Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream

Today I went to see the Pachamama Alliance symposium, Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream. I'd been wanting to go for some time, so was happy that things came together for me to go today.

Basically we were taken on a journey--to see the trajectory of human interaction with the Earth-- and given a chance to express how we feel at this moment when so many of us know we are headed into dangerous, treacherous waters, facing decisions which will impact the future of most life on Earth. It was very emotional, and I felt a lot of grief.

The journey didn't stop there, however--we were shown how many people are standing up, how many things are being done; whether it will be enough of course is anybody's guess--but surely if we do nothing we know that we won't like to see what happens.

One of the quotations shared was this, a favorite of mine from another life:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

-George Bernard Shaw

I knew much of this stuff going into it; many of the speakers were familiar and the information wasn't really new for the most part. What was powerful for me was to connect with other human beings and share a experience that encouraged me to push myself more and be less afraid about stepping out to do what I can.

Links:

Awakening the Dreamer Symposium Information
Pachamama Alliance website
For The Grandchildren website

Memorial Day thoughts...

To my knowledge, no one in my family has ever died in the military, although some have served. So for me, Memorial Day has mostly just been a long weekend. The start of the summer. But here we are, five years into this war/occupation, with no end in sight, and I think it's worth it to take some time to ponder the costs of war, most of which are borne disproportionately by a few.

I posted this a couple of years ago for Memorial Day, and I think it's worth revisiting. Ian Rhett wrote this song, accompanied by a video that was released for Memorial Day 2006, in honor of his then 19-year-old sister who was serving in the Marine Corps in Iraq. I watched it again a couple of days ago, and found it undiminished in its impact.

His first video, "(Didn't Know I Was) Unamerican," is also worth watching in the context of this day, I think--it speaks to the liberty that the founders of our country were seeking, and which our military is ostensibly there to protect.

War Inc. and John Cusack on Thom Hartmann's Radio Show

I heard John Cusack yesterday on the Thom Hartmann show, speaking about his new movie, War Inc. He was talking about how difficult it had been to get support for the movie, which is a satirical look at the outsourcing of war. How the corporate media had basically only started to talk about the movie when the buzz was building to a certain point elsewhere, and how reviews in the corporate press had been for the most part lukewarm or outright critical. He reminded me that there was a time, not so very long ago, when we were being openly warned to watch what we say--that in essence, we needed to destroy democracy in order to save it.

Now, I have been a fan of John Cusack since I saw him in The Sure Thing my freshman year of college, and I have admired much--not all, but much--of his work.

I think this movie brings out into the open what has not had enough discussion here at home--what the implications are of outsourcing military functions. We have seen some of what KBR and Blackwater have done in Iraq, but I don't think that there is probably enough awareness of what this has meant in real terms.

So I'm hoping it will make it out of LA and New York into wider distribution; it looks like it will be funny as well as thought-provoking.



You can download Thom Hartmann's May 23 interview with John Cusack here (in the second hour):

KPOJ Thom Hartmann Podcast Page

Justice, or Mercy?

I just finished reading Philippa Gregory's book "A Respectable Trade," and it's given me pause to think more about the structure of this world, of my world, and what has brought us to where we are. In large part it was the slave trade, and then later colonization, and then after that economic hegemony, that allowed the massive accumulation of wealth in what we now call the developed world.

I named this blog "The Long Arc," out of the hope and faith that the world would and could become more just. I have resonated with the bumper stickers that say "If you want peace, work for justice." I like the word Justice. It conjures up images of right triumphing over wrong, of good triumphing over evil. I believe that a more just world is what I want. I see all the unfairness, all the inequity, and I think that life would be better here on earth if things were more just.

But sometimes I see how I benefit, how I've benefited my whole life, from injustice. I haven't liked the possibility that things I buy are made in sweatshops, I haven't liked the fact that my food in all probability has been harvested by people who are little better than slaves, who have little power and few choices. I try to do what I can. But I am part of this system, and I wouldn't know how to extricate myself fully even if I could.

Sometimes now when I think about what you might call the karmic burden of my life as an American consumer, I fear full justice. As the American Empire quavers on what might be its last legs, and I think about how far we could fall and what it all might mean for being able to maintain what I've come to think of as quality of life for my family, for my child, it is hard to not feel fear. What if the chickens we've set loose in the world come home to roost? I think of what we've done to Iraq. What we've helped be done to people in countless nations on this earth to maintain our cheap access to oil and other resources. I think of the thousands of Iraqi women in exile who are working as prostitutes to make the money they need to live. I want life to be better for those people, for all people. But I'm not sure if I really want justice, full justice.

One of my favorite Shakespearean quotes comes from The Merchant of Venice, a play that has come under fire for its anti-Semitic overtones. I've read a lot of Shakespeare, and forgotten most of what I've read, but these lines have always resonated:

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

I believe that working for justice is a necessity--to always look to see the connections between what I do and how it affects others in this world. I believe that at our core we are an inseparable One, and that my life should reflect that reality. In a body, when all is working well, the cells work together synergistically for the good of the one body.

When I think of this karmic burden I bear, that we bear, I feel bad. But I know that guilt comes cheap, and if I only feel bad, like a penance paid for a wrong, that it does nothing to right the wrong. The only thing that I believe matters in the end is how those feelings of guilt translate into right action. I will work for justice, in the ways I can, but I will hope for mercy.

Does anyone else feel like they are running out of time?

I haven't posted for a while. I've had my reasons. The perennial lack of time thing. Feeling like whatever I might say has already been said, so what is the point, that sort of thing.

In the last few years I've been struggling to find a way to live in this world at this time, a time of deep uncertainty--to do what I need to do to come to grips with the enormity of the challenges of this time of being human on this earth, while still keeping myself in the here and now, where things are really OK--for me, at any rate. It seems like this has been a recurrent theme of the messengers in my life--the "be here now" thing. I'm trying to do that. I get that, that the reality of life isn't what I see, that my human brain probably can't comprehend it--that there is more to life than I see on the surface. But I also know that we're going down a treacherous path--as a nation, as a planet. We have no plan, as Americans, for the future. We hope it will turn out OK. But we have no plan for sustainability, and haven't been able to come to grips with what living unsustainably does to us at a very deep level. We know it can't go on forever. We just want to hope the party lasts long enough for us, and maybe for our children, if we can think that far ahead. I think most of us just try not to think about it too much.

I was reading an article last week in Conscious Choice, a free magazine about town, about a new phenomenon--"Eco anxiety." A term for the people who are freaking out about the state of things. Out of worry about the state of the Earth, of its ability to sustain us over the long haul. About the toxins in the air, the water, the things we live near every day. I think that even for those who don't allow those thoughts to creep too close--perhaps because just getting through today is struggle enough, and there isn't time or room enough to think too much about tomorrow--that on some deep level, it affects us all. I don't think it's an accident that depression is so common in America. There is a deep imbalance in this world, and it is not hard to see. We've been taught that we have to look out for ourselves, because no one else will do it, and yet there is no real safety that doesn't come from deep community.

I have been feeling like time is running out, winding down. My response has mostly been to try not to think about it. To make excuses and to wish and hope a time will come when I'll have the extra time to do the things to make my life align more with what I feel at my core that it should be. I think it's a kind of denial, springing from a grief and fear that I just do not want to feel.

So I can shut it out, try to hold it at bay. Or I can bring it close, and let it propel me to take steps in the direction that calls me. It's the choice I have at any moment. It usually feels easier to push it off, to put it off until another day. There is always so much to do, after all. Damn kitchen just never seems to get clean. But I don't think it's what I came here to do.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think the first answer is to do what I can to try to resist the impulse to not do the things I want to do because I feel like there is no time to do them, because I can see so clearly how that story will end, and that it would be easy to run out a whole life that way. To take steps--even if they are baby steps--to reclaim the time, to do what I can to make it matter, while I have it. While I have this day.

Link:

Conscious Choice article about Eco Anxiety

Brought home some worms today...

They were 'spensive! Yikes! I bought 3 pints at the garden store and they were almost $9 a pint!

At any rate, I ordered a worm bin last week, off of Amazon.com, from a Washington company called "Worm Paradise". Or at least, that is their seller name on Amazon. They were very quick and I like the thing so far--more like a worm condo than a bin. I liked it because it had stackable trays and a spigot at the bottom to drain the "tea". I'm in a townhouse and don't have a lot of freedom to garden, but I was feeling sad about all the lovely veggie scraps and that we throw away and thought it would be fun to have a worm bin. My roomie long ago set one up in our small kitchen in our 5th floor apartment--just a plastic bin, really, with some dirt and worms. But I've never done this on my own so I'm quite excited to see how the little buggers do.

The garden store was quite cramped today, so the gardening bug is in the air. We had snow not so many weeks ago, but I think there is hope now that spring has finally sprung here in the Northwest. Hallelujah!

Link:
Worm Paradise seller's page at Amazon.com

On education and recognizing our shared humanity

I read an article some time ago in Yes! Magazine called "Universal Education" by John Taylor Gatto, who during his teaching career was named NYC Teacher of the Year and New York State Teacher of the Year for his work in New York public schools. He had a number of memorable things in the article, but two quotes stood out for me.

One was from the privately funded Rockefeller General Education Board:

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.

We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply.

The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

From the article:

Another insider of modern schooling, H.H. Goddard, chair of psychology at Princeton, said in 1920 that government schooling is “the perfect organization of the hive.” He wrote that standardized testing would cause the lower classes to face their biological inferiority (sort of like wearing a public dunce cap), which would discourage their reproduction.

Wow! The foundations of universal education in America--not about helping children fulfill their potential as human beings, but about molding people into grateful workers. Standardized testing--not about helping us all measure up, but about helping us know how undeserving most of us are for the good things in life.

I'm not entirely sure how we break out of this trap we're all in, that tells us that we more or less get what we deserve, regardless of what the social structures are that surround us. As for me, I want to start by doing my best to see all the human beings around me--to see them, to acknowledge them as part of my tribe. It isn't always easy. It's much easier to just dismiss some people as evil or bad, selfish, or stupid. But I think that this is an essential part of the problem, and it is so pernicious it rarely fails to affect any of us. We blame the selfish and evil Republicans. They blame the godless bleeding heart liberals. We blame the rich. They blame the poor. But if I see you, and I acknowledge you as someone who shares a beating human heart just like mine, then I can't exploit you, and neither can I just write you off as evil and bad and utterly unlike myself. We all fail. We mostly get back up. We try to love. We don't always know how. Even as I'm writing this, I'm using "us" and "them". But I think we need to find our way to "we" to get to a world that really works. Maybe even to keep a world in which human beings can live.

I read somewhere recently about our "fragile" planet. Our planet is not fragile. It was in many ways better off without us and it will be OK long after we're gone. We need to save an Earth that is inhabitable for us. And I think we'll need to pull together to do that. As for me, I will start by opening my eyes to see those around me, to recognize the people I see in all their wonderful and varied humanity--whether they think like I do or not. I don't know if it will do too much. I doubt it will change the whole world. But it will change me. And maybe that's all we really get to do, anyhow. If nothing else, it's a start.

Link:
Universal Education by John Taylor Gatto

Cutting Down on Catalogs

It's been a long time since I've posted--had a wedding to plan and have and recover from, and that loomed large. It's been a time of introspection as well, of looking within, of questioning, and of trying to understand things better. I don't know that I've figured out anything of great significance, but I feel a kind of expectation, that some kind of new awareness may be on the horizon.

That said, I just wanted to post something briefly about a new website I found, courtesy of Sierra Club Magazine. It's called CatalogChoice.org and it allows you to request catalog publishers to take you off their mailing lists through one interface. For some time I've been growing more and more irritated as the catalogs seem to only grow more numerous in my mailbox. I've just signed on for their free service today, and it's a little clunky on my less-than-state-of-the-art computer, but I'm excited about the promise of being able to take myself off the mailing lists of these companies that keep filling up my mailbox with catalogs that I try my best to not even open, lest I succumb to temptation--without having to chase down the contact information of each catalog supplier individually. I think it should be a win-win--less unwanted mail for me, less wasted money for these companies I will not buy from. I think it shows great promise, and encourage anyone with a similar problem to check them out!

Link:

CatalogChoice.org

Bye-Bye Alberto

The first thing I heard upon waking today was the news that Alberto Gonzales had resigned. My inbox this morning was full of emails expressing what a victory this was for the progressive cause.

I don't like the guy--I don't know how anyone who cares about democracy could like the guy--but I have to admit that the first thing I thought was that of course they would time it during a recess of Congress, because then they can make a recess appointment of someone who will not try to uphold the law (necessary to protect Mr. Bush and his cohorts from criminal prosecution for their crimes), and then they will probably just put up impossible nominee after impossible nominee and do their best to run out the clock. I hope I'm wrong. But it seems like that is the standard operating procedure for Bush & Co. So while I'm happy to see Alberto go, I'm not yet ready to celebrate it as a real victory. And then next will it be Mr. Cheney hanging up his hat, in time to replace him with someone more likeable, who can then become the nominee (brother Jeb perhaps?) who might have a snowball's chance of at least giving the appearance of being electable? So that the stealing of this next election, when it happens, is at least plausible. I hope I'm wrong about that too. But I wouldn't put it past them.

OK, this is definitely the pessimist in me talking. I hope I'm wrong. I guess we will just have to wait and see how this plays out.

A Taste of Perspective

Something happened a few weeks ago. I had been struggling, really struggling at work--feeling like my co-workers didn't like me, like people weren't giving me any credit for having any skills, knowledge, or insights at all. It had gone on for months. I was pretty unhappy, and I wondered if it was the Universe trying to let me know that taking that job had been a mistake. So many things had gone wrong in my transition to full-time employee that my boss even said to me one day that she had never seen anything like it in her many years of work and wondered if it wasn't some kind of bad karma.

So this one day, a Monday to my recollection, I had had some feedback from my site manager that had me feeling cranky and misunderstood. I was walking down the hallway and I suddenly saw everything, all of this stuff, as just a threat to my ego. I saw my ego there, as this little creature of small substance, with its fists up and ready to fight. And for a moment I saw that this was all it was, this small insubstantial part of me feeling threatened, and then I felt the knot of tension I'd been carrying around in my belly for as long as I could remember just...dissipate. It was like something in the core of me expanded, and I felt an odd sense of joy.

I have to say that I haven't spent a lot of time pondering my ego. As a person who has been pretty insecure most of my life, I had never thought of myself as particularly egotistical, or egocentric. I thought that ego was mostly about some kind of overly inflated sense of self. But I'd been reading this book, the When Fear Falls Away book, and it had made me think about ego in a different way--not so much as self-obsession, but merely as that thing we grow with labels that say "I am this, I am that." I had started to wonder about these things.

The knot in my stomach? It came back. But the experience, while it was fleeting, left its mark. I don't see things in quite the way I did before. Something shifted in me. When I read the end of When Fear Falls Away, I felt I understood what she was talking about, a little. The facade was still there, but it had cracked a bit, and some light had come in, and made a difference.

DiCaprio's The 11th Hour

I just learned about this movie today (not sure how it escaped me), but it looks like it will be one of the must-see movies of the summer.



Link:

11th Hour Website

Firefighters Union releases anti-Giuliani video

I have never found much to like about Rudy Giuliani. I heard soon after 9/11 about how the firefighters and police didn't have the radio systems they needed to be able to talk to one another, and more recently kept hearing about how Giuliani had located his terrorism response center in the twin towers, a known terrorist target.

I recently have been reading a piece in the American Prospect about Giuliani and have found that there is much else to not like, but that the Republicans might be desperate enough to settle on him, even though many of his views don't fit neatly in a cultural conservative box.

At any rate, this video is affecting and worth passing along.



Link:

"If you knew Rudy like I know Rudy..." by Michael Tomasky, from the American Prospect

Michael Moore defending "Sicko" on CNN

This video has been out and about, but in case you haven't seen it it's well worth watching. CNN does a little smear piece on Sicko, with Michael Moore there in the studio. Michael gets pretty pissed off, and does some ranting about CNN's failure to tell the American people the truth about so many things, including, and predominantly, the war in Iraq.



The follow up video (broadcast the day after the first but filmed together with it) courtesy of Crooks and Liars:



This is Michael Moore's "Truth Squad" response to the CNN allegations:

'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight

When Fear Falls Away

A book came home the other day. My Significant Other ran across it in the library and brought it home. We've both been reading it. It's a fascinating tale of metamorphosis, of the disappearing of an old way of life and the welcoming of a mysterious new one, a new life without fear and suffering.

The author is a writer named Jan Frazier, who was facing an annual mammogram after a couple of breast cancer scares. She was terrified--and then she asked for the fear to be taken away. Mysteriously, miraculously, she not only awoke with no fear but found that a profound change had come over her life, something that changed everything.

Now, this transformation didn't exactly come out of nowhere--she had been studying with some adherents of Siddha yoga, under the tutelage of an Indian mystic named Gurumayi. Still, her transformation was sudden, and unexpected in its completeness.

I haven't spent a lot of time contemplating enlightenment as a goal. It has always seemed like the kind of thing that is so unlikely, it's not really worth all the painful years spent meditating and eating tofu in some temple, hoping to get there. Either that, or something like what happened to Byron Katie or Eckhart Tolle after seeing their lives fall completely apart. Not something you exactly strive for, because you have to go through all that mess first.

Yet, you hear all this stuff about an evolution in consciousness. And it makes me wonder if this might be paving the way for this kind of stuff to become more--mainstream, more commonplace. I don't know. I don't know if I want to be some enlightened being, because that sounds kind of freaky and way out there. But the idea of not worrying about death, and illness, and having some amazing reserve of love and compassion, that doesn't worry about whether your coworkers like you, for example--that doesn't have any worries, but only the desire to help relieve suffering in others--well, that might be all right.

At any rate, it's a fascinating read, I think, for anyone who knows what it is to live with fear, especially those special fears that come about by being a mother, by bringing vulnerable children into this world, and thereby learning what it is to fear loss of all kinds. I remember when my son was just a few days old, and I heard a news report of some children killed in a school bus accident or something, and I thought, What have I done? How could I go and have this baby when it would destroy me to lose him? What was I thinking? There is a part in the book where she is facing a breast cancer scare, and she thinks, I would be OK, if I weren't a mother. And she hears a voice, the voice of Gurumayi, saying "You must be OK, even though you are a mother." Sometimes I think I could face all the fears I have of the future so much easier--if I did not have a son. But I do have a son. And I don't regret that decision. But it makes how I face the future that much more critical, and makes this book all that more meaningful, and reading this book has made me think about enlightenment, and what it might mean, in a whole new way.

Link:
When Fear Falls Away website

Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Spiritual Emergencies

We had our first circle group meeting the other night, and in introducing myself I talked a bit about how my understanding of peak oil opened up my eyes to the fact that the future won't simply be a continuation of the past. This led to a opening of my eyes to other realities that will change our future, namely the indebtedness of our country and our families, and in the longer term climate change -- the greatest risk to the generations that will follow mine.

All of this created something of a spiritual emergency within me, leading me to question what's the point of it all, what does it all mean. In the end, I'm not sure that all of these current and future problems matter a great deal. I will always have the moment, I believe the birds will always be singing in the forest, and the optimist in me believes that when we really need to, we can adapt and come together more as a country and as communities as we face challenges in the future. (This is one of the problems I have with diehard peak oil gloom and doomers, they will accept no alternative other than complete societal breakdown, chaos, civil war, etc. etc.) I believe these people are largely ignoring the influence of women in this scenario they are painting...

I read an interview of Peter Russell which really spoke to me. He discusses the nature of consciousness, especially in light of our challenges--how we still need to act, and how we also need to have fun along the way. I also feel intrigued by the idea of preparing our local communities for the energy descent, which seems inevitable.

The Limitations of Nonviolence

I've always thought that nonviolence as a tactic was absolutely brilliant--force the opponent to show their brutality, and it will be clear to all who is in the right and who is in the wrong. The church I was part of for some time got very interested in Non-Violent Communication, the Marshall Rosenberg program that says that what is important is owning one's needs and communicating them in a way that is gentle and non-threatening enough to allow one to be heard. The method is useful, I think--it's good to be able to own your reactions, so for example, instead of saying "You make me so crazy when you refuse to listen to me," you say, "When you left the room without saying anything, I felt scared and sad." It can be a useful tool, but some of the proponents of NVC want to use it as a way to solve big world problems, and my Significant Other, being from a state which was formerly a colony and having seen first hand the results of empire, has influenced me to be suspicious of the method for such a use. He's been afraid that it would become a tool of power--that those in power would use listening as a way to mollify and preserve the status quo.

I bought the June edition of Utne Reader some time back--they had a cover story called "The Future of Protest: Why Your Voice Still Matters" that was of interest to me. I picked up the magazine last night while I was waiting for some water to boil, and flipped open to an article entitled "Arms and the Movement: Pacifism equals pacified to this activist," by a guy named Peter Gelderloos. The article was excerpted from his new book, How Nonviolence Protects the State. I've read a few things about Rachel Corrie recently--the young woman who was mowed down by an Israeli bulldozer, trying to block the destruction of a Palestinian home. So I was interested, and read the article. It was disturbing to read--and at the end, I felt like my understanding of non-violence was probably too simplistic.

This article made me think about several things--Gandhi in India, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam war--in a new light. His stance is that although nonviolence had its part to play, that first that what happened in these cases was less clearly a victory for those who resisted nonviolently than the coming together of a multitude of factors, some of which were in fact violent. Second, that the outcome wasn't as rosy as we've been accustomed to think--in India, colonialism gave way to neocolonialism, and he says that the British had a heavy part to play in fomenting violence between different religious sects as a way of neutralizing the perceived threat that a united, independent India might pose. That yes, the civil rights movement won some important victories for blacks in this country, but it certainly didn't result in real equality:

In short, the largest victory of the civil rights movement came when black people demonstrated that they would not remain peaceful forever. Faced with the two alternatives, the white power structure chose to negotiate with the pacifists, and we have seen the results: The movement was successful in ending de jure segregation and expanding the minuscule black petty bourgeoisie, but fell far short of full political and economic equality, to say nothing of black liberation from white imperialism.

And then he talks about Iraq, and how hopeless it was to think that the peace movement could have stopped that war. He sums up:

From India to Birmingham, nonviolence has failed to sufficiently empower its practitioners, whereas the use of a diversity of tactics got results. Put simply, if a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a system that is based on centralized coercion and violence.

I am still not sure what to think about all this. I have walked; I have protested war. I have walked for action against global warming. I walked on Inauguration Day in January 2001, when I was full of despair about the selection of George W. Bush. I didn't know if it was doing any good. It felt better to do something than nothing. But then, I didn't walk during the Battle of Seattle. I thought about it, but I had a baby at home. I watched the news and I was scared. I think what Rachel Corrie did was heroic--and yet, they are still bulldozing settlements.

At any rate, the article was thought-provoking. It made me question things that I thought that I knew. That process is always uncomfortable. The more you understand, the less you are sure of. But maybe that is a good thing. If you're sure you know the truth, you stop trying to find it.

Link:
"Arms and the Movement" by Peter Gelderloos

Sicko a must-see for Americans

We went to see the sneak peek of Sicko last night in Seattle. The theater was packed, and it was one of the bigger screens in the multiplex. Now, as I said before, I've been anxious to see this movie since the day Michael Moore announced he was going to make it, years ago, after Fahrenheit 9/11. I went in to the movie with high expectations, and when it was over I fully felt that Michael Moore had delivered, above and beyond.

The movie is not an easy movie to watch. Many of the stories were heartwrenching, like that told by the mother of the 18-month-old girl who'd spiked a fever and was denied care at the closest hospital by Kaiser Permanente--by the time she got to the Kaiser hospital, which was much farther away, the little girl had gone into cardiac arrest, and she died. Or the story of the woman in her early twenties who had cervical cancer and was denied coverage by her insurance company because she was "too young" to have it. The cancer has now metastasized.

Moore did something masterful, I think. You know we always hear about these millions of people who have no health insurance, and he does touch on that in the film. But he explicitly aims the film at the 250 million Americans who think they have insurance--and shows us that having insurance is no guarantee that we will receive the care we need if we actually get sick.

He also goes to Canada, the UK, and France, to talk to people on the ground about what it is like to have universal healthcare. Now, we know there is only so much you can show in two hours. And sure, he probably could have dug up some people to complain about those systems. But I think that we've seen enough rationing of care by now in this country to know that you don't need a government-run system for healthcare rationing to happen. Watching this movie made me embarrassed for what we've become as a country--the heartlessness and cruelty that comes out of the greed behind for-profit healthcare.

Michael Moore has caught some flak for his trip to Cuba, and I'd heard some things about his trip with the 9/11 rescue workers, but I was unprepared for how moved I was by this part of the film. It's clear from his portrayal that Cuba is not paradise--it is a poor country. Yet the generosity that is shown for these people, because they are human beings in need of care...Yes! Magazine's Summer 2007 edition has an article on healthcare in Cuba and how Cuba is training doctors for free, in exchange for a commitment to serve the poor. They have decided that it is a way that they can invest in their own security--not by building up their military, but by building a reputation of generosity to those in need. They sent thousands of doctors and medical staff to help in Pakistan after the earthquake there, and were able to transform a shaky relationship into a relationship of trust. They even tried to send medical help to New Orleans--but were denied the right of entry. I think that freedom of expression is worth a lot. For how much we do have of that, in this country, I am grateful. But if you are sick and in need of care and are not wealthy, America is not a good place to be. And that is a shameful thing.

It doesn't have to stay that way. Universal single-payer health insurance wouldn't be that hard to implement. We already spend more than anybody else per capita on healthcare. Yet it would virtually destroy a very powerful industry, one with four lobbyists per member of Congress. They will not go without a fight. No parasite wants to die; the will to live is strong. The question is, how long can we, the hosts, tolerate the parasites that will only keep us alive as long as it is useful and profitable to them?

Healthcare has many nuances. I long for a healthcare system which is about creating and maintaining health, not just about fighting illness once it happens. I have great respect for naturopathic care. I think our system could benefit from being more holistic. Universal single-payer health insurance would not solve the problem of how to create wellness, in and of itself. But I think it would be a great place to start. We at least need to amp up this conversation, and I think that what Michael Moore has done will do a lot to help that happen. Kudos to you, Michael. You are one of my great America heroes.

Please see the movie. And let's start that conversation.

Links:
Dennis Kucinich's plan for universal, single-payer, not for profit healthcare
The People's Email Action Network action page for HR 676, Healthcare for All
Yes! Magazine article about Cuba exporting health care

The official Sicko trailer:

The Blue Butterfly

Last night we watched The Blue Butterfly, a sweet movie based on the true story of a boy named David Marenger who was born in 1981 in Quebec and at 6 was diagnosed with brain cancer. The cancer spread, and he was not expected to live. The boy's dream was to catch a Blue Morpho, a beautiful and rare butterfly. He traveled to the jungles of Central America, in the company of a Canadian entomologist, to try to fulfill his dream. After he returned, his cancer had gone into remission. The movie, as movies are wont to do, plays a little loose with the particulars, but in its essence it's a true story--a story of hope, a story of the wisdom of Nature that we have in large part forgotten in this modern world of ours, a story of redemption. The movie is beautifully done, and it kept the attention of my son the Nintendo addict, which is something. The DVD adds behind-the-scenes extras, like interviews with David and the movie makers, which are worth seeing as well.

Link:
The Blue Butterfly

Thinking and talking about our future

It seems like we have a real issue here in America, which has something to do with not being able to think in the long term--or at least to be able to talk about it. We judge our economy by what the unemployment statistics are in this snapshot in time; we use "consumer confidence" blips as tools of prognostication. Sales are down 1.3%, and it is a warning shot across the bow. Yet at the same time you get the feeling that no one wants to say anything too gloomy for fears that it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy, like the 2001 This Modern World cartoon about the perceived need to "talk up" George W. Bush, like the news must talk up the market: "If we all agree to believe that our investments are worth lots and lots of money--then they will be! But if anyone has any doubts--then the magic spell will be broken and all will be lost!"

I remember reading something long ago--in the early 90's--about Japan, where they were saying that one of the major differences between Japan and the U.S. was that in Japan they thought strategically and long-term, and cared more about gaining market share than about what this quarter's profits were doing, whereas in America you had people clambering over each other to "liquidate" assets--selling off productive capacity for a quick profit, not caring for what the loss of that productive capacity might mean in the long term to the economy.

And of course there is the issue of the extractive economy itself--the gaping maw that must be fed, never caring about what kind of destruction it leaves in its wake.

We have a lot of huge issues facing us--the end of cheap oil, the threat of catastrophic climate change--but it seems we can't even deal sanely with the issues that loom right in front of us, like access to health care. Native Americans have said that we should think of how our decisions will impact the next seven generations, but it seems like we can't even talk rationally about the future in any way whatsoever. When they were pushing No Child Left Behind, we were told that it was education that would secure the way for our children. But it didn't seem that there was any discussion about how much higher education goes underutilized, when the infrastructure to support professional jobs keeps getting whittled away, when companies prefer to bring in cheaper foreign labor or to offshore high-paying jobs altogether. Education is good. Education is important. But it is not enough, in and of itself. And what if the jobs are feeding us today, yet leading us on to our destruction?

I remember watching closely during the campaign of 2000 and feeling frustrated because no one would talk about anything of real import. No one would talk about the things that I felt we needed to talk about to make sure there is some sort of future that we would want. I felt like the debates were mostly about fluff, the conversational equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Much of the responsibility lies in the mainstream media, which would rather talk about Brad and Jen and Angelina than about real issues facing real Americans, about real issues facing us as human beings on planet Earth. Perhaps it is more profitable to keep us distracted, fearful, and thinking that if we are just thinner, or if we just have Widget X, things will be better for us. But without the connection from person to person, from generation to generation, what do all these things matter in the end?

I felt like Katrina was a huge object lesson from our government. Just know, it said. Just know, that in disaster, you are wholly on your own. This is where we are now, in 21st century America, hovering on the edge of bankruptcy on every level. It isn't inevitable. But it most likely will become inevitable if we aren't able to change the conversation.

Thom Hartmann says over and over that we cannot wait for a leader. That we must become the parade, and that once the parade is moving, the leaders will then come and jump in front of it. I'm not sure exactly how we do that, but I do believe that there are many many people in this country who are hungry for a different way of being, a way of being that says I will care about my own life, but not only my own life, for I am part of a greater whole.

I think that investing in the time to talk, and to listen, is a good first step.

Links:
This Modern World: Straight Through Nap Time
For the Grandchildren

The Sheep and the Goats

I got to hear about 10 minutes of Thom Hartmann's show this morning in the car, and caught the tail end of an interview with Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy, the president of the Interfaith Alliance. They were discussing the role of religion in government, and Thom said that he thought that so much of what goes on in the name of Christianity is so strange, because in his opinion the Christian religion is really summed up by the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 25, which contains, among other things, the parable of the sheep and the goats--which both basically say that what matters is taking care of other people. Gaddy said that growing up in the Southern Baptist church (he's still a Baptist preacher, though not a Southern Baptist one) he never heard Matthew 25. He said it didn't really fit in with their message of how to be saved. Thom quipped that it was ironic that this passage was ignored, because it was part of the answer the one time that Jesus' disciples came and asked how to get into Heaven. I thought that what Gaddy said was fascinating, if true. It would sure explain a lot about what you see coming out of many churches that profess the name of Christian.

I don't read the Bible much these days. I spent a lot of time reading it in my younger years, though, and the parable of the sheep and the goats, from Matthew 25, is one of those stories that has persisted with me through time. Basically, according to the story, at the end of time all the nations will stand before the Son of Man (presumably Jesus), and he will divide the sheep from the goats. He tells the "sheep" that when he was hungry, they fed him. When he was naked, they clothed him. When he was homeless, they put him up. When he was sick, they cared for him. When he was in prison, they visited him. And the sheep are confused. They are like, when did we do any of these things for you? We never did that for you! And he tells them that whatever they have done for the least of his brethren, they did for him, and that they would get their reward. To the "goats," he goes through the same thing, except saying "You never did anything to help me, so it's the pit of hell for you!" They are also confused, because they are like, hey, we never overlooked you, Jesus! But he says that whatever they failed to do for the least of these, they failed to do for him.

I don't really believe in a literal heaven and hell. I think of them more as descriptive of a state of mind or consciousness than places you go to forever when you die. But in thinking about this passage a little bit today, especially in the light of the Tolle references in the blog (The Teeming Brain) I linked to yesterday, I think that this passage fits in very well with what I believe (at this moment, today, June 21, 2007) about the universe. That we are all part of one big whole. What I do to you, I have done to myself. There is an inescapable reciprocity in what we do because we are all, at some level, small parts of a very big interconnected whole. Which is comforting in some ways, but also scary at some level. How often do I think petty, mean thoughts about other people? How often do I get impatient? How often do I let myself feel alone and separate? How much more could I do to alleviate suffering in this aching, groaning world?

(As an interesting little aside, when I told my Significant Other--not a daily Bible reader, either--about what I'd heard on the radio, he said that he'd just then been reading a version of Matthew 25. When that kind of stuff happens, I know it's time to pay attention!)

Happy Solstice, by the way!

Links:
Matthew 25
The Interfaith Alliance