Thanks -- but No Thanks
Some Personal Reflections on Thanksgiving Day 2019

"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)

Lest We Forget

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER 22, 2014

(I'm sitting here in tears listening to soul singer Marvin Gaye's rendition of "Abraham, Martin, John" as I write this. )


My fingers were fumbling at the keyboard in typing class that day in 1963, exactly 51 years ago, when the teacher from across the hall came into the room and whispered in Miss Jefferson's ear.

Her face turned white.

The other teacher left and Miss Jefferson broke into tears as she announced that President Kennedy had been shot and taken to a hospital in Dallas.

No one said a word.

Moment's later the other teacher returned. He didn't have to say a word.  His face, a portrait of horror and helplessness said it all.  We knew.  He knew we knew.  Holding back tears, he shrugged awkardly, turned -- and left. 

The unimaginable had happened.
(READ MORE)

IT'S SO NOT OVER!

September 17th marks the 8th 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 Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020
we will see whether the Spirit that propelled inspired the nationwide uprising eight years ago
will prevail . 

(Click for lyrics)

As I Sit Here Today

As I sit here today, the forces of corporate greed continue to control the major media.  The billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the villain who sent the NYPD into Zuccotti Park to eradicate #Occupy Wall Street! has now bought his way into the run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.   

Yet, I remain hopeful.  

At old coot now, at age 73, 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 governmental power from the Trumposaurus Wrecks and McConnell's Retrograd Republicans.   In 2018, we sent real progressives, like The Squad, into a the US Congress and the Democrats took control. The People were at least able to put the brakes on the legislative aspect of  Trump's whole dismantlement of the New Deal.

It's crucial that we complete the job this fall.

Each of us must roll up our sleeves and do everything we can to support the movement that has propelled Bernie Sanders into the lead in the run for the Democratic Party's nomination for POTUS.  It's time to go to meetings, knock on doors, pick up telephones and get the word out! 
It's time.  Let's get it done.

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.)

Woodstock Forever

James M. Shelley, Woodstock 1969

The event that drew almost half a million of my peers to a farm in upstate New York in August 1969 wasn’t supposed to be a free concert.  Rejected by several town boards, the four young promoters finally found a venue, a dairy farm in Bethel, New York.  They didn’t have the time or money to fence it all in. 

It didn’t matter.

Revolution was in the air.  We’d taken it to the streets.  We’d occupied buildings.  Now nearly half a million young people headed for the hills—and the fences came down.  The spirit of the times prevailed.  The white dove that had been perched on the neck of a guitar on the iconic Woodstock Music and Art Fair poster took flight, descended on the crowd, and made history.
 
It didn’t make money though.  After the event that captured the heart of my generation, the promoters—and presumably the 450,000 folks who’d gone down to Max Yasgur’s farm to set their souls free—ended up taking a bath.

The movie that was released the following spring etched Woodstock into the collective consciousness of a generation.  What had been a mixed bag for those on the ground—and in the mud—became larger-than-life on the big screen.  The spirit of the times that had transformed a disaster area into a peaceful community (where the head of security was a clown with a kazoo), now touched tens of millions of us.  And, of course, a few folks made a bundle.

I didn’t make it to Woodstock 1969.  It didn’t matter.  The genie was out of the bottle.  The word was on the streets.  The following summer, I drove west in a Volkswagen Beetle and watched the heart and soul of my generation play out on screen, through a cloud of cannabis smoke, in a crowded theater in San Francisco.

With peace signs flashing, the leftist folk music of the early sixties danced onto the stage with the electrified blues and acid rock that had erupted on the left coast’s hotbed of be-ins and a Summer of Love.  Through a kaleidoscopic swirl of images and sounds, we long-haired hippies constructed a massive stage and drove tractors.  We danced and did yoga amidst teepees and gaily painted school buses.  We skinny dipped, then rolled up our sleeves to answer the call to, as Wavy Gravy famously put it, “serve breakfast in bed for 400,000.”

It was a revival meeting.  The spirit of the times danced with the timeless.  In cinematic communion, we were living the dream.

In that dream, martyred union organizer Joe Hill appeared on Joan Baez’s breath and encouraged us to organize.  In that dream, bomber death planes turned into butterflies.  With irreverent reverence, Country Joe McDonald took the pulpit and yelled, “Give me an F,” and we did just that—with a roar! When Joe Cocker proclaimed “I get by with a little help from my friends,” we knew it was gospel. We rocked.  We rolled.  We laughed.  We cried.  Then, as dawn emerged, Jimi Hendrix captured the fury and anguish of the war that raged halfway round the world.  His “Star-Spangled Banner” became our national anthem. J oni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” became our “Rock of Ages.”

We’d been to the mountaintop. We were about to change the world. Or so we thought.
(READ MORE )