AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

Personal appeal on behalf of the universal, long term and immediate to participate in events today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and the days after that.

October 21, 2011 No Comments

Dear Friends New and Old, Family, Artists & Poets…

On behalf of the spirit of compassion, kindness, unity (yet with infinite individual voices), I ask for your help (via direct participation, spreading the word, and/or thinking and meditating) on three events pertaining to two seemingly distinct movements:

1) The Climate Issue, especially at this moment the Keystone XL Pipeline(stopping the building of and very soon, the extraction of oil from tar sands).March and Rally Sunday, 1 pm, starting at CSU.

And please, there’s this event Monday from 6-9 pm near Case Western to help people understand nonviolent civil disobedience (the event Sunday probably does not involve civil disobedience). Even if not planning civil disobedience in the future, if you have a friend or family member who might be, this training is useful because people who do participate in civil disobedience benefit from having help if they are incarcerated.

2) The #OccupyCleveland movement today and/or tonight, Friday, Oct. 21.

Please Occupy Today and/or Tonight. Occuping Tonight helps, as the “permit” for using Public Space is being expired by people who have no actual authority to expire it, as all space is Public Space, particularly Public Square. There is a group of overnight occupiers who need our support as there is the possibility that they might be arrested tonight for civil disobedience. Main events start at 1 p.m. and include food, music, and speakers. At 10 p.m. the curfew at Public Square starts.

And if you are not able to Occupy Public Square tonight (like me), then Occupy Today. And if you are not able to be seemingly physically present in Public Square today, please spread Word. And if you are too shy to spread Word, please think kindly about everyone on the planet.

A value of the Occupy Movement is that it tends to maintain a visible, persistent presence of concern. The people who are actively participating in this presence ask for time and for consideration of the complexity of this unity in which we live. I ask on behalf of you as my friends and acquaintances to please understand that we who identify immediately with the Occupy Movement and who are working for it are working with two main ideals of process which might seem to at first to be opposing poles. The two main ideals of process are individuality and unity. The end results desired are happiness, health and sanity. The intermediate vista involves as much kindness as possible while grappling with complexity and seeming contradictions, such as how does one deal with the concepts of unity and class consciousness simultaneously. The bounds are time and practical deadlines of effective thresholds with respect to particular tangible issues the movement can help.

Fundamentally, at a scientific level, all this that “you” see before you is unity–buzzing unity

We can see ourselves not only as margins, but as centers. We are each at the center of a canvas. We are the centers. We are the center of a moving canvas. Our skins are illusions which trap identity temporarily. Skin is just a focal point for movement of temporary persistence. Fundamentally, we are very much interconnected, very much one. Even if talking about spirituality makes one nervous, one must admit that the human animal is a bundle that extends into the air, into the water, that the human bundle is not so much a bundle as a smear of leaf in rain. That the smear is a pigment dot in a pixelist painting. That the smear is related to all the other smears. That if one opens ears and sees with eyes and remembers and perceives, one can see that the wind of sentiment is a universal wind with currents and eddies and turbulence–or maybe even a river. Many metaphors apply.

Having said all this shtuff, I feel that it is our very real responsibility to deal with the news that a person might have been raped by another person while staying overnight last Saturday night.

I believe in the ideal of truth and transparency, and I believe in full disclosure to an ethical threshold based on faith and reason.

I also believe in appealing to a greater understanding of complexity and human frailty.

I ask for compassion and help.

I ask for compassion and help and I have witnessed much compassion on the part of people who are participating daily and nightly in the Occupy Cleveland movement. I visit the overnighters every morning to bring hot water and sometimes food, and to get news for the daily digest as best I can given the complexities of humans.

I’ve witnessed overnight occupiers give homeless people shelter under the main tent so that homeless people can get out of the wind. I’ve witnessed overnight occupiers helping homeless be part of the movement and regain responsibility and participation.

Tonight is Robert Ritchie a.k.a. Dickhead’s celebration of life service. Smith and I are attending. Robert Ritchie was a friend of Daniel Thompson. Daniel Thompson was intimately involved in humanitarian issues and grappled with complexity. There are metaphors that apply to this situation–some themes: involvement, passion, heart, complexity and simplicity, and life and death. LIVE!

I ask you all, poets and artists, to be part of this movement in a very tangible way. LIVE!

Poets and artists are part of the divine, and a tradition of the divine, and a tradition of being carrier waves and ways of change. Be part of this voice and action, and understand it, and grapple with complexity. LIVE!

This is my personal appeal on behalf of the universal and immediate.

Peace and much love,

Lady

MOVING ON THROUGH THE NINETY-NINE POINTS OF LIGHT

October 14, 2011 No Comments

Moving on doesn’t mean moving away,
‘cept from apathay
‘cept from moving up
Moving on is lateral
Moving on is not up or down
Moving on is like being in this plane where you found
you had no retirement savings,
suddenly.

Moving on is like you woke up out of this
dream where you had your sofa and your van
and your mortgage and your busy kid life

Moving on is like you woke up out of this dream
and you found yourself skimmed
skinned
blood in the mud
all that comfort you thought you had
all that comfort that was something for you
that dental plan
the perfect teeth
the skin problems, treated

And then they sold this, they sold that

They sold this and that and told you it was
all for jobs and progress and global stuff
like 99 points of light

They sell this and they sell that and they say
oh, it’s all free trade, they thinking
oh maybe we’ll think it’s fair trade they’re talking
about like those expensive but ethical chocolate bars
in the checkout line we you dare
to care…

Fair, free? Freedom, liberty?

What?

Who are “they,” anyways?

They are “them.”

They are them, sure, that 1% with mouthpieces
They are them, sure, that 1% who’ve equipped
our sons with guns

They are them, sure, that 1%

Where are they in their fine houses with
their long driveways and shaded yards
quiet living room after living room
with all these cabinets
with all this glass
with all these things
but no one is living in the living rooms
except for people who clean them from
time to time and maybe little collections
of dogs who shit on the carpets.

Them and Us, Us and Them. And, is the thing.
And, is the thing and it’s like glue.
Without us, no them.
Without them, no us?

Hm.

99% plus 1% equals 100%.
53% plus 25% plus 22% plus 1% equals 100%.

100% – 1% = 99% but that would be 100% again.
100% – 53% = 47%, which still equals 100%.
100% – 25% = 75%, which still equals 100%.

The math of violence.

100% can equal 1% distilled and detoxed.
This country needs a colonoscopy, doc!
This country needs a vegan diet, doc!

What is the one hundred percent?
The one hundred percent is ONE.
The one hundred percent is a vessel
The one hundred percent is a vessel that contains
ninety-nine percent and one percent
The one percent swishes around in the ninety-nine percent
The one percent swishes around in the ninety-nine percent
and becomes saturated with the ninety-nine percent
The sentiment of the ninety-nine percent,
so I hear,
at this point,
is 53% plus some 25% plus some 21%
This equals ninety-nine percent

And there is the ingredient of the broad swath of opinion
in the sentiment of this ninety-nine percent
It’s not, “this too shall pass.”
The sentiment of the ingredient of the broad swath of opinion
of this 53% plus some 25% plus some 21% is
“We cannot bear this anymore.”

We cannot bear this anymore
like that movie title “Something’s gotta give”
Something’s gotta give doesn’t mean giving up
Giving up gave up a long time ago
Giving up gave up and got up
Giving up gave up, got up, and is moving around
Giving up had a position which was flat on the ground
Giving up said, “What? I’m still here?”
And it saw that it was on the ground.
And giving up saw it needed to eat and drink
and got up and started moving around.

Giving up gave up while got got more
Got got more until there was no more got to be get
Got to be get was got by the ones who could no longer be bought
by the ones who were skimmed by their chins
and when there was no more left to trim
when austerity made even them, thin
when rice was no longer an option
when mud became the option
Giving up found itself in the mud
Giving up found itself in the mud in the position
which was flat on the ground
and Giving up said, “What? I’m still here?”
And Giving up got up and saw that it needed to eat and dring
and Giving up got up and started moving on.

Moving on never moved away, moving on stayed.
Moving on is a solution that works within
the vessel within which it whishes,
within which it is contained,
within which is is captured,
within which it is occupied.

It is occupied by virtue of being.

It is occupied by virtue of being 100%
no matter what

Because trimmed here and there
it is still 100%

It is always 100%

We the 99% and we the 1%
are the hundred percent.
We are the one hundred percent.
We are the one hundred percent.
We are whole.
We are ONE.

Lady

Letter to the Universe: Ironboltbruce and the 15 Issues of the Occupy Movement

October 9, 2011 No Comments

This is a reposting of information compiled by ironboltbruce (he said anyone can repost). He’s mentioned this list of 15 issues that the Occupy Movement has created and has had a creative, personalized take on each of the issues. Am very glad to see this kind of thinking and would like us to think locally in addition to nationally and globally. So I’d like to create my own take on the issues following his example (coming soon). But meanwhile, here’s what he’s said:

The steering committee of the “October 2011 Movement” – the patriots presently occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington DC – published a summary of the 15 issues which are the focus of their protest here:

http://october2011.org/issues

ISSUE #1. “Corporatism – firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations.”

Article: Corporatism: “Sold Glory”, the U.S. Flag After Citizens United v. FEC (g1a2d0009c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-corporatism
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Sold_Glory.jpg
Video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169/the-corporation

ISSUE #2. “Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible held accountable under international law.”

Article: Wars & Militarism: The Real Cause of the Debt Crisis (g1a2d0006c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-wars
Image: http://ironboltbruce.files.wordpress.co … doggle.jpg
Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid … 421983682#

ISSUE #3. “Human Rights – end exploitation of people in the US and abroad, end discrimination in all forms, equal civil rights and due process for all people.”

Article: Human Rights: No Flame Burns Hotter Than A Human Torch (g1a2d0012c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-humanrights
Image: http://images.democracyreview.com/Tunis … uazizi.png
Video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/151119/the-end-of-poverty

ISSUE #4. “Worker Rights and jobs – all working-age people have the right to safe, just, non-discriminatory and dignified working conditions, a sustainable living wage, paid leave and economic protection.”

Article: U.S. Corporations Firing At Home While Hiring Abroad (g1a2d0016c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-jobs
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … n_Jobs.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2em1x2j9-o

ISSUE #5. “Government – all processes of the three branches of government should be accountable to international law, transparent and follow the rule of law, people have the right to participate in decisions which affect them.”

Article: Government: The Kleptocracy and You (g1a2d0007c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-government
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … nd_You.jpg
Video: http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/

ISSUE #6. “Elections – all citizens 18 and older have the right to vote without barriers, all candidates have the right to be heard and to run and all votes should be counted.”

Article: Elections: Vote All You Want. The Flight Plan Doesn’t Change. (g1a2d0011c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-elections
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … e_bird.jpg
Video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/177439/peace

ISSUE #7. “Criminal justice and prisons – end private for-profit prisons, adopt evidence-based drug policy, prisoners have the right to humane and just conditions with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, abolish the death penalty.”

Article: Prison for Profit: CCA, GEO et al Put Revenues Ahead of Rehabilitation (g1a2d0018c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-prisons
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … omplex.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHVu4ZD9XQE

ISSUE #8. “Healthcare – create a national, universal and publicly financed comprehensive health system.”

Article: Healthcare in America: Who’s Paying Who? And Who’s Getting What? (g1a2d0014c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-healthcare
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Big_Pharma.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKP_ISD3rvQ

ISSUE #9. “Education – all people have the right to a high quality, publicly-funded and broad education from pre-school through vocational training or university.”

Article: Students Drown in Debt as Predatory Lenders Bank Billions (g1a2d0017c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-education
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … ending.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE

ISSUE #10. “Housing – all people have the right to affordable and safe housing.”

Article: HAMP Disaster Shows U.S. Treasury is “Fully Captured by the Big Banks” (g1a2d0021c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-housing
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … schild.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

ISSUE #11. “Environment – adopt policies which effectively create a carbon-free and radio-active free energy economy and that respects the rights of nature.”

Article: The General Electric Company (“GE”): Misinformation at Work (g1a2d0020c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-environment
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … t_Work.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0khstYDLA

ISSUE #12. “Finance and the economy – end policies which foster a wealth divide and move to a localized and democratic financial system, reform taxes so that they are progressive and provide goods, monetary gain and services for the people.”

Article: Finance & The Economy: A Kleptocracy Tutorial Video in 12 Parts (g1a2d0008c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-finance
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … System.gif
Video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/235716/trading-on-thin-air

ISSUE #13. “Media – airwaves and the internet are public goods, require that media be honest, accurate and accountable to the people.”

Article: Media: Only Part of What We See is Real, Only Part of What is Real We See (g1a2d0010c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-media
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Psywar.jpg
Video: http://www.openfilm.com/videos/psywar

ISSUE #14. “Food and water – create systems that protect the land and water, create local and sustainable food networks and practices.”

Article: Mighty Monsanto, King Corn & The End of Family Farms (g1a2d0015c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-food
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Monsanto.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4OwBYDQe8

ISSUE #15. “Transportation – provide affordable, clean and convenient public transportation and safe spaces for pedestrian and non-automobile travel.”

Article: Gasholes: Every Oil Shortage/Crisis/War Could Have Been Averted (g1a2d0019c1)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ironboltbruce-transportation
Image: http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/Gashole.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVzJhlvtDms

###

LABELS (A POEM OF PROTEST)

“Democrat”, “Republican”,
The parties of the system;
Puppets both, for sale their votes,
No character or wisdom.

“Liberal”, “Conservative”,
For change or status quo?
Pick either one, the change is none,
All charlatans and whores.

Far “Left” we place the Anarchists,
Libertarians claim far “Right”;
Yet both decry the government:
False continuum brought to light.

For oil, “We” bomb their mud huts,
Strip them bare, then offer “Aid”;
And fake their retribution as
Pretext–a false flag raised.

Unarmed hundred thousands killed
By weapons of “Defense”,
While rights are lost for “Freedom” sake–
On profit, all depends.

With stroke of pen, the “Patriot” Act,
And patriots’ gifts are taken;
Then “Citizens United” leaves
Our citizens forsaken.

We protest loss of liberties,
Put “World Wide Web” to use;
Cloudmark Authority censors us
For “messaging abuse”.

They label us to finger-point,
With labels, “They” deride us;
Their labels keep us all at bay,
For with labels, “They” divide us.

IronBoltBruce

###

JOIN THE GLOBAL REVOLUTION!

Occupy Wall Street:

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

https://occupywallst.org/

Occupy DC:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/october2011

http://october2011.org/

Occupy LA:

http://www.livestream.com/owslosangeles

http://occupylosangeles.org/

Occupy Together:

http://occupytogether.org/

Watch these Videos:

http://tinyurl.com/kleptocracytutorial

Take this Pledge:

http://wp.me/p19dS3-9o

View this Image:

http://ldrlongdistancerider.com/images/ … yranny.jpg

###

PUBLIC NOTICE: No talking heads on Comcast/GE’s NBC/CNBC/MSNBC speak for us. No talking heads on Murdoch’s Faux News speak for us. No talking heads at the Kleptocracy’s Compliant News Network (CNN) speak for us (no matter how dull, deliberate or subtle their delivery). No talking heads in the lamestream media speak for us, period. And neither do ANY of the 537 bought-and-paid-for Kleptocracy puppets in Washington DC who will soon be joining our legions of unemployed!

Letter to Senator Portman RE Supercommittee Co-Chair Defense Industry Award

October 6, 2011 No Comments

Dear Senator Portman:

I’ve just read an article that says Patty Murray, a Supercommittee Co-Chair, received an award from the Defense Industry. As she is partially responsible for the Supercommittee’s recommendations, I find this a bit disturbing and it would seem to lend an air of partiality on her part to the Defense Industry.

I ask you to please help make recommendations for cuts to defense spending rather than cutting discretionary spending, and please encourage your supercommittee members to do the same, especially Patty Murray and John Kyl.

Thank you!

Lady

(Article Reference: Supercommittee Co-Chair Patty Murray Accepts Award from Defense Industry As She Mulls Cuts To Pentagon Budget)

 

Contacting Senator Portman

One can email Senator Portman here…

His Cleveland-area office number is 216-522-7095 and his D.C. number is 202-224-3353.

. . .

Other news:

#OccupyCleveland welcomes people to take part in a march from the Cleveland Free Stamp (Willard Park) to Public Square today at noon. This is in support of the ideas surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement:

We are the 99%. We are the Americans who wake up every day and go to work in the worst economy since the Great Depression. We have witnessed the slow erosion of America and it’s promises of equal opportunity and equal rights under law. Individuals and corporations whose extraordinary wealth ordinary citizens cannot even begin to comprehend have abused their positions in society and have shown through their actions a complete disregard for the welfare, safety, and stability of their fellow citizens throughout the United States.

Our city, Cleveland, has seen the effects of this disregard. Our factories are closed because their owners would rather draw their labor from brutalized populations living under dictatorships halfway across the world than pay an American a fair wage for a fair day’s work. Our neighborhoods are crumbling as banks file foreclosures on the same sub-prime mortgages they offered with full knowledge to people who could not afford them. Using legal smoke and mirrors these institutions have sought to avoid any accountability for their negligence, fraud, and unethical behavior.

–Occupy Cleveland Press Release, Oct. 3

Anwar al-Awlaki

October 3, 2011 No Comments

Dear President Obama:

I am upset that Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, was targeted and killed by a drone strike.

I am upset that due process was not followed, and I can not understand how you, a liberal, compassionate man, can let “Realpolik” dictate your actions to this extent such that you seem very much like the previous administration with its war-mongering ways.

Please find your heart and compass and restore meaning to the concept of “hope” on which you campaigned. This is why I voted for you.

Thank you,

Lady

For your convenience, here’s a link to the White House’s contact page. You can also call the White House to comment at 202-456-1111.

House Un-American Blues Activity Dream by Richard & Mimi Farina

September 26, 2011 No Comments

Be courteous – foto by Smith

House Un-American Blues Activity Dream
by Richard & Mimi Farina (Joan Baez’s sister)
1966.
http://youtu.be/depA109-kzA

Why does the sign always say Rite-Aid?
Maybe I wanna go to Wrong-Aid for once.


Bummer bumper – foto by Smith

Odds – 30 to none

September 18, 2011 3 Comments

Universal Declaration of Human Rights – foto by Smith

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

(I’m going to have to come up with a sneaky snappy title for the blog or else no one will even stop by.)

~ ~ ~

These 30 articles (which I’ve posted below) written by fair, thoughtful, moral humans 63 years ago enumerating the universal rights of every single person on earth seem intuitive, logical and self-evident.

Unfortunately I cannot think of a single government or corporation who honor them in spirit or deed.

These words are also serious and numerous without any laugh tracks or applause signs or mind-candy graphics, which means most who need these protections will not read them because they shy from the educative since it is boring.

Too many of us look up the class money chain and salivate with envy while looking down the money class chain with contempt and disgust.

We forget we’re all human, all portions of the great all . . . whatever affects a single human or animal or any portion of the planet affects everything we have and are as well as the very ground upon which we live and the ecosystem from which we seek substance and shelter.

Seems to me we’re all pissing upstream and then complaining about the taste and color of the water we drink downstream.

In the long run, doing right is better for the planet, better for each of us, and actually cheaper over the long haul.

Plus if there is an after-life called Heaven and Hell, most of us are seriously Hell-fluxed for the greedy thoughtless selfish ways we’ve lived, thought and taught because far too many of us accept this current “is” over possible “could” and moral “should”. After all, the “would” IS up to us.

~ ~ ~

ARTICLE 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

ARTICLE 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

ARTICLE 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

ARTICLE 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

ARTICLE 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

ARTICLE 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

ARTICLE 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

ARTICLE 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

ARTICLE 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

ARTICLE 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

ARTICLE 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

ARTICLE 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

ARTICLE 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

ARTICLE 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

ARTICLE 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

ARTICLE 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

ARTICLE 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

ARTICLE 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

ARTICLE 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

ARTICLE 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

ARTICLE 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

ARTICLE 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

ARTICLE 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

ARTICLE 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

ARTICLE 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

ARTICLE 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

ARTICLE 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

ARTICLE 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

ARTICLE 29.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

ARTICLE 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.


Lady confronts Capitalism – foto by Smith

No 9-1-1 for me please, I’m on the wagon

September 11, 2011 3 Comments

Abolish death – foto by Smith

Ten years ago when I first watched the hijackers crash two airplanes into the World Trade Center Towers, my first response was awe at how people with no army, no money, no war equipment and few soldiers had turned the might of the mightiest military power on the planet against itself by simply using our own commercial airplanes to attack one of the world’s biggest symbols of capitalism.

I’m not forgetting or forgiving their murder of almost 3.000 civilians. Killing civilians is an abomination no matter who does it and is to be condemned whether done by terrorists, drug dealers, armies, nations, world organizations, corporations, the police, or legalized prison executioners.

But their terrorist tactics themselves were brilliant. Now I know this kind of thinking is not going to read well with the corporate-news fed, but if the situation were reversed and we’d successfully attacked the world’s biggest arms supplier terrorist nation who had been bombing our civilians, we’d be making movies and hit records about it.

Fact is, since 1950, the USA has been the major aggressor in the world — we’ve continuously bombed and invaded sovereign nations without declaring war, we’ve assassinated other country’s leaders, we’ve kidnapped citizens of foreign countries and tortured them, we’ve fomented coups, we’ve declared illegal embargoes on entire nations and killed half a million children in the process.

The USA is the biggest maker and seller of weapons of mass destruction in the world; ipso facto, we’re the largest terrorist organization. And yet our defense budget is bigger than the rest of the world’s defense budgets combined.

Recent government cables revealed U.S. soldiers in Iraq handcuffed 10 citizens — a 70 year old woman, a 5 month baby, 4 toddlers under 5 and 4 civilians — then shot them in the head and called down an air strike to destroy evidence of their actions. The Iraqi government complained and we ignored them.

If other countries did this to us, we’d fight back. So I understand why we were attacked — it was simple retribution for all the brown-red-yellow-black-skinned people we have killed and are still killing around the world ever since we moved to North America and started in on the Indians and the Mexicans.

The bad joke here is fewer than 3,000 Americans died in the towers . . . George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have killed more than 3,000 Americans in their retaliation, not to mention murdering over one million Iraqi civilians which is exceptionally perverse because Iraq had nothing to do with either 9-1-1 or weapons of mass destruction.

Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Gonzalez, Yoo, Rice, Tenant and scores more should be on trial right now for torture and war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead most of them are on book tours raking in big bucks and yucks.

As for me, the sound of Americans cheering the deaths of yellow-brown-red-black skinned people causes unpleasant tension between what I see and what I was taught to believe we stood for as a people. Christians who kill and then strut in blood step bragging strike me as somewhat hypocritical.

You know, for a book whose main tenant is Thou Shalt Not Kill, there’s certainly a lot of blood shed under its aegis.


No flag is worth it – foto by Smith

Peek-a-boogieman

September 8, 2011 1 Comment

The uneven line twixt right and wrong – foto by Smith

I played a Youtube video and an ad appeared offering me lawyers to handle a bad hip replacement. Just exactly how does Youtube know I got a hip replacement four months ago?

I click on a restricted movie trailer ad which asks when I was born and I lie and it tells me sorry, no such person exists in your zip code with that birth date. How does a movie mogul know my address and age without me telling them my name?

Think about it – they know who you are, where you live, your sex and age, most your interests and friends, and pretty much everything you’ve purchased lately . . . and they know it IMMEDIATELY. They don’t have to go search a data base after you type in your birth date because as soon as you sign on, they tag you, link to your database entry, follow you every click you make on every page you view — all in real time. And they do this simultaneously with millions, perhaps billions of people EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF THE DAY WITH ALL OF US AT THE SAME TIME.

The commercial hardware and interconnected linkage required boggles my mind but what really blows me away is the software programming involved — first, how do they know it’s me when I sign on? Isn’t that invasion of privacy? I mean, I know they can track my IP address which according to the internet “can often be used to identify the region or country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet. An IP address can sometimes be used to show the user’s general location.” But we have two computers here on one cable port — just how do the hip replacement advertisers know it’s me and not my wife signing on?

There are a lot of laws protecting our privacy, and I don’t believe the computer people or the bankers or the ad agencies or any government agency is obeying a single one of them. They know who you are, your health-medical-financial-purchasing history, and probably what time you get up and how long it takes you to brush your teeth. And if you blog, they keep a record of keywords in case you’re either a potential future customer or terrorist. In a 1994 interview, Mark Weber asked me, “*Do the walls have ears?” “Not as many as the TV and the telephone. If you come to THEIR attention, you’re dead meat.” I replied.

Our Government and our Corporations are pretty much one and the same thing — law-breaking, spying, thieving, bullying thugs in bed together licking each other in ecstasy as they roll abound in the illegal data they’ve siphoned from us in their never ending hope of sucking up all our money and killing every single anti-authoritarian thought we might have.

These people are not nice, not moral, do not have any interest in our best interests, care for nothing but the stench of raw unbridled power and the stink of mooooooore money, too much money, money on top of money, money fluxing money most foul, and all the useless shallow surface stuff it can buy.

Of course bottom line this 1984 Big Brother and BIGGER CORPORATIONS world we live in is not going to go away or get better or ever become a lawful endeavor because the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. The only hope for folk now is to be born out of a hospital and spend the rest of their life off the grid — no registering for school, electricity, voting, credit cards, insurance, magazine subscriptions – no IRS or Medicare or Social Security . . . and even if you can pull that off, they’re still going to capture your face in their data base with their biometric and face-capturing software via the millions of surveillance and secret cameras hung everywhere in stores, banks, on streets, etc. . . . and once your face is theirs and they see no official government tags attached, they’ll slap you in a special interest file and track you down and eat you just for practice.

Welcome to the new world, much stickier wicket than the old world.

On a lighter note, what do we the consumer people know? My cell fone just rang. I replied with a cheery Hello. Long pause until a polite middle-aged woman said cautiously, “Is this K-Mart?” “No,” I replied, laughing joyously, “it’s not.” She apologized sweetly and I left her with a chuckling “No problem.” Then I sat and laughed, glad I wasn’t K-mart, glad she was so nice, glad I was gentle, and hopeful my morning laughter NOT at her expense rides with her throughout the rest of the day making her just a wee bit happier . . . because if that happens, my joyous laughter raising her sprits could spread a little extra lightness to whomever she interacts with the rest of the day. After all, we’re all ripples on the cosmic pool.

The Corporate Mean

The promised land of milk and honey
Hides the men of scars and shame
Who came they say to slay their dragon
Yet slayed to stay the same

Sleep creeps like Jason’s wool
Down shelf enchanted eyes
Devolved from Mammon’s muse
These self selected wise
Inside their phantom rooms
In fairy tale castles
Devoid of viable dooms
As integrated assholes
They sway
Illusion’s lies

— Smith, 1974


Performance ratings – foto by Smith

Democratic stuff

June 28, 2011 No Comments

Democratic stuff – foto by Smith

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffett, billionaire

There’s been an ever-increasing fundamental lack of morality and fair play in America that has exponentially worsened these past 50 years, what with the top 1% of the population owning 40% of all the money and CEOs making $500 for each $1 a worker gets.

Our country’s infrastructure — bridges, sewers. waterways, roads — is crumbling and this theft of wealth is destroying the psyche of the bottom 99% of Americans. If something isn’t done soon, it’s going to lead to the poor taking up arms and reclaiming what’s due from the rich via blood and bullets.

If we’d just tax the rich, make the corporations pay their fair share, and cut the defense budget in half, we’d have more than enough money to put our unemployed to work fixing our infrastructure, give all Americans health care coverage, pay for proper education for all, and have money left over to reduce our debt.

This ain’t rocket science folks, so what’s the problem — you do well in this country, you need to do right by this country. It is scum-sucking bottom-feeder cowardly to take and not pay your fair share.

It is pure criminal the way the wealthiest 1% and the corporations steal from us all and kill the planet in the process. We need to seize their assets and jail them for theft, treason, and crimes against humanity.

Past Lies and Poverty

Old wonders shrink, grow tame in time
The new fear hangs on
In quiet desperation, quit of desire
Like the shadow of a crowded
Culture in which each
Declare their innocence
In straight unfocused silence

It is there
The smell of unwashed
Dishes smug in the stench of our
Unclean shame
Like a salesman’s under breath
Fishy, stale
The deep teal, the tiled resonance

Of hungers on top of hungers

— Smith, 1985

“In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Today CEOs make $90 for every $1 the average worker makes. But if you incorporate CEO benefits, stock options, perks and bonuses, today CEOs make $500 for each $1 the average worker gets.” — from “The Richest 1% Have Captured America’s Wealth — What’s It Going to Take to Get It Back? The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis — and it’s gotten even worse“. — February 17, 2010 . . . this is part II of David DeGraw’s report, “The Economic Elite vs. People of the USA.” alternet.org/economy/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_america%27s_wealth_–_what%27s_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back.

“The Wealth Distribution – In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.” — sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html.


The land of the greed, the home of the grave – foto by Smith