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TechnoratiThe Revolution Has Arrived
The current global economic crisis has rekindled the wannabe hippy spirit I carried as a kid in junior high in the early 1970s. My generation admired our flower child elders. We played guitar and sang about the golden hill, the wide water and all the little creatures roaming the green earth. It was a romantic idea - living simply, communally and cooperatively - chopping our own wood, growing corn and eating lettuce from our own gardens. We argued whether or not we would hunt and eat the meat killed by our own hands (we argued whether it was ethical to hunt with guns, or more fair to the animal to use bows and arrows).
Today's climate - environmental, socio-economic, cultural, pop cultural, religious - begs for a new sensibility, or, more accurately, an old one.
During the earliest Neolithic age, people lived in simple, egalitarian communities of 150-2000 persons. In the world's first town, Jericho, there were a whopping 3,000 persons, making it a large city. Imagine trying to manage the food, waste, water, living and dying of thousands of people without trains or trucks or ports. The key was regional sustainability. Indigenous people necessarily used every bit of everything hunted, gathered and/or cultivated. What was the alternative? There was no 'away' to throw anything. Early humans knew enough not to foul their own nests, much less waste anything at all. Everything had a function - wheat, chaff, fat, muscle, cartilage, hide, hoof, brain, guts, liver and heart.
Ancient Greek counter-culture (ca. 500-300 BCE) insisted that "civilization" was regressive. Throughout the subsequent two millennia, there have been simplicity and sustainability movements coming and going all around the globe.
Interestingly, today Bangladesh has the world's smallest ecological footprint. In fact, "undeveloped" countries have, statistically, much lower environmental impact than their "developed" counterparts, across the board.
Buddha, Francis of Assisi, Thoreau and Gandhi, all hippies before their time, espoused simple living as the path to personal enlightenment, or redemption, peace of mind, or peace for the whole wide world.
The hippie notion that simple living and non-violence was the way to dissolve the established societal paradigm is an idea whose time has come.
Today, environmental consciousness has reached well into mainstream circles. Both of the conventional candidates in next month's presidential election routinely discuss "sustainability," "alternative energy" and the importance of fair labor laws in conjunction with trade agreements. Organic farming is big business. The current "economic crisis" is quickly escalating the emergence of cooperative business enterprises and businesses that engage in alternative energy programs. Green entrepreneurship is on the rise, as oil stocks plummet. The distribution and sale of used and recycled clothing is an enormous global industry. Community gardens are sprouting everywhere, as are food, financial, retail, telecommunications, energy, technology and housing cooperatives.
Perhaps most interestingly, we have today mainstream politicians discussing alternatives to war and violence. Barack Obama is my age (Oh, my! If I'd only worked a little harder, I might have done something with MY life!), and has the audacity to suggest that, as president, he will sit down with "belligerent" world leaders, without conditions, and actually talk to them. This is not a pacifist, or a peace activist. This is a typical American Democrat politician with stars in his eyes. He sees the presidency within his reach, and we are a huge swath of his constituency, folks, you and I - the old hippies, the reformed hippies, the post-hippie wannabes and our children. We have the opportunity to elect someone who NEEDS US in order to win and keep the office. We may not agree with all of his ideas. We may grumble that he is just another corporate whore. But you know what? He's our whore, and it's our job, as FDR said, to make him do what's right. This is our opportunity to organize ourselves into the potent voice we have always believed we could be, if only we could get someone to listen.
The revolution is here. Now let's wake up and smell that organic, locally roasted, shade grown, fair trade French Roast and get on with it.
49 Comments so far
Show AllBangladesh has the smallest carbon footprint? Maybe so, but what is their calorie intake per capita? Just saying.
Empirepie, Glendon Wayne, that is a great idea even if the networks would nix it. A number of us are currently looking to make group purchases of hotels, motels and apartment complexes in urban and rural areas in order to convert them into semi-sustainable intentional communities with minimal enviro footprints, as a first stage.
It is clear to most of us that the two corporate influenced parties are leading the US to self destruction. That said, it is also clear that the Republican Party is more bellicose and corrupt. There really are differences.
Would Gore have done as much damage as Bush? Would Obama do more harm than McCain?
The urgent priority is to remove the republicans from the White House. That and the Supreme Court's next appointments are primary reasons to vote for Obama.
Positive change is impossible with McCain. It is far more possible with Obama.
http://davedubya.com
It is a love rEvolution which is a coming where our will for peace on Earth will overcome the forces of darkness of the Ruling Elite and their servants.
This is probably the most important moment in human history, for millenia the Ruling Elite have sought control over all humanity and to control all the resources, they have imposed their twisted reality onto us by creating systems for us to live in and upheld by their loyal servants.
The sheer twisted greed of these people have led to the balance of destructivity taking hold on Earth through their lust for war, lust for resources, lust for control and spreading fear and hate amongst us, dividing us through lies spread by their servants in the media, religions, political system. We have been brainwashed to serve the Ruling Elite without even knowing this and many of us have woken up to this by observing the world we live in and realise that something is wrong what with senseless wars and the amount of resources put into the destructivity along with the complete disregard of stripping the Earth of resources and seemingly wanton destruction of the biosphere we all co-habit - we are of the Earth yet the Ruling Elite seem to want to destroy the Earth and these people are controlling us!
The time has come to make these people and their servants irrelevent and strip them of their power and influence and bring back equality and harmony and achieve peace on Earth.
It is the moment where the talents of humanity is put to the good of all humanity and the Earth and work together in creativity to bring back harmony and move forward as the united race all humanity is to bring balance back to Earth.
Think outside the pyramid...possibilities are infinite
peace and love
There is a movement called 'guerrilla gardening'. When guerrilla gardeners see an eyesore patch of land, they lob 'flower bombs' at it.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/669505/guerrilla_gardening_tips_how_to_make.html?cat=32
Crafty
I was born in Okie City in 1941. I was arrested in Okie City's first lunch counter integration sit-in in 1961. I was the first conscientious objector my draft board had ever seen. I went to San Francisco in 1962 and was an original flavor hippy, making experimental films and doing lightshows in the ballrooms. My wife and I raised our three children and a lot of our food on a couple of acres sixty miles north of the city. Sandra taught Headstart for many years. I have worked in group homes for abused children. We have tried to live simply without doing any harm.
I loved Obama when he was against the war and when he moved to the right to secure the support of the middle he lost me. I went back to Nader. Michele Obama's convention speech was the best political speech I have heard since JFK. She almost got me back. I would vote for her in a minute. But Obama's vote for the bailout, Afghanistan and the connection to Z.B. are hard to swallow.
However, during the last debate when McCain accused Obama of abandoning our "biggest ally in South America, Columbia," Obama took a chance and stood up for human rights, saying he voted against the free trade agreement because they were killing union organizers down there and there was nothing in the agreement preventing this. McCain sneered at this, and it probably didn't mean a lot to most american voters, but to me it rekindled a glimmer of hope that Obama is as good a man as his brilliant wife says he is.
My mail-in Oregon ballot came in the mail today and I am feeling that although my hopes for our country pulling away from the fascist model are slim and a vote for Nader is at least a vote for the idea of Democracy, I'm going to have to go with hope, no matter how faint it is. If the majority for Obama is big enough maybe they can't steal this one.
Hunter Thompson said about the sixties in San Francisco, "Maybe it meant something, maybe it didn't." I think it did. It was a new paradigm that didn't exactly take over, but it hasn't died out completely either. It was all about hope and if we give up on that we are really screwed.
Peace, but keep your powder dry.
Ben Van Meter
(Oh yeah, nothing exists.)
Obama he's "our whore", that's funny. But he's not mine, actually I've never been with a whore and I'm not going to start now.
OMG! the whore part in the article just didn't make sense. DPA at its worst i think. there's no hope when reasoning with such people. there's no objectivity.
Me says to the new Revolution, "Where have you been all my life?"
I too was born in 1960... and I remember playing in the mud back in the Summer of Love when a friend asked, "what do you wanna be when you grow up?" And I said, "I wanna be a hippy!" He said, "yeah, me too; hippies are cool!"
Then several years later my girlfriend 'accused' me of being a dreamer when I told her of my plans to move to the mountains, live in a log cabin and grow my own food. And here I am today living in a log cabin in the mountains growing my own food... living my dreams.
Just waiting for the rest of my old classmates to catch up. Where did they go after they left the old school? ...and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model which makes the existing model obsolete"
-R. Buckminster Fuller
I was born in 1957, too young to be a hippie then (by a few years), though I am a pseudo-hippie now (buy as much organic as I can, longish hair, and a few tie-died T-shirts), live in a community where some live off the grid, grow their own food, know about pelton wheels. It ranges from ex vietnam vets (who are definitely not McCain supporters, they believe the Vietnam war was wrong, like the Iraq War), to young alternative thinking people. (of course others in the community are cowboys, or methheads, so go figure).
I recycle as much as I can, but I have a computer, car, electric guitar. I gave up my Federal Government job 10 years ago, no major regrets. (suggestion, if you want immediate government improvement, remove all political appointees, many are using their position as a stepping stone by granting favors to prospective corporate employees that they deal with.
Am I in perfect harmony with nature and the world? No. But hopefully I'm doing better than many (and the best I can, its incremental) in trying to limit the footprint I leave on the earth. I try to live consciously thinking how my decisions will effect generations to come.
And when I read Tom Hadyen articles, I think, "sell out", probably a nice guy, did some good things, but a sell out. Same thing with Chomsky (see article where he says its okay to vote for the lesser of two evils).
I'm not laid back when it comes to politics, but it is too important. I am at the point where I think not enough people are doing enough things to effect change. And as we now, time is linear, and many times there isn't a do-over.
Anyone who thinks that Obama will allow a revolution to be ushered in while he is president is sitting in a smoke filled room. Okay, some mild ranting, so it goes.
just another commie pinko hippie wanting peace.
"Once you don't vote your ideals... that has serious undermining affects. It erodes the moral basis of our democracy." ~~Ralph Nader
"Real hippies would never have supported Barack, but would support Nader. "
Hippies are liberals who looked, dressed and acted like Jesus, the ultimate liberal. They are famous for their creativity and finding alternatives that work in any system (see the Whole Earth Catalog).
Hippies seek love and peace. Left and right wing conservatives are reactionaries and revolutionaries out for blood and violence.
Hippies would vote for Obama because he is a liberal who seeks peace.
One of Obama's main planks is the invasion of Pakistan.
No one who's paying attention could say Obama seeks peace. Name one thing he has voted for that proves your point. And he talks of escalating more wars! Have you been asleep?
ezeflyer writes: Hippies would vote for Obama because he is a liberal who seeks peace.
I guess increasing the military budget; not having a problem with Blackwater and other privately controlled, publicly financed mercenary forces; increasing attacks on Afghanistan (why exactly?) are all part of the plan to peace?
Even the most stoned out real hippie would realize (eventually) that it doesn't add up. It must be the new math. Or maybe its the uranium hardened weaponry effecting us. Oh wait, it is hope. Ahh, hope springs eternal, election after election as people continue to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Then you don't agree that a vote for Nader is a vote for McCain? How about a straight answer without the principled wishful thinking?
a vote for nader in a locked-up blue state is NOT a vote for mcCain. and ok...in a contested state it does become a tougher call. i'm not absolutely against lesser evilism. but i'm with hank fur and notonemore on this one...obama is just too far away from a progressive pov. one has to draw a line; i'm voting for nader.
Why not do a reverse reality show in some of the gated Mc Mansion communities.
Rather than voting people off you would reorganize your space to include more people.
These communities could be self sufficient somewhat like Gaviotas in Columbia as new age hippies compete with other like groups to include more people in their families with shared labor- living arrangements.
Let’s see we could convert the garage for another couple... add a solar powered electric toilet......
Google Gaviotas Columbia’s Model City... It is a fascinating story of a jungle recovering in a formerly almost inhabitable savannah.
Glendon Wayne
I love this idea!
http://www.jeanmariesimpson.com
Well, I agree that the revolution has arrived.
I also agree that it can only come from grass roots organizations/autonomous communities.
But what does that has to do with Obama, McCain, Nadar or even the Communists is beyond me.
Small communities (as the neolithic villages, as well as today's communities) are first and foremost AUTONOMOUS. We (the people) self govern. We create our own laws, our own education programs, our own healthcare programs and our own housing programs. This presents a de-facto revolution, because what the transnational corporations fear more than anything is that WE (the people of the planet) will withdraw our participation in THEIR markets. This is why Hitler and Franco bombed Guernica and this is why the Mexican Army is fighting the Zapatistas fiercely.
The Zapatistas (as were the Basques) presents a revolution where it hurts the transnationals most: their pockets. We will not drive your Toyotas and Fords, and we will not drink your Budweiser, and we will not listen to your I-pods, and we will not buy your gasoline, watch your Tivos and Plasmas, pay for your electricity and water, get high on your prozacs... We will create our own.
This is the streangth of the Neolithic Village: its withdrawal (indeed independence) from any authoritative system. This is what makes them politically revolutionary (and environmentally sustainable to boot).
Now, to de-crown the Free Trade-Warring-Neo Liberalist-Transnational Corporation-Military Industrial system we need not fight the system. We simply withdraw our participation and create a system which function better (and thus makes the old system obsolete). This is not a hippie dream, and it has nothing to do with Obama, McCain or the elections. This kind of systems cannot be changed from the top. The consciousness that replaces the existing paradigm of OBEDIENCE (top down system) is the paradigm of AUTONOMY (bottom up system). And autonomy can come only from below (the people) just as obedience can only be induced from above (ruling authority).
As the Zapatistas say HERE IN THE LIBERATED ZONE, THE PEOPLE RULE AND THE GOVERNMENT OBEYS." This is not just a slogan. The way they had structured their Junta de Buen Gobierno is such that it cannot make decisions or laws without the approval of the people.
Let me use a metaphor to explain: The best driver in the world cannot force a car to produce rain. A car is not designed to produce rain. The Free Trade-Warring-Neo Liberalist-Transnational Corporation-Military Industrial systems are not made to share the wealth of the planet with all of its peoples. They are not made to protect the environment and halt global warming. They are not made to promote peace and justice. Obama, McCaine, Nadar, may all be excellent drivers, but they still have to drive the same car, a car which was not built to solve the challenges humanity is facing in the 21st century. This is exactly why the current system is dying a slow and painful death. It cannot deal with the challenges the planet is facing. It was not designed to do so.
This old system, like a wounded animal it is fighting violently for its life, for the last means to increase profit, to exploit the people and the planet's resources. This empire and the consciousness behind it will continue to extract, exploit and invade until its very last breath. It knows no other way of being.
This is its strength, but this is also its Achilles heel. This is how Wall Street has fallen, and Bail-outs may revive it but in the long run it cannot be saved from itself. It is addicted to profit and thus to war, oppression and exploitation. It is a dinosaur who is facing its last days.
The ruling economic system as we know it is decayed. The consciousness that created it is out-of-step with life itself. For decades this way of thinking and being has been a source of strength. Now, it has become a weakness. Like the dinosaurs in the past, this system and its structures cannot adopt to today's challenges and changes.
What is replacing this crumbling system are small autonomous communities; communities that self govern, develop their own education, health-care, housing and economic (production) programs. Thousands of these communities are emerging all over the planet and as they rise against exploitation and greed they strengthen, grow and multiply. It the Zapatistas in Mexico and the emigrants in Europe, it is the farmers in Brazil and the Basques in Catalonia, it is the indigenous people in Ecuador and the Palestinian in Gaza, it is the Aborigines in Australia and the Mapuche in Chile. It is a global movement that is not loyal to any authority, ruler or religion, but rather to the calling of the heart.
As Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” This is being built now. And we cannot push away this responsibility onto Obama. It is OUR RESPONSIBILITY. You, me, we.
Yehuda Maayan - Filmmaker and Peacemaker
What's to stop those who end up with the military from taking our resources and controlling us? (or our children and grandchildren) The Palestinians are just about gone. Technology will give the capitalists all the power. One vial of poison and an entire village, gone. They would open up more reservations or send us to Siberia.
Yehuda, I hoped you would weigh in on this. You and I share a dream of the neolithic village, and yes, it is a hippy dream. That doesn't mean it didn't exist long before their era, nor that it won't exist long after (and, hopefully, become a standard).
I hope everyone takes the time to read your entire post.
http://www.jeanmariesimpson.com
It all sounds wonderful, but remember the people who have done most of the damage were all products of the sixties. The other side learned all too well how to minimize, ridicule and run rough shod over anyone who suggested that peace, and conserving our environment were important. They haven't stopped, and we still have about half this country who believe corporations are more important than people. Dennis Kucinich and maybe Gravel were the only two real candidates who called for "peace" not just an end to one expensive war, only to rev up another war to take it's place.
Having our "Leaders," and Corporate Giants use the buzzwords, and add the word "green" to their names, and PR in order to sell more of their products isn't really a sign of anything except their intention to use people's desires and emotions against them.
While I certainly hope that people are learning something, when I go to the malls and see people there in droves buying goods while "Rome" is supposedly burning, I am skeptical. People really won't learn anything until they have to do without. When did it ever make any impression on them to see homeless people, and hungry children in our own streets? They have to experience it. The only people currently doing without are those fartherest down the food chain who are already used to doing without, with a few exceptions.
I have great hopes that our society will begin to see how they have been manipulated and used up, by those who only covet their money and cheap labor. But, when I see how easy it was for McCain and Palin to bring so many people to the brink of calling for a man's death, and calling him racist names, a traitor, and claiming he is a Muslim (as if this alone should be condemning), I know we have a long, long ways to go. The USA is still completely divided on the subjects of racial and gender equality, universal healthcare, and being willing to share some of their income, in order to see that the most vulnerable, the elderly, the young and the ill are taken care of. We still have a huge population that feels they are the only ones entitled to any kind of social help, and delude themselves that poverty is a result of a lack of trying or bad decisions of the poor, not circumstances beyond many people's control. You still can't convince a huge portion of the population that having a society that is healthy is beneficial enough to want to provide everyone with decent preventative healthcare and nutrition.
I am in hopes that if Obama is elected, and we are able to get a Democratic Congress most of these people are smart enough, educated enough, and care about their children's futures enough to understand this might be our last chance to make America a livable place for our children and grandchildren. I have no illusions. Elected officials in Washington are not in any real world. Money flows, perks abound, and they are treated like royalty. It is easy to believe it is forever, and to forget that other world, where people are suffering, and counting on you. It is easy for them to believe that if they amass enough money, they can buy their family a decent life, while others suffer. It is easy for them to believe they really DO know best for everyone else, and cease to listen to those who pay them.
It is up to the people to demonstrate they will no longer put up with being used up. That is getting harder and harder, as the the powerful people get more and more powerful, and trick the people, lie, fix the voting process, and stack the courts against them.
I still have hope but, I feel this rosy picture, while surely something to strive for is still out of our reach, and to achieve anything remotely close to it will require people to stay focused, something Americans are just not good at doing.
Yes, I agree. It is heartbreaking to see these nasty features in America, the racism, the greed, etc. But it's also heartbreaking to see a national election where progressives, people with heart, are coerced into voting for someone who would knowingly fund an illegal invasion and occupation that has killed 1.3 million INNOCENT Iraqis - that number does not include resistance fighters. Does that not give you pause? And Obama still advocates more war, more money for defense. Why? Because he can and there is no one to stop him but the corporations - his bosses.
And it was heartbreaking to watch all my friends, and thousands of Americans call Congress - 100 to 1 - telling them to vote against the bailout. They were ignored. It was unprecedented. I've never seen anything so blatantly anti-democratic in all my long life. It is not only heartbreaking but terrifying that the candidate that we are forced to choose voted to give immunity to the illegal actions of telecom corporations who assist the government in their spying on you and me. And think of all the poor working class folks who often pay over 35% in interest for loans - Obama voted against a 35% cap on interest.
But racism and Sarah Palin is what they would have you focus on. It's one of their fear-tools, lest Ralph Nader gets a measly 5% of the vote. These psych techniques are used to keep you in the pen and keep your eye off the ball. And it's working! Good-cop bad-cop, lesser of two evils: "But McCain/Palin are sooo bad!" they rail. "We must vote against racism!" they rail. Condoleeza Rice would have your vote with that kind of logic. this is all by design. Why wouldn't it be? It's a One-Party system. They have a win-win election.
The One-Party wins either way. What's important for them is that Nader does not do well in the election, not whether Obama or McCain wins. Progressives are like some weak, third world country who finally attempts to break from the grip. They will smash you down before you even get a foothold. Just wait. You haven't seen anything yet.
You say: "It's up to the people to demonstrate they will no longer put up with being used up."
What are your plans for "demonstrating" this? Besides voting for Obama and hoping?
At least a vote for Nader says: We have drawn the line. This is our collective voice. If the voice is small and weak, they win not only the election, but our voice. Someone called us the 2%. the 98% I suppose is for Obama. You see, no one really supports egotist Ralph Nader. Back into the pen.
We'll see how your strategy works out for you. I've been politically active all my life. Nothing but ABSOLUTE resistance is going to have an effect.
Thanks for telling it like it is, Hank Fur!
Again, we desperately NEED our own media that can override MSM at will. Preferably during prime time, as one example, or as whenever needed, as in when the MSM refuses to print or air the voices of reason.
(Among many other tools that need developing as in yesterday.)
Stating that Obama is some sort of new "Kennedy", or our great "hope", is to demonstrate one´s entire ignorance of the known facts of our sordid existence as wage slaves to criminal enterprise writ large (as in global in it´s reach and context).
Perhaps what I am missing most is the FACT that the various ... progressive ... voices and icons out there don´t seem to be bothering at all with trying to mold all of their invidivual as well as laudable campaign platforms into ONE SINGLE VOICE that can not only gain strength but can also grow large numbers more quickly...
Why do you think these, shall we say, astute minds, are not bothering to coordinate their efforts...for the common good?
Should we the people not be demanding that they do this asap in order to further demonstrate their convictions as well as their commitment to humanism and holism?
I really appreciate your writings.
I don't agree that Obama and McCain are simply playing off one another, and that Ralph Nader is the answer to anything. Obama has his drawbacks, and I am not completely happy with his decisions, including FISA, and the call for more war in Afghanistan, I do believe he will try to change things, albiet too gradually for my tastes.
While I do agree with a lot of what you said regarding the unresponsiveness of so-called representatives to the people, and as I posted do not believe closing one war and revving up another is the answer.
A vote for Nader is avote FOR McCain by proxy.
IF Americans wanted to change things bad enough, all they have to do is stay home from work for three days collectively. No blood would be shed, and these people would be brought to their knees in short order.
You think you need a car. All your friends have one and well... they say it's time for a change... that you need to choose a car for yourself and pay for it. You check the papers for cars and find nothing to your liking, so go to the only used-car lot in town (you can't afford a new one).
Out in front are two similar models that are made by the same company. They both suspiciously look as though they are NOLA victims of the storm surge, but doctored to pass as legitimate. One is decrepit and powerless but has a pretty new hood ornament. The other has been treated with a new slick coat of paint and you think the color is sexy... and most of the flood stains have been covered with new floormats. The salesman says it has "promise".
It's not exactly what you wanted or "hoped for", but it is a car... and well, you been told by your "friends" that you need to choose one, and although it is quite obvious to you that it's not new in any actual sense, it's really much more than you can afford... especially since you just lost your job.
You spot what appears to be a few more cars out back that may be promising, but the salesman doesn't want you to look at them... being profit driven and needing to "unload" one of the two he has been pushing. He tells you that they are not "available".
What do you do?
1. Buy one of the expensive no-guarantee lemons which you know do not serve your needs in hopes of "fixing the car" after you buy it?
2. Insist upon examining the few others that the salesman doesn't want you to see?
3. Put your money back in your wallet and walk off the lot with real hope and determination that you can work for a better solution some time in the future?
Which is the easy solution?
PRESTO!
The same thing I have been saying for years, but the vast majority of Americans as well as other consumer-citizens around the planet just cannot bring themselves to even sacrifice a FEW DAYS material gorge (by global standards)for the common good.
It is just too easy to defeat the enemy to human brotherhood since the only game they have is material greed. Shut off the tap, as in staying home from EVERYTHING for three days and watch the results.
You are completely right on this one; no bloodshed, no mass arrests, no visible enemy to corporate criminal enterprise; in short, what if they gave a society and ... nobody came?
Why can´t this be developed into "rolling rejections", today this city, tomorrow that one, etc., until the enemy is driven from the field?
On a larger, less scrupulous note, will you acknowledge that the presence of the unelected stooge Bush and his faux cabinet of accomplices have helped the world´s peoples to recognize a mass murdering criminal agenda when they see it?
Don´t you think the senile and extremely dangerous McPain will do the same?
Do I even have to mention the name Palin to make you cringe at the prospects of what COULD happen?
I speculate based on your text, for the reality of our times is that it is truly not likely, given the gauge of popular resentment today, that the corporate criminal will do anything other than give the peoples a cute little "Democrat" who spews the lines needed while he votes precisely as his ... largely white ... (sorry, I just couldn´t resist it, don´t call me racist, just check the facts for yourselves. Who ARE the majority owners of the worlds largest and therefore most criminal organizations, hmmm?) masters dictate.
Obama is McPain in a different outfit and a different format, geared to offset any form of revolt, social, economic, or otherwise, against the ruling order.
I am not a hippy nor do I believe that the world's problems will be solved by pockets of people renouncing modernity.
I also do not believe Obama is the harbinger of revolution. While I believe presidential elections would be far more democratic if we abolished the Electoral College, I don't pin my hopes on the president to create the change I wish to see. Within the rubric of the Electoral College, I want my vote to count and therefore would never consider voting for a third party presidential candidate.
Obama supports causes that are an anathema to me: nuclear power and raping the earth for coal supplies have nothing to do with the future I wish to see. Nevertheless, I have no qualms about voting for him.
Paradigm shifts are not created by charismatic leaders of capitalist empires. They are created by individual humans working together to create the change they wish to see in the world. Individual humans are just as powerful as any military or corporation.
I don't see revolution in the air, but I do see an opening for expanding the progressive based of people-driven advocacy organizations. By working together, we can create the change we wish to see in the world. I too am a life member of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and I fully believe that people's institutions will create the change we wish to see, for all of us: hippies and materialists alike.
http://www.socialupheaval.com
I entirely agree! That's the point - we're there. Let's do it!
jeanmariesimpson.com
As one of those hippies from the '60s (albeit a political one in the war resistance and the draft resistance), I would say you nailed it.
The commodification of everything and the obsession with things that is the zeitgeist today exceeds even what it was when we were rejecting it back in the '60s. We surely do need to get back to the idea of living life simply, of valuing humanity and human relationships instead of commodities, of rejecting exploitation, war and destruction of nature, and of working at soul-killing jobs purely for the sake of "getting ahead."
Let's hope that a long recession will get people to rethink what they've been doing to themselves, their loved ones, and their world.
DAve Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Dave, I'm surprised to find you supporting Obama but after reading one of your recent articles, I think I understand. It's the racism stalking the election that caused you to change your mind - you are voting against racism, not for Obama. I see.
It takes one to know one.
Progressives are mostly a really nice, trusting lot, which makes it easier to snooker them. What many of you don't realize is that the One-Party works together on these things. Yes, they collude. They design elections to look like a contest, when actually they already know who will win, the One-Party, that's who! It's pure theater. Dems have played along nicely and it's time for them to be in charge for a change. It won't significantly matter. But the "little people" are stirring, Nader is polling at 5% and what they don't want is a strong show of hands. It's akin to some small Latin American country trying to loosen the grip of the US. They have to smash it up, nip it in the bud. Enter: Sarah Palin! Enter: Stalking Racism!
"He won't even look Obama in the eye!" they rail. All by design. Doesn't it make you want to support Obama? The heck with Democracy, standing on our principles, we can't let McCain get away with this. And Sarah Palin. That's just toooo scary!
The One-Party cares more about maintaining control than it does about any one candidate winning. Republicans are in the toilet but the agenda must go on. What's a One-Party to do? When McCain calls Obama, "that one," what he's really doing is drawing in those undecided progressives - by design. It makes Obama look better to us. A major CONTRAST. It has nothing to do with Obama, really, but like you, people will react. It's like the good-cop, bad-cop strategy. Makes your guy look better in comparison.
It works! It's elementary psychology. You're just too nice to see it. I'm actually fascinated by it. What control! If I had a big corporate media, I could do the same .. but I don't. darn.
I think I'm in good company on this (Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky). Even Leon Trotsky, in exile in Mexico, argued that it made sense for revolutionaries to support liberals against fascists in elections.
It's not that Obama will save the world or make America into a socialist paradise. Far from it. But he will have to cater to the millions of minority and poor working class voters who are turning to him to demand help, and to the millions of younger voters who want a more caring and humane government.
What I would say, and what Zinn and Chomsky argue, is that elections are not that important (though they are not unimportant). What is important is what the people do to influence the government that is in power, through street politics. In other words, once Obama and the democrats are installed in Washington, it is essential that we get to work, seriously and militantly, to demand that they do what needs to be done--ending the wars, getting rid of an anti-union Labor Relations Board bureaucracy and passing the Employee Fair Treatment act that will restore to workers the right to form unions without harassment, ending tax breaks for the rich, etc., etc.
You offer no solution. Third Parties haven't worked since the 1930s, and they won't work until there is a genuine and powerful labor movement in the US again. Sorry to burst your bubble. Self-described lefties who condemn those who back Democrats are living in a fantasy land, imagining that by casting their votes for Ralph or Cynthia McKinney, they are building a Third Party. It's an elitist illusion.
There are millions of people of color, of poor whites, and or young people who have been registering in record numbers to vote this November for Obama and for Democratic congressional candidates. They obviously believe their votes matter. And in fact they will matter a hell of a lot more than the few hundred thousand (at best) mostly bourgois white lefties who smugly sit it out or cast third party votes.
well, i guess u hadda go back at hank just to retain your cyber-cred. but bourgeios.....now really!! scroll down this thread a bit and read hank's description of his lifestyle. and you're pretty loose with the word elitist, too. does drawing the line--saying that a lesser evil has just embraced too much evil --add up to elitism?
i live in a pretty much locked-up blue state (MN) and voting for nader, for me, is a no-brainer. if i lived in a contested state, i gotta admit...the choice would be hard. if u just said that you'll be voting for obama because u find the thought of a mcCain presidency abhorent, i wouldn't argue with u. but u go beyond that and say that u have some hope for obama. and, admittedly, there's more hope for obama than mcCain... but that's because there's NO hope for mcCain. obama's treatment of wright, his continual call for a surge in afghanistan, his aipac speech, his call for an increased military budget, his choice of economic and foreign policy advisers, and his bailout vote just don't give me that much hope. like i said, if u would have just left your vote for obama at the level of mcCain abhorence, i wouldn't be arguing with u.
There are millions of people of color, of poor whites, and or young people who have been registering in record numbers to vote this November for Obama and for Democratic congressional candidates. They obviously believe their votes matter. And in fact they will matter a hell of a lot more than the few hundred thousand (at best) mostly bourgois white lefties who smugly sit it out or cast third party votes.
Hear, hear!
Though I hope you don't believe this Employee Fair Treatment act is for the benefit of the workers or is proposed to bring fairness? It could have been written by the neocons. It should be called the "Employee Bullying act" There are very good reasons why votes should be by secret ballot. Anything else and you have Bullies in charge.
"He's our whore..."
Although I firmly intend to "make him do what's right"... He's not MY whore.
You can pimp him as much as it "feels" right to you. However, know full well that you are part of the problem as a result of those actions.
I will meet him head on. I have no Obama delusions. His pretense got your support. As a part of tuning in, you might ask yourself "why?". We all know how.
NotOneMoreUS,
Would real hippies support Nader? I think real hippies would have supported Dennis Kucinich and probably Cynthia McKinney...but Nader is too consumer oriented. Hippies don't like being called consumers!!! That sounds like pigs. I personally hate that term.
Of course hippies have matured! We've gotten older and wiser. I personally have agonized over who to vote for. Certainly it wouldn't be McCain but Obama or Third Party??? The compromise is....have my vote count or vote my values and conscience. The Corporate media elite have arranged it so that only the two party system is represented in the debates. We need to change that. However, right now this very minute in time....we do not have the power to choose a third party candidate. We hear the voice of the third party but we cannot do anything but hear. We cannot act right now. And to top it off...the electoral college will put a further crimp in our plans if the election is close. We need to get rid of that too.
Our great hope lies in the possibility that Obama if elected will be reachable and teachable. If you have read his last book you will have heard the voice of one who is both idealistic and realistic. His compromise is not a sell-out but a co-operation. Oh, and by the way, this hippie doesn't want to live "easier" she wants to live "simpler."
I'm a real hippie who supports Nader.
But maybe I have a different definition of "hippie" than you do. What we have purchased from a corporation in the last couple of decades you could put in a wheel barrow (emergency medicine, gas when we had to go far (we ain't perfect!) I get everything used or we make it ourselves. We grow a lot of our own food and we shop at our local worker owned grocery. We own our home outright because we didn't spend our money on new cars and fancy electronics. We have a good bit of money saved, but not in corporate stocks, thank god. We have never purchased a tv but had an old one given to us. We don't have cable tv. We ride our bikes in the city. We are politically active. We have a computer but bought it used. (Yes, someone had to buy these things new but by buying used we cut the production effects in half). It's fun to save money rather than be in debt. It gives us freedom. Some of it has gone to Nader!
What's your definition?
Hippies are all about embracing a level of awareness, and adopting a lifestyle, free from corporate manipulation. Peace, love, sense of community, and environmentalism are their tenets. Sort of like the Amish, but more colorful with music and art.
It is a revolution of consciousness, not a materialistic or political ideology.
No wonder republicans and corporate America regard them with hostility.
The nation and world would be far better off with more of them.
http://davedubya.com
raydelcamino,
My cynicism quotient has been raised exponentially of late. Talk of massive marches tends to cause me paranoia these days. You say it will take "millions" of people marching on DC and getting in the face of the new President and Congress. Unless the mentality of law enforcement changes drastically...and soon....we may be looking at massive attacks on the marchers by the law enforcement agencies buffed up with riot control gear and now....U.S. troops stationed in this country, on our very soil.
Also, any calls for "millions" of people to march usually ends up resulting in much much less than that number showing up, as the last march on DC proved. After the people get to DC...with the way the White House is now barricaded with fences all around....what do people then do when NO main stream media bothers to report the extent of the march, NO political discussion is generated concerning what the people want, and probably the very fact that people are marching enmass is kept from the President by his/her "handlers!"
What a massive march could possibly promote is Marshal Law! Citizen unrest, riots, increased violence perpetrated most likely by the infiltrators which are in every group these days it seems, will convince the powers that be that they are justified in calling in the troops! This is just what the fascist corporate pirates want! They will truly take control of peoples lives by putting people in camps and arresting the hell out of the population. Disappearing people will be the end result. We've seen it happening all around the globe....so don't think it can't happen here. We are no longer a Democratic Nation. We are controlled by the corporate military industrial congressional complex. They will not let go of power.
The way we win is by not engaging in a power struggle. Let them have their power. We can break off in small clusters of communities and get off the grid. Grow our own food, live simply, form our own small credit unions and health care co-ops, and basically live outside the mainstream government. If enough people stop buying into consumerism, the big corporations will figure out that no one wants their products. They may of course move to other locales or countries which could be beneficial to this one or they may change! I know, that's a fantasy.
The bottom line...citizens of this country are NOT being listened to. Only market, corporate and military are listened to. So, ok.....we won't listen either. We pull out. What could happen then?
Real hippies would never have supported Barack, but would support Nader.
But the same hippie 30 years later is now willing to support a Barack. And now puts down Nader.
Why is that? Do they really have a more mature outlook on life that realizes that compromises are necessary?
Or is it that they have changed their values so much (in the quest for an 'easier' life) that they have become the very thing that they originally became hippies for- to stand against the status quo which was unfair (Vietnam War, civil rights inequality etc)and to allow for individuality.
If more people would rise to their strengths, instead of succumbing to their limitation, we would be surprised by the power we have that could allow for Nader to become one of the voices in the political arena. Don't fear the 'unknown' just because you don't know it.
Vote Third Party, don't support the corporate elite.
Bullshit.
I am an old Hippie and that is ridiculous. There is a Hope in Obama's candidacy that I would have resonated to in the 60's as I took my first vote. I would have celebrated his intelligence, his calm demeanor, and his way with words even then. That he comes of mixed races would have been a harbinger of a better world - especially to those of us who danced and partied and loved others from differing backgrounds. Instead for the most part I had Nixon, Humphrey and Wallace to consider - All pro-military and elite "We know better what your life should be" types of candidates.
I have voted for Nader in the past. He will not get my vote again as I saw him fade into the background between his candidacies - never building a party or support team. I began to see his entry into the elections as his way of seeding the conversation - NOT as someone who actually was interested in the job. Therein lies the flaw to your dedication to Nader. He doesn't want to be President - he just wants folks to think. Unfortunately his zeal has never found a strong stage. He could not be effective as President - he can't attract the news hounds let alone get included in debates. In a Nation of 60 million people, both are imperatives for leadership. You can rail about the closed club of the media - but others found a way for their voices to be more than footnotes in elections. Nader is a good man with good ideas, but face it he isn't really in the running - he's just using the venue to spread his ideas.
Like most people I am not delighted by every position Obama takes - HOWEVER - my friends here in America and all over the world are upbeat about his being the next American President. He is measurably preferable to what we have given the world in the past decade. Like the author, I am hopeful again. There is a man running who seems to be a natural leader. One who has lead already by allowing us to Hope for better.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Josephine Ortez
Obama is ALLOWING us to hope? Wow! When did we get so lucky?
In no way has he ever shown himself to be a leader. He is a narcissistic
megalomaniac. He's as got as far as he had by being
charismatic and a very good speaker in this Age of Celebrity.
The Audacity of Hope. What a con. Takes nothing to hope, everyone
hopes. But hey! It SOUNDS like it might mean something. Dream on.
For the past two decades, ANNUAL incomes of mid-level managers on Wall Street have exceeded the LIFETIME incomes of their counterparts in other industries, and the ANNUAL incomes of each top level Wall Street executive has exceeded the LIFETIME incomes of you and all your friends and relatives combined.
Please read the above paragraph again and make sure you understand it.
The point is that the Wall Street pirates have so much dough that they own most of the elected officials in DC and other world capitals. It will take millions of working class people either going on strike (not likely in this economy)and shutting things down, or marching on DC and getting in the face of the new President and Congress, and demanding that they implement a global New Deal as fast as they were willing to dump a trillion dollars of US taxcpayer's money into the laps of the Wall Street pirates.
Beatifully put Jeanemarie. Hope is alive.
Reality could be undoing conservative's demonization of hippies and other liberals. Maybe people will finally realize that the movement was destroyed by Charles Manson, a violent criminal, FBI COINTELPRO agents, alcoholics, junkies, meth-heads, politicians, bad press and other conservatives and their institutions who saw hippies as the greatest threat to the status quo.
Many innocent kids ran away from home to join the hippies, only to fall into the traps of alcohol, hard drugs and sexual abuse by predators lurking within the movement.
Contrary to conservative mythology, the hippies were Christlike, peaceful, non-violent, organic, artistic, creative and intelligent. They used psychedelics to enhance creativity and connectedness without falling into the nightmare of speed, downers and booze that later infiltrated the movement. Hippies would say "Speed Kills!".
As a highly intelligent person, Obama knew psychedelics and how not to fall into the stupid's trap of alcoholism and hard drugs.
Bush fell into that trap and like most dysfunctional people required the crutch of authoritarian fundamentalist conservatism to help him stay off the booze. He assumes the world is simple and that we're all dysfunctional too and need saving. And he wants to turn us into fundy neocons so he won't feel like the Lone Ranger.
I loved the hippie era even though I was also a kid at the time. I recall begging my parents at the age of nine for some psychedelic bell bottom pants and how happy I was to show up at school wearing them!
The hippie era held so much promise, but the backlash from our atavistic rulers was overwhelming. Interestingly, the hippie era was itself a rejection of the same sort of system then that exists today, so perhaps the time is right for a rebirth of the hippie movement. I know people today who are actively pursuing setting up a commune. Maybe that will be the beginning of a trend.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
Sustainable living is just common sense, but we have been allowing the allure of a quick buck to forget sustainability in the developed world. We don't have TIME to do the right thing.
There are degrees of sustainability:
Modern humans have gone so far as to be "fouling our own nests" by pumping sewage into the waters, and wiping out the wider, supportive, ecosystem that allows for a variety of plants and animals to exist in one area.
Aboriginal peoples would go so far as to not harvest the whole crop - they wanted it to be there next year. Modern agriculture takes it all and has to replant it all, and we end up getting more out of each plot of land and for our labours, but we have broken a link. Nature no longer provides for us, and if we do not get a crop planted, or if conditions are not perfect, we could starve.
Unimaginably, we have now even dared to tinker with the atmosphere!! It had just - up until 100 years ago - become more stable than at any time in the past, and we came along and made it unstable.
Yes, a revolution is called for!
"The revolution is here. Now let's wake up and smell that organic, locally roasted, shade grown, fair trade French Roast and get on with it."
Sorry, doesn't sound like revolution to me. In the sixties, we called it co-optation.
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Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
- Arundhati Roy
Revolutions are born of hope, not despair.
- Peter Kropotkin
Jericho was the world's first town?
This is a sweeter, gentler version of Mark Danner's "The Radical Face of Obama"-- a feminine companion piece-- insofar as it hearkens back to the Sixties, but turns out to be another pitch to wake up and smell Obama.