The more things change...

The 1% are repeating history because they never learn from it...

What saddens me most about the NDAA is that they can arrest me, detain me and then send me to Guantanamo Bay and execute me, but the truth will not change; The 1% are far more scared of the 99% than we are of them. In order to win they have to kill us all, for us to win we need only topple a few.

OCCUPY 2.0

Merry Christmas 2011!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It may have been a rough start to the year, but the end of it is being quite nice. I promise I'll blog more in the upcoming year.

(I've been very busy getting ready to "Occupy" the new year.)

I'm so tired....

Bring the troops home...

As much as I support the Occupy Movement in Dayton Ohio it is my opinion that the toll the tent community is taking upon individuals in an effort to sustain the unsustainable is no longer worth the expenditure in resources required to keep the tents up and running as winter sets in. Field commanders, whether military or guerrilla in nature have long recognized the futility of attempting occupations under winter conditions. Such occupations violate the principle of, conservation of resources. Look at the picture above. The arrows clearly point out what my camera captured when I attended the GA on 11/12/11. The campers are clearly suffering from fatigue due to lack of sleep and improper nutrition. It isn't the resistance from the community that is killing the Occupy Dayton movement, it is the elements.

Occupy Dayton achieved a great victory when they were offered a table at the tree lighting event. They were offered recognition as a valid community organization and were extended an invitation to add their table to the greater table of this wonderful community event. It should have been a time to celebrate and it has instead been turned into an ill-conceived opportunity to confront and agitate. This would have been a wonderful opportunity to leave the city of Dayton with a positive image of Occupy Dayton and is instead souring the community towards us and our message. I'm sad the campers just don't see what they have offered to them.

The reality is that the camp is a danger...

All it takes is one child tripping over a cinder block or a tent rope and a confrontation is going break out. One that could easily turn violent. Is the risk worth it? As this picture illustrates, the tents are not properly secured to the ground nor can they be due to them being set up on concrete instead of on a dirt surface. This makes them a danger under windy conditions. Add in the fact that the tree lighting is a night time event and you simply increase the risk of something negative happening. Like it or not, the tents need to be removed. Yes, the message Occupy Dayton is trying to spread is important, but if spreading it comes at the expense of the goodwill of the community and the safety of individuals simply trying to enjoy the start of the holiday season with their families, then I can't support such a thing.

The tents are coming down across the entire country and it is time to take ours down too. The tents are the first fruits to come out of the fields of the first season of the Occupy movement, but they are not the only fruits. Look towards Spring 2012, the movement is looking forward and so must Occupy Dayton. Here is food for thought, Occupy the Mall.

Occupy Dayton-11/05/11

Wild eyed revolutionaries...

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to attend my very first "Occupy" event. I wasn't sure what to expect after having watched television news coverage for weeks on everything from tents on Wall Street, riot police in Oakland, Occupy demonstrators linking arms to protect a grocery store from black hooded agitators, to Guy Fawkes masked demonstrators parading through the streets of New York. What I didn't expect was the gathering of everyday people taking the time out of their busy lives to give voice to their disappointment in the banking institutions and the policies instituted by them that are removing folks from their homes and destroying people's lives. Many of the people I met were single, professional women simply trying to keep a roof over their head and their children in schools they were used to attending and close to the friends they'd grown up since childhood. These women did not talk about entitlement nor were they welfare-mothers leeching off public assistance programs as so many of my conservative friends assured me anyone participating in the Occupy movement would prove to be. These women were well educated, articulate and well spoken. They were not wild-eyed revolutionaries Hell bent on destroying the American way and replacing it with a Draconian system of socialism. They were just every day people trying to keep their homes as winter begins to settle in upon our small Midwestern community. They were simply mothers who want their sons and daughters to spend Christmas in homes they feel secure in instead of sleeping in grandma and grandpa's basement. Much to my surprise I did not encounter the wild-eyed revolutionaries my conservative friends rant on and on about, I met my neighbors and the people of my community. It was a humbling experience.

Lazy unwashed pot smoking hippies?

Every time my conservative friends talk about the Occupy Movement they completely ignore the message of the movement and focus upon the character of the individuals participating in it. Again and again I've heard the dehumanizing phrases; Dirty, ignorant, unwashed, uneducated, pot-smoking hippies. Imagine my surprise when I encountered bright-eyed, clean cut and well informed young people speaking their minds with a drug free clarity. As an individual who attended the counter protest at Kent State University the day after the National Guard troops opened fire upon students exercising the right to assemble and protest, I'd like to issue a warning. Once the forces that oppose you begin the process of dehumanization, they will begin to fire upon you in an attempt to silence your voices and quell your movement. As I've watched the growing police actions taking place in Oakland, California I am reminded of three events from my youth, the Democratic convention of 1968, the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State Universities in 1970. First comes the dehumanization and then come the bullets. Let us hope this time that the lesson is not learned too late, these kids are our children, they are not enemy combatants.

To serve and protect the rich, from us...

Erich Fromm stated in his book, Man and a Sane Society, that anyone who believed police forces exist to protect and serve the general populace are mistaken. His belief (And mine as well.) is that the police forces exist solely to protect the rich from us, the general populace. The flag we carried was said to be a danger to pedestrians, the car horns honking in support of our cause were said to be against the law and the noise of our rally a disruption to commerce. The corporate entity is afraid of the uprising they are witnessing and are equally afraid of the truth contained in the message the Occupy Movement is making public around the entire world. They, the wealthy ruling aristocracy, are bringing the forces under their control into the battle of our dissent versus their greed. We must stand together and not be afraid. Rubber bullets, riot batons and tear gas have never defeated the will of the people and often times have proven the last refuge of the desperate just before inevitable social change occurs. Remember, these are the people who stand against us. They are not ignorant of our plight, they mock it. They have forgotten another truth spoken by Erich Fromm, "Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much."

I'd attend one of the Occupy Movements any time or any day. It was nice to hang out with my neighbors and discover they're feeling and thinking the same things I do.

Find the cost of freedom...

Organize, occupy and fight injustice.

I hope to be speaking at an Occupy event this weekend. Below is a copy of the speech I hope to present. In case I'm not given the okay to deliver it there I'm posting it here. Comments are welcome.

I'd like to begin by reading a passage from, The Grapes of Wrath, a book written in 1939 by John Steinbeck. These words were spoken as a warning to the bankers and financial institutions of his day and are no less a warning to the bankers and financial institutions of our own time.

And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my home" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—"We lost our home." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this home are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket—take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we."

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

The bankers and their financial institutions are taking our jobs, our homes and shattering our families in the name of greed and profit. While we the people, are left huddling in shelters, clothing our children in thrift stores and feeding them through food banks, these Capitalist profiteers are living like kings. While we the people squat upon our hams around our little fires, sharing what little we still possess with our neighbors, our moment of multiplication has come and the time for our revolution has come. To those greedy, self-concerned profiteers of Wall Street and the banking institutions of the world who control, those things people must have, we say, “Enough! We're sick and tired of corporate greed and corruption and we're not going to take it anymore!”

We cannot be stopped if we stand up for what is right and true. And what is the truth? The truth is not that these institutions are too big and too important to be allowed to fail. The truth is that these institutions have become too big, too corrupt and too greedy to be allowed to succeed. The truth is not that this is a Conservative or Liberal problem, nor is it a black problem, a white problem or an immigration problem. The truth is that all of us are victims of the real problem, corporate greed. All of us are being exploited by evil men who feel there is no higher power to answer to than stockholders. Wealth and the accumulation of it at any cost to anyone else is their sole aim in life and the truth is that this belief is extremely detrimental to the promotion of life and is as a matter of fact destroying life in communities around the entire world. Enough is enough! It is time to put a stop to these evil men and their economic philosophy of greed and excess and reclaim our humanity, our dignity, our hopes and our dreams of making a better tomorrow for the children in our care.

Anger is not enough. Protest is not enough. Only by laying siege to the ivory towers of greed and exploitation and demanding justice for their crimes against humanity instead of allowing them more bailouts and higher banking fees will we finally make these profiteers accountable for their actions. And I say that not even this is enough. Not only must we organize and occupy, we also need to deluge Washington with a tidal wave of letters telling those who stand in the way of our prosperity that we do want the green jobs President Obama is trying to bring to this country We do want to rebuild the roads and bridges that will carry our families into the future and yes, we do want to rebuild the power grids that will lead to a brighter and greener tomorrow. Fossil fuels and the automobile industries are no longer the path to a better future. They've carried us as far towards tomorrow as they can and the new vehicles towards a better day are solar panels, wind mills and transportation systems that are eco-friendly instead of environmentally destructive. Tell those who stand in the way of progress that we do want the green jobs that will inspire us, invigorate us and return to us a sense of dignity in the knowing that our efforts are indeed building a better future for our children.

I know the crowd here today may appear small, but let me assure you that our voices are now part of a larger chorus that is at this very moment being heard loud and clear around the entire world, “We're sick and tired of sitting around our little campfires talking about all the things we've lost to the bankers and the fat cats living it up on Wall Street and we're not going to take it anymore!” The time for this generation's multiplication has come. It is now our time to stand up together and fight against the greatest evil of our day, corporate greed.

Thank you to the organizers of this event today for allowing me to speak and thank all of you for listening to the words of a tired old man. I can not say this with any more energy, organize, occupy and deluge Washington with your letters demanding a better future, not after the next election, but right now. Take a stand and take action. Thank you.

Tales From Seattle...

The dark side of the needle...

One day whilst strolling about the streets of Seattle I chanced upon a middle-aged homeless man. He told me a very sad tale about Craigslist and the impact of it upon his life. He shared a tragic story about first befriending a seventy-year-old man online and then, later on in their Internet-relationship, arranging a motel-get-together so the two of them could meet and have a bit of fun.

When the old man arrived he was everything the younger man expected. He was sad, old and lonely, wrinkled from head to foot and covered in skin blotches from failing internal organs. He could still perform though and after hearing the old man's tale of a wife who hadn't had a sexual urge in her body for thirty years, the young man decided to give the old man a hand-job. A really good one too.

Well, of course the old man died. Right at the sticky crescendo to his first senior fling too. It was horrible. The young man tried to do the right thing by calling the family and making sure their father's remains were respectably recovered. It was after all, the decent thing to do.

Well, when the police arrived and took the young man downtown for questioning he wasn't completely surprised. Later on however, in the months that followed the arrest and subsequent trial for murder he endured, he learned never to be surprised by anything ever again. Tagged, The Homosexual Slayer, by the local media, he was soon thereafter sentenced to prison for a good number of years and then quickly forgotten by the good citizens of the law abiding community. All for having taken pity on an old man and then having given him a hand-job. (A really good one too.)

Needless to say the young man spent many a long hard night in unprotected custody between the stained green walls of the State Penitentiary. (His nickname from the press saw to that.)

He learned a lot of things in prison. Things that would have killed the old man in that motel room, all those fateful years ago, a whole lot quicker than the hand-job he'd given the old man.

The only thing that kept the young man alive in prison was a magazine article about a lovely place named, Seattle, Washington. He read the piece again and again until at last he'd conjured up a vision of Seattle in his dreams where money sprouts free from the ground, the weather is always sunny and nice and people don't don't care if you sleep on the cold city streets as long as you have a bagel and a cup of coffee clutched in your hands to help keep you warm through the balmy Seattle nights.

Eventually he was released on good behavior and moved what remained of his ruined life to Seattle, Washington. These days he panhandles just enough for a Porter at the Pike and a Dick's Burger or two (With a small order of fries, if the fancy takes him.) and lives a very humble life in a cardboard box behind the, Troll Who Lives Under the Bridge. He is happy in Seattle where even the worst of his days are better than any of the best days he ever wasted away behind prison walls.

Life isn't all bad for the young man. After all, when your hand-jobs are registered with the police as a, lethal weapon, there's a certain attraction to that sort of thing, among a certain crowd in Seattle. He makes a tidy bit of side money and as he warns all those who befriend him, "If the troll is a rockin', don't come a knockin'. Should the afternoon's take from playing, Jack-in-the-Box, behind the troll in the morning is good enough, there'll be Ivar's Fish and Chips for dinner this night and maybe a hot cup of Chowder too instead of Dicks, again. Life is good for the young man in Seattle and he is happy there.

It was a good tale and I'm glad the fellow shared it with me. I am a better man for it.

Good night Seattle, God smiles upon you this evening and so do I...

Dream until your dreams come true...

Ever since my divorce I've had any number of friends telling me that I need to get back in the saddle and start dating again. According to their sage counsel there are many fish in the sea and I just need to get out there and reel myself one in. My usual response is that at my age I'm just too old to hang out in bars playing the dating game and its been so long since I've played the game that I just don't know the rules for it anymore. These same well intentioned people then respond that I don't have to go to bars to meet women, I can meet them on websites like Craigslist.

Well, being the Internet savvy guy that I am I decided what the Hell, why not give it a try. So far the experience has proven less than satisfactory. More often than not I find women posting pictures like the one below with almost word for word ads with the accompanying messages.

SWF looking for Mr. Right for LTR.

Single white woman age 26 looking for single white man age 45-65 for dating/romance. Only serious reply, no males under 45, no married or bald men. Smokers are acceptable and drinkers too. I am also fine with 420 guys. Your picture gets mine. Put serious in the subject line. you must be local and willing to come to me, have your own transportation, home, job and credit cards. (I'm looking to be spoiled, I deserve it.)

Just for kicks mind you, I responded to a few of these ads and after the exchange of a couple of emails I'd receive an email containing a phone number. Invariably the phone calls always wound up going something like this. "Oh no, honey, I'm not her. She lives in the trailer next to mine and she don't got no phone so I lets her use mine. Hold on a minute and I'll go get her."

Well, it didn't take long for me to grow rather cynical towards these women and their ads so one night I placed an ad under the heading, Men Looking for Women, using the following picture and accompanying message.

SWM looking for SWF for LTR

SWM looking for SWF for LTR hopefully leading to marriage. Must be between the ages of 35-55. Looks are unimportant to me as I'm blind. I'm unemployed, but I do collect a monthly disability check. You must be on welfare and collecting food stamps to help supplement my monthly income. Must have your own transportation, (Current bus pass is acceptable.) mobile home and phone. Must be amenable to my dog being in the room during our sexual relations as he likes to watch. Please include picture in first email so I know you are serious.

Yes, I did receive a lot more responses than I expected, but that as they say, is a blog post for another day...