Oligarchy in Democracy’s clothing

Do you want the good news or the bad news? Ok, the good news: we can all stop arguing about the safety of fracking because it is no longer necessary. The US Navy has turned seawater into fuel in order to make easier the business of war. Now they can sail directly into the fray without the pesky worry of stopping for gas in the middle of the ocean; fulfilling the US mission to enforce oligarchy-dressed-up-as-democracy right up until we decide to bomb the shit out of everything. I’m sure it’s just a matter of fine-tuning the gas-to-liquids process (extracting CO2 and hydrogen from seawater) until the technology hits the open market, rendering gas and oil impotent.

Oh wait, the bad news:

"American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it's pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation's "news" media)," he writes. "The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now." –Eric Zuess*

As much as we all want to live in the Teddy Roosevelt America of days gone by— the sass and scratch days, as I like to call them— the fact is that this country is run by a bunch of money-grubbing commoners who buy the law. Proof of this is the campaign by the Koch brothers to force renewable energy users to pay a surcharge to the oil & gas companies.** Like school in the summertime; no class.

I admit it’s been a while since I’ve seen the inside of a classroom. And in my early twenties I was more focused on my job at Wax Trax than my studies, but between the mushroom blueberry tea my roommate used to make and 100% attendance in philosophy, I found my place on the Twister® board that is American politics. Surely, I thought to myself, there is a happy medium between Capitalism and Socialism so that hard work is rewarded, yet everyone has a roof over their heads and food on their table. (Of course there is, myself answered, and stop calling me Shirley.) However, it wasn’t until my forties that I learned the name of my political perversion.

Turns out I’m a libertarian socialist and you don’t see them very often— ”like having a gun rack on a Volvo.” –Robin Williams. While it’s none of the government’s business whether or not I have an abortion, I do think they should pay for it. I consider all reproductive issues to fall under the umbrella of health care, and along with food, water, shelter, and education, health care should be available to any and everyone who needs it. But a law that allows the insurance companies to take hard-earned money from the average working woman’s paycheck? Not the way I would’ve gone. If corporations like Apple and Exxon would simply pay their taxes, instead of hiding their money in off-shore accounts, there’d be more than enough for everyone to have an abortion.

I mean, we’re talking about taxes, not some elitist concept like charity. Taxes are as old as the women I see walking the mall in Aspen in their skinny jeans, older even! People have been paying taxes since the black and white days. So, if corporations are going to have the same rights as people, they can start by paying their taxes. The unchecked greed has run amok for so long in this country we seem to have forgotten that we’re not the English; we don’t have to love the one who takes our money. And, in defense of the British, at least the kings and queens left their loyal subjects with enough to cover basic needs (with the possible exception of dentistry…)

Personally, I’m ok with a flat tax for every one/corporation who/that makes more than $24,000 a year. And I’m ok with subsidizing those who don’t, because while I understand the selling points of Capitalism, we have created a monster. A huge bilderberger beast who stays behind the curtain pushing buttons and pulling levers, testing the threshold to see how hard Americans will work for nothing but the promise of a dream; a dream in which we are all free and equal to consume as much oil & gas as possible. For now anyway, I’m sure those Koch boys are busy working on a plan to patent seawater…

 
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-koch-brothers-and-solar-power-20140422,0,1087398.story#axzz2zoEj6QL8

“I’m not superstitious; I’m just a little stitious.” -Michael Scott

 

 

Whenever I’m driving with my mom and we see a coyote she gets very excited. She believes it’s a sign that we will both receive money in the near future. Now, whether we’re talking about an inheritance from an old aunt’s estate or a ten dollar bill left in a jacket pocket, it doesn’t matter. My mom’s convinced the coyote was a messenger.

Maybe that’s the problem with our society today; we’re no longer superstitious so nothing keeps us in check. There is no motivation to be good, just a constant barrage of consumerism. The Northern Utes, true natives to this valley, seem to understand an aspect of this life that we haven’t figured out. They treat the Earth and fellow animals with respect and their lives seem richer somehow. I mean, if we celebrated gods and goddesses in the Roaring Fork valley today what would they be? The god of heavy equipment operation, the goddess of perfect-fit yoga pants…

We’ve taken monotheistic capitalism to a ridiculous circus mirror stage, and if we don’t pull it together soon:

“I think we risk becoming the best-informed society that has ever died of ignorance.” -Rubén Blades

By ‘pull it together’ I mean start living simply so others may simply live. Everyone on this planet is entitled to a sustainable life with food, shelter, medicine and education. And this is a goal we can all get behind. For Jesus’ sake, we’re not talking about putting designer clothing on every child, just shoes and a backpack.

What exactly is the point of having more anyway? Are we sure that’s the end goal, because we all end up in the same place. And I, for one, don’t want to show up at the pearly gates with a huge bank account and try to explain how it is that so many of my mates are starving and homeless. No one’s life is simple. And you can’t tell by looking at someone’s handbag how sick they are in mind or heart. It’s like that old all-girls-school saying: You can’t tell a book by its cover (but you can tell how much it’s going to cost.) I think the key to leading a rich life is more about attitude and gratitude than actual wealth. It’s about what kind of things get under our skin and whether or not we let them fester.

It intrigues me that most people I’ve met who only have the clothes on their back and the food in their fire are always smiling and laughing, while 90% of the people in Willits wear a blank scowl. Trust me, I recognize Resting Bitchy Face when I see it. We all know how crow’s feet are formed and that is one way to defy age as it marches across your face, but how bad is your life that you can’t return a stranger’s smile in the grocery store?! I work in a grocery store, for a minimal wage, and yet I can’t help but smile. (Of course, I do work for the good guys; the capitalists with a conscience.)

Speaking of minimum wage, check out what Bill Maher has to say on the subject:

“Wouldn’t it be great if there were democrats out there now who would say to billionaires, ‘Oh, you’re crying? We’ll give you something to cry about. You don’t want a minimum wage? How bout we not only have a minimum wage, we have a maximum wage.’ That is not a new idea. James Madison, who wrote our constitution, said government should prevent an immoderate accumulation of riches. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, they all agreed that too much money in the hands of too few would destroy democracy. What can you buy with two billion dollars that you can’t buy with one? You couldn’t spend that kinda cash if you lived forever and your money manager was MC Hammer.”

-Real Time with Bill Maher

So, whenever I’m driving around the back roads looking for coyotes, with a rabbit’s foot swinging from the rear view mirror and a silver dollar in my pocket, I always remember to smile. And be good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcKMd49wDRk&feature=share

Sickly Sweet (How Nixon is poisoning us from the grave)

As long as I can remember, I thought cutting calories was the best way to lose weight and ‘get into good shape.’ Granted I learned this as a child, so we are talking about the 70s; learning healthy lifestyle tips from a jaded P.E. teacher whose gym shorts were from another generation— his. Mr. Y probably should’ve retired a decade or two before… Anyway, I honestly thought that people must be swimming laps at night in order to exercise enough to burn all the calories they ate in a day. And as soon as I realized that wasn’t happening for me, I switched tactics; I’m a member of the Lost Protein Generation. Somehow, in high school, my body survived on diet Dr Pepper, individually wrapped slices of American cheese, and corn nuts. No wonder I couldn’t climb the rope.

When I was a girl it was all sugar and spice and everything nice, but nowadays sugar is killing little girls. Today we have obese six-month-olds. Yep, you read that right: obese at six months old. What the what?! How is that even possible, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s in the fucking formula. It’s in everything: bbq sauce, bread, catsup, honey mustard, milk, the list goes on and on. There is even research showing that how much sugar a woman consumes while she’s pregnant can affect her unborn child’s health. Fructose is poisonous to human bodies, just like alcohol and tobacco, and it is transferred in utero as well.

Not to mention the preservatives; the chemicals that found their way into our food in the 70s and stayed, like couch-surfing free-loading friends. Forty years later, you’d think we might’ve made some progress with regards to nutrition, but you’d be wrong. Just a few weeks ago Subway said they would stop using azodiacarbonamide to make their bread. (Azodiacarbonamide is a chemical used in the production of yoga mats.) Stories like this one and the ‘pink slime’ that passes for USDA approved beef beg the question: What are the good people at the FDA doing all day?

I feel like a hamster who’s been thrown into the deep end of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Hopeless. The corporations have bulldozed nutrition in their eternal quest for products with the highest possible profit margin. Planning, shopping and preparing only organic, homemade meals for a family is a full-time job, only now we are a two-sometimes-three-income per household nation. And the bureaucrats whose job it is to protect us from poison in our food sold us out a long time ago for a coke and a smile.

“The Coke Conspiracy” as referenced in Sugar: The Bitter Truth* explains why the FDA can’t ban chronic disease causing agents from our food due to the fact that the US only exports three things people want these days: weapons, entertainment, and fast food. Robert Lustig, MD presents a terrifyingly convincing argument that “fructose is the cause of the metabolic syndrome: obesity, type II diabetes, lipid problems, hyper-tension and cardiovascular disease.” And I believe the inflammation caused by all the sugar, coupled with the genetic modification of our crops is why we have cancer centers as crowded as O’Hare on a holiday.

Now, I’m not saying people like Earl “Rusty” Butz (not joking, that’s his name) should take all the blame for sick kids today, but he can have a second helping. If we’re talking about the separation of selling and regulating our food, ole Rusty Butz seems to have not only let the business into agriculture, he set them up with a nice clean stall and a full trough.

Until a healthy body is as much of a priority as a healthy bottom line, I guess we’ll all just have to keep swimming through the crap they’re processing, packaging and selling as food. We’ll have to read through the unpronounceable ingredients and avoid them, sticking to real, whole foods whenever possible. Since the FDA won’t protect us from GMOs and chemical food, we’ll have to be extra vigilant with what we put in our mouths. We’ll be our own lifeguards— both in and out of the pool.

http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717

You can't spell community without UNITY

Looking back on history, bullies have always been a nuisance. From the guys who killed Jesus to some German cartographer who decided the Northern Hemisphere is more important and should therefore be on the top of the map. If you close your eyes and think of the Earth you picture North America on top, don’t you? Well, is it really? Or, when satellites send pictures back, do we flip them around because they’re upside down? North and South don’t mean anything in space.

But it does make a difference down here. And if your continent has always been portrayed as the bottom half, that can certainly have an influence on the way you see the world. I mean, we’re talking about generations and generations of people led to believe that their land is beneath the Land of Opportunity. But is it? Or have they simply been oppressed into believing that they are the developing world. Just like here in the Roaring Fork valley, where we all know that ‘down valley’ implies much more than the slope of the ground.

If there’s one thing that really gets my goat, it’s a bully. (Just in case you’re not familiar with the phrase, it means to rile someone up; to get one’s attention. Like the time my godfather drove over with a billy goat in the back of his truck to leave it in my dad’s kitchen as a birthday present/prank. Needless to say, his goat was gotten.)

Bullies don’t seem to last in Carbondale. This community is open and accessible, but if a bully doesn’t leave of his own accord the old-timers get together and form a posse to run him out of town –just kidding! (Sort of.) Carbondale is definitely a juxt-a-pose town, but it’s all about connection. Just go to a parade; you’ll see a cowboy standing next to a punk, and a hippy sharing his candy with a veteran. Everyone fits in, and there’s a true sense of security that isn’t found everywhere in the world. We’re lucky; we’re the real deal when it comes to community, which is why I’m having a hard time with Colorado Rocky Mountain School wanting to close their campus.

After a generous start with the donation of a local ranch, and with a mission to give “our students the skills, confidence, and knowledge to be successful in life and to contribute to their communities”* I have to wonder why they are petitioning Garfield County to vacate pedestrian and bicycle access on County Road 106. CRMS claims it is simply to reassure parents that their children will be safe, but the children are safe— safer than in places with fences, guards, and gates I would say.

I do not understand why CRMS keeps building up their campus on, and around, a county road if they don’t want the county to be allowed on campus. Or why they think tuition dollars should take precedence over a public right-of-way (not to mention the safety of younger children who ride their bikes through CRMS to get to the Community School and avoid the traffic on Highway 133.)

Honestly, I don’t think CRMS students have anything to fear by bumping into us on their campus; the Boo Radleys of unincorporated Garfield County riding our bikes by moonlight. I’m the kind of person who likes to call a spade a goddamn shovel, and this land belongs to the people of Garfield County. I mean, if the commissioners are gonna start giving away acres of land sign me up!

Closing the campus sends a message of privilege, not participation to the community. Besides, all those extra eyes and ears are an added measure of security; trust me— there are some real Nosy-Rosies around here! This expedited petition by the school’s board of directors feels more like a grab for lunch money than an act of stewardship.

In the past, it seems, the one with the money got to draw the map, but this map’s already been drawn. We all live here because we feel safe and secure enough to be ourselves. And because we look out for our neighbors from all walks of life, which is exactly what it takes to be a community.

*http://www.crms.org/about/

Puttin on the Ritz (crackers)

Well, I did it. I survived yet another holiday season existing pretty much on cheese and crackers, chocolate and wine. Inundated with the latest blood-rock, i-gadget and luxury sedan commercials, I’m left wondering how many years we have until WalMart opens their doors on Christmas day. The last month is a blur of parties and people and trips to the post office. And now, all I have left to show for it is a common cold and a half eaten box of Ritz crackers, which I admit I’m eating for breakfast as I sit down to write my resolutions for 2014.

First and foremost, my new year’s resolution is to create positivity and keep putting it (myself) out there. I know it won’t be easy; it’s hard to keep smiling at strangers on the sidewalk who don’t smile back. And it’s hard to be a courteous driver when there is too much traffic for our two-lane highway. But I intend to wake up each day and forgive and forget yesterday’s trespasses— except for litterbugs. I have to call them out, I can’t help myself. I’m turning into my mother.

As a teenager I remember thinking I would die of embarrassment whenever my mom broke into song in the middle of the grocery store aisle. As if singing Build Me Up Buttercup as we filled the cart revealed anything more than our ability to carry a tune. Now, of course, I gravitate to those people in the grocery store; the wholehearted ones, the ones who aren’t afraid to show their true selves to the world.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then vulnerability and honesty are its sisters. If you think about it, without vulnerability there is no creativity. And in order to create something real, and sustainable, it takes sincerity. (Fraud can’t pass itself off for long before party-goers wander off to talk to someone more interesting, someone genuine.) And if we’re not creating, then seriously, what’s the friggin point? I mean, why bother to get out of our pajamas? (Don’t get me wrong— in a perfect world we would all be able to create our lives in our pajamas. And I do think we’re headed in the right direction, towards loose-fitting, comfortable clothing for everyone. Think today’s yoga pants in public vs. the conforming suit lines of 80s corporate slave wear.)

Vulnerability is a funny thing in our culture. It’s not promoted as a positive, and yet just being alive is to be vulnerable. We don’t encourage it in our children, especially our boys. Vulnerability is perceived as the opposite of strength, but is it really? Not according to Dr. Brené Brown, vulnerability researcher:

“Vulnerability is not weakness. I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It fuels our daily lives. And I have come to the belief –this is my twelfth year doing this research– that vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” –Brené Brown*

Dr. Brown collects data from everyday people; people who fall down and make mistakes and then get up and do it again. People who are searching for the same thing we all are: connection. Family, Fame, Fortune, Faith, or Forestry, whichever one of the Five Fs we’re currently seeking is most likely a chance to feel like we’re a part of something bigger. Something substantial. Something we can point to and say look! I belong to this.

After all, we’re humans. Not the most foresighted creatures in the universe, but we got a lotta heart. And as soon as we stop believing in Santa and his military-industrial complex, we might even evolve to be a kind, sharing, sincere species. A species invested in our children’s planet. Dare I say it? A species that doesn’t rank each other by the color of our suits. It’s 2014, for Pete’s sake! If we can’t put ourselves out there— show our true colors, as they say, then at the very least can we stop judging each other for our cracker preferences. Whether it’s melba toast, or gluten-free oat crisps with rosemary and raisins, or just a plain ole Ritz, it does the job. It holds the vulnerable cheese.

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html