The Miseducation of America

"Demandingly obvious is our insistent need to develop a new curriculum based up on the inescapable fact that the survival of humankind is threatened as never before, and that we must discover how to create practical ways of living humanely together as one family of people in a culturally pluralist world existing precariously on this little Spaceship Earth.

Meanwhile we may expect that during the coming decades millions of America's college, high school, and middle school youth will become alienated from traditional values and patterns of American life. Perhaps they should be alienated from our society's obsession with material things, economic growth, status symbols, power and money, and cults of violence, racism and nationalism. They might then become attuned to newer value systems and life styles essential for the new age: the socially moral requirements of universal human empathy, limitations upon human growth, sweeping transformation of present modes of production and distribution of goods and services, drastic reduction in population, development of world political authority, and the like."

From Life-Centering Education by Edward G. Olsen and Phillip A. Clark, published in 1977

The 'world political authority' recommendation doesn't sit well, but otherwise these guys had it right-on thirty years ago. What happened? Clearly this kind of educational reform was never taken seriously, except perhaps in fringe Montersorri or Waldorf-like private schools. The public education system in America has betrayed the youth and become a limb of Capitalism. It's a system that grinds children through years of schooling to produce stay-inside-the-lines (and the box) worker ants in a huge colony of speculative economics. Instead of educating youth to think critically, this system drives into kids a work ethic and a belief in rewards systems, ranking, competition, and hierarchy. The lure of capital gains, the stale dream of suburbia, and the never-ending pursuit of acquiring more collections of crap commodities are the backbone of this monster.

Seriously folks, let's think imaginatively about some alternatives.

Cynthia McKinney's Declaration of Independence

In front of the Pentagon on March 17, 2007, Cynthia McKinney addressed a crowd of peace activists and delivered the following declaration of independence:

"As an American of conscience, I hereby declare my independence from every bomb dropped, every threat leveled, every civil liberties rollback, every child killed, every veteran maimed, every man tortured.

And I sadly declare my independence from the leaders who let it happen."

Read the rest of her speech here.

What is This War?

Inside each one of us "this war" rages. The symptoms of war, genocide, greed, and exploitation we see reflected and refracted in our shared external world are the manifestations of our combined, collective ignorance.

Realizing this, we come into our own power. Dispel the illusions of separateness, fear, greed, hatred, selfishness, and attachment within our own vessels of body-mind-spirit and we cast brilliant ripples of awareness into the externalized world. These are shockwaves of positive consciousness. They bowl over and overwhelm the ingrained circuitry of delusion, fear, and self-censorship that inhibit the expression of other souls into this world of changes. In this way, intimate and dynamic connections are made. Not only do we set each other free, but we do it repeatedly, in progressive positive feedback loops. What's more is we do this collectively, not for ourselves, but for the good of the greater world. Not for our own wills, but for the will of the world soul, the divine will of goodness and beauty.

Peace comes to those who are actively engaged in struggles against negativity. As of this writing, I sense a vast rainbow spectrum of intelligence and compassion beginning to burgeon and bloom from its cracking cocoon. The time of war, separation, and willful ignorances is coming to an end. We will wake and wake and wake again in a progressive series of dawns in which we paint Divine Love onto our skins and onto the varying skies and scenes of our shared world. From our individual, connected hearts, we unravel the skeins of our visionary beauty. With these we shape amazing art objects, buildings, and beings, imbuing our creations with our own spiritual ecstasy, with the energetic essences pulled from the ever-deepening veins of the ever-becoming entities which we are!

And at the end of the day, we love more proudly and with greater strength, celebrating in song, drink, in dance and good cheer, in whatever way we hold dear, we celebrate our love with those we love, inhabiting the homes we have made. When we fall asleep at night, then, we dream untroubled and significant cinemas of creation. When we wake, we carry these symbols of imagination and spirit with us, remain touched by the beings who revealed themselves to us, and continue the good work in which we dispel the urge to fight, building instead the endless colorful steps of coopeartive creation.

Om Shanti. Peace, Peace, Peace.

Murder, Murder Everywhere

FUck. Fuk. FUck. Fuck!!. FUCK!!!!!!!

This has become a downright regular exclamation in my life lately. Too much, too much, too much fucking injustice. Not just injustice. Inhumanity. How can people live with themselves?

God. Damn!!!

There are
no words
for
this.

Has the soul of the world died and passed into some hell? What other explanation can there be? Slaughter, wholesale murder, war, rape, economic exploitation, genocide, depression, sickness of the heart.

Sadness.
Heavy
Heavy
sadness.

Thoughtless, emotionless, inhuman, unfeeling. These are the roots of death. What sickness--how did planet Earth, beautiful magnificent radiance, come to find herself so infected? Pus oozes from all coal mines, oil rigs, diamond mines. Crusty shields of scab sap scar the deforested mountainside, mar the rainforest and jungle. Children commit suicide.

Please
rise above.

Breathe your wholeness.
Understand you are here,
you are this suffering,
this self-mutilated joy,
this deep grief
incised in all sides of our Earth and lives
is you.

Wake
wake wake wake
wake wake
wakey wakey
wake the fuck
up
motherfucker.

Scarred Crater

Scarred Crater

Voices silenced
whisper stop. Mountains shiver in white cold.
Here: a cascade of life water spilled
to form stiff cakes and craters
marring what delirious joy and knowledge
our ancestors were.

In this
perpetual slaughter
shadowing itself across time,
who will wake here,
among the wires and micropchips
in inhuman bowels
of mechanical programming?

Blink against dust and grease.
See how there is an artificial tube feeding you.
That you didn't know, grown used to the taste
of that steel nozzle,
the swift insistent permanence of it
choking pressed against your inside.

Seemed normal.
Until you saw the serial number.
It was then that you looked
that you dared to look
into sterile reflective glass
to view your own eyes, nearly orbs,
merely glass passivity.

A life-like quality began to settle there.
A sadness cut in shadows,
desiring light.

American History: A Snippet

Be ashamed, America. Be ashamed for the decimation of entire countries, including the one called the United States of America. U.S. citizens should not need to be reminded that our colonizing motherfuckin' forefathers (and mothers) are responsible for the genocide of countless Indians, and the forced removal and displacement of the survivors. These we prodded at musket-point on towards small packets of land. Then, told them to farm. An alien practice to the Indian mind, for the most part.

Should not need to be reminded.

But how many of us do need a reminder?

American Colonizer: "The Earth is not your Mother anymore. Here, have a ho. Plant some wheat."
Indian: "No."
American Colonizer: "What??! You Satanic Savage!"

American Colonizer smacks Indian across the face with the butt of his rifle

Indian: (silence)
American Colonizer: "Here. Have a Bible."
Indian: "No."
American Colonizer: "What?!! You are soooooo burning in HELL!!!"

sound of gunfire, a village burning
women and children screaming
bones popping
"Christians" rejoicing, giving praise

Farther away from the colonizer's stolen "home," the Iraqi people had a taste of self-determination in 1958, when, on July 14th, the pro-British monarchy was overthrown. Later, in the '80s, the good ol' U S of A supported everyone's favorite person to hate, Saddam Hussein, in his instant, just-add-American-firepower rise to power. This was a big FUCK YOU to the Iraqi people, to be sure. So they were happy when, in 1991, American planes bombed the living hell out of their country in a bid to push Saddam back from his in-progress invasion of the oil-rich country of Kuwait.

Cut to the White House, where George Bush I is illuminated by righteous power halos and carries a big stick

George I: "Saddam--invading oil--wouldn't be prudent."
American Media-Mediated Chorus: "Yeah, you camel jockey raghead tyrant!!"
George I: "Oh, that's it! Release the bombs!!"
American Media-Mediated Chorus: "Free Kuwait!! Free Kuwait!!"

sound of bombs dropping, a village burning
women and children screaming
bones popping
"Christians" rejoicing, giving praise
much self-congratulatory back-slapping
the sound of oil prices deflating
"ahhhhhhhhhhh..."

And the Iraqi people were happy again when, in 2003, George I's imperialist son, George II, decided that the "War on Terror" gave him as well a license to stick his militaristic dick in Iraq and probe for oil. Of course, the marketing agency media sold this unprovoked invasion to everyone, including the Iraqi people, as a minor inconvenience, just a small pin prick before the actual liberation and freedom of the Iraqi people. Democracy.

So imagine the Iraqi people's shock and dismay when, four years later, America still is parking its ignorant (for the most part) goddamn (for the most part) occupying military all over a crumbled, broken-down, fucked-up Iraq.

Not happy with the situation in the homeland, those Iraqis. Who can blame them?

Unfortunately, way too many Americans seem to be okee-dokeee with blaming them. Terrorists, Extremists, Insurgents are the labels applied to justify the continued presence of an unwanted military. "Secular violence." What the goddamn hell did anyone expect?? Tea parties, crumpets, and instant parliaments or congresses? Or better yet--a "Christian" nation?

Give me
a goddamn
fucking
break.

The children of Iraq have a message for anyone who cares to listen:

WAR

IS

A

TRAGEDY

Now Is the Only Time

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces towards change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."

--Helen Keller

I used to imagine apocalyptic scenarios much like ones presented in movies like Red Dawn and books like Stephen King's The Stand. It was exciting and fun, as a youth, to fantastically idealize and stylize a post-civilization world. Thinking up these scenarios, I never really was interested in the cause of the collapse of civilization, but more of the aftermath.

In the aftermath, of course me and my friends were still kickin' it. I would think of all of our different skills and what we could contribute. Who might build shelters, what skills we would all exercise and hone in this post-apocalyptic world.

I wasn't really concerned with those practical things, though. Mostly I would just let my mind picture everything gone back to wildness. The beauty of plants run rampant. Cars rusting and decying, reclaimed by mice, buggy critters, seeds. An idealized, romanticized vision.

Imagining us in neglected, unmaintained grocery stores, I would wonder how long we could live off of canned goods. For a good while, I imagined. Build a fire, heat up a can of beans, and you're good to go!

I don't think about these things too much anymore. Why don't I? What with unstable markets; the reach of globalization decimating many, many lives in many, many countries; with the reality of highly entrenched, well-disguised systems of poverty, explotiation, and repression/suppression in the United States and other countries; with corrupt systems of unexamined values and multiple societies of blindly-led lives; with the religions of men at each other's throats, clawing with cluster bombs, AK-47's, shattering dreams with remote control explosions, and threatening to top and topple each other with the might of technologies and the right of righteous, wrathful, hierarchical gods--what's keeping me from thinking about a very possible post-apocalyptic world?

Is it hope, is it ignorance, is it apathy? Is it an unwillingness to accept that given the current trajectory of world politics, policies, affairs, events, and wars, we are probably fucked on the much-lauded and pedastaled global civilization front?

Hell, I dunno.

I live in my small, fractalized reality. A product of environment, intention, and action. Probably of other things, too. I live in this small fractalized place, ever-shifting, never certain, always opening and closing, breathing, living, always revising, rethinking, re-evaluating. Progressing. Never certain.

We all live in these fractal bubbles, caught up and swirled in currents and jets of a compound dynamic of fractals past, present, and perhaps future.

This inspires me to live in my fractal from my heart, projecting beautiful visions of my imagination, of my desire to live beautifully in a plethora of families and cultures who love and respect one another.

Fuck. War.

Live peace.