Thinking of the great wide open, my mind goes to desolate places; deserts, glaciers, savannah, barrenness. A no man’s land of sorts…something to be scarred off, something that can’t be understood or known, and it is where the manipulation of fear becomes ever present. Standing at the gates to this unknown place…fear, loathing, hatred prevail. The divisions seem greater than the commonalities.
My brother is not very different from my other brothers. Black, white, indian, rich, poor, middle class…it is as if we all stand together asking questions. What do we do now?…abject, consumer capitalism is dead. One war is over!
The money is gone, the wealth, the property, the possessions have all become so fleeting. It is all so immaterial in the grand scheme of fates course. Civilization transforms itself every so often. The Roman’s made no effort to keep the values, morals, and ethics of the societies it conquered. It instead took the good ideas, left the bad behind, and created a global empire because they could! It is the power of the masses that create wealth to benefit all.
Textbooks call these revolutions without realizing that it is the victorious revolutionaries that write those histories. It was true for the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the British, and America; now…decisions are being made today, as “We Turn the Page”. Our problems are so much bigger, far more global, and far more fluid than those of our ancestors. It is a heavy burden to fathom.
For too long, we have all been sitting around being bored, clueless and without leadership. A ship is only as good as where it is steered and without a captain even the mightiest of warships bobs in the water. For the first 8 years of this century the mightiest vessel of all floated without a Captain at the helm. Leadership consisted of lies, diversions, media exploitation, and abuses of the social contract that should be considered criminal.
I was scarred when the first planes struck the Tower’s in New York on that fateful, unmentionable day almost 10 years ago. A momentary fear tricked us in to signing away all our rights under the premise of our own safety. The Patriot Act be damned…citizens should never let their government act in response to fear. As history has shown, this mix enables the stupid, fearful, and dishonest to distract and rob society for all it’s worth.
Fellow American’s we were robbed, lied to, and stolen from; wall street, the banks, the unions, mortgage brokers, all of them…every group that had its hand in the pie, wanted and got more. Then the bubble burst! The shook set in as everyone was laid off, unemployed or underemployed. It was now impossible to define ourselves by the only measure of success we had ever known…my job, my income, my possessions. They all deteriorated, broke, or disappeared without income of any source to replace these items. Mass social depression set in
Yet we have all found hope again.
In the last few years, we have learned how to have fun again without consumerism. To be free, to be alive, and to do things differently than how we were always taught. It is a structure rooted in creativity, idealism, and action.
This system does not have the hierarchal structure, management principles or organizational aspects that banks, wall street, and government demand. Instead it is purely mobile, exportable and spreads like wild fire. Physical location has become secondary.
The cash in my wallet is what I have. No backup, no emergency, just a little cash…my creativity…and a work ethic that says I will turn my own cash into more cash. For the first time in my life the American Dollar was worth something! The American Dream was once again real. It was a glorious feeling.
America is the fallen empire…yet, still has the potential to lead the world, if, as a society, we can pull our ‘proverbial’ shit together. Do we leave it to computers to place us in a pre-determined career path or do we utilize and harness our interpersonal, human connections to build commerce based on relationships, commitment, ethics, and morals? I have chosen the later.
The change began in 2008 when for the first time our nation’s history…our society was faced with a very stark, very real and very different choice. Did we elect an old white man, a woman, or a black man to the office of President of the United States? In a blatant affront to over 225 years of American history, the American consciousness, and American ideals rooted in discrimination, hatred and fear…our country did the impossible. It elected a black man to hold the office of President.
This small act made us all equal. The playing field was leveled and whatever had become before was now part of history. It was a fresh start! Yet…painful, we all knew that change is hard…our current president campaigned on a platform of change and won. The change was coming and we all knew it. We voted for it!
It is War…those in power under old systems; do not relinquish it peacefully or easily. My faith is in those around me to draw the battle lines, to say this is important to them and therefore should be to me. There is nothing left that the powers at be can take away from me.
Divorce, bankruptcy, student debt…I have lived it all. It cannot be repeated, it cannot be endorsed, it cannot be given one breath of air, and it is criminal! It will die kicking and screaming. I see it in the Republican lies, I see it in the minimum wage, I see it in the pharmaceutical industry, the mass media, you name it and it is there; the materialism, the corporate greed, and the instant gratification that got us into this mess in the first place. It must be vanquished into the annuals of human history. Let us all bring about an end to the dark ages of our times and usher in a global Renaissance as powerful as the enlightenment.
There are daily reminders that the path of our father is now gone. It is the Big Screen TV that sits unutilized and broken in the corner of a friend’s house. It does nothing but take up space. It is the broken flat screen T.V. hanging dark on the wall. The cracked computer monitor that still works but is just broken. Where does the money come from to replace or fix these things? It doesn’t come from hourly work; $9 an hour doesn’t buy anything. It is hard to eat let alone invest or grow anything at what used to be a ‘minimum wage’. There are no salaried jobs, government jobs have so many rules and constraints it is impossible to get an interview. When new jobs open, 700-800 people show up…the past machinery of business is breaking down. It is time for a new way…new principals…and new ideas.
We are all going back to work! It just looks different and I’m looking forward to participating in this change. One system ends and another begins. It is the change we where promised in 2008.
