Moonrise

Moonrise As the light over the ocean fades to gray The twilight creeps from devil’s clutch to permeate the sky A shrouded specter of the shadowlands with icy orb in hand Demands the sacrifice of sunlight, all the remnants of the day Now muted memories as starry light appears within the black Yet they’re just pinpricks in a Void that holds the key to all we lack In fact the light we see is from a source already passed and gone Already born and lived and died Already finished with it’s song But I sing along, sing a testament to what has come before The evolution of humanity The futility of our wars The depth of our compassion To the frailty of belief I sing for wolves who hunt alone Yet still I sing for all the sheep I sing for all the life that’s come before And all that’s yet to be I sing for every man and woman hoping one day they’ll be free I sing a song to raise the dead I sing a song meant to conceive I sing this for those who horde it all And this for all the thieves Then I go silent As all existance carries on the tune The Void begins to vibrate, the crecendo of the moon O’er the horizon lights the shadowed sky, a climax, a release And in that simple moment I find Peace

Island Update – Evolution of A Revolutionary

 

The view from my lanai this morning was crystal clear. Thanks to a storm system moving across the Pacific, the vog from the bubbling volcano has been blown away, leaving a razor sharp horizon line and a birds-eye view of the Kona coastline. After almost 5 years here on the big island, I’m once again packing my things and headed for a new environment.

 

I’ve adjusted and fallen into the rhythms of the island culture, found a way to draw off the volcanic intensity without being overwhelmed by it, found a way to continue moving forward despite the kick-back, do-nothing vibe that permeates this place.

Been working on the land, the Aina, most of time here, and this next shift will bring me back in direct contact, moving to an end-of-the-road, upcountry property in Maui. I’m eager to move on, been living in a 2 bedroom condo with all the conveniences of modern life for the past year or so, and while the bourgeois life has its perks, it dulls the basic survival skills that you use on a daily basis living closer to the land.

 

My personal and professional paths are beginning to intertwine in a very constructive and productive manner. While my revolutionary views have shifted in my time away from street activism, the anti-authoritarian and autonomous values I adopted during my time within the anarchist movement are still very much a part of my life. My focus has shifted from directly attacking the prevailing power structure to a more organic form of subversion, creating a more autonomous lifestyle by way of sustainable building and living practices. As the capitalist system dictates who controls the power (money), by living in a self-reliant, self-sustainable way, growing our own food, creating our own sources of energy through solar, tidal and wind generators, using bicycles and public transit instead of resource-guzzling automobiles, we can actually weaken the system by not supplying it with our money, the only thing that gives it power in the first place. (Check out the Creeper News 2.0 blog for more on this topic in the upcoming communiqué “Revolutionary Consumerism”)

 

Hawaii taught me this, in a large part, how to hold onto my core beliefs while still progressing on a professional level. I may be anti-capitalist, but I’m a realist as well, and I understand that in order to achieve the goals I want to achieve, it will take a certain economic foothold to move forward. We live within a society where money talks, and if you don’t have any, it’s hard to make your voice heard.

 

So I’ve developed a set of skills that have a decent monetary value, as well as the greater value of being able to provide for myself without relying heavily on external power structures.

 

Utilizing these skills as both a means of income and a way of creating alternative living practices and lifestyles, for the first time in my long journey through a sea of menial labor and customer service jobs, I finally have found an occupation that I enjoy. Not that my love of woodworking and carpentry is anything new, but combining it with the D.I.Y. elements of the sustainability movement and actively working towards creating more autonomous buildings and communities is exactly in line with the shift in consciousness I want to help spread in the world.

 

While my writing has taken a back burner in the past few years, the Egyptian Revolution and subsequent middle east and Wisconsin uprisings stirred up some inspiration and I’ve started a couple new projects that are starting to take form. Check out the Creeper News 2.0 facebook page and website for some of my more journalistic pursuits. I’m also working on a couple short stories and hoping to get back into the spoken word/slam poetry scene in Maui.

 

Going through my first Saturn Return has been powerful, humbling, and eye-opening. Beginning with my shoulder injury, the past 6 month or so have been kicking my ass.

 

As I meditate to try and relieve some of the pressure and tension, I’ve been flashing back to different memories, different points in my life where a decision was made or action was taken that dictated the course of the next few months, years, worldview, personality, etc. I marvel at the seeming cyclical nature of my life, this constant phoenix metamorphosis of death and rebirth on so many levels. I sink deeper, see how the patterns correspond to history, to the rise and fall of civilizations, the birth of ideas, religions, these basic patterns in human nature we all seem to follow, no matter how conscious or aware of our own behavior we may be. I’ve been re-questioning concepts of Fate, Destiny, recalling the stories of the three Norns of Norse mythology, questioning if indeed there may be some kind of underlying pattern to our lives rather than just chaos and the reaction of the choices we make. It seems the closer I get to my self-created (or was it? See, this is what I’m talking about) path, this balance of intellectual idealism and physical labor, the more doors and opportunities present themselves. The closer I am to the land, the more I help it grow and thrive, the stronger and healthier I become myself. Finding this symbiosis between myself and the land, my mind and body, my  worldview and reality is something I continue to actively work towards.

I can’t say if I was called to Hawaii or the series of events and lifestyle choices in my early 20’s deposited me here, but I resonate with this place on a deep level and I’m not leaving the islands anytime soon. With my 30^th birthday looming on the horizon, I have a deep urge and desire to move forward on my life’s path,  buy a truck, get writing published, start a remodel/retrofit business, record an album, buy some land, build a house,  grow some trees and plant some seeds, establish a base so I can travel  around the world and have some place to go back to I can truly call my own. I realize this may not happen for a number of years, but  by being proactive now,  I’m optimistic that I can make this dream a reality.

As I develop my other blog to focus on political and revolutionary topics, I’m planning on shifting this site to explore more of my personal, creative projects. I plan on publishing some of my poetry/spoken word stuff as well as some sci-fi/speculative fiction stories I’ve been working on, alongside my rambling musings on the universe and our planet. Stay tuned, there is much to be said.

25th Birthday

Woke up to the sun creeping over Mauna Loa sending it’s blinding light straight through my east-facing window, bathing my groggy face in a not-uncomfortable heat. Been on the island for almost a month now, getting used to the intense sun, the humidity, the plethora of plants and animals all around me.

Turning 25 today and it’s kind of bugging me out. I mean, I’m halfway through my 20′s already, and some days after work I feel middle-aged, the years of hard living starting to take it’s toll, my hands callused and scarred from 10 years of working random jobs, none of which deal even remotely with my passions (although carpentry is VERY satisfying work). I feel good about the things I’ve accomplished, the knowledge I’ve gained from school just a foundation, a stepping stone to my own independent studies in politics, philosophy, art and culture. I’ve seen things in my short 25 years on this planet that some will never even realize existed.

I’ve watched the desert sun rise from the side of a dusty highway in Nevada, marched through Times Square leading a group of radicals in a “power to the people” chant, danced under the moon until my legs literally couldn’t support my body anymore, lived all over this country, spent time in others, watched the shift from an analog to a digital society happen right before my eyes…

And still, after 25 years I haven’t found my place in all of this chaos we call existence. But then again, maybe my place, my path, my fate is to not have a set direction, a set goal. If you don’t believe in destiny are you doomed to wander the globe in search of meaning, of truth? I feel I’ve learned so much and seen so many different things that it’s my responsibility to share it with the rest of the world through these words that come so easily to my fingertips. I want to write books, to recite epic poems, to create music and art that sends chills down people’s spines. But at the same time I can’t find the willpower to sit down and accomplish all these things because my attention is so fragmented, so involved in the world right in front of me that it’s hard to detach myself from the NOW, to take a step back and look objectively at the whole mess and figure out which direction to take.

A quarter of a century makes you realize how short our lives really are, how insignificant one human being is in the whole course of history. I feel as if I don’t make a mark, leave behind some trace of who I am, what I think, the things I’ve done and seen, that the tidal swell of Time will just keep rolling on and my legacy will disappear.

I don’t want to be insignificant goddamn it! Call it narcissistic but I feel if I don’t leave a significant mark; a book, a painting, a song, a poem that others can look back on decades, hell even centuries from now and be inspired by, then what’s the point of my being gifted with this unique vision of the world?

I was born into a special time in the course of human evolution, the technological shift from analog to digital during my childhood, the explosion of global communication and rise of the Internet during my adolescence, the slow progression of economic globalization, of worldwide capitalist control still happening in my first few years as a man.

25 years. A quarter of a century. Two and a half decades and I haven’t even begun to understand the world or my place in it. Sure I get a little, but every lesson I learn just opens up a new range of possibilities. So I sit here, on an island surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean, staring out my window wondering if what I’m doing is worthwhile, wondering how to make my mark before I leave this earth, wondering if I even have the talent, the power to create something that will be able to survive longer than my physical existence.

Well, I better get started then…or continue the process, whatever you want to call it, but I’ve gotta stop sitting here and contemplating existence because every fiber of my being tells me to get outta my head and just…exist.

Subconscious Expulsion

And it’s still there, that drive, that passion, that need to just EXPLODE, to vent all the frustration, all the bitterness and rage that I keep locked deep down inside, that force that needs to either create or destroy. All too often I choose the latter, finding it easier to lash out and disrupt than it is to internalize, focus and channel all of it into….whatever. The Word, a painting-picture-poem –play-script-story-stencil of the subconscious; created in whatever medium you have on hand.

I haven’t written in too long; I’ve been able to release this volcanic cavern of white hot magma into my hands, my shoulders, my arms and legs. Working physical labor, especially digging in the dirt, lifting rocks, planting trees, cutting grass has seemed to provide enough release from my troubled thoughts, until just recently.

Maybe it’s just getting in touch with the emotional side of myself that I’ve suppressed for lifetimes, finding out how to soften the hard, cold exterior I’ve built up over years of living as an outcast. Maybe it’s all in my head, or it all was in my head and now its flowing into my heart, a heart that’s now beating for two. There’s a certain sick, twisted pleasure in being looked at as an asshole, a certain side of me that wants to just alienate myself, to push that limit of rejection . It’s like the hostage who falls in love with their kidnapper, a certain part of me loves to just cut loose and rage, relishing the odd looks and as upturned noses, the fear and confusion.

Reject-degenerate- subversive-miscreant- reprobate-hooligan-punk-stoner-rager types are few and far between. The real ones at least, the ones who haven’t forgotten that the class war rages every day, that every dirty sneer at authority spreads the seeds of revolution. We see the stock market crash, the government cutting spending at local levels yet bailing out fucking car companies, see the fat get fatter while the middle class gets poor and snicker as the cracks appear in the crystal façade of capitalism.

It’s a part of me that I’ve completely squashed, that irreverent- brash-in-yo-face attitude that will walk up to a cop in full riot gear and scream “THIS IS WHAT POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE!” with my middle finger  up. A part of my being that I worked long and hard to cultivate, to educate so we could CREATE a spectacle, yet portray a message at the same time.

That life was the most beautiful and ugly thing I’ve ever experienced, memories that have scraped through my head for the past five years and need to be released. Memories that boil and bubble and keep my head hot. So much passion and emotion put into an effort to change the course of history still lingers with me, overshadowed by the sadness and frustration after Bush was re-elected.

I still want to change the world, I still want to smash the state, I still want to see the cracks spread and the System shatter and fragment into complete anarchy, but I don’t live every moment dedicated to it as I once did. Finding alternatives has become more important that attacking the pervading social-political structure head on in the streets.

I still hold onto that rage though, that frustration at spending so much time and effort into forcing the Bush Administration out of office, then seeing them dig us into a depression during their second term (yes, I know, there are many, many other factors involved in that), I have a deep, almost bottomless reservoir of simmering resentment to draw from, and with no outlet, it can boil over.

Working with my hands is an outlet, a reconnection to the earth and its core values, creating a building, a fence is a satisfying, empowering action that I pour myself into, yet there’s an intellectual void that drives me up a wall, especially considering the crowd I’ve surrounded myself with here in Hawaii simply can’t understand the mental anguish I’ve waded through the last five years.

I need to get it out of my system or it’ll strangle my psyche forever, and I think I’ve found a way to release that steam into a cloud of pages, a story for the ages…

But it’s dangerous…

It’s dangerous because it forces me to go back and revisit a time in my life when I fueled myself with the frustration and outrage at the political system, the superficial society in which we live; a time when I was hurt and confused and searching for answers, searching for a scapegoat upon which to release the pent-up rage I’d felt for so long.

I’m a different person now than I was back then, a time when I could channel all this negative energy into an action, a protest, a demonstration instead of truly exploring the source of my anger and finding constructive ways to transform it into a positive form of expression.

The struggle now is that transformation, the act of finding light in the darkness of those difficult times. Looking back, I can see the futility of all those street marches, all those times screaming myself hoarse at lines of riot cops who weren’t even part of the  organizations we stood against (granted, the police state was one of them).

It’s easy to lash out, to take all the aggression, rage and frustration and channel it into breaking through a riot line or taking an intersection. And yes, there is a power to gathering with people of like minds and chanting our passion in unison on the streets. I felt an empowerment unlike anything I have ever felt, before or since.

Did it really make a difference, did we change the system we railed against? Perhaps not in a direct form, but the energy we created and released into the world is nothing to be trivialized. The System did not fall, Bush got re-elected, and the activist community which was growing so strong and so powerful seemed to dwindle and fade away into a haze of depression and hopelessness. I remember those first couple years of Bush’s second term reading the newspaper with tears of frustration in my eyes, watching the world around me go about their daily routines as if nothing had happened, just placidly accepting the political system as flawed yet untouchable by the average citizen.

It was disheartening, to say the least. I drifted away from the activist world and into a period of deep self-analysis where I discovered that my path was not that of the street-stomping anarchist, but that of the lonely troubled artist searching for beauty in a world full of ugliness, superficiality and greed. Eventually I came to the realization that the only thing I could truly effect was my own mind, and to change my perception of the world around me was the true activism.

I’m still coping with this, almost five years after Bush’s re-election. The country has a new president now, but the scars of the previous administration run deep through every facet of our economy, society, the entire world’s for that matter. I still see the political in the way I relate to people, the way I speak, eat, dress…

All that’s left is to release these lingering feelings onto the blank page, to purge myself of this frustration, anger and fear. Without this release, I can’t move on with my life, constantly reminiscing of old times and old ways. I’ve done so much work trying to embrace the present, the simple beauty of the moment, but these memories haunt me at every turn, and without their release, it’s impossible to BE HERE NOW.

So this is it, my purge, my catharsis, my acceptance of the way things were and the way they have come to be. I cannot change the way things came to pass, but maybe, just maybe I can inspire someone to take their lives into their own hands and help create a better world for all of humanity, just as I tried to do that year, 2004, lifetimes ago…

For Love of Electronica

A question has been lingering in the deep recesses of my mind. A question as to why I’m still so drawn to electronic music, even as my connection to the earth, the Aina, grows ever stronger, even as I swim with the dolphins, the sea turtles, and feel the ocean swells reverberate through my body long after I get out of the water.

It seems a contradiction, this deep attraction to synthesized, electronic music while the rest of me strives for simplicity, for living in harmony with the elements, knowing that we as humanity must return to a symbiosis with the planet in order to sustain the existence of our species. Is it simply a byproduct of MDMA use, a nostalgic desire to relive the days of my youth when I snuck out and went to raves? Or is it something more, some realization that the deep dubstep, the dark industrial, the progressive hip-hop music I listen to is actually strengthening neural pathways in my brain necessary for surviving in our digitized world?

Perhaps that’s going too far, but I yearn to understand this innate attraction. Even before I was ever involved in the rave scene, I was fascinated by electronic music, much in the same way I was fascinated by computers, by the language of MS DOS, by the green on black contrast of an EGA monitor.  There was something so new, so fresh, so revolutionary  about this idea of digitizing information, of taking a sound, an image, and breaking it down into 0’s and 1’s.

Maybe it was the environment around me, the fact that the shift from analog to digital was happening around the time of my adolescence, my shift from innocent child to disenchanted teen. It was right around when I first started getting into music, around 11-12 years old, that CD’s started to replace tapes on the shelves of record stores, and I remember sitting for hours on Napster when it first came out, downloading song after song after song as fast as my 56k dialup modem would allow.

The first time I heard electronic music, I think it was the song “Poison” by Prodigy, and I was hooked. I imagine it was a feeling akin to the first time a youth in the 60’s heard rock and roll. I knew that this was something unique to my generation, something new, something fresh that had never been done before, that spoke to the youth in a way no parent could possibly understand. The frantic beats, spine tingling electronic squeals and multi-layered soundscapes opened my eyes to a world of infinite sonic manipulation that went light years beyond anything I could do with my voice, my saxophone or any other instrument I had ever come across.

Don’t get me wrong, I love other forms of music. The first time I heard Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name” or Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” or NIN’s “Terrible Lie” were akin to religious awakenings for me, but something about the pure synthesized sounds of electronica hit me on some level that no other music had before. It was the first music I had ever heard that made me want to dance, and a few years down the road, rolling my balls off at some rave, it was the first music I ever completely lost myself in, set aside my ego, my physical body, my entire sense of self and just gave in to the rhythm, the swooping synths, became pure consciousness existing in harmony with the song .

I was never a “candy kid”, I never wore an Addias visor or those silly little plastic bead bracelets and although I experimented with MDMA and LSD at raves, the music was always the central focus for me, the chemicals just a tool for unlocking a greater understanding and appreciation of the music. Some of the most incredible nights of my life were spent stone sober on the dance floor at some warehouse party, moving my body in a physical response to this aural narcotic that is trance, jungle, techno, big beat, dubstep (although dubstep wasn’t really around till long after I got out of the scene) . There’s a song by the group Faithless called “God is A DJ” that describes exactly how I feel about electronica. If the DJ is God, then the universe he/she creates is this music I fell in love with that first time I heard Prodigy, and is a universe I continue to explore to this day.

P.L.U.R.

EMP – A Catalyst for Change

It started not with a bang, but with a sizzle. The people living in shantytowns, 3^rd world slums, the crazy survivalists living off-grid in some little cabin didn’t even realize it till they tried to use the Internet, or watch TV, or turn on a radio. They flipped through the channels to find nothing but static, no dial tone on the phone, an “unable to connect” message on every web browser.

The people in suburbia thought it was just a power outage, and stayed indoors, waiting for the grid to kick in again. But within a few days, they began to venture out in search of food, clean water, a functional Wi-Fi hotspot. The kids took it the hardest, wandering through neighborhoods with their cell phones in hand, searching for a signal, searching for some way to connect.

It took a while for people to notice the intensity of the sun, the odd radiance that seemed to linger well after the sunset. It took much less time for them to notice the stars, which pierced the sky like spotlights, their light undimmed by electric lights, neon signs, fluorescent-lit billboards.

Within a week, looting had spread from the dense urban areas to the suburbs. At first, the strip malls, Wal-Marts and Safeways tried boarding up the windows, locking up the doors, but the numbers of desperate housewives, angry teens with faces oily from lack of acne cream, screaming children were too many. A few organized militia/gang types  tried to secure the fast dwindling resources, but ammunition was too limited, and targets too numerous. Within weeks, every shelf was stripped bare.

The ones  most reliant on the conveniences of modern times were the first to go, the first to turn on their neighbors, the first to turn on themselves. Without their cell phones, they had no way of reaching out for help, without Google and YouTube, they had no way of acquiring the skills necessary to sustain themselves. They wandered aimlessly, searching for sustenance, searching for input, searching for something to fill the void now that the digital world was gone.

Yes, this scenario is imagined, but the idea of a massive solar flare that knocks out the grid is not that far-fetched. The sun sends out much more than light and heat to our planet, these solar flares contain massive amounts of electromagnetic energy which, if intense enough, have the ability to disrupt  electronic devices across the globe. Beyond affecting the digital world which we have come to take for granted, imagine the way our own individual electromagnetic fields would be disrupted. I’m not talking about some “new age” concept like our auras or chakras, but simply the electromagnetic signals that travel through our brain.

Whether or not you believe in astrology, the teachings of the Bible, the Hindu Rig Vedas, the Mayan calendar, the whole 2012 phenomenon, climate change, or simply read the news on a regular basis, you can’t deny that there is something very powerful and very intense going on in the world these days, a tension that is building and building towards some kind of tipping point. A change is on the horizon, and all of humanity will be affected.

I say this with certainty because of what I feel in my gut, because of what I have seen in my dreams, my meditations, my research and my overindulgent information intake. We are on the brink of something unprecedented in human history. What it is, I have no idea, but something tells me that the center of our universe, the Sun, will play a central role (no pun intended).  Perhaps it’s just a product of an overactive imagination or a byproduct of past psychoactive drug use, but I’m keeping my eyes open and my head clear, my body healthy and my mind sharp…

The universe is infinite, complex, seemingly chaotic at times. To rely on science, on religion, even on our own intuition (this one is a little more debatable) is to deny the multitude of other forces at work that we haven’t even discovered yet. But for some reason, cultures throughout history, across the globe have pointed at this time as a time of major change, and they can’t all be wrong…can they?

Empathy and James Lee

The cracks are starting to show, my friends. As I write this, James Lee is holding hostages in the Discovery Channel building in Silver Springs, MD.  In his manifesto/list of demands, he focuses on the overpopulation of the planet, the glorification of war in media, and the destruction of the environment. He quotes and references Daniel Quinn’s “Ishmael”, and the main theme of his “manifesto” is that the human species is destroying the planet, and if we continue breeding and spreading “civilization” at the current rate, we will destroy all life on this planet.

I’m conflicted on this. While one side of  me understands that the planet is rapidly becoming overpopulated and if we do not change the way we live, the entire biosphere will not sustain, the other side still has that basic respect for all human life, and the belief that we CAN live in such a way that will be beneficial for all life, human, plant and animal alike.

Yet I understand James Lee’s frustration. I understand how maddening it can be to watch the apathy of the masses and watch the misinformation spewing from the mass media. I understand and empathize with his use of radical tactics to broadcast his message, although I do not necessarily support his taking of innocent civilians hostage.  I understand that burning desire  to smack society upside the head and tell them to wake the fuck up before its too late.

Its getting to that point in our world where the pot is starting to boil over, where the façade of moronic concepts like the American Dream are starting to fracture and crack. With the internet and new media providing  unprecedented transparency into the inner workings of government, business and society, many individuals are at a loss as to how do deal with this information.

I think James Lee in many ways is a casualty of the explosion in information we’ve seen over the past couple decades. I’ve been in his shoes, frustrated to the point where I had to do something about it. I took a different path, resorting to non-violent street protests and various forms of non-violent direct action against corporate and military structures. But many of the ideas he put forth in his manifesto echo some of my own. He’s obviously well-read, passionate, and highly motivated to change the world,  and while I may disagree on his tactics and methods of  educating the populace, while I may disagree that we need to stop having babies in order to save the planet, I do very strongly agree that we as human beings need to take a step back and re-evaluate our relationship with the planet, the biosphere, and each other or we will not sustain as a species.

With the incredible amount of coverage this story is getting, with the internet providing  insight into his ideology, I think that this could very well be a catalyst for other  individuals to start expressing  similar opinions, hopefully without endangering human life.

James Lee’s ideas are not unique. They have been presented by Darwin, by Daniel Quinn, even appear in more mainstream sources like “The Matrix”, where Mr. Smith describes humanity as a virus that consumes the worlds resources and leaves nothing useful behind.

As I write this, police snipers have taken out James Lee and the hostages have been rescued. The State has acted like it always does, by using force.  Whether or not James Lee is still alive is unknown, but somehow I doubt it.

I only hope that we can learn from this situation, understand that we need to start examining the motivations behind incidents such as this one. Awareness, consciousness and the free flow of information are vital to stopping the loss of innocent lives. The more we understand about each other, the more empathy we establish between different individuals, tribes, cultures, the less conflict we will have, and the more we can work together to create a world in which we as a species can live in symbiosis with the planet that sustains us.

The Gulf Oil Spill – Who’s Really To Blame?

I wonder how many people first heard about the BP oil spill while driving in their cars on the way to work. It’s a well-known fact that the most profitable time for radio advertisements is between 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m., during the drive time commute. It’s when Morning Edition, NPR’s daily radio news show, pulls in the most listeners.

I wonder how many people heard the news while driving their cars, sipping a bottled water. Or eating a cheap breakfast wrapped in cellophane packaging. I wonder how many people felt any trace of guilt when they heard the news in the midst of their petroleum-based daily product consumption.

I wonder how many people have heard of the Trash Vortex, the area in the Pacific where an “island” the size of Texas (even larger by some estimates) composed almost entirely of plastic trash is forming due to oceanic currents.

The consumption of petroleum based products here in the US and the rest of the world is off the charts. Beyond our obsession with cars, nearly everything we buy at a store is shrink-wrapped, and most of the time we carry our purchases out of the store in petroleum-based plastic bags. According to the Clean Air Council, Americans(combined) throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every HOUR, and in one year, the average American throws away enough cellophane packaging to shrink-wrap an area the size of Texas.

Is it any wonder that we go to war to gain control over parts of the world that produce oil? We’re addicted to the stuff, and unless we radically change the way we live, the way we get from place to place, the way we shop, the products we consume, we are going to be digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole we can’t get out of.

So we can point the finger at BP, or the corrupt regulatory processes, or off-shore drilling, or the oil industry itself, but keep in mind that every time you get in your car, or tote your cellophane-wrapped purchases out of the store in a plastic bag, you are as much at fault as the oil executives.

This is a problem that we have all created, a problem we all contribute to, and it’s going to take an awakening on a global scale to change anything. You can do your part: ride a bike instead of driving everywhere, bring your own bags to the grocery store, try and buy food from farmers markets and local stores that don’t carry as many shrink-wrapped products. There are things we as individuals can do to make an impact, but it has to speed up, drastically, or we as a species will not make it.

Our consumption of oil has to be curbed, or we will continue to see disasters like the BP oil spill, like the Exxon Valdez, and we will continue to fight wars based on our own greed and desire to control the resources that sustain our society.

Where there is demand, there will always be a market for supply. Its analogous to the idiotic “War on Drugs” we’ve been fighting for decades in this country.  We cannot consume something and then whine about the evil people that sell it to us. That’s asinine. If we didn’t consume it, there wouldn’t be a market for anyone to sell it. This is the power we have as American consumers: if we stop buying a product, there isn’t a way for companies to make a profit, so they’re forced to pull it off the shelves.

I understand that it’s difficult to shop without buying something wrapped in plastic. I understand that its next to impossible for many people to do their jobs without driving. I understand that our society, our culture, is dependent upon petroleum-based products. But we have to try, even if it’s something as simple as trading in your SUV for a smaller, more fuel-efficient car, or buying a water filter and filling up a nalgene instead of buying bottled water.

Every little bit helps, and the more people catch on, the more people start making that little effort, the more impact we can have on the well-being of the Earth and all the living creatures upon it. Mahalo.

The Recovery

I’m so tired of journalists comparing this recession to WWII-era economics and bullshitting about the “recovery.” The recovery from the great depression was largely in part because of the boom in manufacturing jobs here in the US.

In today’s era of neo-liberal free trade policies, big business has the ability to exploit 3rd world (or …in most cases, Chinese) labor for manufacturing jobs, so we sure as shit can’t count on that. Add to that the fact that technology has made many jobs obsolete, and we’ve got a serious problem on our hands.

If the multi-national corporate paradigm of “profit above all else” does not radically shift, they will continue to exploit 3rd world labor in favor of creating jobs here in the U.S., and the disparity between the haves and the have-nots will continue to grow. In laymans terms: the middle class will get wiped out. Completely.

You wonder why I started attending anti-globalization rallies and demonstrations more than 5 years ago? You wonder why the WTO/G8/G20/IMF-World Bank summits have been such a hotbed of radical activism since the passing of NAFTA January 1, 1994? You wonder why things are getting so bad as you cash your unemployment check at Wal-Mart without a shred of guilt or understanding that you are contributing to the demise of this once great nation?

Look at the unemployment rate and talk to me about the “recovery”. Cruise through any american suburb and look at all the “for sale” signs. Look at the dive bars filled with unemployed tradesmen. Look at the furloughed county, state and federal workers. Look at the general attitude of the people around you, look at the fear on the face of the single mother filing an extension at the unemployment office and tell me, honestly, that you believe that things are getting better.

Measuring the “recovery” by the GDP or the gains posted on Wall Street by big business is just moronic. The well-being of a country should not be determined by monetary value, especially not in a country that rewards sociopathic management practices as “good business”.  It doesn’t take an economist or even a social psychologist to see that we as a nation are frightened, skeptical, and distrustful of these pundits on corporate news programs, of the damage-control pseudo-optimism spewing out of the White House, of the big companies promising to create jobs if they can just have a few more billion taxpayer dollars.

Tighten up your belts people, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Top Gun Casualty

We sit in our homes, at our computers, fridges full of food, running water, heat, electricity. A Palestinian family huddles in the corner of a bombed out building, hearing the scream of F16 engines overhead, the dull thud of explosions from US-made bombs shaking the rubble.

That’s F16′s. American made, American supplied. The same planes we watched Tom Cruise fly in Top Gun, in fact. And we wonder why people hate the US, why much of the Arab world treats us with such distain. We sell weapons to Pakistan, trade weapons for hostages in Iran, supply Afghani militants with arms to fight the Russians…

We create a culture of violence across the globe, supply more guns and more bombs, more tanks, more F16′s and act like we’re innocent when another mother loses a child to a US-made air to surface missile. And we’re the ones trying to push middle east peace talks?

Its times like these when I’m ashamed to be a US citizen. The sad thing is, these times are all I know. I was born during the first Regan administration. Cheney, Rumsfeld and company were in charge back then, just like they are now.

It sickens me. The doublespeak of our politicians, the gutless, sensationalistic “reporting” by our mainstream media, the ignorance and downright apathy of our populace. I wish I could do something about it, but I can’t. I wish I could forget everything I know about the atrocities committed  by our government, but I can’t.  I wish I could believe that a new administration will change anything, but I can’t.

I’m not trying to be pessimistic, I’m just well-read. This F16 is losing altitude fast and all highways seem to lead to the danger zone. Sorry for all the Top Gun references, its the only thing keeping me from hitting the eject button. Talk to me, Goose.

Goose?