In a world where everything is living, nothing can be thrown away. Where would you throw it to?

– Clark Strand, Seeds from a Birch Tree

It is the duty of the oppressor to divide, to differentiate, to cultivate and promote false distinctions and then profit from the inevitable false conflicts these distinctions provoke.

It is the duty of the oppressed to resist.

In that spirit, I identify myself not by gender, by skin color, by class, language, or sexual orientation. I am not the sports team I root for, the city I was born in, the religion of my parents, not even the species in which I am classified. And I certainly do not identify as a consumer, an employee, a taxpayer, or an American.

In the name of holistic justice and planetary rebellion, I am an earthling.

Before there were Yankee fans or Red Sox fans, there were earthlings. Before there were terrorists or pacifists, there were earthlings. Before there were Christian or Jews, gays or straights, humans or non-humans, there were earthlings.

Long after all these distinctions—or even the life forms that inspired them—there will be earthlings.

Earthlings include the trees being clear-cut, the marine life being fished out of our oceans, the honeybees disappearing, and the animals howling for mercy in the vivisection labs. The humans shackled at Guantanamo, dying in cancer wards, cowering in fear as predator drones scream overhead? All earthlings, too.

It’s not nearly enough to rise above the latest man-made conflicts and/or differences and proudly declare oneself a “humanist.” In the name of holistic justice and planetary rebellion, we must go deeper to identify as earthlings and stand—fists raised—in solidarity with all of our fellow earthlings.

The Tom Joad character in The Grapes of Wrath said: “Maybe we’re not all individual souls, but maybe we’re all part of one big soul.” Incredibly basic, sure, but within that simplicity lies the secret: If we were to look upon all earthlings as part—along with ourselves—of one collective soul, it would become impossible to live in denial.
To do otherwise is to deny homicide, genocide, and ecocide. Some might call that suicide. They would be the earthlings.

A wide ranging collection of essays, memoirs, and more, Banned in Vermont shines a light on topics the US justice (sic) system, wartime propaganda, feminism, capital punishment, GMOs, and so much more—all fulfilling the book’s cover promise: “unedited, uncensored, unpretentious, unabashed.”

The following is a conversation I recently had with Rosemarie Jackowski:

Mickey Z: Why did you write this book?

Rosemarie Jackowski: My main purpose was to chip away at some of the misinformation out there. Not only in Vermont, but across the US. For example, many people believe that protesting, or as I prefer to think about it, resistance to the government, is a fun filled, rowdy experience reminiscent of images of the ’60s. Protests now are different. Much more serious. Right now there are many peace advocates in prison. Recently those who protested at the US School of the Assassins at Fort Benning were convicted. Usually those who are prisoners because of acts of conscience get very little news coverage. They are in reality secret political prisoners. Bradley Manning is a political prisoner—one of the few who has attracted any media attention.

MZ: With all the ground you cover in Banned in Vermont, is there anything you left out?

RMJ: Thanks for that question. There are many little secrets hidden in the book. One of them I will leave to the reader’s imagination. It concerns testimony during the sentencing hearing. I refer to this statement on page 20: “…Seems like we were at an impasse.” Imagine being the judge who had to impose my sentence. By this time, the war had become very unpopular. I, on the other hand, was receiving a lot of public support. The press dubbed me ‘The Vermont Peace Grandma’. I had no prior record and even the prosecution admitted that my act of conscience had good intent. It was clear from testimony that my motivation was a love of children and an abhorrence to violence and war. It does appear that I had secured the moral high ground. I expressed my willingness to go to prison. It almost made me feel sorry for the judge who would have to impose a sentence. The undisclosed secret in the book that the reader will have to decide is: Was this checkmating of the system a result of my well thought out legal strategy, or was I just lucky in having the events unfold this way?

Also, left out of the book was an irrelevant bit of legal trivia. During part of this long process, I had two cases before the Vermont Supreme Court and no lawyer. I don’t think that happens very often, if ever.

MZ: What would you like readers to experience while reading your book?

RMJ: I hope that readers will experience humor, joy, and sometimes sadness—which can sometimes inspire one to action. One of the most important messages of the book is something that I sprinkled on every page that I could. That is the Madeleine Albright admission that the USA killed 500,000+ Iraqi children and she thought that the price was worth it. I remember seeing that interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes way back in 1996. My immediate reaction was, ‘finally’. Now the sleeping US conscience would be awakened. I was wrong. The lack of empathy for victims of US foreign policy is mindboggling. How can that be explained?

One other important message in the book concerns the Black Budget. I pose the question: Has every election since 1947 been illegal? The Black Budget was authorized in 1947. How can those elections be legal if no informed votes were cast? If you can’t follow the money, you can’t know what your secret government is doing. Too many believe that if all uniformed members of the military were brought home, the killing would end. It is clear that more have died because of actions of the State Dept., CIA, private contractors, etc. etc, etc. In actuality, the uniformed military is only the tip of the iceberg. The real danger is with the secret US forces.

MZ: Should we expect another book from you soon?

RMJ: Not on my very old computer. Unfortunately, writing does not pay. Most authors that I know, even the really great ones, are struggling. I expect to make less than zero money on this book.

MZ: In light of the current rhetoric, do you feel there’s any “hope”?

RMJ: Not until US citizens change. That will require a change in almost everything—from the way US history is taught in schools, to the way information is disseminated to the general public. Just last night, I was talking with a friend who is a high-ranking administrator in the educational system. He has a copy of my book and said that there was a good chance that it would be banned in school libraries. On the other hand, I have already been invited to speak to a college class.

Mookie: That’s it?

Da Mayor: That’s it.

Mookie: I got it. I’m gone.

If every American were to make every single lifestyle change suggested in the film, An Inconvenient Truth, it would only result in a 21% decrease in carbon emissions. In fact, while the average human produces 2500 pounds of waste per year, the average per capita waste output is 26 tons…because 97% of waste is produced by agriculture and industry.

Individual lifestyle changes won’t do anything to “save the planet,” so why bother?

To help answer that question, I defer to Valter, one of the catadores (pickers of recyclable waste in Brazil) featured in the excellent documentary, Waste Land. “One single can is of great importance,” Valter explained, when asked about the value of recycling, “because 99 is not 100.”

My translation: Never lose sight of the big picture but always do the right thing.

Who wouldn’t want to witness a major reversal of some of our current catastrophic global eco-trends? But, as the legendary journalist I.F. Stone once said: “If you expect an answer to your question during your lifetime, you’re not asking a big enough question.” Making daily—even hourly—choices of resistance isn’t necessarily about being present when the current corporate-dominated paradigm shifts (or is shifted). It’s about doing the right thing…here and now. It’s about defying the dominant culture in any way we can.

For example, when you buy a used shirt at a local thrift shop instead of opting for a brand new article of clothing sold by a store that supports sweatshop labor, you don’t expect that specific purchase to end workplace inequality and put a halt to conspicuous consumption. You buy the used shirt simply because it’s the right thing to do.

This mentality counters those who say stuff like: “Why should I use public transportation instead of drive? All those other motorists are still using their cars anyway.” Sure…they are. But you’re not. 99 is not 100 and you, dear comrade, are doing the right thing.

Whether you aim to recycle your old cell phone or to knock over a cell phone tower—again—it comes down to remaining aware of the institutional framework while still doing the right thing many times a day…all with the same ultimate goal: dismantling a societal system that’s relentlessly assaulting our planet and everything that lives on it.

#8

Sometimes
the best things
in life
are broken.

Rihn’s no Ivory Tower purist or coffee house boor. Sure, he’s  got the English degree from Kent State and six chapbooks to his name but as he told me, “My politics are reflected in my writing. Much of my writing deals with working class issues.” Putting his values into practice, Rihn has run creative writing workshops in a domestic violence shelter and currently volunteers reading manuscripts for a non-profit (Reentry Bridge Network) that connects prisoners with the performing arts. (Reentry Bridge Network publishes four books per year of prisoner’s writing.)

#33

Tests
are more meaningful
without answers.

“The concept of ‘responding’ is a central one in my writing and activism,” explains Rihn and the 50 poems in America Plops and Fizzes, to me, read not only as “response” but also as a provocation to respond. Described as deviating to the “edge of formlessness,” Rihn’s latest collection (and the excellent, complementary artwork by David Munson) seems to build a momentum as you read through it—the poems sneaking up on you, gaining steam, daring you to stop and contemplate…and perhaps even take action?

#41

What is
the poet’s
equivalent
to the sparring
partner?

“Being a writer is such a privilege,” says Rihn, “and the ability to respond is just one of the ways to fulfill the responsibility that comes along with it.”

Our conversation went a little something like this:

Mickey Z.: America Plops and Fizzes kinda reminds of the story about when an art writer declared that Jackson Pollock’s paintings lacked a beginning or an end and Pollock replied, “He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was.” Did you embrace of “no form” by design or by natural process?

Andrew Rihn: By both, actually. America Plops and Fizzes was written while I was an undergraduate at Kent State, and one of the important tasks for writing instructors is to expose their students to a diversity of forms. Good students are able to learn these forms, but good writers must also I think experience a sense of un-learning, that is, embracing these forms in different ways. I was very conscious of forms like haiku and haibun, as well as less formal styles like aphorisms and contemporary advertising slogans, but the decision to blur and blend was a very natural one.

Having “no form” implies the existence of form, and vice versa. I find that tension fundamental to language, and it is made especially visible in creative writing. Humans seem to have an innate impulse towards language, but the languages we create are of course human systems, and imperfect. They’re terrific because they make our thoughts visible; at the same time, structuring our thoughts imposes limits on them as well. So there’s a regulatory function to any formal structure.

But as David Munson’s artwork in the book illustrates, sometimes that regulation can be a good thing.

MZ: Patti Smith once said the role of the poet was that of a Paul Revere of sorts; e.g., not necessarily about solutions but all about waking up the populace. Any thoughts on that appraisal?

AR: I think that’s a wonderful description! Poetry is a rhetoric: a way of writing and speaking that shapes the way we interact with the world. It’s a way of thinking. In that regard, it’s the opposite of advertising. Good poetry, like good food, is a slow process. It takes time to digest; it gives you strength. But we’re inundated with junk food – empty calories, empty words. Fast food, Twitter updates, celebrity marriages. We’re left, individually and culturally, bloated, weak, and constipated.

MZ: But do you see any chance of us moving to a more nutritious, poetry-based diet? Perhaps one day, long after industrial civilization has imploded, humans will live a modern version of the clan or village-based life and this would be more conducive to storytelling?

AR: I think a balanced diet should include a bit of poetry, but also some fiction. And non-fiction: histories, biographies, academics, manifestos. I’m not a nutritionist, but I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to limit our diets to just one thing. We need painting, and music, and theatre, too. I don’t know how exactly an arts-based civilization would function, but it would be a welcome change from ours based on property, militarization, and surveillance.

Poems will never be as flippant as the “Twinkie defense,” or pad the profit margins like a marketing campaign. A poem will never have the same impact as a bomb, but I’m pretty comfortable with that.

MZ: If not the impact of a bomb, what then did you have in mind as you compiled America Plops and Fizzes in terms of both choosing poems and the order they appear in and potential reader response?

AR: At his sexiest, and most subversive, the poet Pablo Neruda said “I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees.” That’s the kind of explosion I am interested in. Of course, Neruda said it in Spanish so most of us in the US need a translator to read his poems. But that’s something I wanted to capture in this book as well: translation, negotiation, reconstruction.

Our memories are always selective – just ask a racist about the cause of the Civil War – but in critically reflecting upon our experiences we can begin to see the spaces where real, potentially radical options existed. What I hope these poems will do is reconstruct, little by little, the reader’s own experience, the way bricks from a torn down wall can be used to build something new.

It is one thing to know where you have been and where you’re heading, and that’s vital, but is something altogether different to look at where you could have been, where you could be going. So it’s that moment of stepping forward, after the book has been read and put down, that I’m most interested in. I want to encourage people to disrupt the paths of least resistance – the political, the social, the personal – and to do so creatively, emphatically, and with love.

MZ: One last thing – since you suggest it in your new book – what is the poet’s equivalent to a sparring partner?

AR: A boxer’s sonnet, maybe. A martial artist in blank verse.

MZ: That’s easy. Our way of life is really a “way of death” and is directly responsible for the current global crises I write about. We also might want to agree to save the word “attack” for, say, those living under the US taxpayer-funded predator drones, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium shells. Let’s save it for countless victims of child abuse. Let’s save “attack” to describe the reality of one rape every 46 seconds in America. Okay?

FAQ: Why don’t you offer any step-by-step solutions?

MZ: Way too many people imply that unless a critic expounds a specific strategy for change, his/her opinion is worthless. This remarkably unsophisticated reaction misses the essential role critical analysis plays in a society where problems—and their causes—are so cleverly disguised. When discussing the future, the first step is often an identification and demystification of the past and present.

Besides, what value would my “solutions” hold while we are still in the midst of myriad global crises? I like to imagine that if we began detaching ourselves from a system designed to destroy us (and all life) and began dismantling that system, we’d create a space in which we could recognize paths and options currently invisible to us.

FAQ: Why do you always focus on the negative?

MZ: Becoming an activist can be an incredibly positive experience: creating community, inspiring change, feeling empowered. While most humans choose instead to use their meager time chasing money, collecting possessions, and obsessing over pop culture, the activist sees a bigger picture, a longer view, a deeper connection. However, being an effective activist also requires us to tear off the blinders and become acutely aware of how our way of life has devastated the planet.

More importantly, what does the term “negative” mean in this context anyway?

If you went to a doctor, would you deem him/her negative for talking about how high your cholesterol levels are instead of, say, focusing on your excellent fingernail health? If you brought your car in for a tune-up, do you want the mechanic to compliment you for keeping your tire pressure at the right level but stay away from a negative topic like defective brakes? Of course not…

Why, then, do so many humans shut down when confronted with the realities of our current social, economic, and environmental crises? Why is analysis that presents a dose of reality smugly dismissed as “negative”? Don’t you want to know what’s going on and how you can help address it beyond minor lifestyle changes and the petty conflicts of party politics? Why not save your knee-jerk “negative” retort for those who directly or indirectly support the corporate-sponsored rape of our planet?

News Flash: It’s not “negativity” that’s the issue here, folks. It’s denial.

Antonio Gramsci wrote, “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” I can think of no better mantra for activism. Don’t shy away from learning the ugly realities of industrial civilization but never let these brutal truths prevent you from taking urgent action and believing you can create change and save lives—human and non-human lives. It’s a delicate balance, but our ability to walk this fine line could literally make all the difference in the world. We need a planet brimming with pessimistic optimists…

FAQ: Why aren’t you marching in lockstep with me? You suck.

MZ: Of course, no one phrases this question quite so bluntly but it’s astonishing to me how often a fellow human can be virtually in synch with my perception/lifestyle/worldview but choose instead to angrily dwell upon the issues on which we differ. Purity is not a realistic or productive goal.

FAQ: Since you seem to think you have all the answers, exactly what should we do?

MZ: This is the most disingenuous FAQ of all. You know exactly what needs to be done. If you walked into a room and saw a man attacking someone you loved, would you ask an obscure writer like me what you should do? Would you write a letter to Congress, sign a petition, hold a candlelight vigil, vote for a Democrat… or would beat the attacker’s ass from one end of the room to the other?

And for the record, I definitely do not think I have all the answers, but I sometimes feel I have more questions than most.

The BLU-82B or “Daisy Cutter” bomb has been described as “the largest conventional bomb in existence and is 17 feet long and 5 feet in diameter, about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle but much heavier. It contains 12,600 pounds of GX slurry (ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and polystyrene) … the ammonium nitrate in just one Daisy Cutter bomb is about six times the amount used in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.”

Seed bombs are used to turn forsaken parcels of urban land into gardens.

The Daisy Cutter — first used in Vietnam to clear helicopter landing sites and more recently employed with devastating effects in both Iraq and Afghanistan — is extremely lethal but due to the intense magnitude of its impact (and ensuing shock waves), became increasingly utilized as a “psychological tool” (shock and awe, remember?).

“The Daisy Cutter has an explosion similar to a small nuclear or atomic bomb,” writes Ridhwan Saleem. “They say that when one was dropped in Iraq, the explosion lit up the entire front. Many Iraqi soldiers defected after seeing that bomb.”

Green-spirited seed bombs and mean-spirited Daisy Cutters. Take a wild guess which one is illegal here in the land of the free. Yep, seed bombing could get you arrested or sued, but could also result in real daisies, as in the family Asteraceae (from the Greek aster or star) — a family of plants roughly 50 million years old.

The Daisy Cutter bomb, on the other hand, was used to destroy anything and everything in a 600-yard radius.

The daisy family has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies.

The Daisy Cutter generated pressures in excess of 1,000 pounds per square inch near the point of impact, and the shock waves could be felt miles away.

Daisies include not only the familiar flowers, but also valuable medicinal herbs like Echinacea and arnica, and edible plants like artichokes and endive.

The Daisy Cutter was the product of an institution — the US military — that is funded by 54 percent of American tax dollars and owns the dubious distinction of being the planet’s worst polluter.

Daisies make up 10 percent of all flowering plants on Earth.

The Daisy Cutter has already been retired and replaced with an even more destructive version, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (known as The Mother of All Bombs or MOAB). The largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, the MOAB is very similar to the Daisy Cutter, except it is larger and uses a guidance system which makes it one of those “smart” bombs.

Daisies are found everywhere on the planet except Antarctica.

In 2007, the Russians announced they’d tested the “Father of All Bombs.” Described as “the world’s most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered munition, the Russian military claimed it was four times more powerful” than the MOAB.

Both the “father” and “mother” of all bombs are legal and have become popular fodder for YouTube addicts.

Seed bombing remains a crime.

Any questions?

What will happen if activists don’t kick things up a few thousands notches and provoke massive changes in the way humans currently live? Chomsky and I, of course, agree it’d be best to create such change and learn the answer to that question. On a few other points, we didn’t agree.

Our discussion went something like this…

Mickey Z.: I recently watched a video on climate change in which you were one of the featured interviewees. You talked quite somberly about the recent elections being a “death knell” for humanity and us “kissing our species goodbye.” I’ve read your work for decades but can’t seem to recall you using such language in this context. In your view, have we humans waited too long to take action? Do you believe we can/should downsize our industrial culture before it downsizes itself?

Noam Chomsky: If I said the elections are a death knell, I went too far. But I think it’s fair to say that they do threaten that outcome. Even the business press is concerned. Bloomberg Business Week reported that the elections brought into office dozens of climate change deniers, swelling support for Senator James Inhofe, who has declared global warming to be the “greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people” and feels “vindicated” by the election. He probably is also celebrating the ascendance of representative John Shimkus who assures us that God would prevent dire effects of climate change; analogues would be hard to find in other societies. And probably is also celebrating the fact that according to recent polls, barely a third of Americans now believe that human activities are a factor in climate change – very likely the result of a major corporate propaganda offensive, openly announced, to achieve this result. It’s important to bear in mind that those who orchestrate the campaigns know as well as the rest of us that the “hoax” is real and ominous, but they are pursuing their institutional role: maximizing short-term profit and putting aside “externalities,” in this case the fate of the species. Modifying the core institutions of the society is no small challenge. This confluence of factors should serve as a grim warning. If the US continues to drag its feet on addressing these grave problems, the rest of the world will have even less incentive to proceed with serious measures. I don’t think that entails downsizing industrial culture. Rather, converting it to sustainable form to serve human needs, not private profit. For example high speed rail and solar technology do not downsize industrial culture.

MZ: When I say “downsizing industrial culture,” I’m suggesting that any lifestyle based on relentless resource extraction is by definition, un-sustainable. So, I would counter that “serving human needs” is partly what got us in this mess in the first place. Considering that 80% of the forests have been destroyed and 90% of large fish in the ocean are already gone, maybe we need a more holistic perspective on “needs”?

NC: I’d still give the same answer. Human needs are served by a sustainable lifestyle, almost by definition, if humans include coming generations. And a shift to such technologies as high-speed rail instead of maximizing fossil fuel use, and solar energy, is not “relentless resource extraction.”

MZ: I guess what I mean is what about non-human needs? We can’t survive without a functioning eco-system and most of the accepted suggestions—recycled goods, CFL bulbs, etc.—are way too little, way too late. As someone who has surveyed the shifting tides of human culture, can you foresee Americans stepping up to make the kind of changes and sacrifices required to ensure “coming generations”?

NC: I’m not sure what you mean by “non-human needs.” A functioning eco-system is a human need. Are you thinking of the needs of non-human animals? Say beetles? They’ll probably survive whatever we do to the eco-system. I quite agree that the standard suggestions are too little. If they are too late, then it follows, logically, that we really can kiss each other goodbye. But I think that’s too grim a forecast. On whether Americans can step up, it’s hard to be optimistic. Certainly current trends are in the opposite direction, as I mentioned.

MZ: So, if you’re not optimistic about Americans stepping up, what it is that keeps you from maintaining as “grim” a forecast as I?

NC: Because not being optimistic falls a long way short of predicting that all is finished. There are still options. If you really think the game is over, what’s the point of even discussing these topics?

MZ: The only game I feel is over is the widespread belief that minor tweaks and changes can make enough of a difference. What I’m sincerely wondering is what, as you see it, are the options that remain?

NC: I think we agree on that. The options that remain are much more dramatic and far-reaching initiatives, and the sooner the better.

MZ: Which brings me back to my initial point about downsizing. High-speed rail requires unsustainable and toxic practices like mining, etc. Solar energy is obviously better than fossil fuels but isn’t truly sustainable if it’s solely used to replace fossil fuels in the name of supporting an unsustainable industrial/technological culture. As for those beetles you mentioned earlier, surely you know that valuable insects like bees are being wiped out by this same human culture. So what I’m asking is for a clearer idea of what you see as the dramatic and far-reaching initiatives we need.

NC: Bees are being wiped out, but beetles aren’t. The choice today is not between eliminating transportation and wasting fossil fuels, but between more and less wasteful forms of transportation. Same with regard to solar energy. There’s no point discussing options that haven’t even a remote chance of being implemented, and would be massively destructive if they were. What has to be done today is (1) large-scale conversion (weatherizing, etc.), (2) sharp change in transportation to greater efficiency, like high-speed rail, (3) serious efforts to move to sustainable energy, probably solar in the somewhat longer term, (4) other adjustments that are feasible. If done effectively, that might be enough to stave off disaster. If not, then we can give up the ghost, because there are no alternatives in this world, at least none that I’ve seen suggested.

Also, I do not see how we can rationally oppose high speed rail because of the environmental and other costs without considering the social and human consequences of the radical elimination of transportation that this entails.

MZ: I do so because I feel the “environmental and other costs” are virtually indistinguishable from the “social and human consequences.” Preserving the unsustainable system that has put all life on earth at risk, to me, carries far worse potential consequences than beginning the process of dismantling that system. Neither option is even remotely appetizing but only one option accepts the inherent destructive nature of the industrial infrastructure as it stands now.

NC: Your reply illustrates exactly the problem I see constantly. You are certainly entitled to this opinion, but merely asserted it cannot carry any conviction. I’m sorry that you don’t see that your comment does not address the issue.

MZ: I’m sorry that you can’t see how it does.

NC: Then we agree.

MZ: Although we continued talking at that point, this marked the end of our official interview. However, I feel I would be remiss if I did not voice my fervent disagreement that there are “no alternatives in this world” to the four options Chomsky lists above.

We all know there’s much, much more everyone of us could be doing—right now—and the only reason so many believe these tactics don’t have “even a remote chance of being implemented” is that so few activists can see past (non-indigenous) “human needs” and/or have the stomach for drastic change. To me, the option that’s most “massively destructive” (to use Chomsky’s words) is the option of maintaining the structure that currently threatens all life on earth.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

- Hippocrates

Back in the Cold War days, a useful myth was that of extreme Soviet supremacy. Surely, if the godless communists, hell bent on world domination, were allowed to surpass US military might…well, you get the picture. Author Edward Herman once defined the “Soviet threat” as “a large and formidable beast of prey, the size of whose claws and fangs varied with the demands of the Military-Industrial Complex.” As journalist Ken Silverstein explains: “It’s now virtually undisputed that the menace once attributed to the Red Army was greatly overrated.”

On the topic of overrated, I’m reminded of another America delusion: the protein myth. In the US, the typical adult ingests 100 grams of protein every day — roughly four to five times the amount recommended by scientists not affiliated with meat and dairy corporations. The average American — in his/her lifetime — will consume 12 sheep, 15 cows, 24 hogs, 900 chickens, and 1000 lbs. of assorted animals (like fish). How did we ever develop this idea that more is better when it comes to protein, especially animal protein?

Part of that answer is profit-related, of course, but another part of it is the result of a third popular American pastime: The irrational quest for size. While waif-like models inspire shame, anxiety, guilt, and eating disorders among the female population, those artificially-tanned, oiled-from-head-to-toe, chemically-enhanced bodybuilders smiling at you from the pages of your favorite magazine have the power to wield considerable influence. This is what a real man looks like, they seem to be saying. Envy me. I am a powerful man who commands the sexual attention of others.

“The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men,” writes author Chuck Palahniuk in his novel, Fight Club, “as if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says.” In order to reach that sculpted ideal, the men (and women) Palahniuk refers to are usually doing too many reps using far too much weight while taking way too long of a break in-between sets as they walk around in a permanent lat pose. Add in the wallet-draining habit of downing powders, pills, and potions, and you have yourself an industry founded on the illogical pursuit of mass.

Much like the Military-Industrial Complex…

“Military history is full of trumped-up threats,” Business Week columnist Stan Crock wrote in late 2002. “Time and again in military preparations, fears are raised that later prove unfounded.” Crock calls this gap-ology. A gap, according to Herman, is “a frightening but mythical deficiency relative to some foreign power.”

First there was the 1955 bomber gap. “The Soviets flew Bison bombers repeatedly in a loop over visitors at an air show, giving an exaggerated notion of their numbers,” says Crock. “A worried US military proceeded to build up its air-defense system.”

Another example of taking action based on a wholly manufactured basis is the hyper-ingestion of protein due to the scientifically useless and morally indefensible institution of animal experimentation. Since trying to discern biological trends from human to human is often impossible, what makes us think testing done on a rat will lead to any knowledge about our anatomy and physiology? The breast milk of rats, for example, derives nearly half of its calories from protein. Human breast milk is 5.9 percent protein. Obviously, there’s little useful information to be gained from monitoring the protein needs of rodents. However, many of today’s “experts” are still relying on protein requirement studies done on rats…in 1914.

What about those who believe we need extra protein because we want to run faster, jump higher, or grow bigger and prettier muscles? “Although in the past it was thought that vegetarian and vegan diets might impair athletic performance,” explains Natalie Digate Muth, MPH, RD, “scientists, coaches, and athletes alike now agree that with proper planning a diet without animal products can effectively fuel peak performance.” In addition, the decidedly mainstream National Academy of Sciences has declared, “There is little evidence that muscular activity increases the need for protein.”

But evidence is rarely the primary guiding factor inside a gym. After all, when was it decided that muscular hypertrophy was the ideal and is there even a shred a proof that such over-development has any correlation to health and fitness? The human body has evolved over millions of years to support muscle mass similar to that of, say, a swimmer. Until the Industrial Revolution, humans had little time to use solely for the sake of gaining size. Today, however, we are surrounded by men and women who have piled up enormous muscles on bodies not designed to bear such a burden. Also, the type of training needed to promote and maintain such unnatural mass is not exactly conducive to joint health.

Look around the gym. How many people do you see lifting more weight than they can handle? You know the type: usually men, big arms and chest, equally big gut, thin legs, and not a shred of muscular definition. Not to mention the aching shoulders, elbows, knees all covered in an assortment of Ace bandages. All of them chasing what cannot be caught because it doesn’t exist…like the missile gap.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy gave America the infamous “missile gap” when he claimed the U.S. nuclear arsenal had fallen behind the Soviet stockpile. Upon his election, JFK revealed that a gap indeed existed but it turned out that it was the U.S. that had the advantage. “That didn’t stop Kennedy from launching a nuclear-arms buildup,” adds Crock.

Presidents Carter and Reagan combined to make a late 70s/early 80s contribution to the Soviet threat: the “window of vulnerability.” Based on the faulty assessment of a group of conservative defense analysts, Reagan announced that the Soviets had the ability to knock out America’s land-based nukes in a first strike. “The claims were based on faulty assessments of the Soviet weapons’ power and accuracy — to say nothing of Moscow’s intentions,” Crock explains.

If we chose, we wouldn’t have to rely on “faulty assessments” to figure out how much protein we actually need. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says 2.5 percent of our daily calories should come from protein. According to the World Health Organization, it’s about 5 percent. How does that work out in grams? A lot lower than the US average of 100 grams a day, that’s for sure.

“An adult male on a fast only puts out 4.32 grams of urinary nitrogen per day,” says William Harris, M.D., author of The Scientific Basis for Vegetarianism. “Each gram represents 6.25 grams of broken down protein, so under conditions in which some protein is actually being catabolized and used for fuel, only about 4.32 x 6.25 = 27 grams/day are actually needed.” Twenty-seven grams.

Which brings us back to human breast milk. Humans undergo their most rapid growth during infancy and human breast milk has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to become the perfect food to facilitate that growth. As stated earlier, it derives only 5.9 percent of its calories from protein. So here’s a question for everyone working two jobs just to afford their expensive protein supplements: If we need less than 6 percent of our calories from protein during a time of intense growth, why are we consuming so much protein as full-grown adults?

That’s naturally fully-grown adults…not juiced-up bodybuilding freaks. We look back now and laugh at what once passed for entertainment. Stuff like gladiator contests or even Vaudeville. What will future generations have to say about the artificially-inflated, tanned, and oiled bodies of men and women trying to impress us with their flexing in tiny outfits under the glare of klieg lights — all pretending to represent health? It’s not natural. It’s overkill…just ask that unrepentant Cold Warrior, Caspar Weinberger.

US Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1987, Weinberger remained unfazed by any evidence of US deception. “In the end, we won the Cold War,” he declared, “and if we won by too much, if it was overkill, so be it.”

A slice of life on Planet Overkill…

One evening, for example, I was wearing a Yankees t-shirt with the name “Justice” emblazoned on the back (for former Yank David Justice), when a woman named Mary — perhaps in her late 60s — asked me if I were a Yankee fan. I told her I was…but my real reason for wearing the shirt was all about the word “justice.” She smiled and declared that justice was a “noble idea.”

This was shortly after 9/11, so I braced myself for the inevitable “we need to show those towel heads some justice.” Instead, Mary told me — albeit in a very low voice — she was going to Washington soon to march against the impending invasion of Iraq.

After this confession, Mary looked genuinely nervous. Had she gone too far in the alleged land of the free? I just smiled and said in my best underground resistance voice: “Don’t worry, I’m with you.”

Mary and I proceeded to talk in depth each time she’d come to work out. The company eventually phased out the gym and let me go but just before so, I saw Mary and complimented her on how hard she was training.

She leaned close to me and whispered: “When the revolution comes, I’ll be ready.”

Which brings me to a good question for 2011: Are you ready for the revolution?

Being a revolutionary needn’t require one to sleep till noon, dress entirely in black, and sport a rail-thin, heroin addict physique. Then again, neither should Michael Moore ever serve as anyone’s role model for healthy rebellion.

If you agree that fitness — both mental and physical — is a crucial component for any serious subversive, read on…

Four Steps to Radical Fitness

1. Condition Your Body

For example, having your arms yanked and bound behind you before being tossed onto a street corner or jammed onto a detention bus can potentially cause damage to the muscles of the shoulder and upper back. To better prepare for this seemingly inevitable scenario, you might wanna seek help from the camel.

2. Free Your Mind

As Ralph Nader sez:

Once we stop growing up corporate and grow up civic, we will be much more focused on nutritious food, rather than junk food; we will be much more inquiring about different kinds of products; we will look at pollution as a form of violence, not just something that is nasty and dirty; we will demand the mechanism so we can control what we own and use these great resources for an enlightened, just, prosperous, happy society where the pursuit of justice is filled with such joy it itself becomes the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of happiness becomes the pursuit of justice.

3. Green Your Eating Habits

An activist’s eating habits offer the best opportunity to put theory into practice. If you consume a plant-based, whole foods, locally grown diet (organic, if and when possible), you’ve virtually taken yourself out of the equation, re: animal cruelty, environmental devastation, corporate welfare, and a growing health holocaust.

4. Learn How to Defend Yourself and Your Planet

The inherent message being: if we were to appreciate our unbreakable bonds to other humans and the entire natural world, we’d be more likely to act in “self defense” when engaging in green activism. I see it as sort of a literal and metaphorical left hook.

People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America.
– Arundhati Roy

More than half (53.3%) of US tax dollars go to a criminal enterprise known as the US Department of Defense (sic), a.k.a. the worst polluter on the planet. We hear about tax cuts this and budget that and all kinds of other bullshit from the US government and the corporations that own it…but the reality remains: Roughly one million tax dollars per minute are spent to fund the largest military machine (read: global terrorist operation) the world has ever known.

What do we get for all that money? To follow, is but one tiny example that mostly slipped through the cracks earlier this year.

On July 23, 2010, Tom Eley at Global Research wrote:

“According to the authors of a new study, ‘Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,’ the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by US atomic bomb strikes in 1945.”

For those unfamiliar with the US attacks on Fallujah, first of all: You should be fuckin’ ashamed of yourselves. Secondly, here’s Patrick Cockburn’s basic description:

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions. In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties.

Of crucial importance is this: A high proportion of the weaponry used by the US in the assault contained depleted uranium (DU).

And you and I paid for it all.

The aforementioned study found that the cancer rate “had increased fourfold since before the US attack” and that the forms of cancer in Fallujah are “similar to those found among the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors, who were exposed to intense fallout radiation.”

Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Yeah, Americans paid for those bombs, too.

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 newborn babies:

• 24 percent were dead within the first seven days
• 75 percent of the dead babies were classified as deformed

Cockburn writes of a “12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighboring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.”

Dig this: After 2005, thanks to this “major mutagenic event” (DU), the proportion of girls born in Fallujah has increased sharply likely because “girls have a redundant X-chromosome and can therefore absorb the loss of one chromosome through genetic damage,” explains Eley.

And you and I paid for it all.

“The impact of war on civilians was more severe in Fallujah than anywhere else in Iraq because the city continued to be blockaded and cut off from the rest of the country long after 2004,” adds Cockburn.

While I could go on with the gory details, I’d much rather you ask a few questions:

• Now that you know these facts (and they are just the tiniest proverbial tip of a massive proverbial iceberg), how do you feel and what are you going to do about it?
• Is it time you stop buying military video games, hanging yellow ribbons, and allowing our hard-earned money to finance mass murder?
• Can enjoy “the holidays” while women in Fallujah are petrified to have children?
• Are you still able to insulate yourself with all those cute puppy videos on YouTube?
• Are you ready to stop believing there’s a difference between the two wings of the same corporate/military party and start accepting that they’re all accessories to heinous crimes?
• Will you still “support” the volunteer mercenaries as “heroes” or will you recognize them as willing—and paid—accomplices to war crimes?
• Are you okay with 85.1% of US wealth being owned by the top 20% while 53.3% of your tax dollars subsidize atrocities, torture, oppression, occupation, and the literal destruction of the planet’s eco-system?
• What is your threshold? Which taxpayer-funded horror story is the one that will finally make you scream “enough”?
• When you’ve screamed “enough,” what can/will you do and how soon will you start doing it?

You don’t have to tell me your answers. I’m a co-conspirator just like you.

Save your answers for the children of Fallujah. I’m sure they’re wondering why the fuck we all choose to remain silent and inactive.

Then again, the same can be said for the volunteer soldiers and all those who give the orders; the law enforcement types and all those who give the orders; the judges; the professional liars who stock the media ranks; and, of course, the humans that comprise the power structure of Corporate America.

Since we habitually choose denial instead of rebellion, our willingness to play along at home by, for example, analyzing the subtle nuances that differentiate Obama from his Tea Party haters makes us heinous criminals, too. When things are as bad as they are now, there’s more than enough guilt to go around.

Just about everything aspect of the US and global culture (e.g. raping the environment, the propaganda machine, avaricious materialism, insatiable military conquest, sexism, homophobia, racism, patriarchy, etc.) adds up to death and destruction. Yet we — the species with the allegedly superior cognitive skills — opt to spend our time getting worked up over which wing of the corporate party gets more votes on the first Tuesday in November.

Joe votes Republican. Joann votes Democrat. Nothing changes.

Jane loves Glenn Beck. John adores Jon Stewart. The planet remains in peril.

Joann and John think Obama is the cat’s meow. Joe and Jane agree with Newt. Big picture: It makes no difference at all.

Whatever side we choose in these fabricated conflicts, human society maintains its steady, relentless path toward mass homicide/suicide. If we’d ever look up from our text screens or peek out from our voting booths, we might actually catch the final act.

Such so-called “gloom and doom” is often greeted with either denial or mockery but staring dead-on into the reality we’ve all helped create is the first step in the following outline for personal, intellectual, and global self-defense.

1. Accept our role

• We’re not victims (remember: victims are helpless) but we are volunteers. Due to our compliance and/or silence and/or inaction, we’ve played a role in bringing our culture to the brink of social, economic, and environmental collapse.

• We’re not being “attacked” for our choices. For the record, I prefer to save the word “attack” for, say, those being targeted by American predator drones (subsidized by our tax dollars).

• We’re not being judged as guilty. It’s a little too late for that.

• We’re not being judged as innocent either. We’re all participants and/or witnesses (see above).

• We may think it’s not “fair” that we’re the generation that has to change everything about the way we live…but to paraphrase Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven: “Fair’s got nothing to do with it.”

• We are not alone. In the book (and movie), The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad sez: “Maybe we’re not all individual souls, but maybe we’re all part of one big soul.” Incredibly basic, yes…but within that simplicity lies what I see as the secret: If we were to view all living things—along with ourselves—as part of one collective soul, how could we not defend that soul by any means necessary?

2. The 4 R’s of defending our collective soul
(to be taken as literally or metaphorically as you choose)

Reality and Reaction

• Self-defense “moves” rarely (if ever) work and can cause you to not trust your instincts as you struggle to remember what you’re “supposed to do.” Memorizing a few moves before a conflict is not unlike only learning 20 words prior to a spelling bee.

• The attacker always has the advantage—at least initially. He knows before you when, where and how he’s going to attack.

• Your first option: run. If you can’t run, create and maintain distance from your attacker(s).

• Know your enemy: Expect the worst because that’s exactly what you’ll get.

• Facing a weapon can be frightening but some weapons can serve to “limit” the attacker’s psychological approach and thus, his options. Exploit that advantage.

• Practice awareness of your habits, surroundings, routines, and overall “presentation.” Don’t allow yourself to be an easy target.

• Contrary to popular belief, you are never unarmed. Use your body and/or whatever you can get your hands on. Plus, as Ice T declared: “My lethal weapon’s my mind.”

Readiness

• Decide in advance to survive. Ask Derrick Jensen explains: “The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a much higher rate of survival than those who went along. We need to keep that in mind over the next ten years.”

• Condition your mind to defend what you love (read: courage).

• Condition your body to endure through exercise, lifestyle choices, and healthy, earth-friendly eating habits (read: vegan diet).

• Take time to learn some tools like kicks, punches, blocks, etc.

• Occasionally train and practice in street clothes and/or familiar places.

• Anything goes: There’s no such thing as fighting “dirty.”

Repeat

• Activists, memorize these 13 “magic words” when dealing with your local occupying army, I mean, police: “I am going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer.”

3. There’s no time like now

When else in all of human history has there been a time when we were in better position to shape the future? What we do (or don’t do) in the next few years will tilt us all toward either the point of no return or a far more sane form of society. Each and every one of us can take part—right now—in creating the most important social changes ever imagined. As I wrote above, we’re on the brink of economic, social, and environmental collapse. What an extraordinary time to be alive. How lucky are we? We’ve been trusted with the most vital mission of all time: survival.

4. Face up to your fears

Participating in sustained direct action is not a popular choice. It could put us at odds with our friends, family, and community. It could jeopardize our careers. It could even lead to direct conflict with law enforcement officers. Scary stuff, for sure. But ask yourself this: What frightens you more, being judged for getting ticketed for disorderly conduct or comprehending that 80% of the world’s forests and 90% of the large fish in the ocean are already gone? There are good reasons to be afraid. There are better reasons to be bold. It’s time to blossom, comrades. Even with all the fear, pain, dread, and uncertainty we may (or may not) experience while blossoming, remaining tight in the bud is no longer an option…for us or for the planet. Just leap and the net may appear.

If you don’t believe me, just ask any sweatshop worker in, say, Vietnam…

The perfidious colonizers I refer to, of course, are the insatiable transnational corporations setting up camp all across the Third World. Whether it be Nike, The Gap, Wal-Mart, or any other taxpayer-subsidized bloodsucker, these crafty illegal aliens can’t be stopped by constructing a mere wall. They travel with impunity…on the wings of government subvention and cunning, relentless propaganda. Thanks to decades of conditioning, even the victims of these soulless migrants will voluntarily pay for the right to wear a shirt bearing their corporate logo.

One would not be engaging in hyperbole to characterize these illegal invaders as “terrorists.” Forget color-coded alerts, staged arrests, and manufactured scares. Put aside those times you were forced to remove your shoes at the airport. As defined at Dictionary.com, “an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety” and/or an “intense, overpowering fear” characterize brand of the terror I speak of.

While the corporate media obscures the real terror and trains its focus on the latest battle between Obama and Osama (or the current villain of the day), the primary conflict on the planet remains unchanged: globalization from above vs. globalization from below.

“Immigrants” like the World Trade Organization, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and transnational corporations are elements of a mutant form of remote control imperialism. The United States doesn’t always have to send armies into other countries. It sends in Disney and McDonalds with the (usually) unspoken threat of military force backing them up.

Globalization is not intrinsically a bad idea. Mutually beneficial global ties can be essential. As Arundhati Roy sez: “In the present circumstances, I’d say that the only thing worth globalizing is dissent.”

But perhaps Marx said it best (I mean Groucho, in Monkey Business): “There’s my argument: restrict immigration.”

Thus, it is with a heavy heart I write the word “late” before Zinn’s name. He died on January 27 at the age of 87. Perhaps best known for his book, A People’s History of the United States, Zinn spent most of his life defending the underdog while telling the story of the people. Back in the days before we humans became too smart for our own good, someone like Howard Zinn would’ve rightfully been called a “saint.”

Zinn’s legacy can and must live on through us. I suggest you take some time to read his work and explore his life. For now, I offer…

1. “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”

2. “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.”

3. “The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson—that everything we do matters—is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in the United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think, when we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.”

4. “As dogma disintegrates, hope appears. Because it seems that human beings, whatever their backgrounds, are more open than we think, that their behavior cannot be confidently predicted from their past, that we are all creatures vulnerable to new thoughts, new attitudes. And while such vulnerability creates all sorts of possibilities, both good and bad, its very existence is exciting. It means that no human being should be written off, no change in thinking deemed impossible.”

5. “The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

The butcher writes: “After 14 years as a vegetarian, a few of those as a quite ‘militant’ vegan, I became a butcher. The factors that went into me taking the position are many, but the result was maybe quite predictable. Within a month I was a full-fledged meat eater. What has not changed is my passion for the welfare of animals. Through my work as a butcher and chef, I now see a more direct way to influence and work for change in the meat industry and to improve the quality of life for all of the animals we rely on for food.”

Such backlash in the face of compassionate evolution is not uncommon. For example, just as more and more women begin to challenge gender roles, the patriarchal culture countered with Howard Stern, Maxim, and Spike TV. But I digress…

Becoming a butcher in the name of animal welfare is like joining the Marines to promote peace. What’s next, the Ethical Executioner with his “passion” for the “welfare” of prisoners? Surely, he’d just be choosing a “more direct way to influence and work for change,” following the lead of his butcher comrade.

In a society less and less capable of critical, independent thought, this pro-meat character will probably be widely praised as the antidote to “militant” vegans. You know, the food Nazis. By current standards, you could pack a calf into a veal crate or pump food down a goose’s gullet or grind up live male chicks to fertilize your fields and run no risk of being called militant. For that matter, you can clear cut forests, blow off mountain tops in search of coal, and drop white phosphorous on villages filled with brown children and garner virtually no attention at all…let alone be labeled a militant.

Choose a lifestyle of compassion and logic, speak out against vivisection, or protest the use of fur? You, my friends, are a worthy of a Hitler mustache.

With the global economy collapsing like a house of cards, 80% of the world’s forests cut down, 90% of the large fish in the ocean gone, more military conflicts than anyone can count, and our eco-systems rapidly approaching the point of no return, there’s never been a more urgent time to be a truly militant vegan.

At some point, we each have to decide: Do we respect all life or not? If we choose life instead of death, then we must view the culture holistically. To divide issues of animal suffering, eco-destruction, and human rights, is to fall into the trap of the dinosaur Left. For example, ZNet founder Michael Albert, who writes:

I see no comparison in importance between seeking to eliminate the roots and branches of sexism, and seeking to eliminate the roots and branches of violence against animals. I see no comparison in importance between how chickens are treated and how women or any humans are treated. In fact, for me the animal rights agenda resonates barely at all, and the anti-sexism agenda is part of my life.

Let’s be clear: Attempting to separate sexism from violence against animals (and all nature) is like trying to separate the human circulatory system from the respiratory system. If such obvious connections are not being made by the entrenched Left, I have to wonder: Why is anyone wasting even 5 minutes of their time on such myopia?

Since Michael Albert can’t seem to stop quoting Dylan, this song excerpt is for him, the Ethical Butcher, and all those who seek to fragment and obscure the big picture:

Don’t criticize what you can’t understand … your old road is rapidly agin’

For the times they are a-changin’

In early 2000, I was walking through Manhattan with three friends on our way to meet a fourth member of our party. This was well before cell phones had become so completely pervasive but still, I was the only one in our group without one. I sarcastically commented on this and was prompted mocked as a Luddite. Then it was on to the essential business of figuring out how to meet up with friend #4.

Out came a cell phone. A call was placed to another cell phone. A meeting place was agreed upon and we were on our way. Friend #1 hung up his phone and turned to me, declaring that this was “one of those times” when a cell phone was indispensable. To which I replied:

“If we didn’t have access to your cell phone or any cell phones at all, we would’ve been simply been more creative in order to come up with a plan that would’ve gotten all of us together without a major hassle. Instead, the phone made us lazy because we knew we could just wing it. Instead of problem-solving, we opted for reliance on consumer electronics.”

A similar rant, of course, could realistically be applied to calculators. Not to mention, the spell-check function on your computer, most software programs in general, and yeah…the computer itself. We no longer have to learn how to spell or remember phone numbers or do math in our heads or memorize directions or even walk up a single flight of stairs. Thanks to the marvels of industrial civilization, we happily delegate such tedious tasks to technology so we can have time to focus on the truly important stuff, like…um…well…uh…removing 90% of the large fish from the ocean, perhaps?

Harmony: Agreement in feeling or opinion

We each possess a physiology that evolved to negotiate the Stone Age. Unfortunately, we live in the Space Age. There’s the rub. We are urban cavemen — overmatched in our daily battle to navigate an artificial reality because we have lost contact with our instincts.

“Pediatricians nowadays see fewer kids with broken bones from climbing trees and more children with longer-lasting repetitive-stress injuries, which are related to playing video games and typing at keyboards,” writes Sally Deneen at The Daily Green. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, calls this “nature deficit disorder.” As a fourth-grader quoted in Louv’s book explains: “I like to play indoors better, because that’s where all the electrical outlets are.” Nature deficit disorder is obviously not a medical term; it’s more of a social trend, a trend that plays in factoids like this: American children between the ages of 8 to 18 spend an average of 6.5 hours a day indoors using computers, video games, television, and MP3 players.

The payoff for all this spectatorship is a lifestyle based on imitation, competition, materialism, and self-delusion. The dominant culture keeps us inactive while our biology desires movement. The dominant culture sells us junk food while our bodies crave nutrients. The dominant culture trains us to be obedient while our minds yearn for freedom. The dominant culture teaches conformity while our souls demand individuality. The dominant culture denies our biology and puts us out of balance with nature.

Among many others things, it can be posited that we did not evolve to experience artificial light after sundown, live inside four walls under that artificial light, eat processed and refined food products, ingest chemicals and pharmaceuticals, sleep during the day and stay up all night, drive cars, travel in an airplane across time zones with such rapidity, become obese, remain sedentary, consume animal flesh or mammary secretions, usurp our immune system with toxic vaccines, exist on a man-made time schedule, be surrounded by copious human-induced electromagnetic radiation, climb giant mountains, travel to space or underwater, wear shoes or eyeglasses, lift weights and develop hypertrophied muscles, exist without community, give birth lying down, live in a world devoid of top soil and nutrient-rich food, smoke cigarettes, be hyper-exposed to toxic pesticides, endure global warming and the greenhouse effect, use cosmetics, or manage the high level of stress and noise that is synonymous with our so-called progress.

Koyaanisqatsi…this is what the Kogi Indians of Colombia call “life out of balance” and this is what we have created as our culture. When I say “culture,” I am referring to what Jason Miller calls “the pitiless, soulless, murderous machine of capitalism and industrial civilization inculcates, indoctrinates, entices, bribes, and coerces nearly everyone to participate in its bloody, rapacious, and relentless assault on the Earth and its sentient inhabitants.” This culture has quickly fucked up the entire planet. So much so that the elusive Kogi have issued a warning to us, their Younger Brothers.

Equilibrium: A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system

Even the eyes of veteran activists glaze over when I talk about 80% of the world’s forest being gone. They want to debate the latest political minutia while all life on this planet is under relentless assault. It’s cliché to declare that our problems cannot be solved by the same type of thinking that created them. Cliché but accurate. Elections, legislation, protests, petitions, and so on will not stop the flow of pesticides or the use of nuclear power or the glorification of war and its volunteer soldiers or our culture’s relentless march toward total destruction.

Life on Earth is out of balance. Corporations, politicians, judges, cops, and soldiers can’t fix this. In fact, most of them can’t even perceive the imbalance. The change has to come from somewhere else. The change will come from somewhere else, of that we can be sure. The details of outcome, however, are far less certain.

Symbiosis: A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence

One final note, on the medium by which I have shared these thoughts: The aforementioned Kogi have no written language. In part, this is to assure they remember. They talk, they pass down stories, and they remember. “The Kogi attach great importance to memory,” explain the editors of Ode Magazine. “The memory of events with which the community has been confronted, the memory of social regulations within the group and so forth. ‘Memory,’ they say, ‘is like eyes which were made to see. If they close, everything becomes darkness.’ For them, this memory cannot be written down, it must be spoken, passed down by members of the group. In writing, memories are separated from the people and lose their effectiveness.”

So, I ask: what memories are we creating and what are we doing to ensure there will be someone left to appreciate and remember them?

Synergy: Cooperative interaction among groups

California-based organizer, educator, activist-writer, and playwright (and, oh yes, home schooling father and devoted spouse) Richard Oxman knows the answer. He’s more than aware that our current system – our very culture – is designed to shove the “big” questions to the fringes. This is why Oxman has conjured up a unique form of dissent: TOSCA — Taking Over the State of California.

“A necessary, urgent action,” he calls its, “designed to put thirteen non-politicians into the Sacred Seat in Sacramento (the Governor’s seat)… with all of those citizens having an equal say… along with the working figureheads who will be our candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in the 2010 gubernatorial race.”

Oxman feels California is ideally suited for such an effort and has begun the important work of getting the campaign (so to speak) rolling. I recently asked him some questions via e-mail and here’s how it went:

Mickey Z: What is it about the state of California and its political apparatus that makes it a logical venue for your efforts?

Richard Oxman: The Governor of California can wield great influence in the state, having the legal right to move unilaterally on many fronts without having to compromise with opposing politicians. The state itself is tremendously influential, nationwide, internationally. Her/his role — the Guv’s — in Higher Education alone could change the world. Think divestment, for one. And because California is in serious — historic — trouble on several counts, citizens there are primed to follow a new paradigm for change. They are desperate.

MZ: If/when this succeeds, what might be the first obvious difference the public would notice?

RO: It will succeed, it must… or we are doomed. Everything else on the table is either disingenuous or moving at an arthritic snail’s pace. Once in office all decision-making meetings will be filmed for public consumption, to help citizens to self-educate, and decide for themselves who has their interests at heart, what to demand, who to pressure, etc. Our Guv can actually teach citizens HOW to pressure. That’s one of several aspects of TOSCA that have no historical precedent. Our tenure in office will be citizen-centered and communally-centered, NOT about the self-interest of career politicians or their money men.

MZ: Speaking of money…

RO: Our campaign will be waged on a ZERO budget. Whereas people concerned with the influence of money in campaigns to date have tried to change things with efforts such as campaign finance reform… we will Be The Change We Want To See. Meaning, we intend to demonstrate what miracles can be wrought with no money. TOSCA is all about opening up a window to see what the public will do on their own once they see how much can be accomplished without any funds whatsoever. How much pure joy can be generated, how much human connection can be had… with nothing in one’s pocket.

MZ: Considering the roadblocks involved with even getting a candidate on the ballot, how do you intend to accumulate enough votes?

RO: One thing we’re going to do is do away with all the time, energy and money that’s always put into getting on the ballot. What we save there we’ll put into recruiting… on an intimate basis. Not with signs, petitions, online blah blah, meetings, announcements or any of that habitual generic stuff. Sure, we’ll accept high profile plugs, but our basic m.o. will be to have friends contact friends one-on-one, bonding in an unprecedented way, passing the word incessantly; we have a huge jump on others already. No real time needed. That 61% who didn’t show at the last statewide election will provide mucho. Then there are the voters whose votes weren’t counted because of carelessness, more than what the Green Party garnered! None of our unaffilitated write-in votes will be lost in that Black Hole. I can’t fit “reasons” and much else into this telegraphic bite, but… contact me. There will be easy crossovers from major and marginalized parties… for it’ll be effortless to sell the notion that we need deep institutionalized changes… like detaching our economy from the Pentagon… which no one else can offer. Before much longer highly influential souls will take up TOSCA’s cause… almost exclusively. And then the first step in our legal, non-violent revolution will kick in.

MZ: Okay, I’ve asked to sound-bite and condense and reduce your idea to an easily digestible morsel to keep it ready for prime time…but now imagine you have a totally different audience: radicals, activists, etc. Why should, say, an anarchist get on board the TOSCA Express?

RO: Express, yes! Everyone should get on board “yesterday” because individual freedom will be of paramount importance — on an ongoing basis — for all connected with TOSCA. There are different kinds of anarchists, of course, but like the vast majority of anarchists… TOSCA’s core members believe that an appropriate economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statues of a government. We’re into the collaboration of workers in all aspects of production… keeping in mind, however, please… that we have no intention to approach “production” along traditional, environmentally destructive lines. The taking over of management in all facilities by the producers themselves is of prime importance to us, and of great appeal to most anarchists, I believe. We see separate groups within industry as independent members of the Big Industrial Picture, carrying on production/distribution of products in the clear interests of particular communities… on the basis of free mutual agreements. That said, it doesn’t mean that the thirteen people serving as Governor together will not be trying to influence decisions made in each little corner. Everyone has an obvious vested interest in moving in solidarity respecting certain environmental facts, at the very least. And, by the way, this business of anarchism should not scare anyone away. For everyone who opposes the Pentagon being inextricably bound up with our economy’s success, functioning… must, absolutely must acknowledge that we’re going to have to have radical institutional changes in order to create greater democratization in society. To say nothing about other equally important (related) issues…like abominations abroad… which we will spotlight daily on our own media outlet.

MZ: When you talk about the need to move in solidarity respecting certain environmental facts, are you saying that we may differ on certain issues but everyone is heavily impacted by 80% of world’s forests being gone?

RO: Perfectly put. We are all doomed if everyone is merely doing their own thing. TOSCA would respect anarchists more than any other group in office in history, but… we would do our damnedest to help everyone self-educate about our mutual environmental threats, and do what we could to encourage those making decisions in little corners to deeply consider larger communal concerns. Their own survival, to put in another way.

MZ: Who — besides me — have you asked to serve as an advisor and who have approached about being a candidate? What kind of response have you generally gotten?

RO: High profile figures and others such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Bill Blum, Derrick Jensen, Glen Ford, Afshin Rattansi (in Iran at present), Jennifer Loewenstein, Greg Moses, Wallace J Nichols, Michael Stocker (of Ocean Conservation Research), the great African specialist who constantly risks his life to get great news to us… Keith Harmon Snow, Dave Lindorff, Cindy Sheehan, Ron Jacobs, Kim Petersen (of Canada), Henry A. Giroux (who Routledge named as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period), L.A. attorney/author Ellen Brown, Argentina’s Marie Trigone, Bruce Anderson (of the Anderson Valley Advertiser), Devinder Sharma (of India), Ronnie Cummins (Executive Director for Organic Consumers Association), David Yearsley, organic farmer Dr. Shepherd Bliss of Sonoma State University, Murray Dobbin (of Canada), Stephen Martin, and artist Jerry Fresia (in Italy) are just some of the people who have offered us their public imprimaturs.

We’re still in the process of trying to recruit Mike Davis, Paul Hawken, Michael Albert and Arundhati Roy… and everyone else! Noam Chomsky hasn’t come on board yet, but we haven’t given up on anyone, and even people like Noam — who for very legitimate reasons want to take “a little more time” to consider all aspects of what we’ve put on the table before adopting a public stance — have taken the heartbeats to go back and forth with us, very generously. Much is not written in stone, and so we can take the time to ask people to make recommendations, to feel free to tweak this and that to, possibly, suit their own purposes… their angle on society.

MZ: So the reactions have been encouraging?

RO: Everything considered, I’d say that we’re getting an over-the-top positive response. I mean, the above list was compiled over a period of only about two weeks of me working alone, spending only minimal time on recruitment. That’s actually phenomenal by any standards, yes? And one really has to factor in that we’re coming out of nowhere, dumping ourselves in the inboxes of individuals and organizations quite suddenly, absolutely no prep for what’s essentially, arguably, the most radical proposal in the realm of politics… for the electoral arena… in the history of the country. IRV is one of our big/small potatoes.

Some groups and some activists are truly puzzling in their responses, but that’s another book, as they say. The reasons for silence in response to my missives sometimes, the dropping of the ball inexplicably by some, the lack of nurturing well-intentioned efforts like TOSCA’s, and premature dismissal of what we put on the table for consideration now and then is all part of the animal we’re taming. By which I mean any effort to mobilize citizens for the purposes of moving in solidarity meaningfully — not in lockstep automatic meaningless mode following old paradigms for protest/change — is going to encounter all kinds of resistance for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is what I call territorial trauma. But that’s part of the beautiful satisfaction that’s coming our way, this TOSCA making a dent in all that. The fact is that there’s nothing else on the table that I know of which has a shot in hell at saving this “heaven on earth” in time.

MZ: How can readers learn more and get involved?

RO: Readers should contact me directly IMMEDIATELY. They can reach me at moc.oohaynull@0102.acsot or at moc.oohaynull@grubdaeh for starters. Urgent connection is crucial… whether one wants to limit one’s participation to only ten minutes total running up to the election in 2010, OR whether one wants to work alongside me 24×8 to create this watershed in history. PLEASE NOTE that I always get back within 24 hours at the outside. If one doesn’t hear back from me directly within that time frame, something’s amiss. The link http://oxtogrind.org/archive/353 is a decent place to start learning about TOSCA, and a reading of that can be followed by encouraging others to contact me.

So…the undefined guy weighs his options and promptly enlists in the United States Marine Corps. The few, the proud, and all that.

Everyone—and I mean, everyone—in his immediate circle applauds this decision. Not only will undefined guy pull himself out of financial hardship, they reason (sic), but he also gets to “serve his country.” Bravo…

Meanwhile, the poor black kid weighs his options and promptly “enlists” in the Crips.

The poverty-stricken Hispanic weighs his options and promptly “enlists” in Latin Kings.

The uneducated Italian kid weighs his options and promptly “enlists” in the Mafia.

Like the “heroes” in the military, these three kids are also facing a stark choice—being poor or choosing a uniform and gun—but no one hangs yellow ribbons for them, no one makes excuses them when they kill innocents.

No one argues when these kids are called “criminals.”

Why?

Well, there’s one colossal difference between them and the men and women who volunteer to join the US military and get paid to wage illegal and immoral war:

Even though the US military is far more dangerous than any street gang or Mafia family, the US military is considered legal.