Category Archives: Change the World

For real change break the power of the rich!

Posted in Change the World, Collective Consciousness, Current Events, Environmental, Opinion, People Power, Politics by

As many of us are, I’m following current politics anxiously and often. Having been a “leftist” for 50 years, I’m really happy to see a new generation finally getting how much we need big changes. I’m also glad to at last see some understanding of the role of the rich in creating most of our woes. But I’m also uneasy because I don’t see much understanding that a simple change of administration is not an ultimate answer. Too much power has always been held outside of government by the rich and major corporations. Without breaking their power, we’re doomed to be always caught in their greedy machinations.

I’m not sure why it’s so hard to get that to sink in. In part, I think most activists want quick changes and, as they quickly subsided after some victories on Viet Nam, the environment and various rights in the 70’s, the current crop seem impatient for a quick shift that then absolves them from the need to participate. I started trying to get my hippie activist friends in the 70’s to understand the import of research I was doing on the Council on Foreign Relations (think east coast power elite) and their vast inroads into government positions and policy. They didn’t want to hear it.

In the 90’s I tried to talk to my politically-inclined friends about how we vote with our $$ and the importance of bringing down the power of bad-acting corporations (pretty much all…) and again was met with shrugs of impatience. In more recent years I’ve been pushing progressives to organize around the need to bring down the oligarchs. A few people are getting it but I’m not seeing enough.

There are 3 basic parts I see where we can start breaking up the power of the oligarchs and global corporate bullies. First, boycott, boycott, boycott, And the first thing to understand about boycotting is it doesn’t take a large percentage to influence the behavior of corporations. Studies have shown a boycott by 5% can influence a policy change. The complicated part is getting together lists of all the companies owned by the worst oligarchs and all the companies with the worst policies on labor, environment, etc. And then organizing for as many people as possible to boycott all the ones they can.

For instance, someone who lives in a small town with only Walmart as a choice can’t reasonably be asked to boycott Walmart but they can put the Buycott App on their phone and boycott as many products from bad actor companies as possible when shopping there. And sometimes you’ll find dilemmas like Whole Foods being own by Amazon but donating Democratic and, for instance, making one of the highest environmentally ranked toilet papers on the market. It takes people plugging in as much as they can where they can. https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/advocacy/direct-action/organize-boycott/main

Another big issue with boycotts is the lack of alternative products and businesses. I’ve written before of the world-wide and growing local co-op movement , which I think holds a lot of promise. We need more co-ops, more small manufacturing, etc. to provide people with alternatives to buying from the greedy pigs.

Another arena where I see possibilities of fomenting change re big corporations follows the brilliant plan carried out by environmentalists with Chevron and Exxon. A concerted campaign of buying shares, recruiting shareholder activists and using voting rights garnered them a seat on each board (since defeated at Exxon). Maybe activists could coordinate the various angles required to elect more Board members to lots more companies. A long shot, but it sure would be helpful if we could create some change from within those companies.

All of this requires some really long-term planning and finding ways to encourage people to boycott, etc. for longer periods than they’re usually willing to do. Which requires enough liberals, progressives, etc to really understand how crucial it is to break the power of the rich that we can stay organized and carrying on the work.

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I’ve written more extensively about all of this in the past and there’s a whole list of posts, most of which contain a lot of links to more info, at the bottom of this post: Boomers, Revolution, Politics

Start the revolution… with me? without me?

Posted in Change the World, Opinion, Uncategorized by

Back in the early 70’s, I became radicalized in my political thinking. I hung around with the hippies, and particularly the folks who were protesting Viet Nam, etc. and stayed tuned in to the thinking of many on the far left. During those years I also spent a summer at the Sorbonne, which helped me gain perspective on how incredibly conservative the U.S. population really is. This perspective helped me to evaluate some of the really far left thinking and their tendency to be immovable in this insistence on every point, down to the pettiest, of their objectives being followed.

It didn’t take me long to weigh the general conservatism of the populace against the very Marxist thinking of the far left and to realize (a) as far as elections, no one was going to win an election based on a truly left-wing platform and (b) the deep hold the wealthy power elite has on politicians and policy means we’d really have to be prepared to plan and carry out a full scale revolution in order to shake off their power.

I was a history major and enough of a “history buff” to know a fair bit about the horrors that have generally accompanied revolution, so I was not prepared to jump on any bandwagon leading there. I’ve since come to believe we, as consumers, have a lot more economic power than we ever wield and there are potential answers for change if we unite to boycott, infiltrate boards, create alternative businesses, etc. But that’s a post for another day.

Periodically through all the 50+ years since I moved left I’ve noted the far-left folks unfailingly supporting candidates who will never win or deriding the ones who can and in general insisting their platform/ideas be implemented. But they never seem to have a realistic plan for how you would get out from under capitalism. In my opinion elections, in a country where too many politicians on both sides are owned by the rich, are not at all likely to create such an outcome. They also never seem to come to an understanding of how conservative most Americans are.

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see a far more progressive swing in government. And I’m heartened by the embrace of far more progressive positions by larger numbers of Americans than before. But I’m pretty practical and, at core, since I know the real power is wielded behind the scenes and a big portion of the populace is quite moderate, I’ve always tried to work within the system to do what I could to nudge change along and voted for whichever candidate leaned a little more toward helping people than not.

A revolution or not? At some point, once you decide on a radical path and insist every bullet point on your platform must be followed, you also have to decide if you’re prepared to foment a revolution, whether violent or a transformative but peaceful reorganizing of the existing structures. Because hanging around shouting about your principles while voting for 3d parties or not voting just means the worst of the “no change” — or now the “let’s go backward” — politicians keep being elected.

The healing journey and value

Posted in Change the World, Healing Journey, Uncategorized by

My physical, emotional & spiritual healing journey stretches at this point over decades. And for much of it I was only in shape to work part time, if at all. Because of the physical aspect, it was obvious to me I really needed to address the healing because being out in the world in any normal way was impossible given the constant levels of fatigue and pain.

Having embarked on a spiritual journey almost simultaneously with discovering I had some big physical issues, it didn’t take long to connect those two, nor to realize emotional issues intertwined with both. Working on all three levels is time-consuming and takes a lot of commitment to healing on every level. If the issues are numerous and deeply imbedded, it is also a long process. I was lucky I had few commitments to stand in the way of my journey so I could devote lots of time over many years. Plenty of people heal in many ways and still do other things; I’m not saying the way I did it is in any way a must, it was just the way I had to do it.

Through the journey, on many levels I’ve understood healing is really important — and the impact of healing spreads out into the web of all life. At the same time, living in grind culture, I’ve encountered many moments when I questioned the contribution and import of healing as a basic life direction — and, surrounded by grind culture, plenty of other people made sure I knew they disapproved of a life devoted to healing rather than working hard at earning money.

I can’t tell you I’m never affected by the grind culture mentality; it’s so deeply ingrained in our culture that I struggle to free myself of it and can’t always remain immune to other people’s immersion in it. But overall I’ve long believed in the central importance of understanding ourselves as beings of energy who exist as part of an interconnected web of all living beings’ energy. As part of a web, each one of us who heals the wounds and traumas of the past contributes healing to the web.

All this healing, releasing, clearing, transforming, etc. doesn’t pay a dime. In fact, a lot of it has been expensive, especially the alternative healers who have been vital to the physical recovery piece of the journey. In the eyes of our society, the lack of monetary return means the journey is useless, without value.

The deeper I move into this journey –with the clearing away of false layers, the slow unveiling of my essential self, the growing connection to higher consciousness — the more I sense it not only has more value to me than a well-paid career but that it also adds plenty of value to society and the web of life. Not all things of value equate to sums of money.

In spite of the lack of a “normal” career or means of earning, my financial circumstances have actually grown slowly better and I attribute it to having cleared away a lot of blocks and old beliefs about money. So, an interesting side note about the value of the healing journey is it may attract abundance to you without the usual grinding claptrap.

I’m not sure what it would take for our culture to shift into a space of appreciating how key to our collective well-being it is to have increasing numbers of people keeping their physical bodies as healthy as possible, healing themselves of old traumas, beliefs, issues, and stepping forward into their essential selves. But I hope all of you who have been traveling down a path of physical, emotional and/or spiritual healing pat yourselves on the back for the great value you are adding to the world.

Healing my anger with ho’oponopono

Posted in Being Peace, Change the World, Collective Consciousness, Healing Journey by

I’ve been making my way VERY slowly (i.e., most of the time not at all) through the ho’oponopono course for which I signed up a few months ago. So far, though, completing the class isn’t feeling like the point as much as reconnecting with the practice — also gaining insight from the videos of the course I’ve watched — and the deep reminder that everything I see reflects something inside of me.

The big place in which it’s come into play has been noting my high levels of anger at Republican pseudo-Christian right-wing fascists. How often, as I watch MSNBC or read articles pointed out by fellow progressives on social media, I yell and shake my fist at the lying, misogyny, bigotry, hatefulness, murderous intent, utter lack of compassion, etc.

Now I shout “You lying f**k!!!” and then repeat “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.” I contemplate how much anger must be in me to be constantly that angry. To question how much misogyny, bigotry, etc. there is in me if I keep seeing that much outside of me. Yikes. “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.”

At the moment I can’t say I see a big change in the frequency with which I erupt upon seeing various news items, though I have moved to watching MSNBC less and spending more time researching on subjects raised on social media, like learning more about Constitutional interpretation, etc. Watching less means fewer occasions to get angry. What I really notice is how the constant repetition of the prayer keeps shifting me back to a more peaceful place.

Those of you who’ve read my blog for a long time will know I always come back to the Oneness of energy. We’re all energy and exist as one wholeness of energy. Thus we each contribute to the peacefulness or hatefulness of the planet by which energy vibration we choose to hold. Knowing that, I continue repeating, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”, trying to release all those hateful qualities within me.

I also believe in the basic theories of David Hawkins’ Power vs Force, which posit that those who raise their vibrational levels to higher points help to raise the vibrational field for thousands (or, at the highest, avatar-type levels, millions). And I think the spiritual movement that has built around the world, quietly, in the background since the 1960’s, has been raising the vibrational level.

The movement brought westerners into practices that eastern spiritual leaders have taught for centuries as well as bringing eastern lights like Yogananda and Thich Nhat Hanh to the west and also led many people to study indigenous spiritual traditions. Human vortexes of higher energy have thus been created at various points around the world. Some spiritual leaders have actually set up places where certain numbers of people chant or pray 24/7 to keep a high vibration helping to counterbalance lower energies.

Much of the world has lived in apathy, the 100s, the bottom of the scale of energy. The next level up is anger, so when enough people have raised their vibrations to impact the whole, a significant number of people who’ve been in apathy are raised up to anger, something I believe we’re seeing now. The next level up is the 300’s, where self-awareness and introspection begin to operate. I feel that when we move the energy up enough to have a majority of people vibrating above 300, we will start to see the harmony, justice, equality, etc. for which so many of us yearn.

I can’t control what other people are doing, I can just work on my own vibration. As well as repeating the ho’oponopono prayer, I meditate, practice yoga, chant, etc. I belong to several spiritual groups in which I’m able to periodically participate in the “energy of two or more” phenomenon around building peace. Right now I have a big focus on the readiness with which I yell and shake my fist at what I consider Republican perfidy and keep repeating, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.”

I’m also contemplating whether I should return to more frequent metta practice. I’ve been a big fan for many years. In the leadup to the Iraq war, I spent half an hour every day saying it for President Bush. It didn’t stop him from faking intel or starting the war, but it did shift my feeling about him and my sense of his deep insecurities. Didn’t mean I suddenly liked him or agreed with him, but it created a softer place in my heart that has remained that way.

For me it was a profound shift and I wholly credit the power of the lovingkindness chant. I’ve always used Jack Kornfield’s version from Path with Heart: “May I be filled with lovingkindness, may I be well, may I be peaceful and at ease, may I be happy.” Obviously, substitute someone else’s name to say it for them. And I often leave off the “may” and state it as an affirmation “___ is filled with lovingkindness,” etc.

Whatever practice or technique works for you, I hope everyone is finding a way to keep returning to peace, to keep releasing old anger and fear, etc. in order to raise their vibration and contribution to lifting up the planet.

For some interesting info on energy in the world, etc. see https://www.heartmath.org/gci/gcms/live-data/ and https://noosphere.princeton.edu/

SCOTUS: stop being surprised, accept who they are

Posted in Change the World, Current Events, Opinion, Uncategorized by

As SCOTUS in particular and Repug leaders in general continue to promulgate hateful, backsliding, white supremacist policies and programs, Democrats and the media continually express their amazement at how out of step with the opinions of most Americans the right-wingers are. I’m so tired of this b.s. disingenuousness.

They’ve been showing us who they are at least since Reagan’s time. And like smug, patriarchal, rich white supremacists throughout U.S. history, they don’t give a flying f**k what the majority of Americans think or want. They don’t give a sh*t if their policies kill millions of people. As long as it’s not them or their loved ones, the lives of us peons are completely expendable to them.

Their arrogant assumption is that their fake version of Christianity and their ridiculous “trickledown” economics theory provide the right rules and regulations for the rest of us and that they, the smart and favored-by-god wealthy class are the ones who should dictate what the rest of us can and can’t do.

They don’t care that every study ever done on trickledown economics proved it doesn’t work. As long as the money is flowing upward and they’ve forced everyone to live by their rules they could care less about the impact on the rest of the populace.

Many of the policies they’ve implemented and are planning to implement will cause large swaths of the population to die. Their assumption is the ones most affected will be POC/Democrats and killing people to stop them from voting is A-OK with them. Don’t kid yourself about the level of malevolence these people have toward the majority of people.

It’s way beyond time to stop with the pretense of surprise and shock that there are people who would do such things and start doing the level of plotting and planning they have done for years. Their plots have brought us to the brink of the end of democracy and “go vote” is NOT A PLAN FOR STOPPING THEM.

I’ve been saying for several years that we need to figure out both an effective campaign of counterpropaganda and, most important, how to deliver it with maximum impact. The military does it in war zones and brainwashed people in other places have been re-educated; it needs to happen here.

I’ve also been saying for decades that our real votes are with our dollars. The real power in our country is wielded by corporations and their owners. Too many politicians on both sides are owned by various corporate interests to assume that major change can ever be implemented just by changing some elected officials.

They get their power by using money to buy politicians and judges and they get that money because we buy their stuff. It’s beyond time to organize major boycotts of all the global corporations. And before you start screaming that it’s not possible for everyone to boycott everything: it only takes 5% participation to start influencing a corporation to change some policies.

Clearly it would take more than that to really break their power but not anywhere close to all. But we need to organize so as many people as possible are boycotting every company they can; that also means all of us will be buying some stuff from bad actor companies because we currently have no other choices.

Which leads to another of my suggestions. A co-op movement has been quietly growing around the world. (see post for many links to info on co-ops) They’ve been active long enough for studies to have been done and they’ve been shown to be profitable, to pay employees better, offer better benefits, etc. But we need a lot more of them to provide alternative goods. In the meantime, if you can afford to buy local, in every instance where you can, purchase from small local businesses.

Activists in the environmental arena have figured out how to create an activist hedgefund and use shareholder votes to put activists on the boards of major corporations. See Exxon and Chevron. So far it hasn’t been enough to move the needle on climate change-related policies but infiltrating boards is a strong idea for trying to create change.

Many are also finally noting it’s beyond time to organize the same way the right has to get people elected at all the local levels, from school and water boards to city councils to state legislature reps. Running for a local seat or helping with local election campaign are ways to help. If, like me, you can’t get out readily, find organizations like the Poor People’s Campaign who offer phone banking and text banking opportunities. PPC’s text banking to get out the vote is SO well organized and easy to do.

Seriously, stop with the “can you believe it” commentary and figure out how to do something. These people are soulless, hateful despots and there are no depths to which they will not go to get what they want, which is an authoritarian theocracy. And it’s up to us to stop them.

Rethinking wealth and poverty

Posted in Change the World, Opinion, Uncategorized by

Like most Americans I grew up hearing some odd ideas about how wealth indicates being in God’s favor and poverty indicates you’re not living “right”. Closely allied is a whole lot of work ethic BS, wherein people who are right with God and work hard pull themselves up by the bootstraps and anyone who is poor is obviously lazy and not living by God’s rules.

I came up in a branch of Christianity where I also learned a lot about how little chance the wealthy have of making it into heaven, etc., so it was kind of a confusing hodgepodge for me. More recently, though, I’ve been noting how much these ideas show up not only in our national consciousness but also in political discourse. Republicans particularly make it routinely clear that they’re operating out of those simplistic “wealthy=good” “poor=bad” notions.

It’s most evident in their constant desire to stop all funding for poor people. But it’s there also in their dislike of social security and constantly referring to it as an “entitlement” even though everyone works for and pays into it. Apparently if you’re not working at the time you’re receiving it, they think your previous investment of time and energy doesn’t count.

I also see it in their constant comments about people with illnesses not deserving insurance; a little twist on the idea of poor=bad, in this case the notion that if anything is wrong or not working in your life, you clearly are not one of the righteous like they are.

All these judgmental ideas about how one’s income, health etc. are evidence of rightness and wrongness completely sidestep the real situation that poverty and lack have been built into the system, which operates to ensure certain groups have virtually no chance of succeeding or even having basic comfort levels. And after blocking avenues to success, then they blame those groups for their own misfortune. See Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us

The reason their cruel and inhumane policy objectives are acceptable to so many people I think reflects how deeply these beliefs about wealth, poverty and who is “right with God” are immersed in our national consciousness. I see people on social media constantly referring to the goodness of people who’ve “made it” because they’ve worked hard and making assumptions about the deserving nature of the wealthy.

These are just beliefs. Beliefs can be changed. There are other societies that are perfectly viable but hold other beliefs about wealth and poverty and deservingness. The whole idea of scarcity in capitalism was developed to suit the ruling class. See Myths of Capitalism and Degrowth: A Call for Radical Abundance. Also see how dodgy the theology behind these notions is: Wealth is No Indication of God’s Favor or Blessing

One thing I loved in Bali was the way their lives are designed around community and how everyone contributes to it; the idea of independent pursuit of happiness/gain isn’t part of their traditional thinking. The gentle kindness that produces permeates. In Denmark they’ve organized society to provide major social safety nets and when citizens are interviewed they clearly express how their lives are made better by the lack of worry about having the basics taken care of. Just two examples of how societies can be organized by other beliefs and principles than those we falsely accept as “universal”.

Although there’s growing awareness of how the system has been stacked to benefit a white, patriarchal society, I don’t see much talk about the insidious nature of the beliefs that hold this society in place and how you can shift people’s understanding to a different set of beliefs.

Maybe it’s time to look into how we can facilitate a shift of beliefs and consciousness on a population-wide scale?

When the mirror is great

Posted in Change the World, New Age, Personal by

I’ve worked with the concept of other people or their issues being mirrors, reflecting back something about or from within me a lot over the years. Usually it’s been a tool for ferreting out negative aspects, old issues, things to release, etc. My friendship with Gay Luce has always provided a different sort of mirror and until now, one I’ve kind of sidestepped around.

A number of teachers I worked with knew both of us and more than one mentioned how much they saw Gay and I as mirrors, always in the context of trying to get me to see how similar I am in energy and capacity to teach, etc. To me, Gay’s abilities were and always have been way beyond what I’ve achieved.

I understood their point and I knew Gay and I were so close in part because of how we saw and worked with energy but felt, at the same time, that realistically I had not raised my energy or capacity to work out of my third eye to the same level.

Through most of my spiritual journey I’ve been aware of the dance between facing into the dark side and holding space for the light. My journey began with a lot of “create your own reality” teachings. After concertedly trying to hold only positive thoughts for some years, my segue into doing the Fisher-Hoffman process led me to see the importance of looking deep within at issues and unconsciously held beliefs. And to see that insistently trying to express only positive thoughts while ignoring all darkness is a path to failure.

Many years of digging through my sub/un-conscious levels led to comprehending that it’s easy to start seeing yourself as fundamentally flawed, with always another issue to dig up, another behavior to change, etc. I’ve leaned a little that way and have to stay aware. A friend’s beautifully nuanced right listening conversation with me guided me gently in the 2000’s to see how much negativity I held onto. The Secret, at her suggestion, became a first step toward finding a better balance between deep-diving into the shadows and holding affirmative thoughts about life and direction.

A lot of years of seeing Gay much less and no longer having mutual acquaintance teachers pointing out our similar energies meant really not examining the mirror idea in relation to our friendship. News of Gay’s impending death leaves me reflecting deeply on the years when we were most entwined.

And the bulb finally went off. The clear realization that when the amazing, high vibrational space she occupied moves to the other side, the world needs people to step into holding that space. And that, as her mirror, it’s time for me to see how I reflect her energy and presence. Time to step up, drop fears of my own power and take up the mantle of unconditional love she has lived so beautifully. Because she has been the mirror of the best of me.

See No Stranger: an inspiring read

Posted in Change the World, Personal, Uncategorized by

The law was designed to colonize and control the rest of us, not set us free. And yet the founders had invoked words whose power even they could not constrain–justice, freedom, equality, the guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These were magical words that had a power of their own and seized the imagination of the people for whom they were never meant. In every generation, people had risen up in movements to unleash the magic of these words, to bleed for these words and expand the “we” in “we the people” to include more and more of us. Constitutional Law was an archive of these expansions and contractions.

Kaur, Valerie, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (One World, 2020), p. 177

I’ve been reading Valerie Kaur’s excellent book, See No Stranger and not only enjoying the book but fascinated by the inner roads its content leads me down. The book is a combo of autobiography and a history of the Revolutionary Love movement she founded.

Ms. Kaur is a Sikh whose family came to the U.S. several generations ago and her commitment to change/transformation began in the wake of 2001 and the backlash of hatred in which many Sikhs suffered violence and death. There were some respects in which her path and mine were similar, politically speaking. I was inspired by the Viet Nam war and the things I learned in college about the many ways our country did not live up to its hype as a welcoming place of freedom.

We both continued to follow those convictions, learning more via things we studied in college, graduate school and then law school. The big difference was that, from the beginning, she “got” how to make every right move from joining with like-minded people, to taking internships and positions that connected her to a more powerful network, to figuring out how to inspire change in a whole community. I never knew how to be that smart about the moves I made; instead I kind of blundered along, studying, volunteering, trying to find jobs that let me help, etc.

One big difference was I homed in, in college, on the “power elite’ aspect of our problem. I quickly understood how deeply the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the rich and powerful impacts our government and our lives. I studied it from many angles and throughout my anti-war/hippie crowd of friends I talked about it till they told me I was boring. But no one wanted to hear this.

So it’s a little bit hard to launch a movement if you can’t convince anyone there’s even a problem to address. Of course we are now seeing in our country how deeply the rich and corporate factions have affected our lives and that the right wing group is trying to destroy democracy in favor of the rich basically doing whatever they want while everyone struggles, starves, suffers, etc.

But I will admit, I grew up just thinking you got an education and got a job and things fell into place, so I was clueless about seeking out networks, taking positions that would seat me next to power, etc. I can see how many times and ways I failed to make moves that might have put me in a better position to be an influencer.

My dad spent many years at Buick as a second in command in a department which he pretty much ran while a variety of others kept getting promoted over him and then on to higher positions without ever having really done anything in his department. It was years before I realized it boiled down to those other men knowing how to play the political game and my dad hanging out believing that if you worked hard and did the right thing you’d be rewarded. That’s just how I grew up.

What I did do always was to find where I could volunteer to help with environmental issues or get a job where those issues were addressed, attended rallies and marches for many causes and wrote lots of letters to senators and reps. Just a quiet dedication to trying to do something, however small. And I know the world needs the foot soldiers who just do those little things.

But I always kinda wanted to be more like Valarie, moving into a position to influence and really impact change. Very inspiring to read her book. And I love her Revolutionary Love movement!

Kate Raworth again

Posted in Change the World, Politics, Uncategorized by

I’ve posted this video before. Am posting again in part because it is so important re: shaking up thinking about “economy” but also because I’m taking it off “pinned tweet” status on Twitter and want to park the link for it in a spot where I can access it easily to pin again later 🙂

When we talk about raising wages then say prices have to go up we are ignoring the elephant. The assumption everything re: economy has to grow & grow. Not the only way to do it. Time to cut corporate power & stop assuming profits have to go up & up. (1) https://t.co/jzz4kOBR0s— LeighG (@spiritULeigh) August 3, 2021

Is it work if it’s fun?

Posted in Change the World, Collective Consciousness, New Age by

Anyone on a deeply spiritual journey knows a major part of the journey involves looking deeply into issues, emotional blocks etc. As the U.S. has lurched through four years of crises and scandals it has become ever more clear to me that we as a society have issues and blocks to address — many of which are so pervasive they also show up as our personal and ancestral issues. One of them I’ve contemplated often is our general view of work.

I watched a news piece about a woman with her own business the other day. She picks up and delivers dogs who’ve been adopted from out of state and she loves it. Loves it so much she said “it doesn’t feel like work”. It struck me how often I’ve heard that.

On my own journey I realized long ago that that attitude correlates with a general belief that work is “supposed” to be hard, unpleasant; something you must do to eke out a living that will probably barely support you. When I quit practicing law, which I loathed but made a pretty good living at, and began doing things I loved, I instantly began to fail.

It kept going for a long time, even after recognizing that I held deep beliefs about the impossibility of financially succeeding at something you love to do. For me it also turned out my health issues needed to take precedence, but I haven’t forgotten the import of the belief work must be an unpleasant struggle.

Ever since, I’ve noticed how most people talk about work in this country. Yes, there are people who love their work and speak enthusiastically, but there’s a widespread belief among many that work has to be an unhappy drudge. When I heard this woman sounding guilty about her pleasure in the business she’s created out of her love of dogs, I felt really struck about how deep that strain of thinking goes in our society.

Imagine what a shift in that one set of beliefs would do to change the world. If everyone believed it’s possible and okay to find something you love to do or to find a way to love whatever you do for work, wow, how different things would be.

Growing with Our Founding Documents

Posted in Change the World, Opinion, Personal, Uncategorized by

So much controversy lately has me thinking deeply about the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Many are dismissing both as products of slaveowners; because the writers were flawed, the documents are no longer valued goes the thinking.  With a lifelong tendency to see both sides — a product of constantly being in the middle wihtin my family’s arguments — I see a path down the middle.

I’m a person of words, so for me, even over the years since I realized our Founders were far more seriously flawed than our history books led us to believe, the brilliance of the words they crafted still shine.  Largely helped by my long-ago Constitutional Law class in law school, I see a Constitution that has been able to grow and evolve over time.

When you read through the landmark cases of generations you see how the carefully honed document left room to interpret broader truths and equities than the men who wrote it lived within.  They were bright enough and good enough at writing, I don’t think it was an accident that, even though they created restrictions about gender and color, many of the actual words of both the Declaration and the Constitution leave room to dream of literal equality for all, though they may not have foreseen where it led.

The stepping stones from one SCOTUS decision to another also reflect both how we have grown as people in our understanding of what “equality” really means and how the interpretation of the Constitution has grown too.  In those broad words about equality Blacks have found the inspiration to press for them to be true for everyone and that history is one every child should be learning in school.

As I reflect on Independence Day, I see room to reject the flaws of the Founders and still celebrate the brilliance of what they created and how they left a foundation with room to evolve.  At this moment we are in a new stage of evolution in making the notions of justice and equality for all, without exception, true.  Sometimes evolution in law drags us forward, sometimes thinkers who are ahead of the time push the law to change. Together we grow.  

Dear young progressives

Posted in Change the World, Opinion, Politics, Uncategorized by

Twitter is the main place where I get all political (though I do share some things on FB when I know the specific topics are of interest to friends) and I’m following quite a few young progressives. I love that we finally have a whole new crop of excited advocates for change. Seems like us old hippies have been waiting forever for another generation to take up the banner.

But I’m also seeing a lot of the strain of “if I don’t like everything about candidate, I won’t vote”. that has been the bane of Democrats for years. I’m not unsympathetic as I’ve felt like I was holding my nose and voting many times over the years.  I’m just practical and I knew the corporate hold was too strong. And maybe at another time I would say, sure, go ahead and hold out for your ideals.

But now is not the moment. I think many of you are so young you don’t know about how third parties, not voting and (in Reagan’s case) Democrats defecting to Republican brought us Ronald Reagan and the Bushes, all of whom contributed all they could to bringing us to where we are now.  Were their democratic opponents progressive or offering any real change? Nope. But would they have been better and managed to do more to stem this right wing conservative tide Reagan started than the Republicans? Yes they would have. Know how much we all love JImmy Carter now? That’s the guy Dems wouldn’t vote for in 1980.

But this time is worse. This time there is a right wing wave of Republicans who wish to take down democracy. They want an authoritarian dictatorship. And they’re already lining up tools. No one seems to be taking the antifa as terrorists declaration seriously because there is no such group. But that’s the worst part. Having made the declaration, because there is no actual group, they can call any Democrat, liberal, progressive, etc. an antifa — therefore a terrorist — and start rounding us up into camps.

I doubt they’ll be so bold before the election, but trust me, if you let Trump be elected again, you can kiss any chance at any kind of progressive agenda good bye.  Probably for decades. Until there is a revolution to overthrow the dictator. In the meantime, millions will have been thrown in camps or murdered, the Constitution and the U.S. as we know it will be over.

You won’t just not have a progressive president, you’ll watch every progressive in Congress being executed or jailed, every liberal judge , executed or jailed. every leader of a liberal group, executed or jailed. This is no time for playing around with the snowflake bit of refusing to vote or voting for a no-chance-to-win third party. If you want the possiblity of moving to a truly progressive agenda in 2024–or being able to vote at all, you need to just Vote Blue.   And yes, I know, the whole idea stinks. Save us from DJT. Do it anyway.

I love your enthusiasm and that you have seen beyond what most leftists of my era couldn’t see — the power of global corporations and their hold on politics.  I was into studying the Power Elite, so I kind of got it back then but couldn’t get people to listen.  You get it. Hold on to what you know. Plan for 2024 after we get the right wing out of their positions of power. But this time, vote to get them out before it’s too late.

And, as I’ve noted in my People Power posts, you also need to expand your thinking beyond government. The only way to break global corporate power is to destroy their profits. And we do that with how we spend. It means we need more local banks, health centers, manufacturing operations, food markets, etc. to provide the alternatives to Amazon and Walmart and Bank of America, etc. This is possibly more important than getting rid of corporate Democrats.

So I’d suggest, hold your nose, vote for Biden and then every down ballot progressive you can and put your enthusiasm into starting local co-ops and moving consumers to boycott global corporations. Been reading and thinking about this stuff for 50 years. So maybe I”m just over the hill.  Or maybe I know a bit…

Teetering: “Righteous Anger” and Compassion

Posted in Being Peace, Change the World, Healing Journey, Journey2Peace, Uncategorized by

As mentioned off and on for a while, I’m struggling with anger over so man things that are going on. Periodically I realize I’m back screaming at certain “leaders” every time their faces appear, grinding my teeth as I scan social media and follow links to read more, and, a couple of weeks ago when a station I was watching moved from old shows to airing some kind of evangelical church service, I found myself angrily making up words to the hymn they started with and singing: “My Jesus hates you, and we kill, kill, kill…”

Being self-aware enough to see this is DEFINITELY in conflict with my beliefs about holding a space of love, peace and compassion, I keep circling back to questioning the source of the anger and how to shift it. And one puzzle I constantly come back to, is how to be “righteously” angry and yet hold that space.

Many spiritual leaders and writers feel there is such a thing as righteous anger and that, when great wrongs are being committed, we must all feel that anger and do something toward righting the wrong. None seem to address how such anger impacts the energy of the web nor do they seem to offer much advice about how to feel that angry and still find the love and compassion with which to “do something” but do it with nonviolence.

I have long been unconvinced that “righteous” anger is any different, energetically speaking, than any other. It worries me when I react with anger because I can feel how it takes hold and shoves the loving, peaceful aspect of me out of function. And since I believe the energy space each of us holds adds up to the totality of energy that is All That Is, every time one of us is angry instead of loving, our energetic contribution to the web is the energy of anger.

Most of the spiritual leaders who say it’s fine to be outraged over injustice, etc. but to be nonviolent in what you do about it, seem remarkably silent on the question of how to move from the angry place of the one to the compassionate place of the other. I’d guess the majority of people aren’t well equipped to transition on a dime from place to the other.

I see 3 main arenas we as individuals can work on to help us in recognizing the wrongs that need to be righted but stay compassionate and develop non violent solutions:

  1. Ferreting out repressed anger (or other deeply held negative emotions). I’ve noted the above video before and I really like how deeply it works on transforming anger but there are many other methods, including “process” work like Fischer-Hoffman, the Diamond Heart approach, transpersonal psychology, etc. Just find the mode that works for you.
  2. Being able to stay present in the moment is really important. If you can’t even stay conscious enough to realize anger has grabbed you and it’s time to shift away, how you can move into non violent responses? I include more than just sitting vipassana; chanting (sung or spoken), movement practices like yoga or qi gong, and some guided meditations like yoga nidra are all ways that people of different temperaments can tune into the present.
  3. Long ago I read some spiritual leader saying the key to coping with emotions and events coming at you is to allow them to pass through you without affecting.  One of many teachings that’s easier said than done. I think it takes a lot of practice and dedication to reach a place where you don’t even have to think about staying in the space of lovingkindness and compassion and calm.

There are many ways to work on holding that space.  One factor is how you “feed” yourself in your life.  Are you doing practices like metta or singing chats or meditating (whatever form) regularly? Are you reading books like Tara Brach’s 

Boomers, Revolution, Politics

Posted in Change the World, Environmental, Opinion, People Power, Uncategorized by

I’m an old hippie boomer and never really stopped being a hippie. Nor did many of my friends. And everywhere I’ve lived I’ve pretty much wound up with a bunch of friends who were hippies in the day and/or live like hippies now. So many of the slurs the millenials keep tossing about boomers feel like they’re talking about some other group.

From that time forward I’ve been left of democrats in my leanings. Never particularly identified with another party like Socialist or Green, but my political sensibilities were shaped by the protest days and, most especially, Oscar Lange’s On the Economic Theory of Socialism. So my perspective favors the systems places like Denmark and Sweden have created. And I delight that in millenials we finally have a group that gets the political/economic ideas we embraced so long ago.

Voting for me through all these years has been just kind of practical, vote for the least bad kind of thing. My evaluation through all the years has been that corporate influence is too strong to really “revolutionize” the government and too large a portion of the populace has not understood the more liberal viewpoints, so it has long seemed the best we could do was not to have the Republican — and indeed it has proved to be true that Republicans have always made inequality, climate issues, etc. worse and Democrats have always improved those some but never beyond what corporate overlords could accept.

I like the push for Democratic Socialism but I still see too many in government controlled by corporate sponsors (and let’s save discussion of corporate lobbyists controlling way too many watchdog agencies that are supposed to be regulating them for a whole other post). I’m encouraged by the many Democrats running without corporate help and with more Democratic Socialist platforms. This change is heartening and we need to give it momentum. But it’s also time to get outside the box and quit thinking that changing some officeholders will change the fundamentals.

Unlike much of what I read from the millenials, I don’t see it as likely we can shift the government as radically as we need to in the short time frame we have to turn climate change around. For some time I’ve been questioning the degree to which most of us in America have fallen into the habit of expecting government to “save” us and assuming if we just change some people in Congress or change the President, we will be delivered from harm. I think we need to be more rad.

Many years of study and observation lead me to believe that government will not change sufficiently or fast enough to save us. We need People Power. I’ve laid a lot of this out in the People Power series but want to include some thoughts again here.

In much of the world corporations are really running governments like puppet masters. While there’s increasing awareness of this truth, most people still want government to save us from this power. Right now, government works for corporations and throws enough sops to the rest of us to get the votes they need.  GOVERNMENT IS NOT GOING TO SAVE US.  Take that in.  It’s time we understand this truth.

While we also need to work on voting in people who haven’t taken corporate money, the two main things I see as grass roots necessities: (1) massive boycotts and (2) a huge wave of going local; starting co-ops for banking, manufacturing, food production, etc. that are run by the people for the people and employing the people.

Two percent of the people are hoarding vast amounts of wealth and acting as though the other 98% are expendable. It’s a very weird way of looking at us when our buying dollars provide the bulk of their profits. Without us buying their stuff, booking their hotel rooms, eating their food products, etc. they can’t make a profit.  The truth of this is finally hitting now in the Covid-19 pandemic and the government still can’t get it that it’s not the 2 percent they need to save. Without us out there buying, businesses are feeling the pinch (though the super rich owners and CEOs are untouched so far).

I’ve been calling for massive consumer boycotts for a long time and running around talking about how we really vote with our dollars and few have really been listening. I find it kind of funny that the Universe has basically ordered up a massive consumer boycott without anybody actually deciding to have one. Now we need to keep it up when we’re allowed to get out again.

Thirty-four years ago when I started practicing yoga and taking the Yoga Journal, then becoming interested in metaphysics and flipping through magazines like New Age Journal (now Body and Soul), etc. I began to notice a whole secondary economy in their pages.  Health foods, yoga props, meditation retreats, herbal supplements, etc. Companies you never heard about nor, in those days, ever saw on the shelves of a mainstream grocery or drugstore. Companies with healthier products and often a healthier way of doing business.

Over the years those companies have often become more known.  Some went down the dark path — Whole Foods, for instance became a corporate monster long before Amazon took over. And many more companies have been added to the list. For the most part all these places still advertise in magazines and on web sites that cater to those who are into healthy and/or spiritual lifestyles and this other economy is still under the radar.

More recently I’ve been following a more recent and quietly grown trend for forming local co-ops. From neighborhoods taking back an old shuttered business district and supporting small local enterprises, to co-op banks owned by and serving Blacks or women or poor neighborhoods to farming co-ops, etc. across the world a movement of creating local businesses that operate for local people has been spreading.

It’s been going on for long enough there are now studies showing they are making good profits, employing lots of people and paying them better in both wages and benefits. Again, mostly under the radar though if you hunt for it you can find scattered articles. (I’ve listed the People Power posts below — many links to articles and sources there) A Thrive Economy serves better than a Growth Economy.

I see this quiet growth of a whole tier of businesses operating differently, quietly in the background as our best answer and hope. We need more of it. We need the younger progressives who are excited about change to leap on the bandwagon of going local. We need to have so many products, supplies, banking opportunities, supply chains, etc. that are both supplying consumer needs and providing jobs that we can increasingly do business only with local outfits and stop buying from corporations.

We have to be the ones to break corporate power because government is not going to do it.

I love seeing lots of enthusiasm for progressive candidates and causes from the younger generations and I hope they keep working on those things. But I also hope a huge number can be persuaded to launch themselves into a local movement. While I know plenty of older hippies who are participating in local co-op type efforts and pushing for buying local, we’re kind of old for being the founders of banking co-ops and small manufacturing plants, etc.  We need you.  And I know I can speak not only for myself but for so many people I know, we’ll do anything we can to help you.

It’s time for a quiet, under-the-radar revolution in which we seize power by taking our dollars away from the global corporate giants and put them into businesses that serve us and the needs of our communities. It isn’t just getting “them” to pass progressive policies. We have to seize the reins and create the progressive roads.

The People Power posts — in these posts you’ll find many links to articles and studies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@ProudResister @davidhogg111 @WilliamMMcKee @OurProgressive @eve_levenson @EdwardJDavey @marwilliamson @ewarren

 

The virus and the rabbit hole

Posted in Change the World, Personal, Uncategorized by

As Mom moved toward the end of her stay in rehab and my hip/psoas issues were hitting a zenith, we started hearing about the coronavirus.  Things were revving up when we got home. But we’d been sent off with Mom having barely moved from diaper changes to being able to get to the bathroom with assistance and no home help coming for days, so I felt too overwhelmed by dealing with the transition to full time caregiver to do more than note it as a rising issue.

Before long, though, I was discovering that with Mom in the house I should be going out as little as possible — some say not at all but I have yet to figure out how to get everything done for her without leaving the house.  As much as possible I get curbside pickup or delivery, mostly curbside pickup, but for a couple of places I have to go in.

Otherwise I’m staying home. I gather this is a huge lifestyle change for many people but, having dealt with health issues for a long time, I’m used to staying home a lot, so I feel like life has prepared me for this moment very well.  Not to mention being an only child means I’ve spent tons of alone time since early childhood…

Not feeling huge fear except for my Dad, alone in Florida and not taking this too seriously.  One silver lining to all the time spent in hospitals, etc. is I had Mom and I taking Aireborne every day to ward off the many things that float around those places so we were more immune boosted than normal.  And I’ve had us keep taking some along with elderberry and preventive doses of ganmaoling. Sent some of all those things to Dad and he’s actually taking stuff! I don’t go quite as far as some about wiping everything down or quarantining the mail, but I’m careful and Mom is not going out at all.

The hardest part is watching our already-dwindling investment account go down and wondering how we survive on the other side.  Otherwise the adjustment to this new normal after adjusting to a life of daily hospital/SNF visits and then adjusting to be the only caregiver 24/7 just seems like part of the ongoing fall down the rabbit hole. Head over heels, down and down, dizzy and disoriented, heading for a new world.

In the meantime, I’m looking at the commentary on what an opportunity this is to decide to change the world and throw off the beliefs about wealth and striving and what drives economies to start anew from a different set.  Now is the chance to work on “people power”, for which I advocated in my recent series. Let’s dream and plan a new world. And I’m excited about that.