Jay Dancing Bear's Blog

Is College worth the money

2012-02-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

College is pretty damn expensive these days. Is it a cost effective use of the money? or would that money be better spent in other ways, travelling or starting a business.

My understanding is that college traditionally served 4 main purposes:
1 Vocational training for a job
2 To become a more rounded human being-"liberal arts"
3 As a halfway house between home and on your own
4 To provide status; college educated being presumably higher than non college.

It seems to me that these days it's pretty much all about job training. The economy seems to be tanking, and jobs have been and are getting shipped overseas.

At a State University one might get 4 years for as little as 50-60k, all expenses included. A lot of other schools one is looking at 100k or more, for the privilege of being unemployed and back at home after 4 years.
What if you took 100k and started a business, or decided to educate yourself by going online and to the library (if you had the discipline to do it yourself), and saved the tuition money. Or what if you did what a lot of young people in other countries do, which is to travel and work for a few years, then go to school. You'd know a lot better what you wanted to do.

As far as the social aspects, i think it's great to have that opportunity, but it's pretty expensive. Of course, many jobs require that piece of paper, even though it's often said that the book learning isn't much use in the real world. Really, I think that a lot of the pressure to go to college is a scam, a way for banks and others to make money from loans and textbooks, and i think parents and high school students should do an objective cost-benefit analysis and let go of the myth that if one does not go to college, one is not an educated person.

Five Point Plan to Fix Our Broken System

2012-02-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

So much dysfunction in government. People always say "throw the bums out", but even when we do, we just get new bums. Maybe it's not just bad leadership, maybe the system itself is broken or has been corrupted. We can all think of a million things that need to be changed, but what are the
Game Changing Ideas,
the changes that would have effects all up and down the line. These are my suggestions.

1-Get money out of politics.
As long as money is what it takes to get elected, and lots of it, we have government by auction to the highest bidder, and you can see that result in every government policy and decision. Depending on their budget, small companies buy mayors and city councils, larger businesses get to buy senators and congressmen and get special tax exemptions passed in Congress (hidden in the fine print of 800 page omnibus bills).
Even if corporate personhood ended, the rich would still be able to buy politicians.
The only solution; no private money in elections.

2 Real Choice
Right now it's a choice of tweedledee or tweedledum, the lesser of two evils, no real choice. Whether you're passionate about Ron Paul, Ralph Nader or Rick Santorum, good luck. Third parties have just about zero chance of getting elected. So how do any new voices or new ideas have even the remotest chance?
At the minimum, we at least need to have Instant Runoff Voting, which means you rate your choices in order of preference, for example Nader 1, Obama 2, Mr. x 3, Santorum 1, Romney 2, Mr. x 3. If nobody gets a clear majority in the first round, then the 3rd place candidate is dropped and people who listed, for example, Nader as their first choice would have their votes applied to their 2nd choice.

---------------
These first 2 points I believe will make just as much sense to Republicans as to Democrats. The next 2 may be a little more problematic, although i think every Republican will agree with the idea that vote counts should be honest and the system above reproach, even if they think that is the case now.

3 Honest Vote Counts-----Electronic Voting Machines=Stolen Elections
I find the evidence conclusive that elections have been hacked.
Here's one link, if you google, you can find many more
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7926958774822130737#

and just because Obama won, or was allowed to win, don't be too sure that 2008 was an honest vote count in all the elections across the nation.

4 Stop Disenfranchising Voters
Florida 2000, a systematic campaign to remove voters from the rolls
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5321794022770412541
2004 Lack of polling places in Democratic districts
http://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080696

and deeper than that, the "War on Drugs" has basically been a war on left wing politics, putting people, (especially poor dark skinned people, who tend to be Democrats), in prison as a way to take away their vote (and make a hefty profit off them), and scaring others out of politics.
https://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=The+New+Jim+Crow

5 End Protection for Criminal Businessmen
A corporation is a legal fiction which was designed to allow people to take business risks without fear of losing their personal assets. It was not supposed to be a licence to commit crime, but that's what it is today.

So often we hear this corporation did this or that corporation did that, Monsanto, halliburton, PGE, Exxon, etc. The truth is, the decisions were made and carried out by specific people, and if those decisions and actions were criminal, including criminal negligence, then those specific people, especially the top executives, need to be brought to criminal court and put at risk of losing everything and going to jail.

Instead, the "corporation" gets fined, takes it off their taxes, and the perpetrators go off to their mansions with their golden parachutes, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars.

I get so frustrated with progressives, the left, whatever label you like, when they buy into this idea that a legal fiction, a "corporation", was responsible for whatever the latest crime is, when in fact, it's people. Right now the incentives are for bad behaviour, not good; screw things up for short term, private profit, then ride off into the sunset with bags of money, leave the mess behind.

Unless personal accountability is built into the system, don't expect good citizenry from those in business.

---------------
These are just the basics, and of course there are a lot more important changes that need to be made, but i truly believe that if these were adopted we would see real, fundamental change and a much more equitable and livable America.

Of course the deeper issues are issues of ethics and world view, how one looks at the world, the frame that effects all our ideas and beliefs, and the deepest changes are on that level, but that's for another post. although you can see some here http://jaydancingbear.com/writings/Politics.htm

I also want to say that , to me,
the most important issue of the day is the Environment,
Global Warming, GMOs, pollution, toxic waste, threat of nuclear disaster, etc.,
because if the environment is screwed, if we're getting cancer from pollution,
and have to move because the climate has forced us to, everything else is affected.

Obama Conspiracy Theory

2012-01-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

This is my own personal theory, didn't read it somewhere.

I believe that elections have been regularly stolen for the last 15-20 years through changing the totals on electronic voting machines. The poster child for this is the presidential election of 2004, which John Kerry probably won by 3 or 4 million votes, if one believes the exit polls, which have since been banned.
http://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080696
These have been stolen by Republicans for Republicans, so the question is, why let Obama win? My answer:
The powers that did this knew that the big Wall Street crash was in full progress and knew they wanted a big bailout. For all that Obama is black and young and articulate, he was still a mainstream, inside the box thinker who would do what he was told was the "right thing" by the "experts", all ex-wall street hacks.
A Republican could never have gotten away with bailing out a bunch of criminals with taxpayer money, and not punishing a single one, without raising a howl of protest from most of the country, but Democrat Obama, young, inexperienced Obama, confronted with a major disaster requiring major response in his first days in office, was the patsy who would take the heat for rescuing a bunch of criminals who deserved to be ______(you fill in the blank), another Democrat cleaning up the Republican mess, as did Clinton after Reagan-Bush, as did Roosevelt after Hoover.

That's my take on it.

There is no such thing as a corporation, only people

2011-07-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

A corporation is a legal fiction. There are only people; owners, shareholders, CEOs, workers.
In 1933 60 families owned most of America. How many own it today?

In 1933 Ferdinand Lundberg wrote a book, based on a great deal of research, called
America's 60 Families http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=america's+60&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=america's+60+families
in which he detailed how a small number of super rich people owned America. Some of the names may have changed, but America is still owned and operated by perhaps 1000 people.

-Through the legal fiction of "corporation", their control is disguised.
-Through the legal bribery of "campaign contributions", they buy and sell politicians to get the laws and policies that benefit the super rich at the expense of everybody else.
-They own the media, so the only message heard mainstream is "capitalism and competition'

All the people complaining about corporations miss the point that
there is no such physical thing as a corporation, only people, and
there is a ruling aristocracy in America that has names and faces.
Please, never say corporations again. Talk about the ruling class, the feudal lords who rule America as their person fiefdom. Name the names who own specific companies.

and what, exactly, am i suggesting? Certainly not physical violence, but
publicly naming and shaming the specific people responsible
for whatever the specific issue may be.

Is America A Democracy?

2011-07-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

Election day not a national holiday, elections on a workday
=discriminates against workers
This tells you the truth right away

A) Who gets to vote?
1) Who gets to register
2) Who gets wiped off the rolls (florida 2000)
3) Are there enough voting machines (ohio 2004)

B) Who do they get to vote for?
   1) Winner take all=Lesser of two evils
   In most cases third party candidates have no chance, people are afraid of throwing away their vote
   i.e. Ralph Nader
2) Instant Runoff Voting, Proportional Representation=every vote counts

C) How honest is the vote count
1) Electronic voting machines = stolen elections
Paper ballots harder to steal an election

D) How is the process financed?
1) Campaign contributions =legal bribery
2) Corporate money allowed as "free speech"
      No money=no chance to win=candidates sell out

E) How do we find out what the candidates have to say
1) Role of media
a) corporate owned
b) covers some candidates more than others, shuts out 3rd party candidates
c) sound bites, slogan advertising

Democrats and Republicans

2011-07-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

America is basically a one party state, the Corporate Capitalist Party.
The Democrats are the left wing of that party, the wing that says even if the country is run for the benefit of the rich, the poor should at least get enough crumbs to survive.
The Republicans are the right wing of the CCP, the wing that says fuck the poor, let them die.
That is an important difference.

My belief is that the Republicans have gone too far, and that all simple minded people who voted for them are going to turn against them, and that in the next few years, people will be marching in the streets, the same way the civil rights movement happened, and i look to the students to be the ones to get it happening.

President Obama has been replicating the history of the 1930s, when the British and French tried to appease Hitler, as Obama is trying to deal with the right wing fanatics, who will never get enough to satisfy them, and will ultimately self destruct.

Hafiz and Forugh Farrakhzad (new poem)

2011-01-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

i went to the library to get a book of Hafiz' poetry. Right next to Hafiz was a book entitled
Sin, selected poems of Forugh Farrakhzad, translated by Sholeh Wolpe.
After reading some of each book, here is a poem that came out of me
---------------------
Hafiz and Forugh Farrakhzad

Destiny
is a far off thing
but just as close to me
my love
as your lips

O my beloved
why have you been so cruel to me?
i have wandered over mountains,
rivers, lakes, oceans,
deserts
braved heat and cold, and still
you withhold yourself from this poor lover's sight, and yet
I know that you are ever present, with me always
were i only able to know you

How many years of my life? How many days, hours,
How much of my strength, attention, desire, energy
have i given to looking for you?
How many generations of cells of my body
have been born, lived, died
while i wandered to and fro
searching for you
a fool for love

O, my beloved
come to me, i need you, i want you
My body aches for you
my mouth is parched
My desire rises, thinking of you
Come to me please
i beg you
make yourself known to this poor fool for love

Destiny, what is destiny but
the calling of the blood
the calling of the inner essence
to be, to know, to remember
our long lost, constantly sought
eternal orgasm of the soul
union
with, as
the beloved

Amin

Politics and metaphysics

2010-12-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

In many spiritual teachings there is the concept of non violence in thought, word, and deed, the idea that just not hitting somebody is only one level of non violence, that violent words and even violent thoughts really do harm. Larry Dossey, Lynn McTaggart and others have done studies on the healing power of thought.

What if, on some level of consciousness that we are not aware of, every thought and feeling that you had towards someone was known by them. What if George Bush, Dick Cheney, karl rove, and all the different powers that be all around the world, could feel the hatred and anger that, for instance, many "progressives" hold.towards them? What if, on some level, these violent thoughts and words are felt as blows, as being hit. Is that going to make these already contracted, spiritually and emotionally suffering people, who were often damaged in their childhoods, more compassionate towards others, or is it going to make them contract more, and say fuck you too.

My belief is that within everyone there is a conscience, and that, on some level, those who oppress others, in many ways, really do feel shame and guilt. Gandhi got a lot more done than if he had thrown bombs, although i do wonder how far he would have gotten with Hitler. Still, whatever the physical actions, if the inner intention and feeling is violence and anger, it will at the least be less effective than action from compassion, and very possibly counter productive, and i realize how easy that is to write, and how hard that is to do, especially if you are suffering as the result of oppression.
Be well,
Jay Dancing Bear

Where Californians Choose to spend their money

2010-07-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.facts1.com/ThreeStrikes/Facts/

http://www.1union1.com/advice4.htm

Hacking Democracy: you too can be president if you watch this

2010-07-28T22:53:00.001-07:00

here's the video documentary, in great detail, of how to hack a voting machine. After watching this, you will know enough to rig your own electoral victory

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7926958774822130737#

Putting people in prison for fun and profit

2010-07-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.google.com/search?q=prison+industrial+system&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://www.facts1.com/ThreeStrikes/Facts/

the US locks up way more people per capita than any other developed nation in the world, including communist china. why? because there's money to be made, lots of it.

A capsule of american history

2010-03-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

In the 1950s, one of the most prosperous (financially) decades in America, the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker was 25-1. By 2001 it was around 300-1. Since then, workers' productivity has exploded.

The thanks people got for working hard and doing a great job?

they got fired, (downsized)
the people left got to do 2 jobs for 1 salary
businesses sent as many jobs as they could overseas
while executives raised their salaries through the roof
and shareholders got rich

What if CEOs were required by law to share the benefits. They can make as much as they want, but only 25 times what the average salary of their company is, including perks and benefits.
It was good enough under Eisenhower.
----

Meanwhile, conservative politicians were scaring the bejesus out of people about violent crime, while passing all kinds of laws that allowed people to get mugged by

banks
credit card companies
and all the rest of their rich friends

----------------
Oh, and while they were doing that, they bought as many newspapers and TV stations and radio stations as they could,
Just so you wouldn't be troubled by hearing anything other than

"What's good for business is good for America".

After all, why leave elections to chance?

Did you know that:

George Bush fired a lot of the accountants at the IRS
who were in charge of auditing the incomes of the super wealthy.

So now they are using the media to get people worked up, that bad Obama is hurting the poor rich people, (the same ones who systematically looted the country as much as they could get away with).

If someone robs you,
and you see them on the street,
do you let them get away with it?

Well, do you?

And now

the biggest scam of all,

the tool of tools
that allows rich people to rule America
the sick joke known as
Corporate Personhood

never heard of it, did you?
that's OK,
it's still impacting every aspect of your material life

Read Perfectly Legal, by David Cay Johnston,
an incredible, eye opening book
http://www.google.com/search?q=Perfectly+Legal%2C+david+cay+johnston&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&client=firefox

The Economic Policy Institute
http://www.epi.org/issues/category/wages_and_living_standards/

Does Western Medicine Work?

2010-03-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

Does Western Medicine work?

What a crazy question!

But does it really work, as well as it says it does, as well as many people think it does?

Is it safe?
Is it effective?
Are the benefits greater than the risks?
Is it the best choice for your particular problem?

Most people think of the benefits of medical treatment. They acknowledge that there are some problems, but believe that the benefits outweigh the costs. Is that true? Consider:

1 Misdiagnosis
2 Side effects
3 Illness picked up in hospitals, that people didn't have before they got there, 6th leading cause of death in the US
4 Created a nation of drug addicts. Very often doesn't cure illness, just keeps people hooked on taking heart medicine and blood pressure medicine
5 The Placebo effect. In studies, people have had astonishing results from water injections and fake pills, just because they believed they were getting medicine. How much is this happening with regular medicines. Do they really work as much as we think?
6 The natural tendency of the body is to heal. Medicine takes credit for every person who gets better. Speaking in terms of minor illnesses and accidents, most of them would have gotten better anyway. Did the pills do anything? Did they retard healing?
7 Through overuse of antibiotics, many germs have progressively evolved to be resistant to treatments, a large long term cost.
8 So much illness is the result of emotions. Medicating the body without treating the heart, the head, working with the causes of stress, is futile.
9 Western medicine is one dimensional, treating the body like a hunk of meat, ignoring emotions, the energetic body, the poisons in the environment, including EMF poisoning
10 The emphasis is on treatment of disease, rather than prevention
11 The only treatments are strong drugs with many, many side effects, or drugs and surgery. Not much else. A sledgehammer approach.
12 Financial Incentives-is the incentive to come up with a pill that you take one time and costs 10 dollars, or to keep people hooked
13 Is the research itself valid? Medical politics make US govt politics look tame. Can we trust what we're told, or was someones' reputation or job more important than health?
14 Western medicine ignores significant lines of research. Two specific examples:
a) There have been thousands and tens of thousands of cases of what medicine calls "spontaneous remission" of illness. In other words, diseases just went away, disappeared. Another word for this is miracle.
b) In cases of multiple personality disorder, situations have been documented where one personality had illnesses, wore glasses, etc, and the other personality didn't. In other words, people's physiology changed drastically within the span of moments, as the change from one personality to another occurred.
Rather than investigating how these things have happened, and how they can be encouraged to happen, medicine has ignored these lines of research, lines of research which could lead to amazing healings. Why?

I'm not saying to do nothing.
When we're sick, we need to take care of ourselves.

What IS the best way? I do think Western Medicine has some good to offer, is the best choice for some things, but with all the problems, you practically need to spend 10 years studying, and not at a medical institution, to know what is the best treatment for you.

My opinion is that, when you really look at the costs and benefits, "alternative" treatments are, 90% of the time, safer and more effective on deeper levels, and are gentler and cheaper.
-----
Most of us are surrounded every day by advertisements for medications and medicine.

TV shows regularly feature doctors as heroes, and have as long as TV has existed.
The underlying effect is the same as if a massive propaganda brainwashing campaign has been taking place, and maybe it has. It is very interesting to read, when one studies the history, that

The reason alternative medicine is alternative, is because there was a deliberate creation of a Western Allopathic Medicine business monopoly in the early 1900s.

"Alternative" treatments, which had been the choice of many people, were, one by one, systematically made illegal, forcing people to have no other options than allopathic medicine, forcing them to spend their money on doctors, drugs and surgery, not on herbs or hydrotherapy.

At the same time, the teaching institutions for doctors were taken over, in a devious way, by huge funding of medical schools, on the condition that the only thing they taught would be drugs and surgery.

A one-two punch.

Just think of how no one is allowed to write or say anything about health without the words, "consult your doctor". Legally they have to say that, the medical monopoly in action.

Many doctors are kind people who truly care about their patients.
The question is, what were they taught?

In particular i want to mention cancer, a disease that 1 in 4 americans gets during their lifetime. I react whenever i hear an appeal to "help us do more research". Based on my studies, and people i have personally known, there are a number of safe, gentle and cheap ways to heal cancer, and they have been ignored and actively suppressed by the Medical Monopoly. For example,
did you know that

in 1950 a Federal Court found the Hoxsey treatment an effective cure for cancer. The AMA got the FDA to drive it out of the country the following year.
With actions like that, how much credibility can we accord the medical profession?

Watch the video below. I can also mention Macrobiotics and Wheatgrass Juice, and there are many more. Click the link for Recalled by Life, a book by a doctor who turned to Macrobiotics because he had no other choice, and then wrote this great book

Much of what you will read about health and alternative medicine is written by people who have come through the medical school machine. They were basically taught that everything except drugs and surgery is bullshit, that even mentioning it means they are failing their patients, and:
that is changing.

Please, do not take my word for anything!
Do your own research, come to your own conclusions.

Nothing original in this blog entry. Many people have said it all before, and well.

There is a book called Sugar Blues, by William Dufty, that is basically a history of western medicine. you must read it.
http://www.google.com/search?q=sugar+blues+william+dufty&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Also, watch Hoxsey, When Healing Becomes a crime. You can watch it free online. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5528328984547372206#

Andrew Weil has stated most of this much better in his new book, why our health matters, which should have been named, The Medical Monopoly, America's National Disaster, How Allopathic Medicine has created a nation of drug addicts. Brutal Treatments, high prices, no real cures.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Our-Health-Matters-Transform/dp/1594630666

http://www.amazon.com/Recalled-Life-Anthony-J-Sattilaro/dp/0395325242/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

what doctors don't tell you http://www.wddty.com

be well,
jay dancing bear

Poem written on New Year's Morning, 2010

2010-03-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

The body has it's rhythms
it likes to wake up slow
pause during the day, take naps
stretch, yawn
move, run, jump
play
dance

the mind, especially the ego mind
is a tyrant
ordering the body around mercilessly
forcing it to work, work, work
almost never play

Even when the ego thinks it's having fun
I'm drinking, i'm smoking, i'm talking
i might get lucky with this woman
too often the body is saying
please don't smoke, please don't drink
i need to rest, we woke up at 6am
worked all day
get lucky at 4pm, not 2am

and worse, the ego says
I have a goal,
I want to make a million dollars
that means we work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day
Eat fast food, in a hurry
We can relax and move later, so the ego says

The body says
you're not listening
i have to get your attention, and so
a little illness, and then a bigger one
and a bigger one

Still, the ego refuses to listen
takes a pill, gets a surgery
ignores the body
doesn't even feel the body most of the time

Who spends much time feeling the sensations in their
toe, foot, arm, right side, left side
except when the attention is forcibly drawn by pain

and so
the brutal master whips the overworked slave
without nourishing and nurturing

without realizing that
slave and master is a perversion of the true relationship
which is one of equal partners

without realizing the bliss to be found
in the exquisite sensation of moving one's arm
6 inches, 3 inches, one inch, one micron
if one will only fully allow oneself to
feel fully and fully value
the sensations

there is more bliss in that
than in all the toys and doodads of the world!

some say
"he who dies with the most toys, wins"

i say
he who dies with millions of toys
and millions of dollars
yet has never been truly embodied
never felt the bliss of the air in and out of the nostrils
never felt the bliss of toe, foot, arm, side
is impoverished beyond belief
the poorest of the poor

Think about it

My Business Plan

2010-03-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

I have written over 600 songs and a bunch of poems. Never counted the poems, definitely hundreds. People tell me they like my music and poetry. I think i have all the raw materials for a cottage industry

Music CDs
Poetry CDs
Downloads of songs and Poems
Music DVDs, mixed with some interview and poetry
DVDs of Music Videos (my songs are very visual, would lend themselves well to this)
Written folios of song lyrics and poetry
Frameable Poems and Lyrics, done in calligraphy, with illustrations, printed on high quality paper, or maybe just available for download. I had in mind some zen style, Paul Reps type brush and ink work

My idea used to be if i could sell 10,000 CDs a year, based on 5,000 sales of whatever my new title was, plus 1,000 each of older titles, that's a good living.

So why isn't it happening?
I'm actually a pretty good businessman and marketer, and for whatever reason, after years of saying i should, i should, the truth is, i don't, i don't, and i don't want to, because my creative efforts go into writing and composing, and i can't do both. The times i have, i stop playing and writing. Fuck that.

So, Business partner wanted. Someone to:

Do the marketing. Spend hours on the computer contacting every fan and other music website in the world saying, check this guy out.
Do booking and promotion
Someone who is good at setting up the accounts with all the sales websites like imeem and CD baby
Do the CD and DVD covers, and handle the production of the printed materials and the artwork, because i am useless at the computer graphic work.
Ideally, this person had recording equipment, and was good with it. This is flexible, i am very good and efficient in a studio, so money takes care of that
provide cash up front for recording and putting out the stuff

My ideal person

1 Honest, goes without saying
2 Competent. I have heard stories of well meaning people trying to help, but didn't know what they were doing, and no happy ending.
3 Wise, patient, caring person. Someone with heart.
4 Someone who can accept that i want a music career to be an important part of my life, not take over my whole life. I'm in it for the long haul. That means i pace myself, proceeding at a comfortable clip. Translation=10 shows/month, 10 months/year, travelling arranged in a healthy way, not a bunch of one night stands. I want to, for instance, go to Seattle for a month, sublet a room, and do a bunch of shows in the area. I need hours each day to do my meditation, qigong, yoga, prepare healthy food, etc.
5 Excellent computer skills, including graphics and layout, and dealing with emails and websites
6 People skills, lots of patience and tact. A lot of people in the music biz are full of themselves. You can not take offense. Actually, at times person might need people skills to deal with me.
7 Meticulous, diligent, responsible, especially with the accounting and keeping track of the email.
8 I am their only client. Maybe one other. Not spread too thin

For some reason, i had the thought of someone who had lived in a zen center and was looking for means of right livelihood to support their spiritual practice.
Basically, i am looking for a cross between King Solomon and Steve Jobs. Maybe the solution is not one person, maybe it's a team. I like teams.

The deal:50-50.

I am a very cautious, conservative person in some ways. I would want months getting to know anyone i am going to get seriously involved with in a business way, because once we start working together, i am not looking to change horses in midstream.

Potential issues down the road;

If i got really successful, at some point a professional booking agent, with contacts already in place all across the country, would make sense. Ditto for distribution. Some financial adjustments have to be made. Maybe we split the booker's percentage.
What if we decide to part ways. This could happen for a variety of amicable reasons, as well as other reasons. What percentage of my sales are you entitled to, and for how long, after we split?

I really have to tell the truth here. I still believe, %100, that i have the potential to go all the way. Maybe it's ego, maybe it's pipe dream, but i could see my music reaching a lot of people, maybe even selling 20 million units.
I'm not holding my breath, i'm not expecting it, but i really do believe it could happen. It's not that i want to get rich and live in a mansion; i do want to be comfortable financially, screw the mansion. It would be nice to have some money to use for helping others and good causes.

So, there it is, my business plan. I make the music, you do the business, we split the proceeds.

Tactics against GMOs

2010-03-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Suggestions

1 REVOKE Monsanto's corporate charter. Google "revoke corporate charter"

2 PETA has a lesson for every progressive movement in the world. They have gotten media time and attention, changed the behaviour and beliefs of a public that really didn't care, even gotten laws passed. How?
By using the two great laws of advertising;
1) Sex sells
2) celebrity sells, meaning people listen to what celebrities say

One bareass celebrity at a protest gets more attention than 100,000 signatures on a petition.
Naked women get attention.
We can take advantage of that, because i know there a lot of beautiful women against GMOs.

Imagine 1000 naked women in front of the White House chanting "No no GMO, GMO has got to go"!
This can be done anywhere, scaled to size. It works for PETA, it can work for us.

3 CELEBRITIES- movie stars, music stars, even porn stars. People pay attention to celebrities. We would do well to pay special attention to recruiting as many celebrities as possible, including on the local level, because there are tons of celebrities out there who feel strongly about GMOs, so let's give them a chance to help. If you are doing an event in your town, recruit the local celebrities, make sure to prominently include their names in the press releases you send out and the flyers you put up

4 CONCERTS Remember the Tibet concerts, farm aid, bangladest, the more recent events. It would be great if some big name like Neil Young (i'm dating myself) would front an event. Even on a local level, it can be your local band playing a benefit night at a bar, or your local folksinger playing a house concert in someone's living room

5 DESTROY DEMAND, by Sowing seeds of doubt in people's mind.

Men, are GMOs ruining your sexual performance?
Women, are GMOs spoiling your health and beauty.
Mothers, will GMOs cause your children health problems later in life.
The government says GMOs are safe. They said that about DDT.
The government says GMOs are safe. You trust your government, don't you?
How does it feel to be a guinea pig (for GMOs)
How does it feel to be a lab rat?
Hey, have you heard-Monsanto just won an award for Most Unethical Corporation in the world, mostly because of GMOs
Is it really worth using a product that will give you cancer, just to kill a few weeds (Roundup)

Don't lecture, just throw it out there. Even if you are a single mom going crazy with your kids, this is something you can do.

It would be great if ads like these made it into Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, but even if they don't, every person you ask these questions of, is one more person doubting GMOs, and if people stop buying, no more GMOs.

6 what if someone wrote a book called
"Are GMOs undermining your health", (or something like that), and then a website went up, http;//www.aregmosunderminingyourhealth.com. What if that book got advertised, not as a political ad, but purely as business, meaning the ads could not be refused. Just putting that title out is a message. It could go on flyers, or in the little classified ads in local papers, the type that cost $5-10, and all the ad would have to be is "New book, aregmosundermining your health.com"

7 PRESSURE BUSINESS
Corporate Social Responsibility is the technical name (google it) for a movement to pressure businesses into sustainable practices.
Especially now that Monsanto has been winning awards for Most Unethical Corporation in the World, it will be a lot easier to pressure food stores and hardware stores to stop carrying their products, and to make the deeper point about dangers of GMOs.
Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Costco, Ace Hardware, True Value Hardware.
Also,does anyone remember the grape boycotts, which were used on the behalf of farmworkers

8 LABELING Getting certain businesses to label foods without GMOs
Where i live, there is a chain of stores, mostly catering to average middle class people, called Trader Joe's. They already have labels on cheese that has no rBGH. Could they be gotten to label foods without GMOs, which would get people asking the question, what wrong with GMO? Certainly there is a worldwide movent to label all foods; getting some big chains with the program would be a big impetus. If anybody says why bother, response is "people have a RIGHT TO KNOW"

9 DIVEST
during the anti apartheid movement, a major tactic was pressuring large institutions, especially large public institutions, to divest themselves of stock and investments in South Africa. Can this be started with Monsanto, later turned to all GMOs?

10 TWO GROUP NAMES that sound especially powerful to my ear are
MOTHERS against GMOs
STUDENTS against GMOs
If these groups don't already exist, it's time they did

11 CONFLATE Monsanto=moral leprosy=GMOs
monsanto has now been named Least Ethical Company in the world.
If we can, in the public mind, equate monsanto with GMOs with sliminess, Monsanto can be used as a poster child.
This is not strictly logically correct, but is a tactic that has been used to win a lot of elections. 1988 comes to mind, when George Bush I successfully equated Mike Dukakis with Willie Horton.

This is all about how you present the statement. i don't have a clear suggestion for wording how the issue is framed, and it's hugely important. Google the work of George Lakoff at the Rockridge Institute to see how important

12 TWITTER
this might go with Conflate. Twitter to everyone you know the news about Monsanto's #1 Award. Especially if we can get some people with big followings to retweet, it could go viral, destroying GMO credibility almost overnight, if we can link Monsanto=GMO=Moral leprosy.
Later on, keep twittering about the latest atrocities.

13 NETWORK with ALLIES
It seems to me that every environmental group in the world is a natural ally. Every progressive political organization. Every left wing church, like the Unitarians and Religious Science. Even mainstream churches, if they thought about it, might get riled up if asked
"Do you think it's right for man to play god?"
"Do you think it's right to interfere with God's handiwork"?

Certainly, many of us are horrified at anti abortion, anti Gay, anti immigrant groups, but there is an old saying "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and if anyone is against GMOs i say Amen, brother, and let's agree to disagree on the other stuff.

More on Corporate Personhood tactics

2010-03-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

Corporate Personhood is an inherently absurd, ridiculous idea.

The idea that a legal fiction should have the same rights as a human being is insane.

Who gets rights next? Mickey Mouse? Bart Simpson? Family Guy?

The egghead that came up with this idea must have really smoked a lot of wacky weed that night!

The only way that this could have gotten into law was to pay someone off, and that's what happened.

People are more often persuaded by appealing to their guts and hearts, not so often persuaded by appealing to their minds.
I live with Republicans. They turn off when then hear about court cases and bad corporations. They listen when you make statements like the ones above.
The anti corporate personhood movement has to frame it's arguments in basic terms that even the truck driving, country music set resonates with.

George Lakoff, at the Rockridge Institute, has done incredible work on this subject. Anyone running a political campaign, which this is, needs to read his work. There is a link below.

WONK WON'T WORK. YOU HAVE TO GO FOR THE GUT!
The best way to end corporate personhood is to ridicule it to death.
---
Along with this, I strongly suggest adopting PETA's tactics of naked protests, especially naked celebrities. PETA has demonstrated an amazing ability to educate people, change behaviours, and get laws passed, all because they decided to accept people as they were, and deal with them on those terms, which means PETA staged one stunt after another, got tremendous media attention, and took advantage of the fact that people idolize stars and pay attention to what they say.

One naked movie star demonstrating against corporate personhood would get more media attention than a wonky petition with 100,000 signatures, or imagine 1000 naked women in front of the white house, including a scattering of celebrities of all sorts, shouting "Abolish Corporate Personhood Now".

This movement can be dignified, respectable, stuffy, wonky, intellectual, and lose, or it can be
Wild, loud, in your face, and win

http://www.google.com/search?q=george+lakoff+rockridge+institue&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&client=firefox

Strategies For Abolishing Corporate Personhood

2010-03-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

Corporate Personhood is an odious stench in the nostrils of society.
----
I'm probably not saying anything that hasn't been said before or better, but here goes;
----
There are three mass movements in the recent past i think we can learn from;
1 The civil rights movement. Main lesson, the great moral power of nonviolence
2 The anti-Vietnam war movement. Main lesson, the huge power of students
3 The Christian Coalition's rise to power-main lesson, the power of the grassroots
---
Let's start with
THE POWER OF THE GRASSROOTS
which was also a key factor in the anti-vietnam war movement. Right now, the Corporate media are the propaganda mouthpiece of Big Business, LLC. Not to expect too much access or mention there, but maybe. What that means is face to face, person to person. The media may not report it, but it will still be there changing the world.

One important exception; advertising for a commercial product. If someone were to write a book with the title "How Corporate Personhood is Destroying America and Hurting Your Family", or something similar, that book could be advertised everywhere, since it would be a commercial message, not a political one, and of course that would cost money.

TEACHINS and teaching
Back to the grassroots. The immediate challenge is that most people have never heard of CP, let alone know how it is devastating their lives. In the 60s, there were teach-ins all over the place. That needs to happen now, in a grassroots way, tables in front of Post Offices and stores, flyers on bulletin boards.

Some tactics:
1 the christian coalition got power by running candidates for every small political office in america, school boards, etc. I think that Abolish candidates need to do the same. the point is not to win, but to have the legal right to present one's views as part of the electoral process.

2 I think Abolish people should register as Republicans and run in Republican primaries all over the country. Believe it or not, i think that the average Republican can clearly get the absurdity of the idea that a legal fiction should have the same rights as a flesh and blood human being. It is almost a Republican issue.

3 to this end, i think that the way the case is made needs to be in plain English, not wonkspeak
1 an appeal to the idea above,
2 a ridiculing of the absurdity of how things are and
3 A detailing of unsafe products and how you and your family are suffering harm from the present system.

4 Simple ad slogans; things go better with Coke, If a corporation commits a crime, who do you put in jail? Some simple message should be everywhere people look, bumperstickers, bulletin boards, shirts, local classified ads

There are three basic points to make
1 What CP is
2 How it hurts people
3 the dubious and corrupt way it started in the headnotes

I think the most Christian, truck driving, conservative cowboy will get it, if put in terms he is used to.
see Moral Politics, by George Lakoff, on the importance of framing.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDENTS
So much political change in the world is the result of young people. Generally, when people get to their late 20s-early 30s, have a job, credit card debt, maybe married, maybe kids, well, people like that do not usually change the world. Students and young people, idealistic, energetic, social, not so much to lose, they change things. I think that for the Abolish movement to be successful, it must start with students. I was 13 in 1969, and i remember the Vietnam War Moratorium, basically a one day teach in across the country. Students may not have stopped the war, but they sure slowed it down; without the anti war movement, Vietnam might have lasted another 5 years. That means something.

BIG TENT AND ALLIES
Corporate personhood is an issue that, when people understand it, cuts across every divide. We need to have a big tent. I think that this is a natural issue for many conservative people, some of whom leftists generally denigrate. However, if an anti abortion, anti gay, anti immigrant person is anti corporate personhood, i say amen brother, welcome to the fold, because my enemy's enemy is my friend.

As for natural allies-there are tons of environmental and political organizations that deal firsthand witht he toxic effects of corporate personhood every day.

In summary, the total absurdity of Corporate Personhood is so obvious that everyone in America and the world can get it, if the harm resultant is pointed out to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=351072399160
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=440806875385

CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

2010-01-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

If a corporation commits a crime, who do you lock up?
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/13-corporate-personhood-challenged/

http://www.uuworld.org/2003/03/feature1a.html

http://www.jashford.com/Pages/worldcorps.html

DRUG LAWS and ELECTIONS-How the right wing used drug laws to disenfranchise the left and take control of the country

2010-01-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

Pot laws were originally put in place at a time when only black people smoked. The laws were basically a part of Jim Crow, a way to keep blacks in their place.

By the time of the Vietnam War, drugs were a part of the lifestyle of many of the left wing Vietnam protesters. The government couldn't make opposition to the war illegal, but by going after drug use it was able to shut up a lot of people, either by directly busting them, or scaring them into silence.

Later on, Ronald Reagan successfully used the theme of "just say no to drugs" to effectively deprive many, many people of their right to vote (by putting them in prison), and of course many, many others were scared into not participating in the political process, and of course almost all of these were Democrats and progressives.

It was a very skillful way to stage a coup d'etat, a right wing takeover of the country, and of course once they got into power, they passed more and more draconian measures, such as the California 3 strikes law.

Just think of the difference all these votes would have made in elections, both national and local. No Reagan, no Bush I, no Bush II, no Democratic party going so far over to the Right that they are basically the left wing of the Republican party.

To my mind, this was the modern day equivalent of Hitler's Big Lie, in which all evils were blamed on the jews.

America has more people per capita than any other Western industrialized nation, most of them for drug "offenses". Black people especially find themselves in prison in almost unbelievable numbers, 1 in 3 black men in their 20s, i believe is the figure.

My own opinion is that in most cases drug use is, at best, a waste of time. In no way do i want to see serious drugs too freely available. LEGALIZE and CONTROL. Control by treating drugs the same way we control the right to drive a motor vehicle, by having to study the effects, go to a training for hard drugs where one will have to listen to ex junkies tell their stories, but finally, if you want to do it, it's your right.

This will also serve to destroy the drug cartels, which were created by anti-drug laws, the same way the Mafia was created by prohibition, because production and distribution will be done by Pfizer and other "legitimate" companies, thus cutting off funding from the gangs.

Dr. Andrew Weil's first book, The Natural Mind, is the most sensible thing i've ever seen on the subject of drugs. Take the time to follow the link, maybe do a google search of your own.
http://www.psychedelic-library.org/weil1.htm

WHAT RIGHT DO THESE RIGHT WINGERS HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE HOW TO LIVE?

Some transportation thoughts

2010-01-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

The transportation toolkit

In the trades, one learns to use the right tool for the right job.Nobody who does any kind of work would have only one tool, especially if that one tool was a sledgehammer! Can you imagine trying to put a nail in the wall using a sledgehammer, or trying to put in a screw with a sledgehammer, yet that is what many Americans do with a "one size fits all" approach to transportation, in which all they own is an SUV, Van or truck, when most of their usuage could easily be done in a small car, or even a bicycle, and occasionally rent a larger vehicle for a camping trip or moving furniture. Since most of these large vehicles average 15mpg, and gas is getting expensive, many people will be using this approach.

Three Modes of Transportation, but only two places available

1) Fast- motor vehicles
2) Slow-Pedestrians
3) Medium-Bicycles, skateboards, segways, roller blades, etc.
These don't belong in traffic with cars; there are already far too many stories of bicyclists being hit. On the other hand, they don't belong on sidewalks. Many more people would ride a bicycle to work or for errrands, IF IT WAS SAFE. A painted white line on a street means nothing. But where would this extra lane come from. Would more trees and gardens get cut down and paved over? Many car drivers have a sense of entitlement and would vigorously resist giving up one car lane to be turned into an elevated bicycle lane, in the way sidewalks are elevated. However, rising gas prices are about to negate those objections and turn them into a demand for safe bicycle lanes.

Poems

2009-08-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

Satori in Oakland

Hey, Kerouac had to go to Paris
I get to do it right here in Oaktown
Land of the free, home of the brave

and hey, is this real satori, or
am i just bullshitting myself
maybe trying to bullshit you
pumping myself up with my own self importance
the way poets do
when they're wearing plaid sweatpants and a grey T shirt

and hey, does it matter about
my satori
when what matters is
your satori

___________________

What went wrong?

What went wrong?

Was it a word, a look, a hurt feeling
a small wound that festered, growing
more toxic with the passage of the years
perhaps a succession of such small wounds

Was it a great gaping wound
some large injury
done to him at some time in his life, who knows when
a wound which no one knew about, and so
when the worst happened
everyone was shocked

was it what was done to him
the largeness or smallness of it, or

was it the bitterness with which
he regarded it, obsessed over it
almost cherished it with his thoughts and attention
turning it over and over in his mind
like some dark poisonous spider

could it have been prevented, stopped
ameliorated by some intervention, whose intervention?
Did he ask for help, cry for help, turn away help, say
no, nothing's wrong with me, I'm OK
leave me alone

Who knew, and who should have known
could have known
did know?

The end result, shock waves
rippling through
family, friends, acquaintances

even people to whom he was just an article in the paper
a story they heard
one more human tragedy
one more confirmation to them of what they already knew
or thought they knew
an excuse to vent fears, anger, frustration
because if it could happen to him
maybe it could happen to them
or someone close to them
so if they can make some sense of it
even to say "he deserved what he got"
maybe they can feel a tad bit safer
in a world where it seems like
anything can happen
at any time

So what went wrong?
How to make some sense of it?
I don't know

Health care

2009-07-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

Human beings are not machines. Emotions are the key to health.
Any health care system that relies on western allopathic medicine-brutal, expensive, ineffective-is doomed to failure.
The AMA drove "alternative" healing out because it was cheap, gentle and effective.

Health Care Video

2009-05-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

take the time to watch just the first five minutes of this video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5528328984547372206

Dear President Obama

2009-05-25T11:01:00.001-07:00

Dear President Obama,

You have a responsibility to investigate the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by the Bush-Cheney administration.

Using terrorism as an excuse, they did their best to pervert America from a democracy to a dictatorship. Most Americans still do not know that, and therein lies the danger, because the next administration to try it might succeed, unless people realize the danger.

Now they attack Pelosi. It is as if a gang of murderers wanted to blame a witness, and all the wimpocrats do is issue feeble denials, rather than attack, attack, attack. If the situation were reversed, we all know how the Republicans would act.

--
be well,
jay

Two halves=one whole

2009-05-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

The left does a very accurate job of describing how the political and economic structures of this country and many others are set up to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, how people are victims of oppression. It ignores personal responsibility. Many people are just as much victims of themselves, of their own arrogance and ignorance, and too often make the worst of a bad situation.

The Right, on the other hand, totally preaches personal responsibility, yet seems totally oblivious to the fact that if employers are paying low and landlords are charging high, people are screwed, and that this is no accident, instead it is the deliberate result of what amounts to a conspiracy.

The left says we all need to take care of each other, but ignores that we need to do a good job of taking care of ourselves. The Right says people deserve what they get, and every man is responsible for himself.

Personal responsibility-social responsibility. Two halves=one whole.

Open Letter

2009-04-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

This is meant to be a chain letter. If you find the ideas in it worth sharing please forward it.
--------
Dear Members of Meetup and other groups working to make the world a better place,

If environmental pollution causes us to get cancer, or if global warming destroys food crops, all our massage, NVC, yoga, meditation, vegetarianism, dancing, and everything else will not save us. The figure commonly used is that 1 in 3 Americans gets cancer in their lifetime. Can anyone doubt that a large portion of the cause is environmental pollution.

What can we do?

i offer below some small actions. Will these small actions save the planet? Hell no!, but,
when our friends see us doing them, perhaps they will do them too, and when enough people get the message that environmental pollution and destruction poses a clear and present danger, a greater threat to our health and safety than Al Quaeda, Iran, North Korea, and the economic meltdown, all combined, then some big changes will happen.

It constantly shocks me how seemingly nice, intelligent, well intentioned people just don't seem to grasp the connection between the coffee cup they threw away, and global warming,don't seem to grasp the enormity and the urgency of what's going on, and live their lives in a way inconsistent with the values they espouse with their words. Enough talking the talk. It's time to walk the walk.

OK, 3 very small ideas, the big idea being, to start adopting into your every day life positive actions.

1) You know that you are going to shop. Just keep some cloth shopping bags with you at all times, probably in your car.
2) You know that you are going to eat and drink. Just bring a lunch kit: coffee cup, plate, utensils, cloth napkin, especially to Meetup and other events
3) Form carpool groups for all events.

That's it. Of course there are a host of other actions that could be taken, but let's make a start, a start to remembering that every action has consequences. Do i expect people to be perfect? Hell no. Am i perfect? Probably not in this lifetime, and, don't use that an excuse for lack of diligence.

I hear a lot of people talking the eco talk. Let's at least take the baby steps towards walking the walk, and remember:
In metaphysical terms, the smallest actions are important, symbolic actions are important. With every action you do, every word you speak, every thought you think, you are making a statement to the universe about what kind of world you want to live in.

here's a link to a funny little video, The Story of Stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com/downloads.html
--
be well,
jay

Anonymous said...: Some interesting, practical food for thought, particularly in the idea that small actions in the cumulative and aggregate make a big difference.

The idea of keeping a cloth bag in the car and a cup handy are good ones. I see more people using cloth bags at the grocery stores, but not so much yet the cup.

I partially disagree with the comment that well intentioned and smart people do not see how the little things contribute to the larger whole. Personally, I am not 100% sold that global warming is a fact or that we have caused it. It is also the thinking that there are larger causes that we do not have control over. I think we do have a responsibility to decrease our foot print, but there is still a ways to go in changing our thinking before behaviors follow suit. It's happening though.

Another thought: what about water usage? Why have we not created home and portal distillation systems to stop the over use of water? It seems to me that this is a larger contributor of health and environmental issues.

To the third point about car pools, I do not think most Americans see this as practical. I also think that too many people see it as an impingement of their individualism. It is something we should make a little better effort of though.

Thanks again for the insights :)

-Digger; April 25, 2009 4:06 PM
Jay dancing bear said...: Our whole civilization is based on waste and disposability. Material production poisons the environment, meaning poisons us.

GNP=Gross National Pollution, or Gross National Poisoning
and of course it is international; We are literally poisoning ourselves to make a living. A total new system is needed, a world economic system that is not based on material production and consumption, beyond what is necessary. No more shop till you drop.; the small things i mentioned are just tokens, just a way for people to do some small action. Perhaps asking for this is a mistake on my part, because people who do these things may believe it is enough.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/

We Can Do Better!

2009-04-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

WATCH THIS VIDEO http://storyofstuff.com/downloads.html

---------------------------------------------
All problems in human society come from very simple causes

1) COMPASSION, OR THE LACK OF IT
Everybody cares, but how far do the boundaries of compassion extend? Do we just care about ourselves and our families and friends. Do we care what happens to somebody else, especially if we will never meet or even see that someone else. Our city, our class, our race, animals; trees.

2) FEAR, usually fear that there is not enough for everybody, meaning that we can't afford to help others, because then we won't have enough for ourselves.

3) WISDOM, VISION, CLARITY, SEEING DEEPLY
different words for the same thing.
When you turn on a light, do you see the power plant upstream, the garbage dump the whole light fixture will inevitably end up in.

Every action has consequences and implications, direct and indirect. Do you understand how the simplest actions of your life, such as buying a pizza, are not simple, in fact are the result of a very complicated manufacturing and supply chain? Seeing that is wisdom, taking things for granted is foolish.

If you really thought through, as best as you could, all the consequences and implications of how you are living, you would live very differently, and, my belief, be happier and healthier.

It's all really very simple:
selfishness, fear, and shortsightedness, or compassion, courage, and wisdom.
------------------------

WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THE ECONOMY?

In the simplest of terms, the people who kept it going, the poor and middle class people who created the demand for goods and services, don't have enough money to spend to keep the whole house of cards going,
BECAUSE
the rich got so greedy, downsized so many people, didn't pay enough people good wages , moved factories offshore, and raised executive salaries through the roof while doing it.
Everything else is a detail.

Productivity went way up, profits went way up, and the owners and executives kept it all for themselves. Occasionally tossing the workers a few crumbs, usually firing them and making one person do the work that used to be done by two people.

Food chains are built on the little critters at the bottom of the food chain. When they aren't doing well, the whole food chain collapses. Henry Ford understood that it benefited him to pay his workers enough to buy his cars.

AND MAYBE THERE'S A BRIGHT SIDE

My personal belief is that environmental pollution is responsible for a lot of cancer, heart disease, asthma, and everything else.
The more we consume=the more poisons we create.
Less consumption=less cancer (and maybe you're the person who won't get it)

I think the whole idea of an economy based on production of material goods is dead, and we are seeing that in our health. This planet can only handle a certain level of toxins, whereas current economic models say that growth is good. That's wrong. Of course everyone needs to have their needs met in a comfortable way, food, shelter, etc.. but the way we're doing it very often results in watching your loved ones suffer as a result of toxins produced by the same system that employs you.
WE CAN DO BETTER!

Living Well

2009-04-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, so you've read my earlier blog posts, and lots of other similar material, and you're saying "life sucks, and then you die".

The delicate balancing act of life is to keep the spiritual eye open to the higher truths, to live a life of integrity, to keep a good attitude, and a smile, to take care of your health, to not let stress chew at you and destroy your health, to eat well, take care of your body, have good relationships, etc
AND
to see the world as it is, to see through all the lies we are told and the frauds we are sold, to not just accept the propaganda, the brainwashing, the bullshit.

I'll tell my own story. A few years back, i was getting so upset, taking on so much stress, about all the "problems of the world", thinking about it so much, that my health started to go down. i really had the feeling that if i didn't find some way of dealing with this, that i wouldn't be around much longer.

I have a long background and repertoire of spiritual practices. I meditate, do yoga, vegetarian, all that stuff. In this case it saved my life.
I started doing a practice of sending energy up to my third eye, of holding the intention, praying, if you want to call it that, that i be allowed to see the world with the eye of spirit, because to my human eyes, it looked like it was bad and getting worse.

What ended up happening, is that i started getting the understanding, the deep intuition or feeling, that the world was a one room schoolhouse, that we are all here, and have chosen to incarnate here, in this time, in the midst of these problems, for the purpose of learning lessons. One of the biggest, and for me, probably my own personal most important lesson, is to not hate those who do wrong, to see them as the wounded, sick individuals they are, rather than as "bad" people. To see the innate goodness deep in the soul of even the most horrendous torturer.

And, ultimately, i received the understanding that we are all, as Wayne Dyer says, spiritual beings having a material experience. Our essence is not wetted by water, not dried by wind, not cloven by a sword, not burned by fire. Our bodies are like suits of clothes. If something happens, you can always get a new one.

That may all sound pretty pie in the sky to materialistic types who believe in no higher reality than what they can touch, taste and smell. Until you do some practices, which open up your energy body and higher centers, it's all just a bunch of words, until you start opening up higher modes of perception.

I personally believe that anyone living in this world, especially those trying to change the world for the better, owe it to themselves to give themselves the spiritual and psychic nutrition they need, and this is done through every day practice. I am not trying to sell any particular brand. There are a lot of different choices, what is important is to do something.

Now you can see from my other blog posts that i still react to wrongs, but I now have a sense that, as Martin Luther King said, "the arc of history is towards justice".

good luck

is america a one party state?

2009-04-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

Is America a one party state, the CORPORATE CAPITALIST PARTY? Are the Democratic and Republican parties like the left and right wings of this party, the Wage Slavery party, with the Democratic party representing a kinder, gentler version, while the Republicans are more hard nosed.

Are they like the slaveholders of the pre Civil War South, where some of the slaveholders starved their slaves and didn't give them enough time to rest, while others saw the wisdom in taking better care of their slaves, however both shared the unquestioning assumption that the slaves existed for the benefit of the owners, that the slaves' purpose in life was to be slaves.

Let's look at our "free" elections
1) a winner take all system, which means that you only have to get part of the electorate to believe your lies, rather than having to moderate policies, as in a parlimentary, proportional representation system. The two party system discourages and silences any voices too far off the mainstream. Third parties are rendered a joke, because they have no chance of winning, thus people will not vote for them, thus, they have no chance of winning.

2) Money and advertising, in effect, buy elections. The rich are allowed to buy as many Newspapers, TV and radio stations as they want. The media then, in effect, chooses the candidates, by giving free advertising in the form of "news" to some, while totally ignoring others. This preserves the illusion of "freedom of choice", while making a mockery of it.

An additional benefit of this is that once you own the media you can lie to and brain wash the populace, Fox "news" being a good example.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428
Of course the deeper brainwashing is not just the lies and propaganda that media mouthpieces like Fox put out, the deeper brainwashing is the whole mindset of materialism, selfishness, war with nature, competition instead of cooperation, and all the rest of the sick, perverted and self destructive modes of living that society tries to program us for.

3) People who disagree are put either in prison or under the threat of prison. The way to do this is by making the lifestyle of the left and the working classes, especially the darker skinned people, illegal.

One way that this is done is by making pleasurable drugs illegal, while encouraging expensive addictions to toxic medical drugs with horrible side effects, actually prescribing them through the power of the "health care" system.

You get to lock up a bunch of people, take away their right to vote, and make money off them while they are in prison. Also, even for the ones you don't lock up (is it 80 million americans who use drugs? 100 million?), people afraid of jail are less likely to be politically active. They will keep their heads down and shut up.

4) And, if wages stay low, and people have to work a lot of hours, they won't have time to educate and concern themselves with politics.

5) Let's not forget an educational system that features one teacher for 35 students, and fails to teach even the basic elements of personal finance and time management, in a world where those are such vital skills, and that teaches students to learn what the test will ask and to avoid creative thinking.

6) However, when too many people start to wake up, usually because they are suffering, then elections are switched to computers, which can then easily be hacked, if you can call it hacking when the company that makes the machines and wrote the programs does the "hacking".

The two videos below are about how the elections are stolen
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7926958774822130737

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5321794022770412541

all this under the banner of free and fair elections.

To sum up, THE FIX IS IN

Case in point; Republicans under Reagan and Bush institute lawlessness, the invitation to theft and fraud known as deregulation, and give away trillions in tax cuts to the wealthy. The system falls apart, the Republicans (Tweedledee) lose credibility, so the ruling elites bring in the Democrats (Tweedledum) to give away Trillions to the people who caused the problem, under the rationale that they have to, in order to save the little people.

addendum: A case can be made that President Obama is the perfect person to continue the cause of Corporate Welfare. He looks like change, he sounds like change, but fundamentally, he represents business as usual, albeit a kinder, gentler version.

i think that President Obama is a smart, well intentioned man, whose weakness is that he is prone to conventional thinking. I think that, given the brainwashing and propaganda the American people have received for so long, he is probably the best we could have hoped for, given that essentially, when it comes to elections, our choices are made for us by the ruling elites through the mechanism of the Corporate media.

His weakness is that he still thinks inside the box; closer to the edges, but still inside the box. My hope is that at some point he will wake up and see that we need to go outside the box, and that he will be allowed to live to do that.

-------
Think of yourself as a scientist. Take a step back from your beliefs, and just see if the facts fit the theory. This doesn't mean that the theory i outline above is true, i'm not sure it is myself, and the truth is, I hope I'm wrong, but does it seem like it explains what is going on. You draw your own conclusions, come up with your own theories.

What can you do?
I believe that it is each person's responsibility in life to because the best people we can be. The first thing is to wake up yourself.

Avoid the temptation to buy, buy, buy. Your time is your most valuable resource. Use it to become the best person you can be. Take care of your body, mind and spirit, and actions will come naturally, as the fruit of your higher state of awareness. Martin Luther King said that the arc of history is towards justice. For all the problems, there has been a lot of progress. Time is on the side of Truth, and it happens through each person waking up, one by one.

a little bit about me

2009-04-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

for those of you who have read this blog, and perhaps some of my other writings on my website, jaydancingbear.com
you may be under the impression that i am a knee jerk, bleeding heart, liberal do gooder. Well, maybe i am, but i don't think so.

I started out as a Republican, a real meat head type, the guy who said we should nuke North Vietnam (this was during the Vietnam war). Times have changed.

In many ways liberals drive me crazy with their politics of victimhood and failure to demand personal responsibility and accountability from all the "victims". As far as i can tell, most people are just as much victims of themselves, of their own arrogance and stupidity, as they are of anything else. Lack of resources is one thing; poor use of resources is another. As a musician who has lived on a low budget my whole life, and done well with it, i know that you can spend $10 on one meal or on groceries for three meals.

Now the big BUT

But, even though liberals drive me crazy, they are so absolutely right on in their view of how our political and economic system is rigged to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and to produce lots of losers to fill up the prisons and march off to war. Conservatives close their eyes to how having a kid grow up with virtually no parent time, because the parents both have to work 2 jobs to survive, because the landlord gets to grind them to pay enough rent to pay his mortgage and put money in his pocket, and then that same kid goes to a school where classrooms have one teacher for 35 kids, and of course he's been subtly told he's not good enough because he's not white, well, what do you expect?

The figure i saw was that 1 in 3 high school kids do not graduate. Where are they going to end up? In prison, making a lot of money for police, courts, judges, prison guards, the suppliers of clothing and food, etc. And that's the point. The system is designed to produce these losers to make money off of.

Just from a selfish point of view, we're better off not having a bunch of fucked up, angry, uneducated people stealing our car stereos when we park, or having to trip over a bunch of homeless people when we go downtown (and let's not forget how many of these homeless are vets).

I just wish everybody would cut the shit and tell the truth: people are ultimately responsible for their own actions, and the system is rigged to produce losers.

And the environment. Don't get me started. A slow motion train wreck, the ultimate disaster. But hey, let's not interfere with business, even if we all get cancer, our homes are blown away in a hurricane, and the world either cooks us or goes to a new Ice Age.

WAKE UP. Even if everybody else is a marching moron, at least open up your own eyes.

http://www.projectcensored.org/

Clear and Present Danger

2009-04-03T03:08:00.001-07:00

dear president obama,

Global warming and environmental pollution are a greater threat to the people of the US, and the rest of the world, than China, Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda combined, a greater threat to our health and saftety than the economic meltdown.

The Bush regime systematically lied and deceived the American People about this grave danger, thus most Americans consider these problems to be annoying, but not life threatening. Looking at the evidence, there is clear and present danger.

I believe it is your responsibility is to go on TV and deliver an address telling the US citizenry just how serious this is. Present as evidence all the scientific reports the Bush administration censored, literally crossing out the lines of type it did not like.

I'm not going to adduce all the evidence here, just one small fact. One in two american men gets cancer in his lifetime. 1 in 2. that's shocking, clear evidence of the effects of our toxic lifestyle.

The recent use of the word pragmatic is appalling. Is it pragmatic to stay inside of a burning building, because you have work to do in your office. How big a disaster is needed to wake people up. Are you as president going to wait for that disaster, or are you going to be proactive.

I believe you are a smart, well intentioned man, who is prone to conventional thinking. What is needed to save the planet is visionary thinking, and i believe you can do it.

Yours Truly,
Jay Dancing Bear

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090128-ocean-dead-zones.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1130_051130_ice_age.html

link to my previous blog

2009-04-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.myspace.com/jaydancingbear
also check out
http://jaydancingbear.com/writings/Politics.htm

Putting people in prison for fun and profit

2009-04-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Is it worth saving?

2009-03-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

I understand the fear that people face in this current crisis, but let's ask, is the life that being a slave in the system offers you so great? Is it worth saving, or are you just so afraid of the unknown that you cling on to what you have, no matter how many problems. Ask yourself, and be honest, do i really want to live the rest of my life this way, or do i just believe that this is the best i can hope for, it's how it is, no hope of anything better, other than maybe buying a new car.

So many of the people i meet are TIME-POOR, working, commuting, busy, busy, busy.
OVER STIMULATED, ASSAULTED by all the distractions, phones ringing, ads, etc.
So many seem to experience SENSORY DEPRIVATION. Sure they eat and drink, but most don't seem to have the experience of being in their bodies.
ALIENATED FROM NATURE. Destroying the ecosystem. Toxic lifestyle, toxic society, a cancer on the planet.
POOR HUMAN RELATIONS, COMMUNICATIONS, INTIMACY
so many people don't seem to have any idea of the effect their choice of words have, don't understand the flows and pauses of conversation, don't understand the differing styles of male and female communication, in short, no skills, not even the concept of acquiring those skills.

etc, etc, etc. I'll hold my pointing out the problems to a minimum. I'm sure you can think of many more.

So again i ask, is it worth saving?
Maybe you are one of the lucky ones, but i think most people in America would say their lives suck in many ways,
1) if they were honest, with themselves and others
2) if they were able to get in touch with their deep feelings, which so many people seem to be out of touch with. That is one of the major effects of this society's lifestyle, to cause people to shut down.

Let's build a just, sustainable society, one that offers real satisfaction, fulfilment, peace and joy, through connection and service with nature and other people, and the very first step is admitting that WHAT WE HAVE IS NOT WORKING.

Our current system is rigged for people to remain wage slaves their whole lives, rigged in subtle, hidden ways that the average person has no idea of. Some people manage to be "successful" in the business world, but usually at the cost of failure in their personal lives.

So what is it i'd like to see?

DAILY LIFE people could start their mornings with up to one hour of meditation or prayer, depending on your orientation, and do up to an hour of exercise or yoga, etc., and have some time to spend with their families. A world where people are rich in time to spend taking care of themselves physically, mentally and spiritually, and have the time to establish connections with others, especially family.

Schools would teach communication skills, such as NVC (non violent communication), and relationship skills, such as those contained in a book called Breaking the Impasse
http://www.beyondintractability.org/booksummary/10564/, as well as principles of self care such as healthy eating, food preparation, exercise, etc. In short, schools would teach the essential skills of how to be in the body and deal with other people.

2 a work week of 4 days, 6 hours day, doing work that truly helps other people, such as elder care, teaching, manufacturing of what is essential, necessary paper work, etc.
http://consciouschoice.com/1995-98/cc095/dump40hourweek.html

3 an environmentally healthy lifestyle. Sustainable, Organic, non toxic. An end to disposability.

4 a fair wage system, where no one made more than 10 times the salary of anyone else, and workers received 1/2 of the profits of a company, in the form of bonuses.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Society/Winner_Steal_All.html
http://perfectlylegalthebook.com/

How is this going to happen? Our whole society propagandizes us, especially through the mass media, especially TV, that ME is what we need to focus on, and We is a limited circle of family and friends. The key change is one of Values, where we are committed to
creating a world where everybody wins,
whereas the world we have is one of winners and losers.

and what do i mean by "a world where everybody wins". That sounds pretty lovey dovey, pie in the sky.

I mean a world where the everyone has the support to reach their full potential. A world where classes have one teacher for each six students, a world where parents have plenty of time to spend with their children, a world without poisons in the air, food and water. A world where people practice taking care of their health. A world where people live in integrity with themselves, other people, and the environment. A world where people aren't assaulted by noise and distractions and ads from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. A simpler, slower, more meaningful way of life, where lying on the grass in the sun in a park is something one can do every day, and there aren't a lot of emotionally damaged "homeless" people who have self sedated to escape from the pain of their lives, because everyday life is joyful, not painful.

This means that, in answer to the question, "where is your brother", instead of answering "am i my brother's keeper?", we reply, "i have done everything possible to help my brothers and sisters be all they can be, and i myself am doing my best to live my deepest truths".

And what's the first step?
The first step is for YOU to be absolutely honest with yourself, and the second step is for you to have the courage to make whatever changes you need to make so you can start living your life the way you want to live.
http://www.cchange.net/

Why hold on?

2009-02-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

America is not user friendly.

Landlords charge as much as they can, employers pay as little as they can get away with
Employers fire as many workers as they can, have the ones left standing work two jobs for the price of one, while CEOs pay themselves enough money to buy a small country
The environment is poisoned. the food supply is poisoned, the water is poisoned, the air is poisoned, the ice caps are melting, the ocean is fished out, mountains have been strip mined, we have nuclear waste we don't know what to do with, and more
A "good" job means working 60hrs/wk, a bad job means you need two jobs.
Health care is for the wealthy.
People's lifestyles are sickness producing.
A fat, sluggish populace that knows more about American Idol than American politics
The media picks the candidates in elections by giving billions of dollars of free advertising, which they call "news coverage", to one or two candidates, and freeze out the rest
In a supposedly "free" country, people go to jail for smoking pot, and can not marry the person they love.
In California, under the 3 Strikes Law, people are serving life in prison for stealing a VCR or a bicycle.
People are encouraged at every turn by advertising to sell themselves into economic slavery by running up their credit cards.
9/11 was an inside job http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11cover-up
elections have been hacked http://www.wanttoknow.info/electionsinformation
True peace and satisfaction are rare commodities, not to be found in the mainstream world
Tax Laws, really all laws, favor the wealthy http://perfectlylegalthebook.com/
The whole system is a carnivorous one in which the poor and middle class are just a big feed lot for the super rich to eat.

So why hold on to a dysfunctional, brutal,
cruel system
that offers lots of ways to lose and
not many to win?

what is a criminal?

2009-01-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

someone who knowingly hurts other people for their own benefit.

ultimately criminal behaviour is selfish behaviour; i win at the expense of you losing, whether this is street crime or predatory lending.

by this standard, much of what passes for normal business practices are criminal, including high rents and low wages. On the other hand, personal behaviors such as gambling, drug use, sodomy, and prostitution, are not.

I distinguish between moral crimes, which hurt others, and legal crimes, where religious and other beliefs are turned into laws against certain behaviours. The usual argument is that society is brought down by things like prostitution. Personally, i think society is much more damaged by repression.

I believe in Freedom, a very unfashionable idea these days.

In fact, i believe that putting people in jail for victimless crimes, such as drugs, is in itself a crime, and those who advocate such brutal repression are themselves criminals, since they seek to hurt others (by locking them up) in order to force the whole society to live by their puritanical beliefs.

So, i ask you, come up with your own definition. What is a criminal?

Happiness is

2009-01-18T23:25:00.000-08:00

a state of mind.

So often i have thought, i would be happy if this or if that. it is true that having my human needs met frees me to access deeper truths, however, ultimately, i find happiness is a state of consciousness, and dis-satisfaction is a state of consciousness. of course, very often these states are the result of caffeine, alcohol, sugar, etc. (drugs are way too powerful for me).
leaving those aside, the question becomes, how can i live in the state of consiousness that has happiness as one of it's attributes.

In Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy (it's a great book) there is a saying that joy is the surest sign of the presence of god. is that ultimately the key to human happiness, an ongoing mystical experience of the presence of god, living with the presence of god? (god also meaning spirit, goddess, or whatever you want to call it, they're just different names for the same thing).

yes.

Look Deep, think like a chess player

2009-01-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

Every action has both intended and unintended consequences.
The phrase "web of life" is amazingly accurate.
Most beings see only what is in front of them, not understanding the effects they have on people, places, animals, they'll never see.

Look deeply, think like a chess player. If you make this move, then what will happen next, and your reaction to that, on and on. That is really how life works; seeds that were planted a long time ago, sending ripples forward in time, effect our lives, yours and mine, today, here and now.