Been kind of quiet lately, having spent the last three years or more working on a new CD, but, with that out of the way, have something to say to the people I love, friends, countrymen, fellow citizens of the earth, whomever
Having spent the late 60s and early 70s as a political activist, being taunted by the feds, bugged by the secret service, watching my friends get rounded up, beaten, jailed and killed, being photographed and put on the "if shit breaks out kill this spade First" list, I have little patience for "arm-chair revolutionaries." (Funny thing though, until the black community was deliberately flooded with drugs, and a bunch of Other shit, we Were accomplishing some good things.)
Not to single out the black community here either because it was a cultural revolution that encompassed all races creeds and castes, and if you think about it, anyone who was alive that time can remember that our goals were pretty simple. We wanted peace, we wanted equal opportunity to good jobs and education for all classes. So they killed JFK because he wanted out of the war, they killed King, they killed RFK, Malcolm and a bunch of other folks who stood for anything resembling justice, and who they couldn't kill, they found a way to neutralize.
After becoming virtually the only one in my group left standing, pursuing any number of jobs and leaving the city, my primary concern became survival, and I kind of melted into the background, concerned myself with my own spiritual growth, development as an artist as a father, and a businessman. But it was with a well placed emails one day, that re-awakened me to a lot of things.
I can't count how many letters to senators and petitions I've signed since then, and the letter I recently got from the Zeitgeist group which you can check out at your convenience, just reminds me that its time to be even more active. If the Germans can hit the streets by the hundreds of thousands and force the govt there to abolish nuclear energy surely we Americans can do something...or maybe they have more of a democracy than we do?? We just passed another date when the world was predicted to end, and many think that that means everything is cool and its ok to comtinue with the same bullshit, but in my opinion, whether or not Jesus comes down with a flaming sword is almost irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that we decide to DO Something different.
Our goals are still the same, except now, the environment has also reached the top of the list. So we want peace, we want a more equal society and we want a clean environment...mainly. And we want these things for our children, right? Or are we ready to retire and leave the struggle, the mess we couldn't clean up to someone else. Who can we trust to get it right besides ourselves? Our children are being daily corrupted by the system and our children's children are going to hate us if they grow up to the future we are facing now...scarcity, pollution, debt, runaway destruction of the earth.
Americans are always looking for a savior to do their business instead of thinking and doing for themselves. We need to stop looking to authority figures for solutions and give ourselves permission to be our own authority figures, and come up with our own solutions from the bottom up, not from the top down. If, after the nuclear disaster in Japan, the Germans can hit the streets by the hundreds of thousands and put an end to nuclear energy in their country why can't we? Or have we reached the point where they have more of a democracy than we do? Or they care more than we do? Or they are better informed than we are? A friend posted this recently on Facebook:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&feature=player_embedded Americans are not stupid
Its a sad commentary on what America has become. When people speak of us as a nation of sheep, you have to start wondering. How did we get so corrupt, ignorant, sold out....Or scared? How do we get to the point where an event like that occurs and most of us haven't even heard of it? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/30/germany-abandon-nuclear-power-2022/ And even the washington times article gives a watered down total of the over 200,000 people who participated. Look at the spin on this article and read another from a different source. (No, i'm not a socialist!) http://socialist.ca/socialistworker/SW2011/issue530/INT-Rally_demands_end_to_nukes.html A friend suggested that the fact that General Electric runs the nuclear business in America will make it hard for such news to spread. And their extensive media holdings should make it easy for them to downplay or ignore such stories. Take a look at their holdings.http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/mainAnd while you're at it, take a look at how our insanely corrupt inept government works hand in hand with them. Come to find out: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-electric-paid-federal-taxes-2010/story?id=13224558 How did we get to the point where people who care about the enviornment and nature are classified as terrorists? Or to use certain words in an email, gets you flagged. And I'm not talking about blowing anything up or saying you're gonna kill somebody. Just words! Forgive me, I'll probably use some of them in here. I recently saw a remake of the movie "The Werewolf," with Anthony Hopkins. One of the many things that struck me about that movie was the language they used, especially when you compare it to the language in the original movie, and how at this point in time "the beast" is no longer hiding his philosophy is symbolism. He's no longer using secret handshakes and gestures. He's putting it right out there in your face, bold and unashamed. It also struck me how when they were getting ready to kill his ass he started quoting scripture with a cute smile on his face. The Underlying theme of the movie was that evildoers are no longer hiding in the shadows. I guess they figure we're too dumb and pacified to do anything about it or even realize what's going on. Or we assume that our "leaders" are misguided or unaware of the destructiveness of the laws that they pass and how they impact and rip apart the very fabric of our society.
THAT IS NOT THE CASE.
Which reminds me of an encounter between an Andrew Harvey ( who is into spirituality, human rights and the enviornent) and the head of a multinational corporation who invited the author to have lunch with him. Mind you, this was in the early 90's in New York with several of the leading organizers of what was to become the U.N. Conference on environment and development in Rio. Anticipating author might have a desire to make the executive aware of some of the crimes that his company was committing, against humanity, the enviornment, etc, the executive told him, and I'm just paraphrasing here, "Sit down so I can tell you something. Not only are we guilty of those crimes, but crimes of murder as well as other crimes you know Nothing about. I Know what I'm doing is evil, wrong and unjust! And I know when I die I'm going straight to hell for it. But I don't Care! I like he big cigars, the fancy cars, the money,my rolex and the women. I'm going to enjoy it all to the last minute, and you naive, weak "bliss bunnies" don't have the the stamina, or the commitment to do anything about it! You really don't realize what you're up against." That's a pretty bold statement. But Anthony Hopkins said the same thing in the movie. "Life is far too glorious for the cursed and the damned," ....so don't expect them to see the light and reform.
Expect nothing...but more pimping and and murderous attacks against third world countries, and YOU....IN YOUR NAME. Somebody said something like, all that evil needs to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing. Over the years, struggling for guidance I've collected quite a few books that are considered holy and from various cultures and religions. The Hindu's Bagavadgita, Buddhism from Tibet....its a long list, and yes, among them is the Koran. I only got through about half of it. Reading it is like being lectured to by the sternest teacher you can imagine. They say it was dictated to Muhammed by the Angel Gabriel. Funny, how the Muslims and Christians hate each other but they both agree on the identity, personality and function of Gabriel. A lot of the same people you find in the bible and in the koran. At any rate, the most striking chapter I read is called. "The Hypocrites." Its very intense. Talking about folks who talk the talk, but don't walk the walk, and worse. Its been a long while since I read the Koran, but if you ever check it out, that's the one chapter to read. I like the language that Gabriel uses too, because he says "we," like as in "We see you!". We see you doing your shit. And the we he's talking about is not "we muslims.". Its "we angels!". We, God's legions.
Do You See?
I mention Gabriel because he's the one that's supposed to blow the horn when kingdom comes, right? We still have 2012 to deal with, and whatever that brings, but I think we have the power to bring about any change we seek...if we stop sitting around waiting for something to happen and start making things happen on our own. My own personal feeling is a sense of profound debt to our fallen leaders, to our fellow starving humans, to my own children and to my creator. So all I'm saying is I'm gonna be more outspoken and active, regardless of the consequences, and speak the truth. Feel free to de-friend me, but I urge you to educate yourself, do some research and get with some people who are about real change. That's a start. That can be your own form of revolution....getting better informed. Especially since, as George Carlin said: "They, the rich elite, don't want a well educated public, capable of critical thinking. They want people just smart enough to run the machines and do the paper work and just dumb enough to passively accept increasingly shittier jobs." If history teaches us anything its that a peaceful non-violent movement can move mountains.
"When an idea reaches critical mass there's no stopping the shift its presence will induce."
But it won't reach critical mass if you just sit on your ass.
Do something! Its later than you think! Namaste!