Occupy Wall Street is now on day 15 as today begins Occupy Asheville. It is an amazing time in history that we find ourselves. We watch on TV as, night after night, the cable news shows show Egyptians rising against their oppressive regime, the "rebels" in Libya fighting Ghaddafi. Now after 2 weeks of Occupy Wall Street, MSNBC is finally showing coverage of Occupy Wall Street. I do not use the word "report" as even Chris Hayes' "live" report from New York last night, he said something along the lines of 'you see the typical drum circle, free hugs, etc'. After his coverage, @LastWord Tweeted 'this was recorded earlier'. NO ONE is reporting on the actual number of cities participating in this movement. OccupyTogether.org currently lists 101 cities participating in the US and 20 International cities. On Twitter there are many feeling that this is the start of a #GlobalRevolution, an American Autumn to respond to the Arab Spring. Is this what the Mayans were predicting in 2012? A global rising in conscience? Where the world citizens are rising up against their global masters and saying ENOUGH! I do not want to buy the bullshit you are peddling! I will not longer be a consumer. I am a citizen of the world and I am responsible for the atrocities committed in the name of global financial domination and I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!
As I dive back into the blogging pool, across the globe the young are rising up against the powers that be. It has been well over a year since my last post. Since then, the tea party Right have become so loud in the US their voices sound like gunshots, while Progressive voices have become silent and they were driven out of the House. Few in Washington speak for Mother Earth, but many claim to speak for Jesus. The State of the Union is comfortably numb. The youth of America are amused into a stupor with either technological gadgets or pharmaceutical drugs and want nothing to do with politics. But it now seems that the heavy handed Republicans have awakened a sleeping giant, the middle class. For weeks people of Wisconsin have kept a vigil of sorts. A peaceful demanding to maintain our only safeguard against the Right's privatization of the US. There is a person I follow on Twitter, @WomensWorkUSA that has tweeted this recently,
As long as there are CEOs who will send people out to clean up an oil spill w/out clean up gear to prevent asphyxiation, we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who live in gated communities so they do not have to mix w/any but the affluent, we need unions to ensure equity.
As long as there are CEOs who cut jobs right before Thanksgiving or Christmas to make final quarter look good...we need family values unions
As long as there are CEOs who speculate on Wall Street with your hard earned cash like it is fake monopoly money, we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who do far better moving their corporation overseas where ppl will work gladly for $1/day, we need unions in USA.
As long as there are CEOs who will send truck drivers or pilots off to work...still sleeping/sleepless...we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who hold paychecks beyond bank closing time to get another day's interest in THEIR account, we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who think dropping a stack of work on your desk at 5 pm on Friday is amusing, we need unions to determine OT.
As long as there are CEOs who are in charge of your 401K (life savings), we need unions to protect it from being cannibalized.
As long as there are CEOs who might use their power to intimidate for sexual favors, we need unions to protect from abuse.
As long as there are CEOs who penalize workers for needing to go to a child's doctor apptmt, school meeting, or to vote...we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who pay men 1/3rd more than they do a woman because she might get pregnant, we need to have unions.
As long as there are CEOs who can take out an insurance policy on you in case you die in which they profit, we need unions 2 keep you alive.
As long as there are CEOs who are not women and do not realize women care for family and elderly too and need flexible hours, we need unions
As long as there are CEOs who do not themselves spend time w/their families and do not understand why you should either... we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who think in terms of "management"/us and "labor" /them we will need unions, to bridge the gulf.
As long as there are CEOs who can afford a Cadillac healthcare plan and want you to have only emergency care not prevention, we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who think "breaks" are for the weak and would gladly have you work without any...we need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who buy equipment from the "lowest bidder" instead of what is most safe, we will need unions to ensure safety.
As long as there are CEOs who will purposefully understaff and force people to work double and triple shifts, we will need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who hire illegals so they can underpay, abuse and threaten them... we will need unions to protect US workers.
As long as there are CEOs who want to cut public service jobs to engage in nepotism w/private companies, we will need unions.
As long as there are CEOs who think it's "socialist" to care for the elderly and disabled, we will need unions to protect pensions.
As long as there are CEOs circumventing the will of the many to benefit a few wealthy donors, we will need unions to protect the middle class.
As long as there are CEOs who do not profit share with their workers and pull 350X their salaries, we will need unions to ensure equity.
As long as there are CEOs who want products delivered into wee hours of night, faster than competition, we need unions to protect drivers.
As long as there are CEOs who think of children as commodity instead of as individuals who learn at own pace, we will need teachers unions.
As long as there are CEOs who engage frackting and risk causing spontaneous fires at job site and in homes, we will need unions 4 safety.
As long as there are CEOs who will build an oil rig w/o a single working blowout preventor, we will need unions to protect worker safety
As long as there are CEOs that will send men down into a mine 2640 feet below the earth's surface w/o an escape route, we will need unions.
Dennis Kucinich addressed a crowd in Wisconsin, try not to me moved:
While the US continues to be divided...on second thought, are we divided or are the powers that be, including the Corporate State Media, manipulating us into factions? Surely we all want to be able to see a doctor when we are sick, want our children to have a good education, want clean air and fresh water. We all want food that tastes good and doesn't harm our health. We ALL want these things and we want these things for future generations. This brings me to nuclear power. In the shadow of the ongoing nuclear emergency in Japan after the 9.0 earthquake and 30ft tsunami, the US takes a look at it's nuclear power. On February 16th,
Promising "this is only the beginning," President Barack Obama announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees Tuesday for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the United States in nearly three decades. MSNBC
The videos and pictures out of Japan are truly surreal.
The nuclear reactors withstood the earthquake, but the tsunami is another story. The current situation is terrifying. It is hard to find an article that is not downplaying the crisis. Last I read, there were over 180,000 people evacuated in a 10 km perimeter around the facilities. This is the latest out of the UK:
Now we see the US conversation is turning to the overall safety record of nuclear. On C-Span's Washington Journal this morning they were talking as if the Japan nuclear crisis were over and they had averted a nuclear catastrophe. Again downplaying the reality of the current dangerous situation. When asked about the problem with storage of the nuclear waste, the Republican Representative did not have an answer. This is a wake up call that we need to pursue energy policies that will leave a healthy planet 100...200...500 years down the road. Renewables, solar, wind, hydroelectric, are the only way. I want a healthy planet for my great, great, great, great....grandchildren.
I have a friend that has a blog called the Village Witch. She talks quite a bit about it being "Tower Time."
The basic story of the Tower card in the tarot deck is this:
As the Fool leaves the throne of the Goat God, he comes upon a Tower, fantastic, magnificent, and familiar. In fact, The Fool, himself, helped build this Tower back when the most important thing to him was making his mark on the world and proving himself better than other men. Inside the Tower, at the top, arrogant men still live, convinced of their rightness.
Seeing the Tower again, the Fool feels as if lightning has just flashed across his mind; he thought he'd left that old self behind when he started on this spiritual journey. But he realizes now that he hasn't. He's been seeing himself, like the Tower, like the men inside, as alone and singular and superior, when in fact, he is no such thing.
So captured is he by the shock of this insight, that he opens his mouth and releases a SHOUT! And to his astonishment and terror, a bolt of actual lightning slashes down from the heavens striking the Tower and sending its residents leaping out into the waters below.
In a moment, it is over. The Tower is rubble, only rocks remaining. Stunned and shaken to the core, the Fool experiences profound fear and disbelief. But also, a strange clarity of vision, as if his inner eye has finally opened. He tore down his resistance to change and sacrifice (Hanged man), then came to terms with Death (Death); he learned about moderation and synthesis (Temperance) and about power (The Devil). But here and now, he has done what was hardest: he destroyed the lies of his life. What's left are the foundations of truth. On this he can rebuild himself.
People are feeling the effects around the globe, uprisings of the working class. A longing to tear down the ivory towers that the ubber rich hoard their excess in.
The working class around the world is the Fool. We are releasing our shout....hold on as the towers around the globe crumble.
