Theological Treatise (En bref)

I'm gonna tell a BIG secret. I can't tell you why I'm tellin' it, but I'm tellin' it. And know truthfully that there's a Holy Rosary wrapped around my hand right now as I write this. But Lo, it is still and surely your left-wing wacko ** Ryvr ** who loves all the other people far faster than the people who say, "Ha, I have many jewels!"

The Secret ***IS***: Look around you; look at you. This all has meaning. And VERY, Very Good meaning. Wanna disagree with me? O.k. Go Ahead. But as for me, I would rather live a beautiful lie, than die an ugly death.

So immediately, this moment! Embrace yourself, embrace the person next to you, and (deep breath) EMBRACE GOD. Now that you're shocked ... realize that a supremely meaniful quest offered to you is to find a place for the idea "God" that you feel at one with. "At One"-Ment = Atonement.

For many liberals and intellectuals, "God" the word is dead or never existed. But God=Love, God=Truth,God="This means something and Right will win" are what "liberals" are all about.

So the secret is: Be as good as you can be (and keep trying better), Good Will Win, and YOU are a Child of God.

Music Matters: Update I

We have nominations updates for our list of musicians and bands that are helping to make a better world. See the original post for the idea behind this list.

We need more nominations! Please use comments to submit yours (up to 3, currently performing or recording).

Nominations as of March 24, 2006 (alphabetical):

• Dark Star Orchestra


• Rick Frost


• Warren Haynes


• Gandolf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams


• Max Creek


• Rusted Root

Technorati tags: Music, Revolution, Peace, Peace and Love

A New Atlantis

On AlterNet, Don Hazen correctly proclaims:

It is time to resurrect the good '60s and help many people understand much of what has been hidden. It was an era when millions of people were clear about their values -- especially nonmaterial aspirations, and sharing, and ways of living simply that have long since been steamrollered by the nonstop tsunami of global consumer culture.

We can make a better world and recapture our human spirit, but to do so we must kill the "60's was a failure" myth. They did more good than can usually be expected of a generation, and we have just dropped the ball so far on the unfinished business.

You:
- Participate in nonviolent direct action
- Find a style that is you and your tribe's
- Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
- Make Peace and Love
- Bare Feet Not Arms

Technorati tags: hippies, 60's, revolution

Equinox: Economy Egg Standing Upright?

Uh, yeah, the week of March 20... The AP is reporting:

Treasury officials, briefing congressional aides last week, said that the government will run out of maneuvering room to keep from exceeding the current limit sometime during the week of March 20...

[T]hey had used the $15 billion in the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a reserve that the Treasury secretary has that is normally used to smooth out volatile movements in the value of the dollar in currency markets.

Heck, who needs stabilization funds in times like these?

"Hippie Chimps" Endangered

On the heels of a great chimps/bonobos post at Anthropik by Jason Godesky, cnn.com is reporting:

Scientists are struggling to save the fast-disappearing bonobo, the gentle "hippie chimp" known for resolving squabbles through sex rather than violence...

"Bonobos are an icon for peace and love, the world's 'hippie chimps,"' said Sally Coxe of the Washington-based Bonobo Conservation Initiative. "To let them die off would be a catastrophe."

Praise The Lord, We're Free At Last

Of the near-future failure of industrial civilization, Jason Godesky says:

We should not hear "Stone Age" and think of a life that is "nasty, brutish and short"; rather, we should understand that living in the Stone Age means being free for the first time in our lives.

I think many of us will be clever and hard-working enough to live very well and happily post-capitalism. The most stressful thing is gonna be getting things organized initially since so few people are willing to accept the obvious conclusions to draw right now about where things are going and how soon. If it doesn't happen before the weather gets cold again, some advance preparation is going to be necessary. At this point though, I am not overly concerned about catching some fish and picking some edible plants the day the grocery store is no longer open.

Note about "how soon": The week of March 20, 2006 is going to be a big one to watch with the opening of the Iran Oil Bourse, the Fed-funny-money-thing, and the 3 year anniversary of the Iraq war. If on 3/24/06 things look similar to how they did on 2/24, the fat lady may have a few more stanzas to sing.

Technorati tags: collapse, peak oil, tribalism, anarcho-primitivism

Calling Peak - About Now

Stuart Staniford sums up the evidence, agreeing with many other intelligent observers that the peak of oil production is upon us:

Whether May 2005 will stand as the highest ever month of production or some month in 2006 or even 2007 rises a little higher is certainly hard to call.

Note that he suggests that some month could rise "a little higher" than May 2005 production. This is inconsequential as it represents some random fluctuation - just noise - in the peak production period which will soon transition to a decline.

It is not logical to think that capitalism can survive this. Capitalism is predicated on future increasing of return-on-investment which will not be forthcoming. Alternatives to replace oil will be wonderful for a post-capitalist civilization that will emerge in the coming years, however, the massive infrastructure transformation cost required to preserve the current economy will not be possible during this period of rapidly increasing energy costs.

I do not view these conclusions as at all pessimistic. I believe that we will view the late 20th century and the first six years of the 21st as the "bad old days" when we are gathering around the tribal campfire in the coming years.

Humans will once again be human.

Technorati tag: peak oil

Election 2004 Stolen

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman explain clearly some of the rock hard evidence that the 2004 Presidential Election was stolen:

Exit polls flashed worldwide on CNN at 12:20 am Wednesday morning, Nov. 3, showed John Kerry winning Ohio by 4.2 percent of the popular vote, probably about 250,000 votes. We believe this is an accurate reflection of what really happened here...

Therefore, to put it simply: at least 308,000 voters, most of them likely Democrats, were eliminated from the registration rolls prior to an election allegedly won by less than 119,000 votes, where more than 106,000 votes still remain uncounted, and where the GOP secretary of state continues to successfully fight off a meaningful recount.

What's terminal is that it seems that not many Americans care that the last two Presidential inaugurations witnessed the swearing-in of the man who LOST the election.

I must emphasize again that we must make progress for the well-being and happiness of the people, and it becomes increasingly clearer that this progress will not happen just through the traditional political process. We must build communities of peace and love. We must stop being mindless consumers.

*** Don't Feed the Capitalists ***

Technorati tags: impeach bush, bush, stolen election

And It's 1, 2, 3 What Are We Fightin' For?

The unelected self-styled emperor bush's Iraq misadventure is in a state of utter meltdown:

With fears of full-blown civil war gripping Iraq, the capital was sealed off, cars were prohibited from entering, and all but the most official vehicles banned from traveling between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m.

,reports cnn.com.

After 2,300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, this has led to complete instability teetering on civil war. There is no "good" solution at this point, but first we must hold bush and the Americans who supporting him morally accountable for their disaster which has only made the world a considerably worse place.

Technorati tags: impeach bush, Bush, Iraq, anti-war, peace

Liberal Views harassed in CO School

9news in Colorado reports:

A 16-year-old boy at Overland High School doesn't want to hear what he calls his teacher's left-wing political rants...

A spokesperson for the Cherry Creek School District [in Colorado] said they have placed [the teacher] Bennish on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

I pass this along as more "sign of the times" evidence of this nation's continuing slide into fascism. The rest of us must continue to speak truth and love, loudly and clearly. What they are doing is both a grave and wrong injury to this teacher and a severe threat to moving our society forward through dialog, education, and free expression.

Music Matters: Nominations

Though I have given up on the Democrats, I can never give up on working together to build a better nation and world.

Please join me in this participatory post series, "Music Matters," in which we will try to find musicians and groups who make good sounds that lead us together to dream for better things.

In earlier decades, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and many others joined us together in song and dance into a vision that almost succeeded in transforming the world. We've slipped back, but now is the time to go forward.

Let's start with open nominations by readers (please use the Blogger comments) of up to 3 artists/groups per reader, of currently performing or recording musicians who contribute to our movement to make a better world. Please provide URL's if you have them, and feel free to plug your reasons for nominating them.

On March 20, the anti-war concert Bring '‘Em Home Now! will make music in New York featuring R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, Bright Eyes, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D and Rufus Wainwright.

Nominations as of March 2, 2006 (alphabetical):

• Dark Star Orchestra


• Max Creek


• Rusted Root

Technorati tags: Music, Revolution, Dark Star Orchestra, Max Creek, Rusted Root, Peace, Peace and Love

Formal Unendorsement

At this time, I am choosing to formally unendorse and distance my support from the national Democratic Party.

While I have forgiven their capitulation repeatedly, including making no discernible efforts to stop the recent radical right-wing takeover of the supreme court, today's Senate vote where a greater than threefold majority of Democrats voted for a noxious, liberty-killing "Patriot Act" pushed by an unelected "president" with a current approval rating of 34%, I am flat out of excuses for them.

I believe now that even a Democrat presidency with a Democrat-majority congress is unlikely to bring significant improvement against the rapid slide of our nation deeper into the cesspool.

I urge all people of good-will in this nation to come together to explore all peaceful and non-violent means outside of the political system to bring a better life to our people. The solutions will not be found through either the republican or democratic party to any extent at all in the foreseeable future.

34: Does He Need More?

"Bush is done for ... You don't recover from 34%." asserts Cenk Uygur at AlterNet, conveying a seemingly self-evident truth.

Meanwhile, "Patriot Act compromise passes Senate, awaits House vote... The 89-10 vote marked a bright spot in President Bush's troubled second term as his approval ratings dipped over the war in Iraq and his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina," reports cnn.com.

So, I wonder, if Bush's approval dropped to 10%, would he get only the support of 65 or so senators for his most obnoxious, liberty-trashing legislation?

Clearly, although Bush is horrendous, the *** 89 *** senators voting to continue stripping us of any semblance of Constitutional rights are not doing this to stand with a popular president.

We must face the fact that we have at least 89 complete fascist senators, at least 35 of whom are democrats. "Broken" is a profound understatement of the condition of this former democracy.