Democrats are Better, Green is Best!!!

TEN KEY VALUES OF THE GREEN PARTY

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives and not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITYAll persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.

3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society which utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture which replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.

4. NON-VIOLENCE
It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society’s current patterns of violence. We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments. We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in helpless situations. We promote non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

5. DECENTRALIZATION
Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that civil rights are protected for all citizens.

6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living for all people while maintaining a healthy ecological balance. A successful economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a “living wage” which reflects the real value of a person’s work.

Local communities must look to economic development that assures protection of the environment and workers’ rights; broad citizen participation in planning; and enhancement of our “quality of life.” We support independently owned and operated companies which are socially responsible, as well as co-operatives and public enterprises that distribute resources and control to more people through democratic participation.

7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY
We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines.

We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the preservation of biodiversity.

9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.

10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or “unmaking” all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.


THIS WORLD NEEDS RADICAL CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!









Though I am happy that some change from the vile and corrupt regime of the Neo-cons is taking place, I do not believe our new president is going nearly far enough.

Yes, bailing out the fucked-up copro-ations (corporations) greed meeting karma-dharma is unfortunately necessary, as their collapse would have harsh consequences on the poor and median-wage folks of the world. Yet his focus is still too much on fixing the rich-folks fuck-ups, i.e., preventing the collapse of the finance-cabal.

Yes, a step was taken towards providing stimulus money for "Green jobs," but not nearly enough.

Yes, Obama has pledged to stop federal government meddling in state laws regarding medical Cannabis, however, he has rejected the will of the people by refusing to consider the legalization of marijuana generally, as was displayed during his recent chat room "town hall" meeting. This despite the fact that marijuana is the NUMBER ONE CASH CROP in the country, and that taxing this crop would very quickly alleviate this nation's budget problems, create thousands of new jobs (taxing grower and dealer income that is currently not taxed), and allow for the creation of a vibrant hemp industry that could very quickly replace environmentally destructive logging practices, as well as replacing many petroleum-based products.

One harvested acre of hemp produces four-times the paper pulp of one acre of timber, and doesn't take forty years to grow, and can often be harvested multiple times per year!!

Yes, President Obama has pledged to remove troops from Iraq (a plus), but wants to send more troops to Afghanistan (a minus).

Yes, our new Prez has pledged to make health-care more affordable, but falls short of health care for all after the successful and fair models of Canada and Europe (don't believe the BULLSHIT about horror stories of long waits in Canada--been there and seen how it works. Canada's system is more just, more equitable, and their hospitals have better recovery rates).

Yes, the new administration has pledged, and taken many measures to protect the environment and to rescind the previous administrations exceeding irresponsibility regarding the environment, but his Secretary of the Interior has flip-flopped and once again taken wolves off the endangered species list.

Yes, President Barack Obama has made more movement towards sustainable energy production, but still leans on coal and oil far too heavily in energy policy as things now stand.

I have hopes that as this administration progresses, these issues and others will be given the attention they deserve, and that the radical actions needed to ensure a healthy and sustainable present and future for humans and animals and plants living on planet earth.

I am still not a Democrat, by the way (if you couldn't tell), and see the policies and platform of the Green Party as the only viable path to prosperity for the future.

The Tragic Dilapidation of the Empress/Fox

Upon returning to Laramie from quixotic questings, I spent a night in my bedroll down by the railroad tracks. I awoke in the morning to a bright red fox peaking over a pile of rubble less than ten feet from my bed. A made a slight sudden move which caused said fox to recoil just a tad, assuring me this beautiful creature was not ill, just curious. I chatted with this wild urban resident for a few, till he or she found something else more interesting to observe than a human sleeping outside.

After this encounter, I passed by the old Fox Theater, and decided to invest a little time in an endeavor I'd considered before I left town. I concluded that the fox awakening me in the morning was a sign, and that I should try to help manifest the restoration of this historic theater--something I had considered a few years previous. In my research, I discovered that the Fox was the Empress Theater first, and a grander venue than I had imagined.

Below are some slides I prepared in a PP presentation with hopes of influencing the restoration effort, and alas, it seems to little effect as the building is slated for demolition sometime soon, or so I hear. If I can figure out how to transfer the whole slide show I'll post it later.

WHAT WAS AND SHOULD BE (STILL MIGHT BE?) AGAIN . . .

92 x 92 Miles of Mirrors Could Power the Whole Country!!!!

The magic of mirrors . . . most of us gaze into these reflective surfaces every day to do hair, brush teeth, and get presentable for a day at work or school. They allow astronomers to gaze deep into space, give drivers a rear-view, and now with centuries-old technology, with some new innovations, mirrors could generate enough electricity to power the whole country by utilizing a combined area of only 92 miles by 92 miles!!! That's only twice the size of the county I currently abide in (Albany County, Wyoming)!!! This is also similar to the area that is currently being heavily disturbed and significantly impacted by coal mines in this country.

Obviously these fields of mirrors would be spread across the country, minimizing any environmental impact, but this would entirely do away with the need for the excessively destructive practices of coal mining, natural gas production, etc., etc., to meet the current electricity needs of the United States!!!! Not to mention that this process would absord some degree of the sun's radiation, thus aleviating some degree of the greenhouse effect!!

WOW!!!!

The only potential environmental hazard would be birds running into the mirrors, though with some ingenuity and research there should be some means of preventing the inadvertant avian kamakazes from mistaking the mirrors for open sky, else the warped reflection would be deterant enough.

Check out this article, which gives a breakdown of this land area, and some other facts regarding this amazing energy technology:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/20/143633/019

YEAH, BUT WHAT ABOUT CARS AND TRUCKS AND TRAINS?



Insofar as liquid fuel for automobiles and trains, Biodiesel produced from algae could supply the nations need for diesel fuel with only 125 miles by 125 miles of Southwestern desert with current technology (12.5% of the Sonoran Desert's landmass).



Healthy and sustainable answers for our world and environment are there!! Now let's make it happen!!!

Transformation Through Celebration

What better mode to change this world than celebration with pure intentions? ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ ॐ
Who says devotion to the Divine ought to be boring?

Why should partying be seperate from divine bliss?!?!



What better way to heal than dance and sing and play? To purify with fire and to rejoice by shakin' your booty? Not to deny the need for other modes of elevating oneself towards the perfection of Self, अत्मन् (Atman), such as meditation, prayer, acts of compassion and devotion . . .

Nonetheless, a hundred partiers pronouncing the sacred syllable AUM in New York's subway, or on the streets or in a park, or tens of thousands pronouncing ॐ somewhere in the National Forests each summer here in the states on July 4, and playing and celebrating, dancing and cheering . . . that's one powerful mode of transformation through vibration!!!!

By the way, the "M" in "AUM" is pronounced like "M" plus the Spanish pronunciation of "n" with the little swirly thing on top--thus the Judeo-Christian "amen," and the somewhat more accurately pronounced Muslim "amin," both of which are derivative of the original ॐ of Sanatana Dharma--"eternal teachings," (i.e., the ancient "Hindu" teachings) regarding this sacred syllable, though both the Judeo-Christian and Muslim versions are conspicuously missing the very important "U" sound.

Most folks tryin' to chant "ॐ" miss the last part (i.e., the "ñ" at the end), so please pass on this info regarding the more proper pronunciation . . .

So what are you all waiting for?!?! Lets celebrate and sing this most sacred sound!!! And have fun doing so, too!!! Jaya AUM(ñ)!!

Environmental Retrospective

Below is the advertisement I mentioned in the previous post. Still brings me to tears . . .

Imaginings, Musings and Atlantis

I try not to stretch the truth in the least when considering subtle connections and clues to the hidden history of our world, and likewise do my best to critically examine my personal "paranormal" and "psychic" experiences to balance an admitted want to discover the hidden and beautiful magic of this experience of living on earth. If I have experienced an "anomaly" or instance of "supernatural" whatever, I want to utilize every analytical tool I might to rethink my renderings to be certain I have not let my imagination take too much liberty with my senses.

The sketch shown above displays a central island surrounded by a narrow mountainous island. This is quite like the layout of the Mediterranean island Santorini, and Santorini is a very likely candidate for the "Lost City of Atlantis" according to a very convincing documentary I viewed last night.

I sketched a series of drawings depicting this imagined lost island/continent (I lost the originals) whilst sitting at some coffeehouse or other somewhere out East to occupy my mind and time and to maintain some semblance of sanity amidst many odd and dissettling occurrences and vibrations experienced. I decided to put on paper my ideal lost island continent that would, in my daydreaming, spontaneously appear somewhere in the open ocean to provide a homeland to wild and free hippy sorts and other displaced wild tribal peoples, where we might live off the bounty of the land without the pollution of industrial society (I had not viewed even a single episode of Lost at this point, mind you). I went into much greater detail in my imaginings regarding of this dreamed up mini-continent, but the basic design is as shown above.

I also mused a bit about Atlantis whilst in and near to Atlanta, Georgia, around the same time. Could it be some ancient Atlantean spirit was connecting to my somewhat and sometimes well-tuned psychic antennae as I drew these imaginary ideal continents, something like the dude on Heroes who paints visions of the future? past life recall?

Can't say for sure, but I can say the evidences presented on this program seem more likely to show Santorini's correspondence to Plato's accounts of Atlantis than any other candidate I've seen or heard tauted as possible site of the fabled lost city and civilization. And this aforementioned "channeled" tip inclines me to believe there's something to Santorini and Atlantis, too.

Link to Atlantis/Santorini documentary:
http://www.surfthechannel.com/episode/61506/127681.html

I might also note that the Nazis were very fixated on Atlantis, but a fictionalized version that they claimed existed in the North Pacific. With Atlantis proven as a northern Mediterranean civilization, again this European rendering displays a twist on ancient myth (i.e., the Nazis and Atlantis) used for tyrannical purposes. Of course the Nazis also attempted to coopt the svaztika, a sacred symbol from ancient India to the Americas and elsewhere, and tilted it. Rather emblematic of the complaints I have about what I was taught in school and university, where objective historical research must meet the criteria of establishment dogma, else get rejected as potentially dangerous, filed away in the basement of the Smithsonian or the Vatican or MI5 or some CIA or secret society's bunkers. And often as not that establishment dogma is tilted or bent to meet the official line.

Alright, so maybe I'm exaggerating a tad about the secret bunkers (a tad) . . . but seriously, the sorts of twistings of myth to make "good citizens" the Nazis employed are not too far from the commonly believed lies/propaganda regarding the origins of civilization promoted by university, state, media and church in this nation--"Civics." As one example, consider the designation of Israel (and Jerusalem specifically) as "the Holy Land," granted to said desert-lands by the sea by religious traditions that have not the historical vision to remember or realize that "father Abraham" was likely exiled from his homeland amongst other Vedic priests/kings.

Indeed, I have come to trust my own visions more than much of what fits with official history--and mind you, I was trained as an historian at a Southern Baptist university and then at the University of Chicago for graduate school. In spite of this respectable undergraduate and highly touted graduate school education in the practices of history and historiography, I believe the greater truths of the story are at least as often--and oft more accurately--whispered on the wind, writ in the clouds and on mountainsides, told over and over in the life-cycles of individuals and groups interacting, and granted through visions and dream, than they are concisely written in a book of institutionally sanctioned history. Of course I am not at all claiming researching to reveal the past is useless, just that the versions that make it through the censors are often lacking, and promote "civic myths" as much as the truth of the past.

Consider your dreams, both waking and sleeping, and believe in the truth of your self (though not without some degree of self-criticism), and our Great shared Self, Atman--the truest source of what has been and shall be.

Now as to whether my imagined rendition of some ideal isle was tuned into ancient Atlantean psychic radiowaves, or is merely a moderately interesting coincidence, you are of course free to decide for yourselves. I'm convinced enough: Santorini is where Atlantis was.

KALI: A Goddess for Thugs and Bi-Polar Women . . . And Me Too.

Jaya Kali!!!

So the devas are fighting a huge contingent of demons, and are finding themselves quite overwhelmed. Well, naturally they go to get the big guns (so to speak, in spite of my distaste for firearms). At first seeking Siva, but discovering he's unavailable--off meditating, of course. So they enlist Kali, a clear sign of the desperation of the situation, and a case of a cure potentially worse than the illness.

So Kali goes to work, cutting down thousands of demons with but a single swing of her blade. Once all the demons are slain, however, her wrath goes on unabated. Kali's blade continues to swing, cutting deep gashes into the earth, and felling forests with swaths miles wide.

Whilst typing the above paragraph, and specifically when penning in the phrase "cutting deep gashes into the earth" I thought of the gorges in and around Ithaca, NY, and then thought broader in scale to consider the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York as clear candidates for those ancient scars of Kali's rage loosed and manifest as signature for ages to come of her might. Just a musing, mind you . . . but not too unlikely if you'll glance at other evidences of Divine imprints upon the earth (see post, "Reading the Map Like Constellations").

Well, these other deities, of so may faces of Divine Being, decide they've now a peril in Kali's continued rant and wrath, so they interrupt Siva's meditation, figuring He'd know what to do. Well, Kali's Consort lays down amidst so many bodies on the battlefield and waits for Her to pass. As She comes to Him, Kali either recognizes her Lover and is halted there, else whilst stepping over is entered by a Divine Erection and is given cause to pause--thus her extended tongue, though the coital version or vision of this myth's not depicted in the depiction above.

The Dance above depicted is called Tandava, wherein in concert with Consort, Kali wildly and in perfect beauty moves Her body in relationship to Her Partner, expressing and manifesting creation, maintenance and destruction by mudras and asanas, movements and emotion.

Bhowanee is a name by which Kali is called by the notorious Thuggee of India. The English word "thug" is derived from these bandits who were known to strangle their victims. My guess as to why these worship Devi Kali is that She's the only Goddess can command respect amongst such an unruly bunch. That, and cuz She's extremely badass, and wears human arms and skulls as Her attire.

Writ within these sometimes startling stories are archetypally and psychologically and often sexually well considered cycles of human behavior that function at both the small and large scales.  Kali's rage is emblematic of the fury of the protective mother, an impetus inscribed into DNA and issuing from the subtle source of Mind.  Perhaps not always rational, as once that primal rage is unleashed or invoked, anyone or anything that happens in her way is in grave danger regardless of whether or not a threat.  Indeed, as crass as this might seem to a feminist perspective, it is often by the proper key fitted into her, linga in yoni, that said rage is quelled, or better, transformed.  Another version has it that Siva turns into a baby and lays amidst the dead demons on the battlefield to elicit a different, perhaps more direct turn of the protective maternal from the destructive-protective to the nurturing.

The wonder of sanAtana dharma is that these cycles have been considered over thousands of years in continuous lineages, scientifically and spiritually, and unlike so many other cultures' myth cycles, sanAtana dharma has figured and been shown and shows how to turn those common cycles to a good page in the "choose your own adventure" of life.  In such a well ordered (if seeming chaotic) and contemplatively and meditatively considered set of subtle blueprints for Being, no one ends up pushing a rock up a hill forever.  At some point, if perhaps after many years of such sadhana (practice towards liberation) dharma finds the transformation of all such ill cycles, for if that unfortunate other is not dualistically separate from any other then it is in some guise everyones responsibility to see to it that every other is on the path of moksha, so indeed we might all be free.

JAYA KALI!!!