Thanks -- but No Thanks
Some Personal Reflections on Thanksgiving Day 2018

"Oh, Great Spirit whose voice I hear in the winds, 
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me, I am small and weak,  
I need your strength and wisdom." 
 -- from a prayer

by Lakota Chief Yellow Lark, 1887
(Entire Prayer)

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, 
it was loaned to you by your children. 
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, 
we borrow it from our Children." 

-- Ancient Native American Proverb

The three day feast that brought together 90 Wampanoags and the 50 surviving Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation in 1621 has become part of our nation's mythology.

Unfortunately, this idyllic tale doesn't portray the stark reality of the holocaust that ensued as European colonists descended on this continent bringing with them white supremacy,  a harshly judgmental Christianity, the European notion of private property, and an emergent capitalism.  (The pilgrims received a land patent from the London Virginia Company and financing from Company of Merchant Adventurers who sought to profit by colonizing lands overseas)

Although the set of Democratic Ideals set forth in the Preamble to the US Constitution reflect humanity's universal quest for a just society, "our forefathers" also brought forth on this continent disease, death, domination, and the destruction of a Way of Life that seemed to better understand and honor humanity's relationship to Mother Earth, to the Great Spirit, and to the Circle of All Life.

The worldview of the Indigenous People embraced Connection and Reverence.  Our forefathers brought with them, instead, the Unbridled Greed buried in the belly of Capitalism, and the myopic worldview of a Christianity that produces a separation from one another, from the natural world, and from our spiritual connection to all that is.  

Through force of arms, including germ warfare and the power of "law," the bad guys won.  Unfortunately for Mother Earth and her myriad beings, they still hold tremendous power today.

In fact, lest we forget, Thanksgiving this year falls on the anniversary of the assassination of JFK . (I blogged about the chilling reality of the political assassinations in the 1960's in Lest We Forget.)  And this year we are also faced with the stark reality that a virulent stream of white supremacist capitalist insanity is being fostered by Trumposaurus Wrecks and his crew in the White House.

Yet, it doesn't have to be that way forever.

It is true that history shows us that those with more guns and less morals have often taken power.  Yet, the opposite is also true.  In my own lifetime, Mahatma Gandhi, armed with nothing but a spinning wheel, the force of Great Loving Soul, and the Power of the People, sent the mighty British Empire packing.   Martin Luther King and legions of non-violent activists toppled the framework of legal racial segregation that existed here in the "land of the free."

So....? 
(READ MORE)

It's Crunch Time!

The Count Down Continues...





There is no doubt about it.  

We need Regime Change here at home.

If we don't prevail and take back at least the House of Representatives, these Repugnant Retrograde Republicans will continue to support the Bully in the Presidential Pulpit.  He, in turn, will continue to support them as they turn their back on minorities, women, the elderly, most the middle class, and the working poor.

We need to turn out in massive numbers and turn the table on these crooks and misanthropes. If we do, we can at least put the brakes on their hell in a handbasket trajectory toward even greater Crony Capitalism, Xenophobia, Militarism, Racism, and Environmental Devastation.

The only thing standing in their way is us.

There are a number of ways you can jump in to dump these chumps.  You can put your feet on the ground, your mouth or fingers to the phone to call or text, or pitch in a few dollars to those specific candidates who reflect progressive values or to organizations like MoveOn.org, Indivisible, and the ACLU who are mounting widespread sophisticated Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaigns.  The big conservative donors are spending a gazillion dollars on this.  All we have is a gazillion of US willing to devote some time and energy and/or a few bucks.  It matters.  Every $3 adds up.

If you are reading this and happen to be in a solidly Blue district like I am in here Western MA, you have a computer and/or a smart phone, right!?  Make it count!

Although we all need to roll up our sleeves for a few days and help out locally (here in MA there are important ballot initiates,) you can also have a personal impact on important races throughout the country, sitting there at home!  

Here's a few options:  
Indivisible Phone and Text Bank

•You can assist in important races like those of Beto O'Rourke in TX, Stacey Abrams in GA, and Andrew Gillum in FL.   

               
MoveOn.org Text Bank (beginning Nov. 4)

Vote with Me Phone App   

•  For a personal touch, this app uses your own contact list and identifies friends that are in districts with tight races! I love this one. It's been great to text my old friends in Woodstock, NY and encourage them to vote in the NY-19 congressional election.

                                    

• • Happy Lucky 7th Birthday #Occupy Wall Street! • •

IT'S SO NOT OVER!

September 17th marked the 7th anniversary of the day that protesters descended on 
Zuccotti Park in New York City, re-naming it Liberty Park and launching 
#Occupy Wall Street! 
On November 6th, 2018
we will see whether the Spirit that inspired the nationwide uprising seven years ago
will prevail in the midterm elections. 
 We the People,
 those of us who believe that we are truly created equal 
with an unalienable right to freely pursue our happiness,
must wrest back at least a semblance of political power on November 6th.
I'm hoping that 7 is our lucky number on the 6th!

(Click for lyrics)

As I Sit Here Today

As I sit here today with only 49 days until the midterm elections, I'm admittedly a bit scared at times.

Yet, I remain hopeful.  

At old coot now, at age 72, I still believe that there is an essential Goodness and Decency that resides in the heart of We the People.  I'm praying that our collective aspiration to create a land where all human beings are deemed of equal worth will propel us to wrest back at least a modicum of governmental power from the current Retrograd Republicans.   

It's crucial that we do so.

Without a victory that returns the House and/or the Senate to the Democrats, Trumposaurus Rex and his Wrecking Crew will continue their unfettered campaign to destroy enlightened public policy.  Without a victory, The New Deal and Social Security, the Great Society, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and the Affordable Care Act, and the regulations that put them into action, will continue to be in the crosshairs  of these Kleptocrats, Privateers, Banksters and Gangsters.

Although I've got a bone to pick with the Democratic Party, and will continue to rant and rave about the Corporate takeover during the Clinton era, this is a no-brainer.  The reality isn't a choice between two evils.  It's the choice about whether we put the brakes on, or race off the cliff full speed ahead.  

Each of us must roll up our sleeves and do everything we can in the next few weeks.  

It's SO not over!

(READ MORE on the background of the song, first written in the wee hours of the morning that Mayor Bloomberg backed off on his first plan to clear the park "for maintenance." I was glued to a LiveStream as the victory was announced.  A roar surged through the crowd. I broke into tears.  The song wrote itself.)

They Just Washed Away

They Just Washed Away 
Katrina a Man-made Disaster: Before, During, and After

(See Laura Flanders GRITv , Democracy Now!, and Brother Lefty Videos below)

Hurricane Katrina Takes Aim on the Gulf Coast

It still breaks my heart to cast my mind's eye on the Horror that swept through New Orleans in August of 2005.

Sometimes I still come to tears as I attempt to sing "Washed Away." The song wrote me ten years ago as I was apartment sitting for a friend in Queens, NY.   Choked with pain and anger, appalled at what was I was seeing on TV and the web, it was, and still is, difficult to accept that what transpired in New Orleans could happen in the wealthiest nation on earth.

 (Click for lyrics)

Made in the U.S.A.

Although Hurricane Katrina, the ferocious vortex that was born over the Atlantic Ocean during the sultry days of late August that year was a "natural" phenomenon, what happened a decade ago was not. It was, from beginning to end, a man-made disaster, a glaring example of the continued institutional racism of the neo-liberal era.

In line for evacuation buses at the Superdome

The catastrophic series of events that decimated New Orleans, killing 1836 people (nearly a 1000 of them in the City itself), and displacing a million and a half others in the region, had been predicted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Officials at FEMA knew that the 100 year old system of levees and flood control protecting the half a million residents of the City, nearly 70% of whom were Black, couldn't withstand the force of a hurricane of that magnitude.  They had reported repeatedly that there was no adequate system in place to evacuate the people at risk.

Then, the buck was passed -- or the bucks, rather.  In a glaring example of Crony Capitalism at it's worst, FEMA privatized New Orlean's Disaster Planning in 2004!

This is all a matter of public record.  It's there in black and white. 

Those in charge knew.  Many of the career government service professionals were on record, trying to address the problem.

In fact, just three months before Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Agency responsible for flood control, had issued another warning to the Bush Administration which had not yet acted to implement a flood control plan involving extensive construction they had proposed years earlier.
(READ MORE)

Busted, Booked -- and Back on the Streets.

"I was a stranger, but you did not welcome me, and I was naked, but you did not give me any clothes to wear.
I was sick and in jail, but you did not take care of me."-- Jesus Christ

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

-- The First Amendment to the U.S Constitution

On Tuesday, August 28, at approximately 12:30, I was arrested for trespass on the Greenfield Town Commons where I was meditating as I’ve done for a half hour most days since the fall of 2011.

For almost seven years now, through good weather and bad, sometimes through rain and snow, three of us have participated in #OMG!, a noon meditation vigil that emerged as the energy of #Occupy Wall Street! swept the nation. Although I’ve participated in many forms of organized political action over the years, it was my first formal act of Civil Disobedience.

It was an Act of Conscience.

As best as I can tell, we are called to love our neighbors, not threaten them with arrest for finding a safe place to sleep. When push comes to shove, I believe the City’s treatment of our Homeless Neighbors has been immoral. There is a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that says it is  unconstitutional as well.

Sometimes you just have to take a stand – although, in my case I was Sitting in Silent Mediation before I was confronted and yanked to my feet by the two police officers, handcuffed, and put in the plastic shell that serves as a backseat in a police cruiser. I now know what it feels like to be shackled and led down a corridor to holding cell and back, to not know exactly what I would face from moment to moment.

Thankfully, almost all of the uniformed officers I encountered treated me with respect, patience and kindness.  I am an old coot after all. I was a bit dazed and confused at times on a 95 degree day. I guess being in the Cooler was okay in that regard. LOL

I'm a relatively free man again today and intend to return to the Town Commons at noon for the #OMG! Noon Meditation Vigil. I'll probably "Sit this one out" -- outside the barriers and yellow tape -- while I talk this over with others and figure out the best way forward.
You're welcome to join me in Silence 12:00 -12:30.
(Ya don't have to Sit to Be Present!)
One Love,
Brother Lefty

Our 15 Minutes of Flame?

The count down continues!



 

To say that a lot is riding on the elections on November 6 is an understatement.  What happens that day will dramatically impact the nature of American Democracy and the fate of this planet with it's myriad species of animals, plants, and other beings.

Although the focal point of much of our attention, ire, and dismay has been Trumpasaurus Wrecks and his Unholy Crew in the Executive Branch, the damage that he is able to do has been possible only because the Retrograde Republican Congress continues to further the agenda of the far right wing that has taken control of  the Republican Party.

These folks, bankrolled by reactionary elements of the Billionaire class, have had their sites set on dismantling the achievements of the New Deal, on gutting Social Security, Medicare, and destroying  our nation's collective attempts to curtail the damage caused by the racism, sexism, and unbridled capitalism that lies in the belly of our nation's culture.

Like Bernie and a whole bunch of us, it burns me up!

100 days isn't a lot of time.  There is no doubt about it.  It's time to get our butts in gear. The clock is running out.

As of today, the Koch brothers' net worth is about $100, 000, 000, 000.   If you lost track of the zero's, that's a freakin' hundred billion dollars!  That's an insane amount of money to possess.  Especially when they use a whole bunch of their loot to hire legions of highly paid professional operatives out there using state of the technologies to warp our collective reality across the web, the airwaves, and in print.  

As of today, I have about $20 in my bank account. 

What's a poor boy to do?  What each and every one of us can do.  A whole bunch of us better roll up our sleeves and get to work.  If we don't, it could spell doom -- at least for the foreseeable future, if not forever.

I'm Making a Pledge to Take the Pledge.
(READ MORE) 

Suffer the Little Children

"A person's dignity does not depend on them being a citizen, a migrant, or a refugee. 

Saving the life of someone fleeing war and poverty is an act of humanity."

-- Pope Francis, affirming the 

US Council of Bishops' statement that 

Trump's border policy

is "immoral."

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
-- Emma Lazarus

from "The New Colossus"

It's enough to make a grown man cry.  

I've come to tears a number of times these past few days observing the results of the Trump Administration's "zero tolerance" border policy on countless refugee families.

The stark reality of innocent children being separated from their parents and siblings to then be put into cages is nothing less than a freakin' abomination.  It's senseless and cruel -- and a violation of the tenets of the UN Convention on refugees.   

It's also immoral.  

Lest my lack of credentials other than that of being the founding S.O.B.* makes that claim a bit presumptuous, Pope Francis, the US Catholic Council of Bishops, and numerous other clergy worldwide, with the appropriate certificates hanging on their walls, agree with me.  Can you imagine it otherwise? After all, in what bizarre parallel universe would Jesus of Nazareth sanction the lack of decency that would allow Trump and his lackey Jeff Sessions to edit the plaque on the Statute of Liberty to read: 
                                             "Give me your tired, your poor,
                                                Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
                                                 -- and I will separate the children from their parents
                                                 and throw them all in jail!?"

If the Prince of Peace were in the flesh today, He'd be much more likely to hustle His ass into DC and turn the tables on this crew of miscreants.  He's been known to do such things back in the day.  Self-styled Christian VP Mike Pence would be the first to get a hypocrite's heave ho into the fiery pit. 

(Of course, as always, if these guys would finally come to their senses to see that Satan has hoodwinked them, their sins would be forgiven.  Sadly, I'm not holding my breath here. )

Besides the moral outrage I feel, I take this one personally.  

As a 12-year-old boy, having been abandoned with my younger brother and sister in a train station in East St. Louis, Illinois, I spent several days in a detention center.  Although my mother had been swept away by her own's demons, leaving me as the oldest child to protect my siblings, I was treated with compassion and respect by the police officer charged with sweeping me up into his arms and carrying me off.  Kicking and screaming all the way, at one point I bit his arm.  Without flinching, he responded gently and kindly in a language that I could understand, "It's going to be alright, son."

I can only imagine the terror being experienced by the estimated 3500 refugee children, most who don't even speak English, some of who have been injected with anti-psychotics for resisting their imprisonment, as they have been forcibly separated from their parents.  In my case, it was a matter of days before my father was contacted and we were freed to become part of the American Dream.  In those days, he readily found another union factory job and moved us out of Chicago into what was then an idyllic small town near the Wisconsin border.  

Today after decades of decline, both economically and morally, these poor kids face an American Nightmare instead.  Even when and if they are re-united with their parents, they face the probability of long-term incarceration -- for under the leadership of the misanthropes, militarists and materialists of the Republican Right we have become a nation that imprisons refugees! 

This is a crying shame.  

It's time for all people of good will to cry "shame on you" and let Trumposaurus Wrecks and the Republican-controlled Congress know that we won't sit idly by and allow this to continue.   

This is not the America we grew up with -- and this is not the America we wish to be today. 

Don't sit idly by.  Take a stand.

An Action to Consider:  
Find an Event Near You*

 

https://front.moveon.org/

*Greenfield Local Action:

Families Belong Together Rally

Saturday, June 30 at 1:30 p.m.
Hosted by Trystan and Arjuna G.
Greenfield Town Common
Greenfield, MA 01301

Rally on the Town Common in support of immigrants and asylum seekers, and to protest the Trump administration's cruel policies. 

Families Belong Together! 1-2:30 pm

SIGN UP TO ATTEND 

Saint Jimmy Gets My Vote

"I am convinced that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and others
can embrace each other in a common effort to alleviate human suffering and espouse peace."
-- President Jimmy Carter, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002

"Except during my childhood, when I was probably influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel depiction of God with a flowing white beard, I have never tried to project the Creator in any kind of human likeness...I think of God as an omnipotent and omniscient presence, a spirit that permeates the universe, the essence of truth, nature, being, and life."
-- President Jimmy Carter

I'm as much a Buddhist (and a Jew and a Hindu and a Taoist, etc. etc.)  as I am a Christian  these days.  Yet I'd really like suit up someday and slip past the Swiss Guards to  mingle with the crew that gets to canonize Catholic Saints.  A robe is a robe is a robe, right?

If I got in, I'd be pushing hard to add another Saint James to the canonized fold -- once this man finally lays down his hammer, punches out, and arrives at the Pearly Gates.

If I could pull it off, I'd immediately nominate President James Earl "Jimmy" Carter for Sainthood.

Although my candidate is still alive and still banging nails and hypocrites at age 93, in the world of bureaucratic politics ya need to start campaigning early, right?

Of course, I realize there are some hurdles here.  The Catholic Church may have to do some real soul searching to canonize a non-Catholic, even if Jimmy Carter, like Jesus, spent some time being a carpenter.  Yet, I think it's a good time to make a run at it.  It seems to me that Pope Francis might just be the guy to get the ball rolling.  He seems to be serious about trying to be a real Christian, not just the Godfather of an incredibly powerful and wealthy institutional bureaucracy. 

The Christian Right, Isn't.

If Jesus hadn't opted for Resurrection a couple of thousand years ago, I think He would be rolling over in His grave in these times.  It's seems to me that The Prince of Peace and Love would have a hard time listening to the prattle of the contemporary Viper's Brood that claims they are Christians while simultaneously espousing Intolerance, Warfare, and the Ruthless Mammon of Free Market Capitalism.  As these folks continue to rant and rave about immigrants and same sex marriage, propose cutting public assistance to those in need, as they claim to be pro-Life and support gun rights capital punishment, an increasingly militarized police force, and endless warfare,  I wonder if they ever really read that Bible they're thumping.

I think a good place to start might be Matthew 25:31 - 46.

Here the Divine Jewish Liberal from Nazareth tells it like it is, clearly proclaiming the sacred nature of compassionate action in the world.   As He'd already stated earlier during the Sermon on the Mount,  worshiping Him doesn't cut it. (Many will call me Lord, Lord).

What, then, is the Key to the Kingdom?  It's simple.  It's how you treat your fellow human beings!

In the imagery of a final Judgment Day, Jesus proclaims the moral imperative of unconditional generosity toward the stranger, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner -- and outlines the karmic consequences of failing.  Be loving and generous and you're on the A Team.  Treat the unfortunate and downtrodden shabbily? There'll be hell to pay.

Why?

Even in the arcane language of the King James version of the New Testament, the Teaching is crystal clear: "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."  

The Bottom Line?

As many mystics, prophets, sages, seers and hippies throughout the ages have affirmed, Jesus wasn't just being metaphorical when He claimed identity with the "least of" humanity.  The great Hindu sage Mahatma Gandhi made the same point when he said, "If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further. "   On the level of the Absolute: there ain't anybody (or anything or any energy) that ain't God!  

Over the years many of us have seen the Light.  It became clear that We are, each of us, interconnected rays of the One Love that pervades the Universe. We are called to love our neighbor as ourself because he or she is ourself.  So is the sky and the earth and the birds and bees and everything else that is, has ever been --  or can possibly be.  The separation between the One and the Many, this moment and eternity, is only relative and conditional.  It's not absolute.  The Absolute is what some folks call God.  (Others may call this the Tao, Shunyata, The Great Spirit, etc.)  If we commit to opening our hearts, clearing our minds, rolling up our sleeves, and putting our bodies on the line to relieve the suffering on this planet, we are doing what Jesus was talking about. 

Jimmy Carter appears to have clearly gotten the Word.  I'd imagine he might boil it down to God is Love.  His life has been an expression of loving God and his fellow human beings.  Whether he was banging nails building a house for Habitat for Humanity in Georgia, or flying around the world to take part in an international mediation decades after most guys would have retired to the golf course, Jimmy has continued to serve.  Unlike the folks on the so-called Christian Right, he has dedicated his life to actually picking up his own cross and following what Jesus was teaching.  Pat Robertson, the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition and their kind?  IMHO, not so much.

So, how about it?

Time to go Ecumenical.   Let's do it!

Jimmy Carter for Sainthood!

Do I hear an "Amen"?
Yours in the Spirit of Truth and Love,
Brother Lefty

P.S. A Caveat:  Like Pope Francis, Bless his Heart, has said, "Who am I to judge? 

I Speak as Someone Who Loves America

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, 

are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, 

extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

-- Dr. Martin King Jr., Speech at Riverside Church, April 4, 1967

"It is my firm belief that Europe of today represents not the spirit of God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan.  And Satan's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.  Europe today is only nominally Christian.  In reality, it is worshiping Mammon."

-- Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, August 9, 1920.

d

With the nightmare of a blatant racist tweeting hate from the White House, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech seems even more relevant this year.

Dr. King's vision from the Mountaintop was that of taking down walls constructed of fear and hatred, not building them.

Yet, the walls that he dreamed of removing didn't just consist of segregation.  His message was broader and deeper.  For decades now, the corporate media has increasingly whitewashed Dr. King's views on economic justice, materialism and militarism.  Like Gandhi, King's message was essentially Spiritual.  They both saw clearly that Mammon worship, the soul sucking evil of materialism/consumerism, lurks in the belly of capitalism.

Throughout our history, racism and economic exploitation have always walked hand in hand.  The prosperity of the capitalist English Empire and it's rebellious offspring, the USA, were built on the horrors of genocide and slavery.  Sadly, although its forms may appear more subtle and hidden (cultural genocide, jailhouse slavery), this continues today.

Like my identical twin brother, Lance, I usually tend to be more Buddhist in my lingo  Yet, I just gotta say it out loud: I agree with Gandhi. This is the work of the Devil!

Dr. King, like Gandhi, were Bodhisattvas.   They sought to alleviate the suffering created by a political and economic system that feeds on greed, hatred and delusion.  Like many other Prophets throughout history they threatened the ruling order of bankers and preachers -- and were martyred. 

Although Dr. King focused on the evil of racism, his "I Have a Dream" speech that late summer day in Washington DC was delivered to the throng that had assembled for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  That march challenged the economic exploitation millions of Americans because of the color of their skin.  The FBI claimed the event was inspired by Communists and lobbied to prevent it from happening.

Like Gandhi, King then continued to march, to champion a non-violent response to a system that has always used violence.  Like Jesus of Nazareth, and a myriad other martyrs, Dr. King knew full well that he may be killed for challenging the ruling order.

Dr. King's assassination five years later occurred when he traveled to Memphis to support striking Afro-American municipal sanitation workers as the leader of the National Poor People's campaign.  That campaign demanded an Economic Bill of Rights which included five planks:

1. "A meaningful job at a living wage"
2. "A secure and adequate income" for all those unable to find or do a job
3. "Access to land" for economic uses
4. "Access to capital" for poor people and minorities to promote their own businesses
5. Ability for ordinary people to "play a truly significant role" in the government
When's the last time you saw that highlighted in the mass media coverage on Martin Luther King Day? 

A Time to Break Silence

As Trump's legion of misanthrops, materialists and military men loot and scuttle our beleaguered ship of state, it's a time to break silence.  Dr. King's did so dramatically on April 4, 1967.  On that day, Dr. King proclaimed, "these too are our brothers," and came out against the US involvement in the Vietnam War with a passion and an eloquence that many believe caused his assassination exactly one year later.

The corporate media today chooses to ignore this speech and remain silent.  I hope you don't.  Please listen and pass this along.  Then join some folks and speak out -- with love in your heart!

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!

Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence