Month: June 2013

The other day I was stopped in the street by someone asking for money. They were collecting for UNICEF, a fine charity, but still I don’t like this new policy of aggressive solicitation adopted by charities. I understand these groups want more money and need to come up with new ways of getting it. Everyone wants more money these days – Even I want more money.

But here’s my question: Why does everyone want MY money? Why am I expected to pay for everyone’s plans and projects? The government wants my money; corporations want my money; the rich want my money; the poor want my money – it goes on and on. Why am I targeted?

I guess I represent a specific economic unit once known as “the Middle Class.” In this New World Order that has grown up around us, the job of the Middle Class seems to be to work its ass off for the sake of the rest of the world – rich and poor alike. But we seem to have no say at all in how our support is distributed or used.

My day job is not that different from most people’s in my economic class. My income has been all but frozen these past few years at the behest of GOV-CORP (the government – corporation cabal). Meanwhile, the State and all its friends – the politicians, the banks, the corporations, the franchises, the monopolies, the conglomerates, the charities, the schools, the so-called non-government organizations, and all the various vested interests – have the freedom and in fact the mandate to raise the fees and prices on everything possible. Real estate prices, mortgages, cost of borrowing, bank fees, property taxes, utilities rates, public transportation, gasoline, telephone, cable TV, Internet fees, clothing, food (even cat food!), and every other product or service cost in the world has increased. Even the minimum wage has increased – but NOT middle class salaries. So where does the money come from to pay for all the increased prices? According to recent statements by politicians the middle class tax payer should be happy to bear the extra burden. Why not? We have no power to refuse.

The rich and powerful simply steal what they want; the poor – to be blunt – beg for what they want. And both upper and lower classes are subsidized by the government. But the Middle Class – those of us who will never truly be rich and who work just enough not to be poor – must fend for ourselves. We are made to pull the wagons and pay the fare for the people who ride in them. Stand up philosopher George Carlin put it this way: “the upper class keeps all the money and pays none of the taxes; the middle class pays all of the taxes and does all of the work; and the poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class – keep them showing up at those JOBS.”

Am I making this up? Think about this – where do you keep whatever money you have? In the bank? in some investment fund? In real estate?  Who actually controls that money? Even self-directed investments are at the mercy of those who have set up the banks and trust companies in the first place. Those people take the lion’s share of the returns and brush the table scraps off in your direction. Then you take your meager earnings and spend it on products and services that benefit the bankers and their friends.

Look, I have nothing against money or even rich people. I can fully appreciate wanting to amass a few million dollars – even a few hundred million dollars – maybe even a few billion dollars. But I can’t understand why anyone would ruthlessly try to amass hundreds of billions of dollars. I mean, really, what can you do with it? Take over the world? It’s been done.

Even the Roman emperors – including the crazier ones – had enough good sense and decorum to use the money they accumulated to give the people free bread and circuses.

Recently, the president of the sinisterly named World Bank, Jin Yong Kim, said that there was a plan in place to eliminate poverty by the year 2030. Of course his definition of poverty is in itself is suspect. Poverty means people currently living on less than a dollar a day. This, of course, leaves out everyone in the so-called free world. But, unfortunately, it still represents over a billion people on our planet. Basically the generous World Bank, run supposedly, by the intellectual and moral elite, has a plan to give a half a loaf of bread a day to anyone without the capacity to beg, earn or steal a dollar. And it will take them 17 more years to put whatever this plan is into effect.

Thank you World Bank!

Maybe if we give them another 100 years to work on the problem they will figure out a way to give everyone the occasional free circus as well.

Oh and by the way, guess where they plan to get that extra dollar a day per person (plus administration fees) to fund their generous campaign? That’s right – it will be extracted from you and me – by force of taxation if necessary.

How do you battle against this world economic abuse of the middle class? Apparently we are told to use only the weapons and strategies sanctioned and provided to us by our enemies. Makes sense.

The Gov-Corp determines the rules of engagement, they choose the time, place and conditions of battle, they control the length of the fight, they provide us with the tools to participate in the contest and they even tell us who the winners and losers are predestined to be. Heads I win – tails you lose.

If the middle class is to survive it must come up with a more effective strategy. Gov-Corp will NEVER give us any effective methods to fight them.  We have to think like revolutionaries. We have to BECOME revolutionary in our approach. This is a difficult concept. So first we should shake ourselves out of the sleep walking state most of us are in. We have to wake up. We have to wake up anyway we can. We must wake ourselves up and then wake up everyone else. This is the only way we will have the chance and ability to develop a plan that will let us survive and thrive in the current materialistic world regime.

In honour of the Solstice, here’s a little posting about summer.

Science fiction author Robert Heinlein tells a true story about his cat that formed the basis for one of his best books.

He and his wife were living in a big house in Connecticut with their cat. The house had eleven doors – twelve counting the cat’s private door.

Every day, throughout spring and summer, the cat would go out to the yard and play. Mostly he would use his own door but sometimes, just to assert his authority, he would make one of the humans open a regular door for him. Eventually he knew all the doors and where they led and knew how to get people to open each of them. He was having a great summer.

But one day he went out his private door and saw snow on the ground. He came back into the house, visibly upset, and demanded that Heinlein should open another door for him. Again he saw the snow and came back in. Then he systematically badgered Heinlein into opening one door after another – each time seeing the snow and having the same reaction.

Finally Heinlein turned to his wife and said, “What’s up with this cat?”

Mrs. Heinlein studied the situation for a minute and then smiled. “He’s looking for the door into summer.”

I think we each have our own “Door into Summer” that we’re always looking for; a magical door that will take us back to happier times; a door to a place that will once again give us the feeling of love and contentment we might have had to leave behind. But this door might also take us to an unknown or future time when our lives can finally be complete; a time and place in which we can experience love, satisfaction, vitality, and total self-expression.

When we bustle about our regular lives we might forget about that door or think of it as some impossible dream. It’s easy to let ourselves get wrapped up in the cold, hard, so-called reality of life and accept that the long winter ahead is the only world we can ever know.

I think the door into summer is real. And like Heinlein’s cat, we should never give up trying to find it. We can step through this wonderful door whenever we are ready and there experience a life we can love. The trick is to understand what constitutes “summer” for us:  to understand what we are actually looking for when we step through that portal into the unknown.

Is the summer we seek just a season of frivolity and play? Or is it something more, something unconnected with physical conditions?

Summer is a time when we have passed through the youthful exuberance of spring and have become mature enough to appreciate a slow, sun filled life of active pursuits of our goals. A time we can see clearly, in the bright sunlight, what our lives can be. Summer is the time when we can prepare ourselves to undertake initiations into an even richer life to come – A life beyond the concern for the uncertainties of mere weather, where we are fully in control of our own actions and destiny.

How do we prepare ourselves for such a life?

First we must think about abandoning the urge to sleep-walk through our days. We must commit to waking up. We must wake up by whatever means we can find. Wake ourselves up and then wake up everyone around us. Only by becoming fully awake and enlightened can we appreciate all that our personal “door into summer” has to offer and experience an everlasting life of fulfillment.

Have a happy Solstice and a summer worth remembering.

Happiness is found in the awareness and acknowledgment of our DIVINE ASPECT. To the degree we can accept and consciously live from the presence of our own Inner Divinity we will have a true experience of happiness.  This happiness is the kind the mystics of old enjoyed, the beatific happiness of the saints, the bliss in the eternal Lotus. It is the source of all good in life, and it is ours by right – we have only to claim it.

Study this famous poem by Max Ehrmann and seek to apply to your life any part of it that seems good to you. Notice especially the last three verses.

DESIDERATA (Desired Things)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.  As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.  Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.  If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.  Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.  Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.  Especially, do not feign affection.  Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.  Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings.  Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.  Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.  And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.  Be careful.  Strive to be happy.

There are always possibilities available to us in life. Whatever the world throws at us, we should never lose hope. Our circumstances can change and improve if we just keep working at attaining our desires.

There’s an old Sufi legend about a man named Mullah Nasrudin. This wise old philosopher was once condemned to death for saying things that upset the local Shah.  When told of the sentence, Nasrudin immediately offered the Shah a proposition. He said, “Hold off the execution for a year and I will teach your horse how to fly.” The Shah was amused and intrigued. He thought about for only a minute and then agreed to the bargain.

Later, Nasrudin’s friend asked him if he really thought he could escape death with this crazy plan.

“Why not?” the wise man said. “A lot can happen in a year. Maybe there will be a revolution and a new government that’s more in tune with my thinking. Maybe there will be a foreign invasion and a new Shah will come to power.  Or, maybe the present Shah will up and die of natural causes or get poisoned. If that happens, then according to tradition, the new Shah will have to pardon all prisoners awaiting execution. And besides, my captors might get careless and I’ll be able to escape – I’ll always be looking for opportunities to do that.

“And finally, if no other possibilities manifest, maybe I actually CAN teach the damned horse to fly!”

A key element of the Sufi world view, expressed here by Nasrudin, is that each person is an incarnate part of God, with infinite possibilities to improve his or her circumstances and in the process improve the world.

“Maybe the damned horse can fly” is a Sufi proverb that points out it is always a mistake to abandon hope.

Looking around, it seems we are living in tumultuous times, in a world full of strife. It’s easy to see the bad and forget about all the good that is also around us. By keeping hope alive and always being on the lookout for opportunities and possibilities, we can work at moving forward in our lives and bring ourselves blissfully closer to our heart’s desire day by day.

Back in the 80’s I saw some graffiti that read “Eat the Rich!”

The words were very clearly written and everything was spelled correctly – not like today’s graffiti which is legible only to some strange, disenfranchised elite that requires no knowledge of spelling, grammar or penmanship to exist. To me, modern graffiti is more like the territorial markings of dogs rather than an attempt at communication. I could be wrong. I suppose dog pee is a form of communication.

Anyway, the phrase “eat the rich” is probably derived from a statement made by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He said something like – “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”

The sentiment was popular during many uprisings including the Russian “October Revolution,” and the Chinese “Cultural Revolution.” In these cases, the statement might have been acted upon:  Something for rich people to remember in our troubled times.

I can’t recall for sure if I saw the graffiti before or after the 1987 British movie by that name came out. The phrase might just have been a cool trope back then – I have not researched it.

I do recall that I disagreed with the statement. My response was – “we should eat the poor, there are so many more of them.” At the time I still thought I might be rich one day and I didn’t want the masses getting any ideas about putting me on the menu. I don’t know when I actually came to the realization that I would never actually be rich – not like Carlos Slim Helu or Bill Gates – not rich in any material sense – but one day I figured it out.

There’s a wonderful book by Kurt Vonnegut called God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater in which some concepts of riches are spelled out. In the story a son argues with his father about wealth and responsibility. The son begins:

I think it’s terrible the way people don’t share things in this country. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies. There’s plenty for everybody in this country, if we’d only share more.

“And just what do you think that would do to incentive?”

You mean fright about not getting enough to eat, about not being able to pay the doctor, about not being able to give your family nice clothes, a safe, cheerful, comfortable place to live, a decent education, and a few good times? You mean shame about not knowing where the Money River is?

“The what?”

The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts’ content. And we even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.

“Slurping lessons?”

From lawyers! From tax consultants! We’re born close enough to the river to drown ourselves and the next ten generations in wealth, simply using dippers and buckets. But we still hire the experts to teach us the use of aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, siphons, bucket brigades, and the Archimedes’ screw. And our teachers in turn become rich, and their children become buyers of lessons in slurping.

“It’s still possible for an American to make a fortune on his own.”

Sure—provided somebody tells him when he’s young enough that there is a Money River, that there’s nothing fair about it, that he had damn well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all that crap, and get to where the river is. ‘Go where the rich and powerful are,’ I’d tell him, ‘and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You’ll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.’

When I first read this I thought – “Vonnegut’s a hippy.”

Later I came to realize he was probably correct. Only a few people in the world have access to the Money River. Most of us will never see it. And some rich people are closer to the river than others.

There are three classes of rich people: first there are the truly rich, the generational wealthy, people who have been adding to and accumulating their money over hundreds of years. These people keep their names off the Forbes lists of wealthy folk – the common people don’t need to know about them. They are above all governments and law and pay no attention to the billions of humans they habitually exploit.

Next, there are the mid-level rich. These are the people that like to see their names on the Forbes Lists. They are the ones we hear about most often. For the most part they are greedy, unscrupulous, money grubbing, self-serving pricks – but they also fund art exhibits, hospitals, schools, orphanages and other charities so they have some usefulness.

Finally there are the upstart nouveau riche class that everyone despises – rich and poor alike. They are ambitious, overreaching and desperate to be accepted – but their vulgarity keeps them out of real society. These are the loud slurpers of which Vonnegut speaks. This class ruthlessly plays the game of “Hog at the Trough.” They force their way to the food trough and cram their faces and bellies full of everything they can until someone stronger and more ruthless pushes them out of the way. They cause all the public financial problems in the world because they are stupid enough to want attention. But when the poor rise up, these are the people who will be eaten.

Clearly, if you look at the state of world, it is not the poor who create financial insecurity and social unrest – the poor have no such power. It is the rich that create conflict for the furtherance of their plutocratic agenda. The rich control the governments and own the military – it is not possible to blame any other class for the troubles of the world. The blame rests squarely at the feet of the rich and the corrupt politicians that worship at the shrine of their backsides.

Why do the masses tolerate this situation? It’s simple – most of the population is sleepwalkers just waiting to become zombies. They are sluggish, desensitized and delirious. When on those rare occasions the people are stirred to action what do they do? They ask the rich to help them fight the rich. This is craziness. This is why whenever a reigning plutocracy is deposed it just gets replaced by another one.

The solution is to give up fighting using weapons and tactics donated to us by our enemy. We need new weapons – weapons the enemy cannot overcome.

How do we develop such weapons? First we have to WAKE UP. Wake up using any means available. We must wake ourselves up and then wake up everyone else. This is the only way to save the world from the zombie slave state those ambitious few dream of ruling.