~~~~~Janitors & Custodians~~~~~

Human Beings. Homo Sapiens. As our overidentifiction with our time bound egos fragments.......our consciousness, our lives, and our planet.......we miss all the life and intelligence that surrounds us. We think too highly of ourselves. We think that we are the culmination of all species. God's masterpiece. But are we really?

There are 14 or so spacetime galaxies in Earth's proximity.......all destined to come together....as one.....and.....our Milky Way galaxy and Andromeda are among them......and as they do 'this dance'.....the surfaces of the habitable planets within their star systems are regularly bombarded with the violence of meteors and radiation.......'clearing their surfaces' for the evolution of new species. This is 'the dance' the known universe does. Everything comes and goes.

Mankind has violently done what it usually takes astronomical events to do....clear the surface of a planet and prepare it for new species to evolve.....the effects of our 'industry' lead 100 species a day into extinction. Death. The universe has created in Mankind the '1st species' to do it's 'dirty work' for it....for in the past.....only supervolcanos and pole shifts.....geological events.....'cleared the deck'....'shook the etch-o-sketch'.......and.....'set the stage'......for the arrival of many new species....a new 'epoch' in the Earth's 'continual drama'.

We are just 'in house' janitors and custodians.....'clear-cutting' the surface of our planet....for the 'next crop' of species. Our time bound egos' blinding us' to the fact that the universe does not hold us 'any more dearly' than it did the dinosaur.....we are the cause of the 6th great extinction of species....on this planet. Mankind is just a 'hired hand'.........a 'temporary species'.....and a 'janitor' of sorts. We are really not a very good 'custodian'............at all.

And the dance goes on......

 

The American Culture of Guns and Fear

  Gun laws work, all you have to do is google Australia to find a shining example (the assault rifle ban worked here for years too with the exception of Columbine), but now the NRA is going to tell us that even though it might have worked 'over there' you'll have to pry my gun out of my cold dead hands to take it from me. I ain't gonna give up my guns. Why in Virginia these days I can even pack heat at the local diner. That's The 2nd Amendment my boy. That's what America is all about. Guns and Fear. Arm the schools. Arm the churches. Arm the parking lots. There will come a time when The Guys in the Black Hats show up with their guns and The Guys in the White Hats better be carrying their pieces too. All very Cowboy and Indian. All very very  Bad Karma.
   There's going to be a lot of Fear and Loathing in the carnival of our political discourse in the coming days and it's going to last more than one or two news cycles. There's a lot of people fed up with guns and the killing, and there's a lot of people paralyzed by that fear and dependent on their guns. Things are going to get real nasty, because we as a nation have more guns than the rest of the world, and we're good at killing each other with them.
   This is going to be just another 'litmous test' of  our American Character. We'll watch the pundits, politicians, and talking heads as we remember the twenty dead 6 year olds.........all this dialogue destined to make the sane sick at heart. And there will be questions........
   Will we expand our mental health programs to the Pre-Gipper Years and beyond? Will the CDC take up gun violence as a health issue like they did car accidents? Will owning guns be regulated like owning cars? Will assault weapons be banned again? Will any of this stop the killing? Not only the fame of mass murder, but the ignominious everyday run of the mill murders we see on the news everyday? Will our sense of community embrace our outcasts so that they would not attack us? Not in the America I know......
   Wars of aggression, torture, drone killings, predatory financial practices, domestic spying: we live in a Kingdom of Corporate Whores, shills for the military-industrial-congressional complex, and we spread death better than the proverbial Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse. All you got to do is watch. It's on your television set everyday, but whomever speaks in favor of guns will do so with a backdrop of 20 dead children's faces.

  
  
    

Democracy versus Capitalism

   Another school shooting. Another American Mass Murder, graded on the amount of indifference and carnage, weighed in upon the scales of fame, and now, the POTUS says that this is unacceptable and we must change. Change what? Gun laws? Mental health programs? The fabric of American community? How deep must the change go for such atrocities to end?
  When democracy finally realizes that capitalism has no values, with the exception of the more, and that our capitalist culture is what denigrates our personal relationships, and the fabric of community, maybe that would be a start of some real change. These days it seems as if all the functions of capitalism, of management itself,  have turned on American society. The financial crisis of 2008. Shipping manufacturing jobs overseas. Capitalism seems to value labor only as a commodity and fails to realize that consumers and employees are essentially human beings, much more than functions and commodities. Americans are citizens, and it's democracy that allows every corporation the right  to exist. Democracy has the ability to pull the plug on any capitalist venture, but our representative government has been bought wholesale by capitalism, ruled by their narrow interests, all covertly administered by corporate lobbyists. Even banning assault weapons is a law we passed that was washed under the bridge.
   Change? Our society is based on competition, individual relationships of mutual usage, all based on greed, on wealth, on fame, and such a social compact has it's very foundation resting upon such violence. No wall streeter went to jail. George Bush is a war criminal and nothing at all happened to him. We started this country on the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of other races. We're the only country to drop atomic weapons on another people. We have a deep history of violence. We're even killing other peoples children with drones, but these days Corporate America not only feeds on the other nations of the world, but on it's own people. Violence seems to be 'the flowering' of who we are. To change that demands more than outlawing assault weapons, requiring background checks, and upping the scope of community health services. Such change requires a change in the way we see ourselves, a change in the way we live.
   You have to find this out for yourself, for there are no political or religious answers. All the people of the world are more than employees, more than consumers, more than accumulated wealth, more than fame, even more than citizens. What are we? We all have but a short time upon this earth to ask these questions, made even shorter by corporate environmental degradation and poisoning: what we call Global Warming. What is the answer?
  

~~~A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand~~~

"House Divided" Speech by Abraham Lincoln


   Does today's Class War compare to The Civil War? Will there ever rise such a man as this to appeal to~~~The Better Angels of Our Nature~~~or will politicians forever more be bought and sold by the powers that be? How does the denial of personal freedom compare to the social denegration that springs from~~~economic and environmental destruction? Who can live peaceably together with slaveholders~~~or~~~corporate entities that have no social responsibilities? Is democracy for All The People~~~or~~~is it a Tattered Quilt of states rights? Was it really~~~North vs South? Is it really~~~Democratic America vs Corporate America? Blue vs Grey~~~or~~~Red vs Blue? Today there are Two Americas~~~the haves~~~and the have nots~~~and i don't believe we'll ever be blessed with a man such as this~~~to unite our house divided.

Today's American Values and Our Common Welfare Together

The Gipper painted a picture of~~~It's Morning In America~~~all over the American Psyche~~~when he began his presidency~~~way back when. But is the sun coming up~~~or~~~is it going down? Or may be it's just fixed up there in the sky? Morning In America is just an image you know. Nothing real. A way of spinning things that the glass is half full~~~and there is the hope~~~of new beginnings. JFK and Obama used the same tool. Nothing new here. Images don't change a thing. The sun is fixed in the sky. American Political Imagery? Empty words meant to control us. Our authority figures excel in expelling hot air~~~that creates the shifting mirages that arise above~~~the spiritually arid floor~~~of The Great American Spiritual Desert.
Perception changes everything. Seeing things as they actually are~~~or~~~as a web of illusion. If you look at America as a family~~~and all societies are extended families~~~how would you appraise her character? What if you were an American Indian living in the 1700's? Or an American Muslim these days? Or pick your own example. Families take care of their own~~~the sick ones, the old ones, the young ones, the crazy ones~~~those that need the help of others to get through this life. Dysfunctional families breed violence~~~and leave those that can't carry their own weight by the side of the road. Two ongoing wars, inner city gangster gun play, over ten thousand shooting deaths a year, and two million locked up in our prisons~~~and why is it that America is so violent? To others? And to it's self?
Life is impermanent. There is no security. All human beings have more in common~~~than differences. Our deepest experiences in this life are the common things that we all experience. Birth. Consciousness. Love. Sorrow. Suffering. Death. What we share in common are the deepest experiences~~~of all~~~our lives. So why do we leave our brother by the side of the road~~~when one day we will be in the same place?
Our Republic here in America is a beautiful thing for it sees the nature of power and divides it up~~~and democracy recognizes that we all are equal for no matter who you are~~~or think you are~~~it's one person~~~one vote. But Our American Empire? The last thing Eisenhower warned us about? The Military-Congressional-Industrial Complex? When I was young we dropped our napalm on Vietnam and now when I'm old we dropped our smart bombs on Iraq~~~and send out our drones remotely piloted over foreign lands by guys in Las Vegas. Our American Empire? What kind of family acts like this? The immortal hillbilly wars of The Hatfield's and The McCoys were probably a little more civil. Our American Empire~~~like all such power trips throughout history~~~is pure insanity. We're broke~~~and we still pay for all this military crap.
Our society is so far from any vestige of~~~Complete Acceptance and Unconditional Love of Life~~~that to be thrown into the American Marketplace~~~be it dealing in the commodities of manufactured things, personal services, esoteric thought, spirituality, or money itself~~~no matter what you accumulate or how much of it you gather~~~or~~~what you think you then become~~~it's death that lies at the end of everything. Impermanence is the way things are here on Earth. Security? We destroy That Which Is~~~the ecological balance of our planet~~~and our fellow man~~~for something that does not exist. This Life of Illusions can be a very twisted thing.
What kind of family are we Americans? What are our intrinsic values? Will our reverence for individual competition and our greedy accumulations destroy us? You know you have to give up part of your life to help another in need. So~~~having destroyed The Native American Indian Cultures and planted our flag on their shores~~~do you think our family ways can change? We Americans have immigrated here from all over this planet. We are from everywhere on the globe. Can't we identify with it all? Or are we prisoners of a false identity~~~Us Against Them? Or just Individual Egos living in a Pop Porn Cult of Personality~~~and a Culture of Fear?
The Gipper called tomato sauce a vegetable while little kids in America's Ghettos cried for they had nothing to eat. W turned the Military Industrial Complex lose on Iraq for no reason at all and killed kids standing in their front yard. The Republican Party cares not if the same kid gets health care~~~and tried to scare us with the 'pulling the plug on grandma' fiction. The American Corporate Oligarchy just gorged itself on The American Middle Class~~~laying waste to it's investments and shedding the jobs it hasn't sent overseas yet~~~leaving many families by the side of the road. No jobs. Corporate America was just getting rid of the dead wood on their balance sheets~~~improving their bottom line~~~after the latest economic fiasco. Just doing what they do~~~loving money more than people. What a family we are! It's a Culture of Fear created to control us~~~but don't be afraid~~~we're all going to die anyway. That's a fact. And what is it that saves a family? Even one so dysfunctional as ours? While we are alive? It is~~~That~~~Which Is Unconditional~~~and you won't find it in any marketplace.
Look at your own family. What is it that holds you together?