the

economic tools propounded by the capitalist

theory and practice.  I am saying these are but tools,

in a toolbox, to be used as useful, but not the project itself. 

I am saying that where competition, savings through

efficient mass-production, monetary reward for investment,

or other such ideas give us desired results, yes, these are

useful ideas.  They are not the only ideas, the only ways

of developing economic benefits for the culture.  The true

underlying idea needs to be that the needs and desires

of the community be met, each way of doing so to be

subservient to that test of effectiveness. 

 

 

 

the issue is not so much "the economy" as

the supply chain, the myriad lacks of items

the public needs to continue their expected lives --

the solution, it seems to me, is to stop bellyaching

and figure out how to get those items sufficiently

made and distributed, you know, the essential

purpose of an economy

 

 

 

Instead of banding together to act

violently – or even peaceful protest --

use that impetus of energy, that

organizing zeal, that dedication, to

do the work ourselves to make our

situations better.

 

 

 

 

we can make no real change on our own

 

what we need are those who can find and

understand and live the truth in ways that

inspire, lead, organize outward

 

 

 

 

6/6-10/22

stabilization appreciation

 

 

 

this is the mental illness that is killing us,

this fixation on guns as a solution to

paranoid delusions

 

 

 

Better guilds than tribes.

A guild is a voluntary association 

on specific commonalities for mutual

benefit and support.  It doesn’t have

the cloying compulsions of a tribe.

 

 

 

This price jump on necessities is not

an overactive economy.  It is a rational

buying of what people need.  The problem

is not that there are too many dollars, but

too little of the necessities available to buy.

The solution is not about controlling buying,

making money more expensive, but about

bringing to market what the people need.

What is being done to make that happen?

It doesn’t need to be political.

What can we do?

 

 

 

Now that I am older, I have an appreciation

for the desire for an expectation of

safety and comfort, offered by a secure

social structure.

 

 

 

6/3-6/6/22

 

 

shifting thinking

 

Memories

with full-fledged smells,

orchestration,

ambient electric excitement.

 

 

 

You’ll never get it back.

Find better ways to waste your time.

 

 

 

I have no clue what you may think of me,

distracted by the screams I don’t let out.

 

 

 

Find your others

Splinter into tribes

Weakened lives

 

 

 

The simple change of gender of the

pivotal character gives the current production

of the newly imagined Sondheim classic

“Company” a whole broadened and

deepened meaning to the theme of

marriage.

 

 

 

What if it isn’t “ego” --

an elevated sense of self-entitlement --

but those voices screaming in their

heads:  SUCCEED!

 

 

 

Higher Ed for the rest of us without debt:

“Mentors” – professional educators who devise

and share curricula for courses including

information and how to get it, then

discussions to discern the meanings and

uses of that information within the overall

course of study.

Mentors to be paid a reasonable fee by

the students or an education organization.

Online or/and in small group settings.

A directory of internships and diy centers

for hands-on experience in relevant courses.

 

 

 

stop

 

breathe, slowly, deeply, completely

 

focus on calm (maybe imagine a calm, happy place)

 

gaze dispassionately on your path

 

find and take the next step

 

repeat

 

 

 

it makes sense in these days of climate change

 and worldwide disruption that we all figure

out ways to produce what we need locally

 

 

 

rights imply responsibilities and restrictions

when necessary for public safety (not

shouting "fire" in a crowded theater sort of thing)

 

 

 

5/28-6/3/22