Agreed, and thank you for the balance. I don’t subscribe to revolt in the sense of stirring confrontation, but in stepping out of so much participation that is voluntary. I indulge in paying for access to internet, that participation is a complicity I desperately defend in order to hear what people have to say, as well as communicate. So, I need you to hear me say I am wrapped in as well . . . but I do opt out of most other not necessary offerings of the handlers.

The solutions, in my view, lie in assuming personal responsibility instead of asking/begging/expecting the existing structure to provide. For where is the consistency in decrying it and demanding from same? IF one is the position where they are not already a ward of the state through circumstances beyond reasonable control. Anyway, here are examples of how this personal responsibility (which is an INDIVIDUAL’S initiative) looks in practice in my community:

-Where I live, people aren’t making ends meet, though they are working people, even some two (pitiful) income families. They cannot pay for daycares for their kids. I take their kids into my home, for free. When they can, they offer a gallon of milk, a bag of fruit, or they barter some other service (haircut, watch my kids, drive my kid to party across town).

-I secured an abandoned (one of the many foreclosed homes that was then looted, then arsoned to ground) lot in my neighborhood, got the city agreed to water tap ($80), and we now are providing produce for ourselves and distributing around the neighborhood.

-I pulled my kids out of “they” schools. Lots of reasons, but just look at the population they “educated”

-We live a very frugal life, but pay through the nose for food grown with a conscience, as local as possible. The dollar is the most important vote, and personal boycotts are NOT a waste of time. Helps to sleep with a clear conscience.

-Make people uncomfortable and aware of facts, their feelings are theirs to deal with and process. No excuses like, they just don’t know any better.

-Don’t call the cops. Deal with your neighbors as much as possible without a 3rd party. If you live in a neighborhood like mine, and they like to arbitrarily do unwarranted traffic stops, illegal searches and general intimidation, let them know you’re watching. I have found a video camera to be quite a great neighborhood defense . . . amazing how many ridiculous and nonviolent cases can get dismissed when the cop is on MY camera.

-Own the Constitution and Bill of Rights in its entirety. Don’t treat it like a buffet, taking what you want and rejecting the rest. I know it’s in need of editing and revision. But, it’s all we’ve legitimately got. Stand up in those Commons and use the space called Freedom of Speech. There is a reason it’s the first on the list. The right to defend oneself is the second. There is a reason. Own it. Use it. Flaunt it. Name it. But please, don’t get rid of it in this atmosphere, this police state.

Where did we learn to hate our own individuality, as if we could have anything to offer anyone else when we decide we are nothing? Individuals come together voluntarily in successful communities. Those who don’t know who they are or what they want end up in herds -not functional communities.

Just some things EASY to do. No excuses. There many more. (Like not buying taxed items like alcohol, tobacco etc.) Choosing health without insurance, doctors, pharmeceuticals, fake psychology . . .) Maybe we need a place to go that is solutions oriented. Not just visionary, though that’s good too, but real actions that don’t rely upon system. Create our own.

More ideas?

Peace, Resistance, Hope,
Melissa

As one who thinks we need to think beyond the negative, I’m with ya.

As best we can tell there is an elitist regime that has held hostage the rest on the planet – and not just other humans, but life itself.

I’m not familiar enough with Means to say one way or the other. I don’t believe in revolt it begets its kind in spades. You are right the USA has refined genocide to the point that it commits without so much as a squeak. All are marginalized. Solidarity is critical; but I don’t buy the idea of going up against power directly. Undoing it is the key. How, that’s the question which we must congregate around.

Where can we institute real change, to open access to more and more of the commons, and by doing so reduce poverty and inequality?

Therein likes the beginning of the answer.

I disagree that it is racist to consider solidarity with our neighbors. To conflate their long history of suffering as ours is quite silly and erroneous, but not racist. I encourage you to consider how finely tuned the practice of genocide has become at the hands of USA, it started with the Natives, and has become the policy of choice wherever the US sees something it wants on other peoples’ lands. It’s also a practice that has been exported to Israel/Pal/Gaza and others. The generated financial collapse is an aspect of the same practice, and the same principle. They put a gun to our heads and slipped economic chains around our necks, and around subsequent generations’ necks.

The shit is gonna hit the fan everywhere. Why would it be different to endure it in solidarity with people who are willing to stand up and say, “I won’t cooperate with your system any longer.” ? The fact that US manifest destiny types use force to assert possession of tribal lands and more is a statement of the obvious.

Hue: I don’t own a single dream catcher. The idea isn’t to pretend something, but to transcend an artificial division that does disservice to human dignity and progress. How simple to think partnership is insulting and that solidarity is as superficial as creating “white Indians”!! I am running out of chuckles for people who love negativity and labels. Means is building something here, rather than wallowing and complaining and screaming racism at every turn. I’m interested in his plan to PRODUCE rather than bellyache and point fingers.

I wrongly thought the crowd here might be interested in others’ progress as well. It seems negativity and sustaining the divisions that allow our failures to continue reign strong. That is a dark place within to choose to nurture. Good luck.

Melissa

and the crowd which says eretz yisrael is our land, doesn’t need the deed to the land nor reason or rhyme to possess it; once, again wmd and other weaponry more than suffice.
and folks, that’s been the way of doing things for a long time. Causative factors for more frenetic land grabs, now going on, are shrinking planetary wealth, rising pop, and warming.

as all three aspects of reality worsen, expect use of n-bombs. And especially if -as it seems- US cannot in decades or centuries ‘pacify’ or puppetize, syria, iran, iraq, afpak, palestina, et al.

folks, all of these peoples are now redmen. tnx bozhidar balkas vancouver

Can you elaborate? White Indians? Hair? You suspect there will be negative consequences for the Lakotah Republic?

Melissa

The difference being that all the white Indians can cut their hair when the shit hits the fan

question: My friend runs a dance production company and she only allows female artists of color in her productions, which are staged in countries all over the world as well as USA. The productions are always social/political commentaries dealing with how people of color across the world are/have been exploited in many ways (related to the resources their lands have). So, does anyone here scream racism? -or is it obvious enough that anglo types might not carry a convincing message, or even that they really don’t even have a story of their own on those issues? Empathy, disgust, many other things, but an authentic story of their own of exploitation?

Interestingly, Russel Means (of 1970′s AIM) has done the opposite with the Republic of Lakotah. He sees everyone as a victim of the fruits of colonialism and imperialism, and he invites anyone to join him on the Lakotah lands who would like to give the finger to what the white, propertied men set into motion. He thinks people all over the world, regardless of skin, suffer from the melange of terrorism in which the USA indulges. He says: We’re all indians on the reservation now.” I would have to agree.

What do you think? -And please, be inclined to real communication, not flaming insults and provocation.

-Melissa-

I defended you before several times but this latest spends any credit you had with me as a fellow walker figuring the mess out. WTF? The stupid easy racism aside, your thoughts have gone beyond an understandable reaction to ivory tower hypocrites. Please tell me you were drunk and in a weak moment of regression!

It’s never too late for anyone, but you sure are looking like you don’t agree with that

And if Some rich country club right wing ( by the way you forgot to insert “white” but I will do that for you, never fear) assholes in Texas are trying to preserve a language, a culture, a way of society and wish to protect it from others why can’t they? Who the hell says that a fuckin bunch of grass skirt wearing mud worshipping dumbasses are superior to the Texas 500. Hell those bush babies don’t even have cotillion ( Ask your mom what that is). And I know for a fact that Luanda Angola don’t even have a Edwin Watts Golf Shop plus they don’t know how to take care of their greens worth a damn.

and neither does any region, land, or empire want a ‘jewish’ state on its land.
n.america is larger than all shemitic lands and much, much richer than all the shemitic peoples; thus, it cld easily house 5mn ‘jews’ and i hope your home twn becomes their capital.
in addition, much of shemitic lands are composed of deserts.
shemites speak a shemitic language; UK, auatralia, canada, US, new zealand speak english; thus, new zealanders cld easiliy leave NZ for ‘jews’ to settle in. They cld move to canada or US.
or why not put all english speakers to one region so that they cld be together?
and we cld ship all ‘jews’ to new zealand and leave them be?
but we all know or shld know that christo-judaic alliance want a win-lose result in excanaan.
and, yet, by necessary [apodictic] truth, there is a win-win result obtainable in excanaan.
and one day a result is coming; only it may be a lose-lose result or lose-win. tnx bozhidar balkas vancouver

Palestineans are not “arabs,” they are the people of Palestine, who have always lived their and have a deep connection to the specific land of Palestine, to their homes and olive/fig/almond trees that were stolen from them; to the hills, valleys and plains that were stolen by a bunch of stupid white Europeans. They have no place in a mythical “arab empire.” It is not racist to have certain areas for native Hawaiian’s, and that analogy has nothing to do with the Israeli/Palestinean situation.