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	<title>reflections on the transition</title>
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		<title>Nic Marks: The Happy Planet Index</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=275</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=275#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:53:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Ya</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=273</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=273#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:47:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[“Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, love more and all good things will be yours.” Swedish proverb]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>“Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, love more and all good things will be yours.”</p>
<p>Swedish proverb</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>And the most inspiring good news story of the year is&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=270</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=270#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:44:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Are you aware of the real costs of your electronics? Capitalism as it exists today externalizes far more than most people realize. This article moved me immensely from the perspective that even the &#8220;profit at any cost&#8221; Chinese business model is crumbling. An excerpt: Last year, the Chinese dictatorship was so panicked by the widespread [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Are you aware of the real costs of your electronics? Capitalism as it exists today externalizes far more than most people realize. <a title="The good news story of the year..." href="http://www.johannhari.com/2010/08/06/and-the-mist-inspiring-good-news-story-of-the-year-is" target="_blank">This article</a> moved me immensely from the perspective that even the &#8220;profit at any cost&#8221; Chinese business model is crumbling. An excerpt:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Last year, the Chinese dictatorship was so panicked by the widespread uprisings that <a href="http://johannhari.com/2010/06/14/we-shop-until-chinese-workers-drop" target="_hplink">they prepared an extraordinary step forward. </a>They  drafted a new labor law that would allow workers to form and elect  their own trade unions. It would plant seeds of democracy across China&#8217;s  workplaces. <a href="http://www.fpif.org/articles/labor_rights_in_china" target="_hplink">Western corporations lobbied very hard against it</a>,  saying it would create a &#8220;negative investment environment&#8221; &#8211; by which  they mean smaller profits. Western governments obediently backed the  corporations and opposed freedom and democracy for Chinese workers. So  the law was whittled down and democracy stripped out.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">It wasn&#8217;t enough. This year Chinese workers have risen even harder to  demand a fair share of the prosperity they create. Now company after  company is making massive concessions: pay rises of over 60 percent are  being conceded. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/china-strikes-honda-workers-rights" target="_hplink">Even  more crucially, officials in Guandong province, the manufacturing  heartland of the country, have announced they are seriously considering  allowing workers to elect their own representatives to carry out  collective bargaining after all. </a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Just like last time, Western corporations and governments are  lobbying frantically against this &#8211; and to keep the millions of Yan Lis  stuck at their assembly lines into the 35th hour.</p>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Anthropocentrism is a fatal disease</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=267</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=267#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:56:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nature]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The weather has been especially weird across the globe this year, including the Bay Area, which has seen exceptionally cool temperatures. That is, until the last two days, where it&#8217;s exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit / 38 degrees centigrade. While checking the forecast at Wunderground, I noticed this blog entry, but particularly the following: Palestine records [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The weather has been especially weird across the globe this year, including the Bay Area, which has seen exceptionally cool temperatures. That is, until the last two days, where it&#8217;s exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit / 38 degrees centigrade. While checking the forecast at Wunderground, I noticed <a title="Not as hot as it soon will be..." href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1585" target="_blank">this blog entry</a>, but particularly the following:</p>
<p><strong><big>Palestine records its hottest temperature in history</big></strong><br />
The <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine" target="_blank">State of Palestine</a>,  the portion of the territories occupied by Israel that declared  independence in 1988, recorded its hottest temperature since record  keeping began on August 7, 2010, when the temperature hit 51.4°C  (124.5°F) at Kibbutz Almog (also called Qalya or Kalya) in the Jordan  Valley. The previous record for Palestine was set on June 22, 1942, at  the same location.</p>
<p>Palestine was the 4th nation to set an  all-time hottest temperature in history record this month, and the 18th  to set such a record this year. There has also been one nation (Guinea)  that set an all-time coldest temperature in history record this year.  Note that many countries, including the U.S., do not recognize Palestine  as a nation, though 110 countries do recognize it. Here&#8217;s the updated  list of nations or semi-independent islands or territories that have set  all-time heat or cold records this year:</p>
<p><strong><big>National heat records set in 2010</big></strong><br />
<strong>Palestine</strong>,  the portion of the territories occupied by Israel that declared  independence in 1988, recorded its hottest temperature since record  keeping began on August 7, 2010, when the temperature hit 51.4°C  (124.5°F) at Kibbutz Almog (also called Qalya or Kalya) in the Jordan  Valley. The previous record for Palestine was set on June 22, 1942, at  the same location.</p>
<p><strong>Belarus</strong> recorded its hottest temperature in its history on August 6, 2010, when the mercury hit 38.7°C (101.7°F) in <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?lang=en&amp;ind=26774&amp;ano=2010&amp;mes=8&amp;day=6&amp;hora=18&amp;min=0&amp;ndays=30" target="_blank">Gorky.</a> The previous record was 38.0°C (100.4°F) set at Vasiliyevichy on Aug. 20, 1946.</p>
<p><strong>Ukraine</strong> tied its record for hottest temperature in its history when the mercury  hit 41.3°C (106.3°F) at Lukhansk on August 1, 2010. Ukraine also  reached 41.3°C on July 20 and 21, 2007, at Voznesensk.</p>
<p><strong>Cyprus</strong> recorded its hottest temperature in its history on August 1, 2010 when the mercury hit 46.6°C (115.9°F) at <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?lang=en&amp;ind=17515&amp;ndays=30&amp;ano=2010&amp;mes=08&amp;day=01&amp;hora=18&amp;ord=REV&amp;Send=Send" target="_blank">Lefconica</a>.  The old record for Cyprus was 44.4°C (111.9°F) at Lefkosia in August  1956. An older record of 46.6°C from July 1888 was reported from  Nicosia, but is of questionable reliability.</p>
<p><strong>Finland</strong> recorded its hottest temperature on July 29, 2010, when the mercury hit  99°F (37.2°C) at Joensuu. The old (undisputed) record was 95°F (35°C) at  Jyvaskyla on July 9, 1914.</p>
<p><strong>Qatar</strong> had its hottest temperature in history on July 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 50.4°C (122.7°F) at Doha Airport.</p>
<p><strong>Russia</strong> had its hottest temperature in history on July 11, when the mercury rose to 44.0°C (111.2°F) in <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&amp;prev=_t&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;layout=1&amp;eotf=1&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fpogoda.ru.net%2Fweather.php%3Fid%3D34866&amp;sl=ru&amp;tl=en" target="_blank">Yashkul</a>,  Kalmykia Republic, in the European portion of Russia near the  Kazakhstan border. The previous hottest temperature in Russia (not  including the former Soviet republics) was the 43.8°C (110.8°F) reading  measured at Alexander Gaj, Kalmykia Republic, on August 6, 1940. The  remarkable heat in Russia this year has not been limited just to the  European portion of the country&#8211;the Asian portion of Russia also  recorded its hottest temperature in history this year, a 42.7°C  (108.9°F) reading at Kara, in the Chita Republic on June 24. The 42.3°C  (108.1°F) reading on June 25 at <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/31513/2010/6/25/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&amp;req_state=NA&amp;req_statename=NA" target="_blank">Belogorsk,</a> near the Amur River border with China, also beat the old record for the  Asian portion of Russia. The previous record for the Asian portion of  Russia was 41.7°C (107.1°F) at Aksha on July 21, 2004.</p>
<p><strong>Sudan</strong> recorded its hottest temperature in its history on June 25 when the mercury rose to 49.6°C (121.3°F) at <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/62650/2010/6/25/DailyHistory.html" target="_blank">Dongola</a>. The previous record was 49.5°C (121.1°F) set in July 1987 in Aba Hamed.</p>
<p><strong>Niger</strong> tied its record for hottest day in history on June 22, 2010, when the temperature reached 47.1°C (116.8°F) at <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/61017/2010/6/22/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&amp;req_state=NA&amp;req_statename=NA" target="_blank">Bilma</a>.  That record stood for just one day, as Bilma broke the record again on  June 23, when the mercury topped out at 48.2°C (118.8°F). The previous  record was 47.1°C on May 24, 1998, also at Bilma.</p>
<p><strong>Saudi Arabia</strong> had its hottest temperature ever on June 22, 2010, with a reading of 52.0°C (125.6°F) in <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OEJN/2010/6/22/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&amp;req_state=NA&amp;req_statename=NA&amp;theprefset=SHOWMETAR&amp;theprefvalue=1" target="_blank">Jeddah</a>,  the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. The previous record was 51.7°C  (125.1°F), at Abqaiq, date unknown. The record heat was accompanied by a  sandstorm, which caused eight power plants to go offline, resulting in  blackouts to several Saudi cities.</p>
<p><strong>Chad</strong> had its hottest day in history on June 22, 2010, when the temperature reached 47.6°C (117.7°F) at <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/64753/2010/6/22/DailyHistory.html" target="_blank">Faya</a>. The previous record was 47.4°C (117.3°F) at Faya on June 3 and June 9, 1961.</p>
<p><strong>Kuwait</strong> recorded its hottest temperature in history on June 15 in Abdaly,  according to the Kuwait Met office. The mercury hit 52.6°C (126.7°F).  Kuwait&#8217;s previous all-time hottest temperature was 51.9°C (125.4°F), on  July 27,2007, at Abdaly. Temperatures reached 51°C (123.8°F) in the  capital of Kuwait City on <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OKBK/2010/6/15/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&amp;req_state=NA&amp;req_statename=NA" target="_blank">June 15, 2010.</a></p>
<p><strong>Iraq</strong> had its hottest day in history on June 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 52.0°C (125.6°F) in <a href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/ORMM/2010/6/14/DailyHistory.html" target="_blank">Basra</a>. Iraq&#8217;s previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F) set August 8, 1937, in Ash Shu&#8217;aybah.</p>
<p><strong>Pakistan</strong> had its hottest temperature in history on May 26, when the mercury hit  an astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) at the town of MohenjuDaro, according to  the <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.pakmet.com.pk/latest%20news/Latest%20News.html" target="_blank">Pakistani Meteorological Department.</a> While this temperature reading must be reviewed by the World  Meteorological Organization (WMO) for authenticity, not only is the  128.3°F reading the hottest temperature ever recorded in Pakistan, <strong>it is the hottest reliably measured temperature ever recorded on the continent of Asia.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Myanmar</strong> (Burma) had its hottest temperature in its recorded history on May 12,  when the mercury hit 47°C (116.6°F) in Myinmu, according to the <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dmh.gov.mm/rec_maxtemp.cfm?id=50" target="_blank">Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology</a>.  Myanmar&#8217;s previous hottest temperature was 45.8°C (114.4°F) at Minbu,  Magwe division on May 9, 1998. According to Chris Burt, author of the  authoritative weather records book <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.extremeweatherguide.com/" target="_blank">Extreme Weather</a>, <strong>the 47°C measured this year is the hottest temperature in Southeast Asia history.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Ascention Island</strong> (St. Helena, a U.K. Territory) had its hottest temperature in history  on March 25, 2010, when the mercury hit 34.9°C (94.8°C) at Georgetown.  The previous record was 34.0°C (93.2°F) at Georgetown in April 2003,  exact day unknown.</p>
<p><strong>The Solomon Islands</strong> had their hottest  temperature in history on February 1, 2010, when the mercury hit 36.1°C  (97°F) at Lata Nendo (Ndeni). The previous record for Solomon Islands  was 35.6°C (96.0°F) at Honaiara, date unknown.</p>
<p><strong>Colombia</strong> had its hottest temperature in history on January 24, 2010, when Puerto  Salgar hit 42.3°C (108°F). The previous record was 42.0°C (107.6°F) at  El Salto in March 1988 (exact day unknown).</p>
<p><strong><big>National cold records set in 2010</big></strong><br />
One nation has set a record for its coldest temperature in history in 2010. <strong>Guinea</strong> had its coldest temperature in history in January 9, 2010, when the  mercury hit 1.4°C (34.5°F) at Mali-ville in the Labe region.</p>
<p><strong><big>Commentary</big></strong><br />
The  period January &#8211; July was the warmest such 7-month period in the  planet&#8217;s history, and temperatures over Earth&#8217;s land regions were at  record highs in May, June, and July, according to the <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&amp;year=2010&amp;month=5&amp;submitted=Get+Report" target="_blank">National Climatic Data Center.</a> It is not a surprise that many all-time extreme heat records are being  shattered when the planet as a whole is so warm. Global warming &#8220;loads  the dice&#8221; to favor extreme heat events unprecedented in recorded  history. In fact, it may be more appropriate to say that global warming  adds more spots on the dice&#8211;it used to be possible to roll no higher  than double sixes, and now it is possible to roll a thirteen.</p>
<p>The  year 2010 now has the most national extreme heat records for a single  year&#8211;eighteen. These nations comprise 19% of the total land area of  Earth. This is the largest area of Earth&#8217;s surface to experience  all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical  record. Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in  the historical record, seventy-five counties set extreme hottest  temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen  countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten  years (6% of all countries). My source for extreme weather records is  the excellent book <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.extremeweatherguide.com/" target="_blank">Extreme Weather</a> by Chris Burt. His new updates (not yet published) remove a number of  old disputed records. Keep in mind that the matter of determining  extreme records is very difficult, and it is often a judgment call as to  whether an old record is reliable or not. For example, one of 2007&#8242;s  fifteen extreme hottest national temperature records (good for 2nd place  behind 2010 for most extreme heat records) is for the U.S.&#8211;the 129°F  recorded at Death Valley that year. Most weather record books list 1913  as the year the hottest temperature in the U.S. occurred, when Greenland  Ranch in Death Valley hit 134°F. However, as explained in a recent <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.weatherwise.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2010/July-August%202010/retrospect-full.html" target="_blank">Weatherwise article</a>,  that record is questionable, since it occurred during a sandstorm when  hot sand may have wedged against the thermometer, artificially inflating  the temperature. Mr. Burt&#8217;s list of 225 countries with extreme heat  records includes islands that are not independent countries, such as  Puerto Rico and Greenland. I thank Mr. Burt and weather record  researchers Maximiliano Herrera and Howard Rainford for their assistance  identifying this year&#8217;s new extreme temperature records.</p>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Questions</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=258</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=258#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:36:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[other]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[I received this from a friend that also attended the Eisenstein retreat last September. When you try to pay less for something, is that selfish since that would mean the seller gets less money? If you are a seller is it selfish if you always try to get the highest price since that would mean [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I received this from a friend that also attended the Eisenstein retreat last September.</p>
<ol>
<li>When you try to pay less for something, is that selfish since that would mean the seller gets less money? If you are a seller is it selfish if you always try to get the highest price since that would mean the buyer has less money after?</li>
<li>Is it imposing your will on someone when you tell them they cannot use an object because it is yours?</li>
<li>What types of ownership are there?</li>
<li>Does ownership come from an attachment to objects?</li>
<li>What are the pros and cons of being attached to objects?</li>
<li>What are the pros and cons of having your happiness dependent on whether you have certain objects?</li>
<li>If we did not have the concept of ownership would that mean there is no such thing as stealing?</li>
<li>If we did not have the concept of ownership would that mean there is no such thing as charity (because anything you give is never yours)</li>
<li>Does ownership lead to more freedom or less freedom?</li>
<li>How come friends do not usually share everything?</li>
<li>Does the concept of ownership create the idea of scarcity?</li>
<li>When is something terrorism and when is it activism or environmentalism or freedom fighting? Can it be both?</li>
<li>When is something government security and when is it human rights abuse? Can it be both? When is ‘clamping down on bad parts of society or bad countries’ with force government security, and when is it terrorism?</li>
<li>When is security a way of covering up our fears?</li>
<li>Can you conceive of a society living happily without car insurance? Without house insurance? Without medical insurance? Without social security?</li>
<li>Does the offering of insurance sometimes create fears?</li>
<li>Are pensions and insurance a form of not trusting in the universe?</li>
<li>Does insurance weaken our survival instinct?</li>
<li>Do our fears create the insurance system? What if we let go of our fears?</li>
<li>Does a welfare system weaken the ability of some people to survive by themselves?</li>
<li>Do our needs create the welfare system? What if we let go of our needs?</li>
<li>Does a police force weaken the ability of people to live without protection?</li>
<li>Do our boundaries, rights, expectations of how people can behave towards us, things we ‘own’ that we want to protect create the police system? What if we let go of our boundaries, rights, expectations and ownership ideas?</li>
<li>Does a government weaken the ability of people to cooperate and help each other out without being threatened with jail?</li>
<li>Does our need to have people behave in certain ways create government? What if we let go of our need for people to behave in certain ways?</li>
<li>Does the education system weaken the ability of people to learn for themselves?</li>
<li>Does our dependence on authority for learning create the education system? What if we let go of this dependence?</li>
<li>Does keeping things free of bacteria weaken our immune system?</li>
<li>Does our need for things to be free of bacteria create cleanliness morals and laws? What if we let go our need to be so clean?</li>
<li>Would sharing eating utensils expose our immune system to a wider amount of germs and so strengthen it?</li>
<li>Is keeping our places clean a form of species cleansing (the species being bacteria and bugs, etc.)?</li>
<li>Is imprisonment a human rights abuse? Can something be both a form of justice and a human rights abuse?</li>
<li>When is justice another name for revenge?</li>
<li>If we want more joy in the world, why would we sometimes discourage expressions of joy at work and at school?</li>
<li>If our environment is being destroyed, and the reason for the environment being destroyed is the amount of things being produced, and the force driving the production of things is our work, would our world be better off if people worked less?</li>
<li>Is it possible to have a society where people work, but there is no salary? If so, what kind of society would that look like?</li>
<li>How much of our society now does work for which there is no pay (e.g. housework, volunteering, etc.)?</li>
<li>If technology is doing more of our grunt work, does that mean there are less paying jobs for the less skilled? If so, what happens to those less skilled?</li>
<li>Does being unemployed lead to low self esteem in our society?</li>
<li>What is the point of work? To contribute to society? Who decides what a contribution is? What do you think a contribution is?</li>
<li>Is it possible to be in a job that makes a negative contribution to society? If so, what percentage of jobs make a negative contribution to society? And if so, is it preferable we have people not working rather than be in a negative contribution job?</li>
<li>Would it be healthier for our society to have more people working for pay or less?</li>
<li>Would it be healthier for our society if people played more and worked less?</li>
<li>Why did we create a society where it costs money to buy food? What would happen if a certain amount was made free?</li>
<li>What would happen if we said the fruit that grows on trees and the vegetables that grow out of the land were unownable?</li>
<li>Why did we create a society where it costs money to buy land (as opposed to cultures like American Indians which didn’t have land ownership)? What would happen if we made some land free and unownable?</li>
<li>Is a person free if they feel that they have to work to survive?</li>
<li>Is a person free if they feel that they have to have money to survive?</li>
<li>Is a person free if they feel that they have to own their land or else pay rent in order to survive?</li>
<li>How much do land ownership issues contribute to war?</li>
<li>How much are oil considerations contributing to tension in the Mideast?</li>
<li>How much does our individual usage of cars, planes, and products that are shipped by trucks and/or require oil in its production affect the government oil policy and actions related to oil?</li>
<li>Does living in houses lead to us being more out of tune with the environment?</li>
<li>If so, would encouraging people to live in simpler houses, tents or in the open lead to a world which does not destroy nature as much?</li>
<li>If the idea of technology is to allow us to survive without having to work much, how come it seems to a lot of people that they need to work to survive?</li>
<li>Which is more free, free trade or free sharing?</li>
<li>Does free trade require laws to work?</li>
<li>Does free trade lead to less freedom in other areas?</li>
<li>Does a person who gets money from collecting rent on land they own contribute more to society than a person who gets welfare money?</li>
<li>Why is it women and men are not treated equally in our society if the laws are usually equal for women and men?</li>
<li>Is the idea of a country racist and segregationist?</li>
<li>What is the difference between discipline and manipulation?</li>
<li>When you think of yourself as a victim of something, how much of that is due to your own expectations about how things should have been?</li>
<li>If a boss, or the government tells you to do something, and you do it, how responsible are you for the consequences?</li>
<li>How democratic is a voting system if it does not allow criminals, people under a certain age, ‘illegal’ immigrants and people outside the country(!) to vote?</li>
<li>How come people blame the government for behavior of people that are not in government?</li>
<li>What would be a difference between a government that governs with love, and one that governs by fear?</li>
<li>What institutions create more fear than love in our society? The media? Insurance companies? Stock market? Education system?</li>
<li>Would a government that governs by fear encourage other institutions to create fear?</li>
<li>How come a government leader is voted in by society, while a business CEO is not usually voted in by all the people in the company?</li>
<li>How come it is usually management that fires people in a company, as opposed to a decision made by all the people in a company?</li>
<li>How come many businesses have the goal of surviving? Is there something ‘wrong’ if a business closes?</li>
<li>Does ‘just doing your job’ mean that you are not aware of or responsible for the consequences of your actions?</li>
<li>When is it okay to commit acts of violence in our society (murder, capital punishment, police security, mugging, protest, traffic accident, cutting open someone for surgery, boxing, war)?</li>
<li>When does war prevent bigger problems?</li>
<li>When do laws help prevent the behavior they are trying to stop, and when do they not have an effect, and when do they encourage the behavior they are trying to stop?</li>
<li>Who decides in our society what behaviors are okay and what are not?</li>
<li>In order to prevent certain behaviors we sometimes make laws and sometimes don’t, which behaviors do you think need laws (murder, building houses, store pricing, etc.)?</li>
<li>Are laws basically the formalization of peoples&#8217; opinions about how people should behave?</li>
<li>How free is a society that feels like it needs laws?</li>
<li>When does having certain laws lead to more freedom, and when does having certain laws lead to less freedom?</li>
<li>Are rights basically about what a person&#8217;s expectations of how others can behave towards them are?</li>
<li>If so, what happens when people let go of expectations?</li>
<li>How free is a society that has prisons?</li>
<li>Is a country at peace if there are people in jail?</li>
<li>Is it possible to be totally free even while in jail? Is freedom an internal thing that doesn’t depend on external circumstances?</li>
<li>What happens to an innocent person who spends time in jail for a year?</li>
<li>What&#8217;s your guess of the percentage of people in jail are innocent?</li>
<li>Do police sometimes create anger, hatred and distrust by being suspicious, by checking up on people who turn out to be innocent, by racial profiling?</li>
<li>If so, do these negative emotions lead to more crime?</li>
<li>If the livelihood of police was dependent on their being crime does this create an unconscious push in society for more crime? E.g. certain police need to fill a quota of traffic citations for their job?</li>
<li>Do police, the legal system and jails lead to more or less crime in this society?</li>
<li>If police were encouraged to love criminals, what form would that love take?</li>
<li>Which is a healthier way for police to approach their job, as helping people, or as stopping crime? Are these two things the same?</li>
<li>Do police lead to more freedom or less freedom?</li>
<li>Is a country at peace if there is no outward violence, but there is a lot of internal anger?</li>
<li>Why do people sometimes feel awkward about expressing love, when love is such a beautiful thing?</li>
<li>If people in business were encouraged to love other people in the same line of business, what form would that love take?</li>
<li>What would happen if we tried to love people in jails more?</li>
<li>Are scientists taught to not love what they study?</li>
<li>If so, what effect does this have on the whole body of science?</li>
<li>Is western education cold, in the sense things are ‘objectified’ for study?</li>
<li>If so, is this leading to the ‘objectifying’ of society?</li>
<li>Does trusting people create good will?</li>
<li>What would happen if police trusted people more?</li>
<li>What would happen if government trusted people more?</li>
<li>When is it better to exert more control in government and when is it better to loosen the reins more?</li>
<li>Does one&#8217;s desires keep one from being free?</li>
<li>Is freedom better than responsibility?</li>
<li>Is our idea of poverty based on what our desires are? If we let go of our desires would there be such a thing as poverty?</li>
<li>In a different culture is it possible that what we consider to be pitiable is actually what is strived for and respected?</li>
<li>Why is having less things usually considered pitiable in our culture?</li>
<li>If a country is in debt does that mean they have to produce for the economy even if they otherwise would not want to?</li>
<li>Does the interest on the US’s debt go to private bankers?</li>
<li>If so, how much of taxpayers money goes to the private bankers?</li>
<li>Does the ‘need’ for income taxes cause a ‘need’ in society for people to work at paying jobs?</li>
<li>Does the ‘need’ for sales taxes cause a ‘need’ in society for things to be sold?</li>
<li>Does the US government owe bankers a lot of money?</li>
<li>If so, how much control do private banks wield over the US government, if the US government owes them a lot of money? Do they have a say in government fiscal and business policy?</li>
<li>Are poorer countries in debt to richer ones? If so, how much power does this give the richer country over the poorer one? And if so, how much of this power is used to help, and how much of it is abused?</li>
<li>Do banks make money if more people in society are in debt because of interest payments?</li>
<li>Do bankers try to influence government policy which favors more people in debt?</li>
<li>How free is a person if they have home loans or car loans or student loans or credit card debt to pay off?</li>
<li>Do banks fund both sides of a war (by providing money)? Do they make a lot of money because of war? How does this affect whether wars happen?</li>
<li>When banks ask for more money back than was loaned out where does that extra money (the interest) come from? Does it mean the total amount of money in the world has to increase for the debt to be paid off?</li>
<li>How do our emotions affect the way we perceive events?</li>
<li>Different things happening are combined into one news story; is it the journalist who creates the connection between these different things happening? Is it possible the connection between these different things happening is quite distinct from how the journalist imagines them to be?</li>
<li>Does the media require a paradigm within which it reports news?</li>
<li>If so, does this paradigm have emotional overtones which may lead us to looking at events in a certain way?</li>
<li>Can focusing on certain events and people as opposed to other ones skew the news?</li>
<li>Is our news paradigm that of a bad news paradigm?</li>
<li>If so, what other ways could we report news?</li>
<li>What if poets were the reporters for newspapers?</li>
<li>Does a dependency on advertisers and paying subscribers/readers affect what news is in the media?</li>
<li>Do the people who own the media have an influence on what is broadcast/printed?</li>
<li>Why do some things get reported and others do not?</li>
<li>Do the media affect events themselves?</li>
<li>Does media create fear?</li>
<li>If so, does this fear lead to more need for things like insurance and government security?</li>
<li>Is there a way of knowing intuitively what is happening in the world without using the media? If so, is it possible that your intuition is more accurate than the media?</li>
<li>Does media lead to more freedom or less?</li>
<li>Does media lead to more caring or less?</li>
<li>Which forms of technology give us more freedom and which ones less?</li>
<li>Does technology lead us to be more or less humane? If so, which ones lead us to be more humane and which ones to be less?</li>
<li>Is science leading us to be more humane or is it leading us to be less humane?</li>
<li>Would it be advisable to slow down our technology development since some of it is being put to use in weapons of mass destruction?</li>
<li>Is disease a symptom of a psychological problem? A problem with the way a person is living their life? A symptom of something wrong with society?</li>
<li>Why are certain drugs (usually medical) legal and others (usually street) not?</li>
<li>What is your definition of a drug?</li>
<li>Is the usage of drugs in medicine weakening our immune system?</li>
<li>If so, is this making humans more susceptible to viruses? More susceptible to AIDS?</li>
<li>Are medical drugs leading us to be out of touch with our bodies?</li>
<li>Is medical technology leading us to be out of touch with body intuition?</li>
<li>Is medicine leading us to forget natural ways our bodies can heal themselves?</li>
<li>Is our society ‘addicted’ to medicine?</li>
<li>Is the killing of bacteria and germs with medicines and cleaning agents leading to the evolution of more powerful bacteria and germs?</li>
<li>Are germs ‘bad’? Why are many people scared of them?</li>
<li>Is western medicine leading to a healthier society or less healthy society?</li>
<li>Does the dependence of the medical community and pharmaceutical companies on the need for people to heal lead to a unconscious generation of diseases in our society?</li>
<li>Is cancer partially caused by toxins and radiation?</li>
<li>If so, would it be advisable to slow down the development of chemical engineering and electricity dependent technology?</li>
<li>If so, how is it possible to slow down development of technology and science?</li>
<li>If people lived in simpler houses, or tents, or in nature would the incidence of cancer be less?</li>
<li>How free is a society where you cannot touch or handle a significant amount of objects because they are privately owned?</li>
<li>How free is a society where you cannot walk on a lot of the land because it is privately owned?</li>
</ol>
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		<title>Capitalism</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=245</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=245#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:05:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collapse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Democracy Now Harpers: The food bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it: The global speculative frenzy sparked riots in more than thirty countries and drove the number of the world’s “food insecure” to more than a billion. In 2008, for the first time since such statistics have been kept, the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><script src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed_show_v2/300/2010/7/16/story/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street" type="text/javascript"></script></p>
<p><a title="The Food Bubble" href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/the_food_bubble_how_wall_street" target="_blank">From Democracy Now</a></p>
<p><a title="The Food Bubble" href="http://indigo.revenir.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/the-food-bubble.pdf" target="_blank">Harpers: The food bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it:</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The global speculative frenzy sparked riots in more than thirty countries and drove the number of the world’s “food insecure” to more than a billion. In 2008, for the first time since such statistics have been kept, the proportion of the world’s population without enough to eat ratcheted upward. The ranks of the hungry had increased by 250 million in a single year, the most abysmal increase in all of human history.</p>
<p><a title="Goldman Sucks" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html" target="_blank">The Independent (UK): How Goldman gambled on starvation:</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The world&#8217;s wealthiest speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of hundreds of millions of innocent people. They gambled on increasing starvation, and won. Their Wasteland moment created a real wasteland. What does it say about our political and economic system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?</p>
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		<title>Stories We Tell Ourselves</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=235</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=235#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:37:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[aboriginal culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=235</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I came across posting this from Danny Vogel, an equally fragmented kindred. His other entries are similarly intriguing. Here I am considering the fact that our industrial culture is based on the dislocation of indigenous cultures.  I am attempting to extrapolate various unconscious or conscious beliefs that seem to arise from this history, with those [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I came across posting this from <strong><a title="Danny Vogel" href="http://dannyvogel.com/" target="_blank">Danny Vogel</a></strong>, an equally fragmented kindred. His other entries are similarly intriguing.</p>
<hr />Here I am considering the fact that our industrial culture is based on the dislocation of indigenous cultures.  I am attempting to extrapolate various unconscious or conscious beliefs that seem to arise from this history, with those beliefs becoming part of the stories we tell ourselves that maintain the culture.  Beginning with the historical premise that it is okay for white settlers and their American descendants to deny the peoples who lived in the Americas before their arrival the right to value a nature-based existence that entertained animistic beliefs, and to disregard all treaties made with them (and if deemed not okay by today’s standards, then at least sufficiently okay for us now in the present, in the sense of  a past wrong we are willing to accept now and “move on” from), then this means that the stories we tell ourselves must somehow be based on the following beliefs:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1 &#8211; A nature-based existence is not fundamentally okay, for any variety of reasons.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2 &#8211; Nature is not fundamentally precious, miraculous, awe-inspiring and humbling.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">3 &#8211; The needs of humans should not be subsumed by the needs of the planet.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">4 &#8211; The needs of humans are greater than the needs of the planet.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">5 &#8211; It is okay not to honor treaties with any other nation, people or bodies of these.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">6 &#8211; It is okay to have leaders who are themselves dishonorable.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">7 &#8211; It is okay to have leaders.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">8 &#8211; It is okay to live apart from nature.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">9 &#8211; It is okay to destroy nature to meet human needs.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">10 &#8211; It is okay to build or use technology that destroys nature.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">11 &#8211; The other inanimate and animate beings of our world and of the universe of which we are a part are separate from us.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">12 &#8211; The further we move away from nature, the more we progress, or move ahead.  It is good to progress technologically for its own sake and for the rewards that are reaped by that technology.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">13 &#8211; It is okay to produce technology for its own sake even without first considering its impact upon our lives or the lives of others.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">14 &#8211; It is okay to live in increasingly artificial environments.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">15 &#8211; Our children should be taught to value this belief in a moving ahead, in a progress, in this increasing separation from nature, and to value the belief that nature is itself only a means to meet human needs.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">16 &#8211; To care for nature is fundamentally sentimental or primitive.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">17 &#8211; Working all day for most days of the year is okay.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">18 &#8211; Leisure has its place but we should not become lazy.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">19 &#8211; Except in such moments when we adults may desire time to ourselves, we should sleep apart from our children throughout the first years of their childhood to foster their “independence,” send them away from their families to receive education during the day, live in a different community from our children when they are adults, live in different communities from our relatives, and live considerably apart from the other people in our community.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">20 &#8211; It is okay to live in a society that required and still requires the destruction of indigenous culture and land-based living.  A culture based on the negation of another culture will not damage its members in any way.</p>
<p>I would assume that the more these beliefs are “not okay,” the more we shift culturally toward a return to a more nature-based community in our choices, actions, political behaviors and feelings.</p>
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		<title>Listen</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=231</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=231#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:18:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[aboriginal culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered&#8230; Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered&#8230;</p>
<p>Where are you living?<br />
What are you doing?<br />
What are your relationships?<br />
Are you in right relation?<br />
Where is your water?</p>
<p>Know your garden.<br />
It is time to speak your truth.<br />
Create your community.<br />
Be good to each other.<br />
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.</p>
<p>Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, &#8220;This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.</p>
<p>And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.</p>
<p>The time of the one wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word &#8216;struggle&#8217; from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.</p>
<p>We are the ones we&#8217;ve been waiting for.</p>
<p><strong>Hopi Elders&#8217; Prophecy<br />
Oraibi, Arizona, June 8, 2000</strong></p>
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		<title>The collapse of empire</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=227</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=227#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:40:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collapse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=227</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The American Way of Life is Not Negotiable&#8221; -Dick Cheney As a US citizen, I cannot describe the shame I feel knowing that I am a part of this insane and murderous culture. Full Version Edited Version Courtesy of Collateral Murder.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;The American Way of Life is Not Negotiable&#8221;<br />
-Dick Cheney</p>
<p>As a US citizen, I cannot describe the shame I feel knowing that I am a part of this insane and murderous culture.</p>
<p>Full Version</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="459" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/is9sxRfU-ik&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="459" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/is9sxRfU-ik&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Edited Version</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="459" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5rXPrfnU3G0&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="459" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5rXPrfnU3G0&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Courtesy of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a title="Collateral Murder" href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/" target="_blank">Collateral Murder</a></strong></span>.</p>
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		<title>Hope is for little kids and tooth fairies</title>
		<link>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=224</link>
		<comments>http://indigo.revenir.org/?p=224#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:08:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[collapse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consciousness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[In his inimitable style, Joe Bageant summarizes the choice available to those of us living in the US (assuming, of course, that we&#8217;re conscious enough to see the choice before us). Joe, Reading you is like drinking those bottles full of clear liquids the night before a colonoscopy. The next day I survive the test [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In his inimitable style, <a title="Hope is for little kids and tooth fairies" href="http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/03/hope-is-for.html" target="_blank">Joe Bageant</a> summarizes the choice available to those of us living in the US (assuming, of course, that we&#8217;re conscious enough to see the choice before us).</p>
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<hr />Joe,</p>
<p>Reading you is like drinking those bottles full of  clear liquids the night before a colonoscopy. The next day I survive the  test and am told that I do not have colon cancer—yet. Still, I am  getting the test in spite of the fact that I know that my pack a day  cigarette habit coupled with 12 fancy beers a day is probably gonna kill  me first. I&#8217;ve been working for a very large corporation for the last  20 years as a print advertising designer. I am on the Endangered Species  list at 58. I have been playing the consumer game for the past 45  years. I&#8217;ve known that the whole thing was a lie since I was 13—before that I lived in a world that was so monochromatic that when I  heard the Beatles I thought that heaven had come to earth.</p>
<p>I  wanted to tell you my whole story, but have decided to spare you that. I  have one simple question: seeing what you see, knowing what you know,  what are your recommendations for how to proceed? Because I am seeing  that just drinking hard enough to not think about it is no way to live.  Or is it? When the best hopes being offered are simply the offerings of  another corporate lackey, how does one live?</p>
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<p>Do trips to Mexico help?</p>
<p>I realize as I write this that you are  not pretending to be a self-help guru for baby boomers with a guilt  complex. Still, I cannot help but hope that you have some thoughts for a  one-time proud hippie (I marched against the war in Vietnam in Detroit  in 1968 and again against the war in Iraq in 2003) who longs to  extricate himself from the accumulated bullshit of years of consumerism.</p>
<p>I  write letters to congressmen and senators and get form letter responses—personalized, no less. So I would like you to write me back, tell me  you read what I wrote, that you got this e-mail. That&#8217;s all. I will be  satisfied.</p>
<p>Yours in hopelessness,</p>
<p>Brad</p>
<p>&#8212;&#8212;</p>
<p>Brad,</p>
<p>Yeah,  we are on the endangered species list all right. But the rest of  America, and maybe even mankind, is not far behind. Not that it&#8217;s any  consolation, of course. I have to smile at your mention of the Beatles  being like heaven coming to earth. Me too!</p>
<p>In reply to your query,  all I can do is tell you my experience. I don&#8217;t know shit really.  Certainly not the answers to other people&#8217;s questions, especially those  of such a serious nature. However, I do know my own experience. Sort of.  So all I can do is share that.</p>
<p>You ask if &#8220;trips to Mexico help?&#8221;  Because Mexico is my home for the time being, (I spend most of my time  here now, and have obtained legal residency status) and only go back to  the US when necessary, I&#8217;m not sure if &#8220;trip&#8221; is the right word. I  rather feel that the world is my home now. Consequently, I do not know  if &#8220;help&#8221; is the right word either. I no longer have any geographical  goals, per se, other than I seem to be a better person in some locales  than in others. I hope I am not running, because at this age running,  physically or metaphorically, takes too much effort. I&#8217;d rather walk,  with periodic rest stops &#8212; such as this one in Mexico.</p>
<p>It took me  over fifty years to figure out there is no running away, or finding  some perfect life. We just exchange one set of problems for another. I  ran away to the US Navy to escape a small redneck town. I ran away to  the West Coast to become a hippie. I ran to homestead in Idaho on an  Indian reservation, I later ran back into the straight world, mostly out  of fear for financial security. And when it became personally  undeniable that America had become a lonely totalistic empire, whose  heart is a bank vault, and that I would not survive its enforced  loneliness,  masked by gunpoint cheer and state authorized messages of  &#8220;hope,&#8221; and loudspeakers above the workhouse extolling the &#8220;work ethic,&#8221;  well, it was either be somewhere else or die inside. Get a different  set of problems. Some nights even sickness or hunger looked acceptable,  compared to the screaming, yet silent anxiety I was experiencing. I  swear it was fucking unbearable. By 2005, I was in Central America for I  did not know how long.</p>
<p>Personally, I found that the problems I  encountered every day in places like Belize (and now Mexico) somehow  suited my own innate sensibilities better. I had no expectations really.  Which is good because both paces would have been extremely  disappointing if I had.  Mainly I just wanted to give up any &#8221;advantage&#8221;  I supposedly had as a citizen of the &#8220;greatest nation on earth,&#8221; which  was, as I said, quite literally, killing me, much as it seems to be  killing you.</p>
<p>Beyond that, I wanted to spend the remaining 10 or 15  percent of my life doing stuff with human beings, face-to-face, asshole  to belly button—babies being born, people dying, getting drunk,  worshiping their gods, experiencing joy. And I wanted to do so without  any mediation by soul killing American corporate culture. I did not want  &#8220;security&#8221; as Americans and Europeans perceive it, and still don&#8217;t. The  only way to do that is to intentionally stay pretty broke. Money is a  rigged game—you cannot win by trying to buy security. Oh, you can  have the illusion of it, but the price is your soul. The entire world  architecture of money, beyond basic sustenance, is a horribly corrupted—especially since the advent of the &#8220;virtual world economy,&#8221; a paper  and digital racket that sucks away the people&#8217;s hard earned wealth  before they ever see it.</p>
<p>Well, I say, fuck their offerings. And  screw childish &#8220;hope.&#8221; Hope is for little kids and tooth fairies. The  world we awaken to each morning is the only real thing there is. And if  we are spiritually, morally and philosophically intact, and humble  enough to feel it and love it each day, we don&#8217;t need to hope some  unseen force or bunch of politicos, or an &#8220;economy&#8221; or so-called leaders  are gonna make it better for us. The orchids outside my doorway are  blooming and my wife still loves me after all these years. A real gypsy  taught me a song yesterday and Easter is in the air in Mexico. I guess  that as a burned out old hippie and a writer, I cannot imagine anything  else to hope for.</p>
<p>I truly do understand what you are saying about  consumerism. I lived it too. I still have a house full of stuff in  Virginia that is the biggest bane on my life. Tons of stuff—old  paintings, family documents, guitars, stuff my kids made while growing  up, art and artifacts gathered from around the world in the course of a  life, file cabinets full of articles I wrote for magazines and  newspapers over the past 40 years. My wife and I are paralyzed over what  to do with the stuff. She retires in a year or so and so still lives up  there in the middle of it all. When I am there, we sip wine and savor  the memories connected with acquiring those things together, the 18th  Century drawings we bought together at Covent Garden in London, the love  we felt in Venice. And when I am in Mexico, I understand that the  freedom of my austere life here is of greater value than any of those  things. Which does not keep me from missing them from time to time. But  in my heart I know that, for the most part, I have beaten American  consumerism (though I&#8217;ll always be a sucker for good imported booze).  The other thing I know for sure is that the only way for a man to  &#8220;extricate himself from the accumulated bullshit&#8221; is to extricate  himself. Walk away. There is no plan one can make to do so while living  in the belly of the beast. The beast of American capitalism will not let  you, but will encourage the belief that you can. As my webmaster Ken,  who left America over a decade ago say, &#8220;The only way to do it is to  just get up and do it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Also, I believe it can still be done while  remaining in America, once one rises above the &#8220;learned helplessness&#8221;  that comes with being a captive of the empire. But it still entails  giving up most of what you know, and more importantly, what the society  around you believes is reality. It means becoming a renunciate. Giving  up everything in a society that believes the very things that are  destroying it are necessities. No car, no processed foods, no cell  phone, few clothes, little or no technology, no media entertainments,  refusal to own investments, no more than five or six hundred square feet  of living space, dedicated hours each day for reflection on the little  things one does to maintain one&#8217;s self, such as cooking or bathing, or  gardening &#8212; but especially renunciation of technology. Technology not  only carries the disease, but is its most virulent aberrator of human  consciousness. In fact, even at its best,  it colonizes and mutates  human consciousness, just as this laptop stands between you and me,  distorting our communication as much as it facilitates it. Is an  exchange of digital packets between two human beings, each isolated at  the end of a cybernetic node, really human communication? Of course not.   (Yes, I know how much shit I&#8217;m going to get for that statement.)</p>
<p>Anyway,  I try to limit myself to owning only one piece of high technology—this laptop. I don&#8217;t own a camera phone, or a cell phone (much to the  ire of publishers, friends and some family members). To my shame,  I do  have a television in my little casita. I missed my wife so much at  first, that I bought it just so I&#8217;d have distraction in the lonely  evenings, which of course, did not work. It was a stupid American thing,  an ignorant knee-jerk consumer reflex, as if the voice of Larry King  were going to substitute for the words &#8220;I love you&#8221; when night falls.  I&#8217;m learning all the time to beware of what is available around us.</p>
<p>Regarding  writing congressmen, I never bother. It&#8217;s just part maintaining the  appearance of democracy. Everybody writes their congressmen on both  sides of an intractable, polarized and deadlocked system dedicated to  preserving iron fisted capitalism, no matter what happens. No matter how  the vote on a piece of legislation goes down. I have absolutely no  faith in the American political system. Or ultimately, in any political  system for that matter. Ain&#8217;t no saviors of the people up there on  Capitol Hill. Just powerful men and women who don&#8217;t have a clue but have  plenty of ambition and ego and avenues to feed both—with a few  exceptions like Dennis Kucinich.</p>
<p>I am convinced we all have to  find our own way, and find it alone, most likely at great cost—that  great cost being the loss of all that we thought we knew about the  world. I am coming to understand that as Americans, we were born into a  powerfully induced mass illusion. An infantile consciousness of  &#8220;I-want-I want,&#8221; which drives the machinery of war, waste and profits,  and which colonizes our minds and souls from birth like a progressive  disease.  I say &#8220;coming to understand,&#8221; because, as an American I can  never truly understand. My consciousness and neurosystem are far too mutated to ever understand. But I find great relief in the effort.</p>
<p>And  also pain. Some nights I drink, and cry inside for both the world as I  have known it—youth tasted so good—and for the kingdom of mankind  that might have been, but really never could have been. Because the  kingdom is truly within each of us, never in the clamorous throng.</p>
<p>But  in the morning the roosters crow, and wood smoke stirs in the air, and  this village  wakes up, and does all those ancient things decent people  do in so much of the rest of the world. Old women sweep the street in  front of their doorways, men uncomplainingly go in search of a day&#8217;s  labor, and young mothers nurse babies in the courtyards, full knowing  that what they see around them is all there will ever be for them, and  that the Virgin of Guadeloupe blesses each morning. Just as their  mothers and grandmothers knew it. Already they are tired for the world.  But not joyless.</p>
<p>And neither am I.</p>
<p>Lately, I&#8217;ve had a spate  of emails saying how bleak and hopeless some of my writing has become,  in the estimation of many readers. This comes not so much as criticism,  but as observation. I am no longer taken aback by it. To me, it&#8217;s simply  a kind of reporting on the world as best I can.</p>
<p>Others ask me the  best way to escape America to Belize or Mexico. How to plan a breakout  from the empire to these places as I have described them. Once in a  while I reply, even though I know better. Each person&#8217;s conditioning and  perceptions are different. And surely their experience would be  different, were they to do what I have done. That&#8217;s a given. In the end,  all I can tell you is that you will have to act according to your own  inner lights then be willing to live with the results. And even then,  I&#8217;m not sure that&#8217;s true. But it seems true at this day and hour, in  this little stone courtyard on a hillside under a spring sky.<em><br />
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<p><em>Podemos  ver el mundo con ojos de fría y un corazón caliente.</em></p>
<p>In art  and labor,</p>
<p>Joe</p>
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