I passed by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) crowd hanging out in Government Plaza, here in Minneapolis, this morning. It was very quiet. There were a surprising number of police*, not as many as there were protesters, about half as many it seemed. As a movement, the OWS has a long way to go. There was talk on public radio this morning that protesters were planning to erect tents, in defiance of a County order. They will be arrested, apparently, if they do. It seems an overwrought response, seeing as winter is approaching; they aren't going to be camping there long. That, and a too aggressive response could swell the numbers, considerably. Or not. We are a very polite people, here in the Midwest.
I couldn't help think of Glenn Beck, watching these protesting Americans. These are the people who are going to reign terror upon the wealthy, pulling them out of their houses into the street? The people who require a military response, who will have to be "purged", in a "night of the long knives"? Oh, and that taut rack of Aryan flesh, Ann Coulter, saying this is the beginning of totalitarianism? It may be, but not in the way she is implying. If there are any more public anti-America Americans than these two reactionary wrecking balls, I'm not aware of it. Prepping their followers to be agents of the will of dominators and destroyers, these two Apostles of viciousness and violence and greed. Can you imagine the likes of these, leading a purge? A good god does not exist anywhere in any dimension, if that should ever come to pass. If there is ever totalitarianism in this country, it isn't going to have the flavor of the Left. Contrast all the people who listen to and read Beck and Coulter, with all the OWS protesters in America, and ask yourself, who has the guns?
Guns. Word is, Americans are providing Mexican drug cartels with heavy weaponry, no Americans more so than those, apparently, working for our government. I read an opinion piece in a local paper recently, extolling the virtue of the Iraq war, rationalizing that the rest of the Middle East is in turmoil and Iraq is now nominally Democratic, therefore that venture was good. One of the writer's points in support of this virtue was, that Iraqi's are now buying 10 billion in weaponry from us. No less a luminary than Bill O'Reilly has come to realize that the Iraq war was a bad idea. It was not just a bad idea, it was the epic hubris of the world's greatest Empire ever, and one more reason we are headed for collapse sooner rather than later. As for our ability to export weaponry as evidence of any kind of virtue, that is the kind of thinking that will lead to the whole world being blind. But goodness knows, it is not for an anarchist in service to the Goddess to be paraphrasing Christ.
Speaking of the Goddess, I have been wondering lately if I have offended Her. We do not have in-house, the statue of Nike that we had last year. One of the owners refused to pay any fee to rent the statue, in effect, in my mind, rejecting that goddess of victory. I've been wondering too, if money is a manifestation of some kind of daimon, and so little has flowed to me of late because I have refused to bargain with him? And last year, that this energy flowed to us in some abundance, perhaps because the goddess allowed it? I know I have not been dancing through the building naked, with my deer horns, like I did last year. One of the partners thinks the problem has been signage. I brought this argument about the goddess to him last night, as we were drinking, planning the next two weeks. It is a testament to his virtue that he could hear me without judging, actually listening, and evaluating the decisions he has made, the attitudes he has assumed. Of course, I don't know anything about any goddess or daimon, actually - though I do know I chopped the head off a dragon recently in a dream. I had a steel sword, which would not cut the dragon's flesh, but then I took my Brazilian ironwood sword into my left hand and I drove it through the dragon's skull, and then with the steel sword I chopped off his head, which was the size of a mini-cooper. I'm not sure what to think about that, seeing as I wrote a book which I titled, The Dragon: Balance, Wholeness and Healing. Some in my culture have begun to think of the dragon as a potential ally; chopping off the dragon's head, the failure of the wine I made, the failure of my potato harvest, the slack income Monster Halloween is generating, it would seem I have been rejected by life, or am somehow rejecting it. Or maybe the economy is just shit and there just aren't enough people willing or able to buy costumes of goddesses and daimons and superheros, etc; or the Twin Cities simply will not support a downtown Halloween store.
I heard another bit of magic on the radio recently, word from the Consumer Retail Association that Christmas spending would be up 3% this year. Really? Maybe, but that's not reflected here. I can tell you this, if the numbers come back from Halloween radically lower than projections, that will put a serious damper on Christmas sales. If the numbers are bad, I bet the numbers collectors and purveyors will be tempted to fudge them. Because as you may recall, this economy is 70% consumer spending, and they are now trying everything they can to bolster consumer confidence, except creating actual jobs, or increasing income for those with a job. As I replied to a reader, if the consumer stops spending at the same time the Financial class is gutting the economy, what sort of magic is going to prop up the economy? And then of course, if you are thoughtful, you have to ask yourself, if the only solution to a healthy economy is Americans spending as much as possible, how can that be sustained? Well, you don't have to ask yourself that, but you should (though if you've made it this far in this piece, you probably have.)
I started this piece off, talking about the OWS, and violence. I see increasing turmoil, at least the next year. Most of the economy at this point is a fiction that has to be believed in, or it ceases to exist. Almost all of the wealth of these idiot Financiers who are undercutting their own base, is an illusion that disappears the instant the power goes out, the power in this case being either the literal power of the grid, or the power of consciousness. Should either cease to support this system, it would collapse in an instant. In either case, with as many guns as there are, and the cities and suburbs full of lost and angry people utterly dependent on the system as it is, well, I'm sure you can or have elaborated on that particular vision. You probably don't need me to paint that picture. If there was ever a time for a Messiah that time is now. And as I pointed out in a previous post, there is no looking to any Messiah that is not an abdication of the divine in you. And whatever any Sage has ever said, there is not any salvation that is not also an immersion in the material Earth, and that has to do with skills, and a celebration of the flesh, and a caring and a concern for the Other. There are the purveyors of manipulation and separation, and there are the people of joy, beauty and abundance. Consciousness is the vehicle no one else can control but to bring me to ruin. Consciousness is the reality that I may direct as I will. The violence that floods my consciousness can be joy instead, and vision, and calm.
There is always a choice. Always, even in that darkest hour.
* Minneapolis Police Officers and Hennepin County Sheriff Deputies receive 20% off, at Monster Halloween. Because, despite the heat showered upon MPLS PD, I have yet to meet one I thought wasn't basically a good guy, I admire their service, and it is better to be on friendly terms with such men than not (when they are basically good).
The fact that #OWS has not turned violent yet is amazing IMO. I think this violence is inevitable if for no other reason than state sponsored provocateurs moving in and starting the violence. I don't understand how it has remained peaceful this long? I mean all of the police violence I have seen on Youtube and nobody has pushed back physically? Nobody has lost it to rage and lashed out at the police violently? To me that is amazing. I hope that the movement stays non-violent because that is the only thing allowing this movement to exist in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThe government just needs the slightest utterance of OWS violence to bring in the big guns and put an end to the movement swiftly. Would a physical resistance happen in America? I don't think so. As many guns as there are in America, I doubt very seriously that any of the OWS participants are totting them. I could be wrong, but I just don't see it.
The violence that is coming to America is going to be a product of societal corrosion. The government is going to break down and splinter just like it did in Russia. A vacuum will emerge that will be filled by criminal organizations already in place. Large gangs, the Mafia, the Mexican Cartels. The police will still exist but they will be under the heel of the real power. They will be out gunned.
There may be a final push from TPTB by bringing in the military. I don't see it lasting long if it does happen.
These are interesting times, and something major is just around the corner. We are aware. We sense it like the prey senses the arrival of it's predator. The point of acute awareness that raises the hair on our necks. We can sense it but we cannot see it. We don't know what it looks like. However, I'm of the opinion that violence is inevitable. It is the nature of man. Even when organized at the tribal level war is normal and necessary. No non-violent utopia will ever exist without man drastically evolving.
As it stands now we wallow in destruction, violence, and chaos. Man seems to need it and crave it. The OWS crowd is just now waking up to their own power having been largely powerless for their collective existence. What will happen when they realize that the 1% does not give a shit about their peaceful assembly? They will sip their martinis and look down amusingly at the proletariat swine. They will mock them and laugh at them and see them as a curious entertainment. At some point that rage will surface in response to the hubris of the 1%.
This is different than the hippies flower power of the 60's. They were stoned and tripping on LSD and they had great music leading the way. They were able to channel that violent rage out into an open space where there was nothing to be provoked by it. #OWS is different. They are non-violent on principle. But there is no leader to stay the effort it takes. There are many leaders spread throughout the movement who do not identify themselves as leaders.
The way I see it, this causes a vacuum to emerge. A vacuum does not exist naturally in our atmosphere, and when it does it doesn't last very long. This vacuum will be filled by a leader that will see violence as the only means of effective change. It will just take one with a handful of followers to kick it off. At that point the government will unleash the big dogs and it will end as quickly as it began.
Don't blink because if you do you might miss it and wonder where the OWS went. And then America will do what it does best and quickly forget about it. The American Hologram will not allow anything other.
Luciddreams,
ReplyDeleteI am of the opinion that we do not really know what the true nature of man is. Yes, if we use as our model what we know of the past, it would seem we are simply a violent creature, and there is no hope for us otherwise. I am also of the opinion that there is much about our past that we do not know, and that a far better civilization than what we have built is possible. Which is why, evolutionarily speaking, it is far better to imagine the possible than to dream what we believe inevitable. It is easy to expand on the violence that is likely to come. It is difficult to imagine a world beyond violence. Though I would argue that it is easier to imagine such a world now, than at any time in the last 5000 years.
Which is why JMG has challenged his readers to write a story about such a world. Because the more we as a species imagine it, the more likely we are to evolve into it.
WHD
I get that but I'm just not optimistic enough to think a non-violent future is possible. How many people imagined we would colonize other planets? How many still do? No amount of imagining will make that happen now. If it was ever possible to begin with. I think it's a noble pursuit but I'm too apathetic and jaded by man to think anything other than violence will rule. I think tribal existence is about as advanced as man can hope for if sustainability is what we are after.
ReplyDeleteIf the past has proven anything it's that we can't organize ourselves much more than tribal and be successful. Every empire has risen and fallen and usually because of resource depletion. We are no different.
That saying "those who don't pay attention to the past are doomed to repeat it" comes to mind. I think that's true. Who's paying attention to the past?
JMG? Have you read "The Echotechnic Future" He's got that hundreds of years in the future. The Green Wizard Project is all about seeding enough of us initiates of the truth out there in the hopes that some of us will flourish in the difficult future we will traverse.
I think imagining a non-violent and sustainable future is wonderful. I think that, what is it, thamaturgy, is possible. I think America has been victim to the capitalistic consumer marketing hologram designed and unleashed by TPTB. I also think that the awareness of the Mayan prophecies for 2012, even if they are not true, even if the interpretation has been misinterpreted, at this point doesn't matter. There is enough collective awareness of it that if nothing else we will manifest it.
I also think that the nature of man can change with evolution. However, up to this point, we have been a violent species. Maybe OWS will prove to be the next evolutionary step for man. Maybe they will stay non-violent? Maybe they will be able to fend off the government provocateurs. I hope that they do, and I would join them if I were not a family man. I'm in this system and the only way out of it for me will be collapse.
Against my better judgement, I welcome that collapse. It will make room for the new. I'm afraid this paradigm is going to have to die before it can be replaced with something better. It's beyond fixing. Even if it weren't, it's not worth fixing or caring about anymore.
Luciddreams,
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake, I see Humanity contracting by about 5 Billion, unless we wake up, or are awakened. We aren't going to get there, likely, without violence beyond any seen in the story of the species. But then, I have a strange feeling something does await us in 2012 that will change everything we believe about everything. Who knows what that might be, if anything, but it may be salvation, or not. The weeping and gnashing of teeth, however, is probably unavoidable for most, no matter what happens.
In myself, I feel the call to violence, and peace. I endeavor not to spend much time envisioning violence. I don't care to call it into my life. If it comes, it comes. It will likely come. But to date, it has not (except that which I have visited upon myself, emotionally).
I would see the OWS movement waning as winter approaches - except that Congress will probably bleed the economy again with another round of ideological grandstanding, right before Christmas, slashing entitlements for everybody but the most privileged, whose privilege they are likely to increase. If retail sales aren't up, expect recession, worsening right up to the next election, with a whole lot of Americans consciously or subconsciously desiring collapse, going into the Winter Solstice and that so-called date of apocalypse.
WHD
great conversation between Michael Ruppert and Charles Eisenstein on the Lifeboat hour.
ReplyDeletehttp://media18.podbean.com/pb/20fa8863ae719d0a608e14e097b61f6c/4e9c9fc0/blogs18/292989/uploads/LifeboatHour101611.mp3
I just got finished listening to it. They had the same conversation that we are having right now. Eisenstein is spot on I think. He says that the old paradigm has already died and we just don't know it yet and that the OWS are essentially operating from the New Paradigm. He makes an interesting observation: in the 40's and 50's when growth was the sacred cow, the young wanted to be nuclear physicist and NASA astronauts. Now the young don't want any of that, they want to get into permaculture and the like. It's definitely worth the hour to listen.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-lifeboat-hour/
ReplyDeleteI found it here. Your link wouldn't go through. Yes, I am fond of Charles' work. I've been reading his book on www.realitysandwich.com, where it has appeared chapter by chapter, and where it can be purchased. His work can be characterized as paradigm shifting, in that reading it, it has helped me see that a different and more generous and kind world is possible, and it only really requires a shift in consciousness. That shift is happening all around us, and it is quickening - it is no coincidence that there are protests all over the world at the same time humanity is passing the 7 billion mark. More and more I am beginning to think that this quickening will continue right up until it reaches some kind of terminal point at the end of 2012, and out of that, perhaps, humanity will begin to build a new world, with those who embrace the change and the Earth surviving, and those who continue in the old way, perishing unto dust.
WHD
Violent riots will be inevitable as the global economic system comes apart at its seams, especially since Greece is a likely window into America's future. Overall, violence is just a symptom of people not having enough meaningful danger in their lives because of the fact they're working jobs which have no deeper meaning besides paying off endless debts. Even more so, all these protests collectively show that there's definitely differences between climbing a steep mountain, raising a barn, then killing a dragon or two and being subjected to poverty for your entire life. The former are enriching situations which increase self- confidence along with willpower while the latter situation is outright humiliating.
ReplyDeleteThardiust,
ReplyDeleteI have never seen you so voluble.
I find it curious, you comparing Americans to Greeks. Aren't we more violent? Yet the latest two American uprisings have been non-violent mostly, the Tea Party and the OWS. They haven't been burning cars, etc. anyway. I do suggest people are violent for far deeper reasons than boredom. Which is why American violence will likely spill widely in America, when life gets harder, more widely, in the unacknowledged face of resource constraints, and our violence.
I'm not sure I follow your last two lines, but I can say, I hope my killing that dragon was only a kind of metaphor, and I am not condemned to a lifetime of humiliating poverty.