My Thoughts on the Occupy Movement

The other day on KPFA I finally heard someone speak the truth. He said that for Blacks in the South (and elsewhere in this country), the American Dream has always been the American Nightmare. He said that the only reason we are having all these "Occupies" is because White people are finally having their dreams smashed. White youth can't get jobs despite their college degrees. They have big student loans they can't pay. They believe that their dreams will not come true. People of color have always been in this boat...and no one cared. According to this guy, the people in the streets are upset because they will not become rich like the 1%. Feeling entitled, they are angry because it will not happen.

Although I an not officially a woman of color, I too, have felt outside the restaurant looking in because I am 'not white enough.' Coming from a bilingual, bi cultural southern European family, and looking 'ethnic' has put me in a no-man's-land of not being a minority and thus eligible for special programs, but being treated like one in many ways. I have not gotten jobs I was qualified for because they had to hire a minority despite the fact that the person was not at all qualified. I once dated a man for a short time, who broke it off because I was 'too ethnic looking' and he could not completely accept me.

For me the dream has been the American Fantasy. I am educated. I have a Masters degree, nearly 2, in fact, and worked on a doctorate. I have certificates, credentials and a lot of training. I have not gotten jobs because I was 'overqualified'. On the other hand, since a couple of my degrees were at State Universities rather than private or Ivy-league schools, I have been considered 'not as smart' as others. I worked my way through college and finished my masters with no debt. But this is what 'working class' people do....not the rich. I have been looked-down on for that. My academic advisor in my doctoral program said I did not have my 'priorities straight' when I told her I had to work full-time rather than working on my dissertation. She did not understand that there were no parents or spouse supporting me.

I have basically been 'under-employed' for 22 years. While I may have been working, I was a seasonal, temporary, or part-time person at California Department of Parks and Recreation for 7 years, at the U.S.
Postal Service for 7 years.....Thus, no benefits, no retirement, no medical...no security. When I got hit by a truck and could no longer deliver mail, they terminated me. I was often the second choice at a interview. But since there was only one position, second was not good enough.

Capitalism has always been a system where a few people make money off the backs of others...slaves or low-wage earners. Globalization is not new either. Capitalists have always sought the cheapest source of
goods, the lowest labor costs....the ever-growing market. It doesn't mean it's right. Every so often, the folks rebel. Things change a little, but because the capitalists control the sources of all things the folks need...protests don't last long or are squashed. In the past, the protesters were simply killed. End of protest. Capitalists shrugged their shoulders and carried on.

I have been listening to the radio which has been covering all the 'Occupy' events. Many people speak about how great it is that 'people are working together, feeding each other, taking care of medical and housing needs'. Well, we'll see how long this lasts. The diversity that exists in this culture means that we do not share the same values. In fact, this is the area where there the most diversity. Sharing and giving only works over time, when people have integrity. If they eat for free, they do something in return - child care, cleaning, helping out in some way. But in this country, few people have integrity.

Individuals need to examine themselves. Could they function without their iPads, cars, expensive bikes, Whole Foods....? Living in the land of privilege and entitlement...it is a 'lark' to protest - be out there in the streets with the homeless. Just like most of the 'hippies' that arrived in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, they had their trust funds behind them. They had their safety net. They could just cut their hair, take a bath, change clothes and go home. My friends and I, coming from working class backgrounds, knew that if we quit our jobs at the car wash and hitchhiked to SF we would probably die in the street. No one would/could rescue us.

Now, many of those 'hippies' are wealthy entrepreneurs, business owners etc. They used their parents' money and property to build organic farms, herb schools, healing centers, and other types of 'alternative'
businesses. Fine. Good use of the money. Better than other choices. But make no mistake. They came from people with money. They were not working class or poor. Today they are famous and well-off. They still
run things. Now they use 'interns' to do the work free. It is not called slavery anymore because they volunteer for it.

How many of the people in the streets today HAVE to be there because they have no other choice? How about taking the homeless home? Rather than playing at being homeless....true caring would be to bring them
home. Have them live with you in your house - FREE. See how long that would last. Hanging out with the homeless in the street for awhile is one thing, but truly helping them by giving them your bed is another.

Examine your conscience. What is the TRUTH? Are you really living hand-to-mouth? Why? Don't get me wrong...I know the 1% controls this country and the world. But I am not stupid. I have always known this.
It is not a big surprise. Can it change? Not sure and have no idea what it would look like. Forty years ago, I set my priorities. I am living with the choices I made. And it is not easy. My conscience is clear. I know I did not cause the problems in the world. I have lived close to the bottom "so I would not have far to fall" when things got worse. I knew this day was coming.

History shows us that there has almost always been economic disparity - coinciding with the concept of private property. And that occurred when people developed agriculture and men realized they had something
to do with procreation. When men knew they helped make a baby and started accumulating stuff due to settled life and agriculture, they wanted to keep their stuff - women, children and cows.Women were considered chattel until about 150 years ago in the West. A man's property. I don't know enough about the rest of the world, but I suspect it's not that different. By controlling women and their issue, they passed their stuff on to their sons. Amassing more and more wealth in a family.

This has been going on for at least 5000 years, maybe more. So....the job of 'changing things' is a big one. It is programmed into our genes. In fact, our genetic makeup probably is directly connected to this idea of private property. 'Survival of the fittest' is/was the battle cry of the robber barons at the beginning of the 20th century and Wall Street types today.

Of course, if/when Mother Earth has her turn, the 'fittest' may be defined differently. Perhaps the most resilient and resourceful will be the survivors. Probably the homeless. They already know how to survive with nothing.

To see what else I'm up to go to my herb blog   my astrology blog  and my 2012 blog

Haiti - Revive Your Indigenous Soul

At the risk of alienating everyone I know and those loyal readers I do have... I must express myself about Haiti.

My first thought when I heard the news about Haiti was... if this had happened 200 years ago we wouldn't even know about it. All the people would die and that would be it. Hasn't this kind of thing happened throughout time all over the world, where whole cultures fell because of a cataclysmic volcanic eruption or earthquake which destroyed palaces and disrupted agriculture? Pompeii, the Minoan civilization. No one rushed off to help because no one knew. And....since the population was much lower in the past and people did not live is such density, fewer people died or were left homeless. A MILLION HOMELESS PEOPLE sitting around on the ground. What's going on here?

For them, the end of the world - apocalypse. They didn't have to wait for 2012.

Maybe I've been watching too many apocalyptic movies and reading too many books about the end of the world. I do teach a course on Mayan Hieroglyphs, the Calendar and 2012 and although I teach from a more academically oriented perspective than the 'stuff' I've been watching and reading, I do feel I should at least look into what others are saying, since it is bound to come up in class and I need to be abreast of what's out there in the popular culture, and.... I can't help having my own opinion about it all (which I do not impose on my students).

I couldn't help thinking as I heard what was coming down in Haiti as many forces hurriedly gathered to send in aid, rescue people and deal with all the trauma, that.... what if there were another one, just as bad, in a just as poverty-stricken a place as Haiti.. within a day or two...would there be enough of anything to handle it?

I believe that we will be soon seeing so many disasters happening simultaneously all over the world, that we won't be able to put out all the fires.

Haiti is the canary in the mine-shaft friends.
Haiti with its deforested, degraded environment, its lack of infrastructure and over-population is the face of most of the world outside of the affluent European/American world. Most countries have shanty towns extending miles out from the urban centers.

This is the fate that awaits the world. Haiti is doing her dance of death to show us what the world will come to if we do not control population, decrease our consumption of manufactured goods and greatly simplify our lives. We need to grow more of our own food, learn to make at least some of the things we use and reconnect with the natural world.

While you may feel sorry for the Haitians, and who wouldn't? I must say that they were in many ways better equipped to deal with that tragedy than we would be. One commentary I heard on the radio said that since the people of Haiti already live at the near starvation level, their bodies were more accustomed to deal without food than ours. Since they 'fasted' (starved) regularly, they were able to go without food for days as they were buried in the rubble. The average American obese teenager, would have a fit after a couple of hours without the greasy snacks and sugary sodas they pump in continuously throughout the day. My travels have shown me that poor people know how to cope better than we do. They have fewer, if any expectations. They know how to just 'be' and can go for hours without doing anything but just sitting. They don't have a constant need for entertainment or distraction.
I have a habit of looking at what people eat. The fattest people always have loads of junk in their shopping carts. It's amazing! I think to myself, 'don't they know any better?' The only thing I can figure is that they are addicts. Just like an addict, they might know better, but another voice whispers: "it's okay... you deserve this... go ahead."

Another issue is that there is just so much that can be done. Haiti has one disaster after another. Their government has been corrupt for decades. Their limited resources have either been exploited by others or have been used up. They don't have anything anyone wants (except cheap labor). Another thing is that say 'someone' fixes it all up... the next hurricane could take it all down again in no time. They are kind of living on a time bomb. Bad location folks.
In a radio interview someone said: "We need 100,000 tents. Are there that many tents in the whole world?" Good question.

As to the role the U.S. has played in the poverty of Haiti, I would like to say this... anyone who thinks we can have the standard of living we have here in America without someone paying the price, is totally naive. Corporate capitalism must have slaves/serfs/low-wage workers in huge quantities to do all the dirty work. Most Americans who call themselves free are really wage slaves making money for a corporation. One month without an income would put them in trouble (as we are now seeing). Most of your so-called possessions are on loan. When you can't pay the bill, the company takes it back. Anyone who has a mortgage does not own a home. The mortgage holder owns the home until it is paid off and... can be reclaimed anytime. DUH! Why are people so surprised by this? Credit card debt makes the average person a slave to the job so they can pay their bills.

When I had 'the best' job I ever had, I wondered why I never had any money despite my good income. When I figured out how much I spent on the clothes I needed for the job, the cost of meals eaten away from home, the parking fees or parking ticket fees, the cost of gas to commute to that great job, I realized I wasn't even 'making' minimum wage. I was working to pay for the job. Not to mention the 'goodies' I bought myself because I was so stressed out due to commuting, and working under a mean-spirited supervisor. I began to develop physical symptoms and after many tests, my doctor said it was all stress related and I would have to quit my job. I knew I was already too far in credit card debt to do that... besides, this wasn't just a job it was a career! No matter that my hair was falling out, I had dizzy spells and headaches, I had to stay. The doctor prescribed Valium. He said, "Drive to work then take one. Take another at lunch and by the time you are ready to do the commute home, it will have worn off enough so you can drive." HUH? Excuse me... now I have to take drugs so I can stay at a job I hate? I was really in a quandary as to what to do.

One day, life intervened, and my whole life changed in an hour. My family called to say my father found out he had six months to live, so I left the job and moved back home to be with him.

Within a couple of months, I was no longer able to keep up on the credit card bills. I didn't have much total debt, but when you have no income, any debt is too much. When I finally got the whole thing straightened out, I vowed never to have cards again. I went from having a secure government job to no income for a year. True, I left voluntarily, but, at the time, I felt it was the only option. I had to be with my dad in his last days. There was no other choice for me.

The average American is tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Many of these debts are incurred because they are miserable and need to buy themselves stuff to make it through the night or the weekend... or worse yet, their life. Then when someone pulls the plug by laying them off, or moving the job to a place where the labor is cheaper, they are stuck with all the debt and the stuff. NOT FAIR!!!!

Rather than see it as an opportunity to do things totally differently, they do everything they can to restore what they had.

My advice to Haiti and the Haitian people....
Soon, outside corporations will be brought in to rebuild the country in their own image. Burger King, the Golden arches, all the junk food outlets will come in. The people of Haiti would be better off to go back to the old days of agricultural villages, build simple houses out of renewable materials, plant their own food, raise animals to eat and pull wagons. Forget the 'bright lights of town', their only promise is empty and meaningless. Don't you know that most Americans take anti-depressants because they are so alienated from each other and the natural world? Take this golden opportunity to 'go back to the land' rather than to let ANY outsiders, or even their own government officials, force them into 'restoring' what was in the city. LET IT GO! Be the harbingers of a new day! You just had a major Pluto transit... don't waste it. Those who survived the Apocalypse should not try to go back to 'business as usual.'

This is a chance to create a sustainable future. If you do, Haiti, you will become the teacher for us when we fall into decline, which could happen any day. Rather than being beholden to 'developed' countries for aid, you will lead the way in showing us how to live. You will be the experts. Grow medicinal plants that can only thrive in your particular environment. Make your own medicine. Don't wait for anyone to put a band aid on your life. You will always be beholden to outsiders. Don't let the Zombies, the walking dead from the developed world, take over. Revive your indigenous soul!