This video was created by a small group of college students interested in documenting the birth and life of a modern activist. Their subject, Mary Lindsay of Kansas City Move to Amend, discusses the forces that compelled her to stand up to corporate America and the hurdles she faces.

Mary is the quintessential activist. Perhaps you’ll see a little of yourself in her story and offer to lend a hand while there’s still chance to make a difference.

This video was recorded Feb. 18, 2012 in Wichita, KS at a protest rally known as “Occupy Kochtown.”

Comment: This is the original text of a speech delivered by top of the class student, Erica Goldson, during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” ?The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” ?Replied the Master,

“When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn at our fullest. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, and not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.”

Comment: The full passage reads: “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”

To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is very special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!

I got a list of demands
written on the palm of my hands
I ball my fist and you’re gonna know where I stand

-Saul Williams

 This quote is from List of Demands, a song that’s now a few years old but still relevant. Click this link if you want to hear the song and see the entire lyric.

On February 27, 2012, Congress passed H.R.347, also known as the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011.

That’s a nice name. It sounds like with its passage there should be lots of pretty flowers blooming all over Washington, DC this Spring.

Here’s what H.R.347 really does:  it makes it illegal for anyone to protest in or near any government building or at any location that is deemed to be hosting an event designated as having national significance.

If that sounds a little vague and open to interpretation, that’s because it is. The “grayness” of this description is the loophole needed to circumvent the First Amendment rights of We the People.

Here are the relevant excerpts from the actual bill:

`(a) Whoever–

`(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

`(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is–

`(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if–

`(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or
`(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and

`(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.

`(1) the term `restricted buildings or grounds’ means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area–

`(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or

`(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

`(2) the term `other person protected by the Secret Service’ means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title or by Presidential memorandum, when such person has not declined such protection.’.

Under these guidelines, acts of civil disobedience, gathering for redress of grievances and who knows what else could be punishable for up to 10 years if any violence breaks out and up to 1 year if it doesn’t. Judging from the willingness of many police departments to administer full-on beat downs of unarmed, peaceful protesters, I’m going to wager that a charge of violence will be present even if it’s perpetrated by the police.

Why is an ill-worded, unnecessary law like this on the books? Why did it pass 388-3 in the House and with unanimous consent in the Senate? Could it be that Congress doesn’t want to know what lobbyist-free citizens have on their minds?

Something smells a little fishy here.

Representative Alan Grayson has introduced HR 5353, a common sense bill that would cut separate funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Co-sponsors of this bill include Ron Paul, Walter Jones, John Conyers, Lynn Woolsey, and Dennis Kucinich.

The $159 billion saved by this bill will be used to eliminate federal income taxes on every American’s first $35,000 of income.

HR 5353 would help re-invigorate our economy so quickly I guarantee that you will not hear a word about it through any mainstream media outlet.

Power-mongers and war profiteers depend on Americans feeling desperate so Death, Inc. will not allow their Republican puppets to vote for it during an election cycle.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for this bill to simply vanish.

There’s No Tomorrow takes a sober look at what it means to stake the survival of our species (and ultimately the entire planet) on a paradigm of infinite growth while living on a finite planet.

In just under 35 minutes, practically all of the issues concerning energy, economic growth, politics and the environment are laid out plainly for consideration.

This is not easy information to digest since each of these areas overlap one another in inextricable ways. Solutions will not be simple because improvements in one area often produce negative ripples in another.

Even so, it’s time to start having new conversations; conversations that rise above antiquated economic theories, indistinguishable political parties and imaginary national borders.

Perhaps Henry David Thoreau  was right – it’s time to “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

Rise Like Lions: OWS and the Seeds of Revolution (2011) is a film that documents Occupy Movements around the world and acknowledges the awakening of Earth’s long silent populace.

Humble and heroic, painful yet empowering, this film bears witness to the power of ordinary people armed only with  Truth. If you want to know what heroism looks like, look no further. (There is a scene at around the 1 hour, 23 minute mark that may be the single bravest act of courage ever filmed).

“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many – they are few.”

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

How does mainstream media fail to cover this? Are the crowds too small? The message too unimportant?

Or is it more likely that corporate-owned media suppresses coverage because it doesn’t want the “many” to understand that they are not alone.

One thing is clear; the beginning is near.

ALEC is an acronym for the American Legislative Exchange Council and it is an exclusive membership organization of global corporations and local legislators that meet privately to draft “model bills” that effectively hijack our laws for the express purpose of increasing their revenues.

ALEC-approved “model bills” are passed along to cooperative politicians (read: paid off) eager to push the corporate agenda of the 1%.

ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these “model bills” introduced to Congress by legislative members each year with one in every five of them enacted into law.

Once legislators return to their state with corporate-sponsored ALEC legislation in hand, the legislators themselves become “super-lobbyists” for ALEC’s corporate agenda, effectively cutting out the middlemen (traditional lobbyists and voters).

Even so, ALEC enjoys a 501(c)(3) classification, which allows it to keep its tax-exempt status while accepting grants from foundations, corporations and other donors.

ALEC consists of 2,000 legislative members and 300 or more corporate members. The unelected corporate representatives (often registered lobbyists) sit as equals with our elected representatives on 9 task forces where they have a “voice and a vote” on model legislation.

It should come as no surprise that more than 98% of ALEC’s revenues come from sources other than legislative dues, such as corporations, corporate trade groups and corporate foundations.

ALEC member corporations number into the thousands with an elite Corporate Board comprised of the largest corporations in the world including: Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Kraft, UPS, Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, ExxonMobile, Pfizer and AT&T among others.

Here are some of the nifty bills they’ve recently introduced in my home state, Missouri:

MO House Bill 1104 – Changes the laws regarding elections by requiring a voter to provide photo identification. This is a clear case of voter suppresssion, which is fear-based on non-existent voter impersonation fraud.

According to the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office, an estimated 250,000 legally registered Missouri voters don’t have a government-issued photo ID. The Missouri voter ID bill, in conjunct with HB 1147, which requires that driver’s license exams only be given in English, would effectively revoke non-English speakers’ right to vote regardless of their legal citizenship status.

MO Senate Bill 590 – Would require K-12 schools to verify the immigration status of all students, essentially turning already underfunded and overburdened school districts and police departments into immigration agents.

In a state where many districts are facing budget crises, SB 590 creates overwhelming requirements on administrators’ time and energy and it alienates Missouri’s hard working immigrant families.

These unnecessary provisions are already an expensive enforcement nightmare elsewhere (Alabama, Arizona) and are currently the subject of intense litigation efforts for repeal in those states.

MO Senate Bill 592 – Is a “simple” re-wording of a current anti-discrimination law that would effectively give employers a broader range of exemptions in terminating employees for questionable reasons.

The bill makes it substantially more difficult for employees to protect themselves against workplace discrimination based in their religion, race or sexual identitiy. SB 592 is yet another ALEC-sponsored bill intended to suppress the rights of the working class in Missouri.

Though only a small sample of “model bills,” these shed light upon the basic operations of ALEC.

NOW is the time to stand up and fight this corporate legislation without representation!!!

One thing that Missouri voters can do is to vote out the slimy bastards who are in bed with ALEC corporations. Here is a current list of offending politicians and their districts in Missouri:

House of Representatives

Walt Bivins (R-97) – Stanley Cox (R-118) – Ed Emery (R-126) – House Majority Leader Timothy Jones (R-89) – Rodney Schad (R-115) – Jason Smith (R-150) – Vicki Scneider (R- 17) – Steven Tilley (R-106) – Andrew Koenig (R-88) – Shane Schoeller (R-139) – Cole McNary (R-86) – Darrell L. Pollock (R-146) – Shelley Keeney (R-156) – Donna Lichtenegger (R-157) – Ellen Brandorr (R-160) – Eric Burlison (R-136) – Keith Frederick (R-149) – Sue Allen (R-92) – William White (R-120) – Jerry Nolte (R-33) – Scott D. Diekhaus (R-109) – Bill Lant (R-131) – Sandy Crawford (R-119) – Mike Kelley (R-126) – Barney Fisher (R-125) – Dave Hinson (R-198) – Sue Entlicher (R-133) – Tony Dugger (R-144) – Noel Torpey (R-55) – Paul R. Curtman (R-105) – John J. Diehl, Jr. (R-87) – Zachary Wyatt (R-2) – Therese Sander (R-22) – Doug Ervin (R-35) – Mike Colona (D-St. Louis)

Senate

Jack Goodman (R-29) – Brian D. Nieves (R-98) – Robert Mayer (R-25) – Jim Lembke (R-1) – Mike L. Parson (R-28) – John Griesheimer (R-26) – Jane D. Cunningham (R-7) – Ron Richard (R-129)

ALEC’s Missouri State “Chairmen”

Rep. Timothy Jones (R) – Rep. Jason Smith (R) – Rep. Jim Ellington (R) – Tom Krewson (Comcast) – Mary Scruggs (Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives)

Does it seem like there are an awful lot of Republicans on this list?

Click this link to learn more about ALEC from the ALECExposed.org website

Watch the video first. It’s narrated by Woody and conveys his message very well. If you want to slow down and dig deeper into what he’s written then check out the transcription below. It’s an amazing piece from a man of peace.

THOUGHTS FROM WITHIN by Woody Harrelson

I sometimes feel like an alien creature
for which there is no earthly explanation
Sure I have human form
walking erect and opposing digits,
but my mind is upside down.
I feel like a run-on sentence
in a punctuation crazy world.
and I see the world around me
like a mad collective dream.

An endless stream of people
move like ants from the freeway
cell phones, pc’s, and digital displays
“In Money We Trust,”
we’ll find happiness
the prevailing attitude;
like a genetically modified irradiated Big Mac
is somehow symbolic of food.

Morality is legislated
prisons over-populated
religion is incorporated
the profit-motive has permeated all activity
we pay our government to let us park on the street
And war is the biggest money-maker of all
we all know missile envy only comes from being small.

Politicians and prostitutes
are comfortable together
I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather.
This government was founded by, of, and for the people
but everybody feels it
like a giant open sore
they don’t represent us anymore
And blaming the President for the country’s woes
is like yelling at a puppet
for the way it sings
Who’s the man behind the curtain pulling the strings?

A billion people sitting watching their TV
in the room that they call living
but as for me
I see living as loving
and since there is no loving room
I sit on the grass under a tree
dreaming of the way things used to be
Pre-Industrial Revolution
which of course is before the rivers and oceans, and skies were polluted

before Parkinson’s, and mad cows
and all the convoluted cacophony of bad ideas
like skyscrapers, and tree paper, and earth rapers
like Monsanto and Dupont had their way
as they continue to today.

This was Pre-us
back when the buffalo roamed
and the Indian’s home
was the forest, and God was nature
and heaven was here and now
Can you imagine clean water, food, and air
living in community with animals and people who care?

Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollar you lay down
are you going to make the rich man richer
or are you going to stand your ground
You say you want a revolution
a communal evolution
to be a part of the solution
maybe I’ll be seeing you around

Dangers Of Fracking.com is an informational website that explains the “fracking” process in plain English.

It has an infographic style that makes each step of the fracking process easy to understand and it’s lean, non-cluttered layout helps focus attention on the real issues.

Rather than sift through mountains of mis-information supplied by the petroleum industry, take about 3 minutes to experience this site and gain a little clarity about what “fracking” is really all about.

As you progress through the site, notes about the process will pop up for you to read. Don’t just quickly scan them! Stop and re-read what they’re telling you and let it sink in. These facts demand careful consideration.

There will be opportunities to take action at the close of their presentation if you’re so inclined. Take me to the Dangers of Fracking website

Organized largely through a Facebook post made 3 weeks previously, the event was essentially an open invitation for all concerned citizens to march in front of Koch Industries’ headquarters and the Wichita Chamber of Commerce. Anyone was allowed to attend, to have a voice and to play a part if they wanted to.

It worked. People from as far away as South Dakota were there. In fact, more than half of the attendees weren’t from Wichita at all. This is a good sign.

Here are a few photos of my fellow protesters taken by Kansas City photographer Jerry Schmidt to help document our peaceful protest:

[Show as slideshow]

Unlike what gets reported in the media, these protesters are bona fide “regular” Americans, not satanic anarchists trying to steal your soul and brainwash your babies.

Why do you think there’s such a huge disparity between what actually goes on at these rallies and what gets reported? Could it be that somebody has a special interest in keeping the public fearful and ignorant?

Consider this movie trailer from Citizens United depicting their version of what the Occupy Wall Street movement is really all about:

This is no joke. Citizens United has actually produced this movie and intends to circulate it within echo chamber media outlets like Fox News and other mis-information sources that spread fear and ignorance to an under-informed and obedient audience.

In a little over 2 minutes they identify a dozen boogeymen on which to attach their fear and hatred:

• Political humorist, Bill Maher
• Former Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi
• Documentary filmmaker, Michael Moore
• Democratic leader, Harry Reid
• President Obama (black Satan)
• Internet powerhouse Anonymous
• Calling Tea Partiers “radical” or “a manufactured party”
• Drug use
• Violence
• Rape
• Anarchy
• Militant or war-like tendencies

What’s wrong with these people? Are they so afraid that their ideas can’t stand scrutiny that they feel like they must create an alternative reality for themselves where truth, knowledge and progress are unnecessary and unwelcome?

Compare what is represented in that ominous trailer to this cell phone video clip from our Occupy Koch Town event:

Clearly, there’s a disconnect.

The sad part is that many of those Fox network watching sheeple will believe the garbage they’re fed and continue to support the very people who keep them down.

They’ll continue believing that right-wing nut jobs and corporate banksters are somehow protecting them from these “imaginary threats.”   As long as they obediently watch and obey, it will only encourage more corporate-sponsored fear.

After all, it’s what motivates the sheep.

This grainy video was recorded at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. In it, 12 year old Severn Suzuki delivers a truth that is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago when she delivered it.

Why is it that so many kids, young adults, working class people and other “ordinary” citizens seem to understand quite poignantly what’s going on in the world and what needs to be done while the elite, ruling class remains oblivious?

Maybe it’s time  to adopt solutions as seen through the eyes of a child. Politicians should stand down.

If you are not willing to learn,
no one can help you.
If you are determined to learn,
no one can stop you.

This slogan may go down as the best 5 word description of the great awakening of 2011.

For the first time in human history, ordinary people took to the streets in over 82 countries in over 950 cities more or less simultaneously. Even though the people appeared to have little in common at first, it quickly became evident that they were nearly identical in so many ways.

One of the most interesting documents about this similarity is a study prepared by Tomaz Kure of Slovenia. Tomaz compiled the dominant slogans that protesters were chanting in each country and listed them month-by-month starting  January 2011 and ending December 2011.

In it, you can clearly track the protest’s spread from Tunisia to other countries as new voices join the list.

Even though the protesters themselves are very diverse, their complaints are eerily the same. Regardless of country, religion, political or economic system, these 12 topics appeared over and over:

• The power of banks
• Criticism of the capitalist system
• Stock speculations
• Lack of democracy
• Poor regulations
• Austerity cuts
• Corruption of elites
• Inaccessible education
• High unemployment
• High personal debts
• Environmental problems
• An increasing gap between the rich and poor

Could it be that human beings have an innate understanding that freedom, justice, fairness and compassion must not be compromised?

Is this internal compass powerful enough to overcome decades of unregulated power in the hands of central banks, large corporations and autocratic or plutocratic regimes?

The jury’s still out.

Check out Tomaz’s work. It is a fascinating read and I guarantee that you’ll immediately recognize yourself in the voices of others.

You can view Tomaz’s work online by clicking here.

You can download his paper by clicking here. 

To a politician, there’s no need to stray onto any topic that can’t be expressed in a few words. “No new taxes!” “I’ll work for the middle class.” “We can’t raise taxes on job creators.” “I support the America dream.”

They repeat this pointless drivel so often that they actually start believing their own bullshit. Dumb people believe it too.

But that’s wrong. America, indeed the whole of our planet, needs to begin having substantive conversations about the real and pressing problems that all of humanity faces. (A parrot can cover the ground that politicians currently occupy and they won’t cost as much to feed and shelter).

How are we going to deal with the fact that as a species, we have invented and created the technological means to render our physical labor unnecessary?

Remember slavery? It didn’t end because oppressive white people suddenly felt bad about how they were treating another human being. It ended because Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and it became cheaper to buy and use a machine than to feed and house slaves. Greed + technology put an end to it.

Remember the time before computers? Factory workers used their hands and eyes to measure materials, set up and calibrate tools of production, polish and assemble goods and much more. Now a robot handles it.

Postal workers sorted and delivered mail before the advent of e-mail. Messages now arrive anywhere in the world almost instantly.

Musicians used to go to recording studios to make records. Now they produce high-definition digital code that streams between devices.

Graphic artists used to use printing presses. Now they use Photoshop and practically nothing gets “printed;” the work is just viewed on computer screens.

Publishers and binders used to assemble books. Now many books exist only as bits of code, downloadable over the Internet. And the list goes on…

The point is that as a species, we’ve always figured out novel ways to make work easier, faster, more accurate and at lower cost in terms of time and raw resources. It’s what we do.

That has served us pretty well for thousands of years but we have now arrived at a point in our evolution where the effects are starting to work against us.

The truth is, most of us are not needed any longer. All of those jobs that have disappeared over the last 30-40 years are never coming back.

What politicians should be talking about is this:

How can we create a new economic system that is not based on labor (which is increasingly unnecessary) but one that encourages people to meaningfully contribute to society in exchange for economic rewards?

I’ll bet that answer won’t fit on a bumper sticker. It’s also a question that we can’t dodge much longer.

Here is another great animated video from the Royal Society for the Arts that essentially confirms Aung San Suu Kyi‘s assertion that anyone can create power for themselves simply by helping one another.

The video demonstrates that the human species  evolves spiritually over time and that’s why we now stand at the dawn of a new awakening.

Based on recent worldwide events, it’s clear that citizens of all nations are “waking up” more or less simultaneously and starting to demand a new system, a new way of life, that overcomes the frailties and inadequacies of existing systems.

Governments, religions, economic systems and more are being re-evaluated in terms of their ultimate “real” worth not only to banking and industry, but to civilization, the environment and the entire spiritual universe.

Despite the mess we’re in, there’s still reason for hope.

This is an excellent, non-partisan look by the Royal Society for the Arts (England) at the global financial crisis. It objectively addresses several of the dominant explanatory theories behind the collapse and points out their truths and weaknesses.

While the author has not discovered any viable solutions yet, he does recommend that we start having mature conversations above the political sphere so that we might arrive at an acceptable means of dealing with this problem.

Ordinary citizens of the world are already having this discussion. I can only hope that politicians will eventually pull up to the grownup table , put down their silly politics and lend a hand.

Politicians just don’t tell the truth. They claim that budget deficits will destroy us and yet constantly fail to make any meaningful reductions. Why?

It’s because they know that the whole Capitalist system requires ever increasing debt to survive and that we’re now at a point where no country can ever pay its debt. Ever.

To better understand the real problem, imagine that 1 dollar is the equivalent of travelling backward in time for 1 second.

That means that 60 dollars would represent going back in time 1 minute. Accordingly, 1 hour ago would equal 3,600 dollars. You get the idea.

That means 1 million dollars would take you back 12 days. That’s still pretty easy to imagine.

One billion dollars, however,  is equal to 31,000 years ago. Whoa! That’s a surprise. It’s MUCH larger than it sounds.

So what must 1 trillion dollars look like?

One trillion dollars would take you back to 30,000 B.C.  The oldest known cave paintings are about that old.

What’s truly shocking is that our current deficit is around 16 trillion dollars, which is like going back in time to 420,000 B.C.

Considering that Man didn’t start using tools until around 200,000 B.C., you can see that this is now an un-imaginable sum. That’s why we’ll never fix it. The hole is so deep and the system is so dependent on it getting deeper that no human will ever see sovereign debt eliminated nor meaningfully reduced.

So why do politicians keep demanding that we cut spending? It’s simple:

All governments are now owned by corporations and these corporations make more money when there’s less competition. Functioning government programs are essentially providing services that could be better raped if they were privatized. Cutting government spending is an efficient way to drive them out of business.

It’s a matter of pure greed. Medicare, for example, operates with only a 3% administrative cost. Private health insurers operate at closer to 30%. That’s a ten-fold increase in profits to some large corporation if Medicare can be privatized.

It’s all about the money. It’s always about the money. Corporations and their Republican puppets just can’t ever seem to get enough of it.

That’s why they wan’t to reign in the deficit. It’s certainly not because they’re concerned that somebody else won’t get paid.

My, my, how some things never change. This video was created for the 2008 presidential election cycle and was actually filmed in 2007.

That’s 5 years ago.

Compared to their current messaging, it’s as if nothing has changed in the last 5 years. This video even predicted kid soldiers being sent to Iran. That kind of unwavering predictability isn’t natural.

That tells me one of two things: either the Republicans are the most unimaginative, non-observant yet obedient drones that have ever existed or they are simply stooges for some greater power ($$$) that has a clear and rigid agenda for them to fulfill.

Maybe it’s a little of both. Regardless, they are perfectly willing “to just follow orders.” That, of course, never, ever leads to negative outcomes.

11 year old Birke Baehr knows what’s up. So do most of his buddies.

Large corporations spend huge amounts of money trying to persuade people to act against their own best interests but it isn’t working any more. Even a child can see through the thin veneer of deception.

Worldwide, people are waking up and rejecting the idea that if it’s good for business, it’s good.

Long overdue, power and authority are being challenged and for the first time in a long time these bully industries and institutions are being re-evaluated on their actual worth to society, not just their worth to stockholders.

I take that as a good sign. That change of thinking is unstoppable and it might even be enough to save us from ourselves.

In the ongoing coverage of the plan to build the Keystone XL pipeline to pump crude tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, a key issue is too often ignored: the ecological horror caused by the oil’s extraction. The vast tar sands surface mines of Alberta are among the most destructive industrial projects in human history, having already transformed more than 260 square miles of wetlands and forest into a post-apocalyptic moonscape.

Because few Americans will ever see this scorched-earth degradation firsthand, here is a selection of  images taken by Canadian photographer Garth Lenz  as part of his series, The True Costs of Oil.

You can sign the Sierra Club’s petition to Congress today by clicking here

On average, it takes four tons of bitumen-laden earth from surface mines to produce just a single barrel of oil.

That is not a typo: four tons = one barrel.

To get to the sand, workers first scrape off all trees, soil, grasses, and wildlife, then dig down as deep as 250 feet. Syncrude’s mine near Fort McMurray, now more than 30 years old, has gobbled up 73 square miles of land and is the biggest mine of any kind in the world.

You can sign the Sierra Club’s petition to Congress today by clicking here

The tar sand is transported in cartoonishly big vehicles, like this Caterpillar dump truck, which can carry up to 100 tons. The largest mining truck in use in Canada, the Caterpillar 797B (not pictured), can haul up to 400 tons in a single load. Its tires are 12 feet in diameter, and the driver sits 21 feet above the road.

You can sign the Sierra Club’s petition to Congress today by clicking here

Only 10 to 15 percent of the harvested sand contains bitumen—the ultra-viscous tar-like substance that eventually gets processed into gasoline. The rest gets dumped into tailing “ponds,” which are actually unlined, sludge-filled lakes so big they can be seen from space and so toxic that workers use propane cannons to scare away birds that try to land in them. The oil industry estimates that about 3 million gallons of tailing-pond runoff leaks into the Canadian groundwater supply daily.

You can sign the Sierra Club’s petition to Congress today by clicking here

Extracting and processing tar sands requires three to four times more energy than conventional oil drilling. The tar sands fields of Alberta are already Canada’s single greatest source of carbon dioxide emissions, and the country has plans to double that output within 10 years. A relatively new extraction process, called steam-activated gravity drainage, does less damage to the landscape but will hasten climate disruption by opening up access to deeper tar sands deposits in an area the size of Florida.

You can sign the Sierra Club’s petition to Congress today by clicking here

Bill Moyers: “Our country is more politically polarized than ever. Is it possible to agree to disagree and still move on to solve our massive problems? Or are the blind leading the blind — over the cliff?”

In this video, Bill and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt talk about the psychological underpinnings of our contentious culture, why we can’t trust our own opinions, and the demonizing of our adversaries.

“When it gets so that your opponents are not just people you disagree with, but… the mental state in which I am fighting for good, and you are fighting for evil, it’s very difficult to compromise,” Haidt tells Moyers. “Compromise becomes a dirty word.”

The political class could learn a lot from Linda.

Linda gathered the facts about her disease (without a spin doctor “massaging” them a little first), evaluated them objectively (unconcerned about how well her decision would poll) and then took difficult, appropriate action (without the approval of party leadership).

Linda wasn’t distracted by irrelevant issues.

Think about how much better off we’d be if the political class and their political processes were valued in proportion to their worth.

Based on current function, American politics is worth more for its cheeky comedy and completely avoidable tragedies than its policy. It’s a charade.

In tonight’s episode: the skinny brown guy argues once again with the sad-faced orange guy while the orange guy’s weasel side-kick pulls dastardly tricks on both of them. Same shit, different day. Give me a break.

Karen Handle, right-wing nut job

The Susan G. Komen Foundation, former heroes in the fight against breast cancer, has completely lost its mind.

That’s because Komen hired as its new vice president of public policy Karen Handel, an anti-choice former secretary of state and Republican candidate for governor in Georgia. What were they thinking?

During her failed primary bid, Handel vowed to cut off any state-allocated funds to Planned Parenthood and was one of Sarah Palin’s infamous “Mama Grizzly” endorsed candidates. Indeed, the bio on Handel’s Twitter account reads “Lifelong Conservative Republican formerly Georgia’s first Republican Secretary of State,” giving an indication of her priorities.

Now that she’s at the Komen Foundation, funding for Planned Parenthood has been stopped. Who couldn’t see that one coming?

But it doesn’t stop there. In another apparent nod to anti-choice activists, Komen has also quietly stopped funding potentially life-saving stem cell research, showing that its mission to find “a cure” takes a back seat to its desire to please social conservatives.

Why are these right-wing terrorists so obsessed with other women’s fetuses and uteruses yet seem to have no regard for the living people in which these two bodies reside?

Are they just stupid? Didn’t they get enough hugs as a kid? Are they self-loatheres  projecting their self-haterd onto others? Who knows.

I hope you are spurred to action. In addition to contacting your state or local Komen affiliate, here are some other things you can do:

1. If you are on Twitter, find Komen’s celebrity spokespeople and supporters and tweet this information to them or ask them to withdraw their support and instead support a different organization. You can find celebrity supporters here and here.
2. Support a breast cancer organization that puts women’s health ahead of politics. Organizations like Army of Women, Breast Cancer Action and the National Breast Cancer Foundation are good alternatives to the now-politicized Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
3. Support Planned Parenthood AND other local women’s clinics in your area.

Komen’s decision was a major victory for the Radical Right and anti-choice activists, but a major defeat for low-income women and women’s health.

Do something about it. Specifically, divert all of your charitable donations to ANY women’s organization other than Komen. Let’s not feed the beast.

You can donate directly to Planned Parenthood by clicking here 

Politicians feel our pain. They’ve said so, so it must be true.

They truly understand that we’re hurting. Even Mitt says he believes that a “safety net” is there to help poor families and that he’d fix any holes in the system if he gets elected.

Politicians are so anxious to prove that they are “one of us” that they’ve recently proposed new legislation making it illegal for them to engage in insider trading (even though it’s always been illegal for everyone else). That makes us equals.

My God, they seem so much like me that I feel like I’ve been reunited with a long-lost relative.

Bullshit.  I say it’s time to move beyond lip service and phony promises.

I propose a simple plan that I think Americans could get behind and it’s success would demonstrate a genuine shift toward politicians being able to feel our pain.

The plan:

We continue to hold elections just as we’ve always done. Candidates will campaign and the people will make their choices. Nothing changes.

Once elected, the winners will be sworn in and they’ll take their posts. Still, nothing changes.

Here’s where we try something new:

After assuming office, each elected candidate will then find out through a lottery system how much their salary will be, how good their benefits will be and what kind of staffing budget they’ll be receiving.

Here’s how it will work: since the current poverty rate (fueled by 58.8% of Americans working for minimum wage) is 15.2%, we’ll randomly assign 15.2% of the Congress to receive minimum wage for their effort. (Roughly 81 of them).

We can apply the same 15.2% standard to Congressional staff as well. I’m not sure how much money or how many people they normally deal with, but under this plan 15.2% of them will now be earning minimum wage. (Remember, this won’t hurt staffing levels since anyone who doesn’t like it can always be easily replaced by someone else who’s a little hungrier to work).

Additionally, since 16.3% of the public lacks health insurance, we’ll randomly remove 16.3% of the current Congressional health care participants from the insured roles and let them fend for themselves. (Roughly 87 of them).

It’s a win-win.

First off, we’ll save a ton of tax dollars by reducing  government bloat. Secondly, since the cuts will be randomly distributed (some get minimum wage, others lose health care and yet others enjoy cheaper staffing), lots of different Congressmen and staff will be able to truly relate to Main Street and truly understand and feel our pain.

Best of all, this will incentivize them to reduce these statistics since nobody wants to see a Congressman to have to take the bus to work.

1. Cigarettes are killing you. That inconvenient fact has been well known for over 100 years and it will remain true for the next 100 years and beyond. Cigarettes will never be “less fatal.”
2. Cigarettes are killing your friends, family and innocent bystanders. That’s right. Befriending a smoker is like volunteering to live in a toxic waste dump and then being surprised that you’re starting to feel a little funny. Remember that very first drag? The one that made you dizzy and sick to your stomach? That was your first taste of what it’s like to kill living cells in your body. Non-smokers get to enjoy that same “fun” whenever you come around.
3. Smokers smell bad.Smokers produce an offensive odor that travels much farther than smokers think. The circle of stench ranges from 10 or 15 feet when you’re not smoking up to 100’s of yards if you have a death stick lit up. Here are some of the signs:
   1. People at restaurants getting up and moving away from you
   2. People walking in your direction suddenly take a wide arc around you
   3. People fanning the air as they pass by you
   4. Negative comments heard under people’s breath

The fact is, the stench emanating from a smoker is as appealing as the smell of a dirty jock strap swirling around in a clogged urinal at a public sports facility on game day… maybe worse. (To its credit, the jock strap won’t kill you).

4. Other people hate you because you smoke. Smokers are a drag to be around since their toxic fumes can’t be avoided. Your friends may make nice while you’re around, but they all privately see you in the same light as someone who farts all of the time or who projectile vomits several times an hour or one who likes to urinate all over your floor when they visit. It doesn’t take long for the welcome to wear out.
5. Cigarette smokers are the ultimate corporate tool. Greedy tobacco companies understand that the proper use of their product results in fewer customers as time goes by (they die). To offset this problem, tobacco companies spend lots of money persuading people that they will be “cooler” if they smoke. Their perfect customer is someone with low self-esteem or low social standing. That’s why teens, the uneducated and the poor are so overwhelmingly susceptible to smoking. (Interestingly, military recruiters target the same groups for the same reasons.) Who else but a tool would pay top dollar to become diseased, impoverished and ultimately sacrificed so that corporate stockholders can have a vacation home somewhere? Smokers are tools.

I understand why rich, white people want this Kochsucker™ to gain power but I’ll never understand why ANY of the 99% would want Rmoney* to be their king.

Is the public really that stupid or are we just seeing the filtered reality that mega-media vomits onto us?

*Not a typo

Another beautiful presentation from the brilliant scientific and intellectual community at the TED Talks.

Justin Hall-Tipping, CEO of “Nanoholdings,” explains how nanotechnology is set to change the future of energy and replace fossil and nuclear fuels.

The idea that we need to keep pursuing an oil-based energy strategy is not only suicidal, it’s wrong. Lots of scalable options already exist but are suppressed by corporate greed and the paid-off political leaders that don’t want to give up their stranglehold on all humanity.

Don’t be fooled. All of this can change. It only takes a shift in thinking.

if hope had an odor
it would smell like peppers
saturating the midnight air

if hope had a taste
it would taste like the milk
running from my eyes
and down my cheeks

if hope made a noise
we would hear bongos beating
behind the wail of the elderly
and the screams of the suppressed
that lay beaten in the street

if hope was a feeling
it would be the tightening
of plastic cable ties
around innocent wrists
and blows from batons
that rain down
upon the rib cages
of professors and students
who won’t bite their tongues
any longer

if hope had a heart
it would be enclosed
in the chest cavity
of an eagle soaring
above the smoke filled streets
lined with debt and unemployment

-Jake St. John 11/18/11

Jake St. John writes out of New London, CT, where he also coordinates poetry readings in and around the New England area. He is the co-editor of Flying Fish and the editor of Elephant.

Click here to see this amazing work of art and click here to see the detailed information from which it’s derived.

P.S. Chris Dodd sure has become an uber-douchebag since leaving Congress to go cash in as a lobbyist.

Robert Reich breaks down economics simply enough that even a Republican can understand it (although to their credit, it is hard to hear with your head up your ass).

Part 2 of John Stewart’s interview with Elizabeth Warren:

If, after her inauguration, we could clone Elizabeth 535 times and then replace all of Congress with her rational voice we wouldn’t need the revolution that the current crop of corporate lackeys are setting in motion by ignoring We the People.

(Apologies to Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson, Marcy Kaptur, Sherrod Brown and a small handful of other responsible legislators. The foul stench of the others is getting on you by entering the bowels of the Congressional chamber. Eeeeew!)