Bad Choices & Poor Planning - Now What?

by Zvi Baranoff

Another homeless encampment is wiped away by police intervention and bulldozers. The problems resulting from unauthorized camping are solved by elimination of the camp but the underlining issue of the unsheltered living amongst us is not resolved. Some say that the unsheltered should plan better to avoid finding themselves in such a predicament and surely those that say so are right.

I appreciate the importance of planning. Planning, of course, is a matter of individual, family and collective decisions. By collective, in this context, I mean both voluntary social and political groups and governmental.

Absolutely when “bad luck” falls upon us it is at least in part due to bad decisions and not preparing for possible downturns always makes matters worse.

From personal experience, I can certainly offer some observations. I have had some real significant bumps in my life and planning better or making different choices would likely have led to other results or smoother recovery.

We live in a highly stratified society. We each are better off in many ways than others. There almost always is someone further down the social ladder. We can all determine that we have done better for ourselves than someone else within our sight. We can all say that but for grace, our personal situation would be far worse. It could be worse is a true and stoic and honest and real assessment. Of course, it could be better too.

I have some clear advantages when it comes to this whole surviving thing. I was raised in a stable working class family. I received a pretty decent education at a basic level and am a High School graduate. I am of somewhat above average intelligence. I have been of relatively good health, so far, knock wood. My skin tone is on the lighter end of the spectrum.

When I was barely twenty I got a girl pregnant. In hindsight (40 plus years later) I will quite readily agree that I never should have been up in there. In hindsight, I should have worn a condom every time if I lacked the will power to simply leave that girl alone. In regards to the planning thing, she was using a diaphragm for birth control.

We were both very young but we tried to do the right thing and maybe it was right for a while. I do have a very nice, all grown up and self sufficient daughter.

Somewhere along that same time I discovered the value of cannabis on a personal level. Unfortunately, governmental planning had determined that cannabis was a social danger and possession and use was clearly against the law, even when the use may be quite beneficial. I used cannabis in spite of the prohibition but did not like the idea of supporting the criminal elements of the underground markets, so I planted a couple of seeds in my backyard garden. Clearly poor planning on my part. In retrospect, the criminalization of cannabis and cannabis users was also poor social planning.

In the 1980s I lived in Philadelphia. At the time, Philly had the dual problems of abandoned buildings in blighted neighborhoods and a growing population of unsheltered people. We believed that a logical solution to these interlocking problems was to bring the abandoned properties under a common or collective use. We chose crowbars as the primary tool to solve the housing problem and very publicly occupied buildings that became known as Squat Central. The systematic response involved battering rams and jackboots.

Politically speaking, it certainly would have been wise to have better planning. Better dynamics with community, a broad coalition, financial planning, lawyers… Yep, should have planned better.

Wiser social planning by those that had more political and economic clout, in retrospect, could have resulted in avoiding the conditions that led young utopians to step forward. We were trying to solve a problem that never needed to be in the first place. Philadelphia still has more empty houses than unsheltered citizens.

Anyway, my personal list of poor decisions or poor planning is somewhat extensive. At each of those junctions, those with less relative advantages would have had a much harder time, as difficult of a time that I was having. Each of those bumps that seem to happen in cycles of roughly a decade were horrendous for me, but I ain't dead yet. They say that what does not kill you will make you stronger and that is a very optimistic and uplifting thing to say but sometimes what does not kill you just grinds you down.

How far we might fall and if there is a pathway back up is a matter of choices but an awful lot of those choices happen in some other realm, above our pay level. The choices we individually can make are often a matter of bad or worse.

Becoming an alcoholic, for instance, is a really poor social choice but I certainly know how one may at times feel that whiskey is their only friend. Heroin is a terrible choice but for some it may be the best way they have found to limit or avoid pain. Crime or hunger certainly should not be the only options but for some it may seem that way.

To return from the abstract to the more concrete, I agree that we should all plan better. As individuals and as social activists, we need to be better organized. The problems of extreme inequality require collective action and strategic thinking. I believe that better collective decisions can be made that could resolve many of the worse aspects of extreme inequality through voluntary cooperative actions.

Absolutely, we should seek legal solutions. We should buy property and own it through land banks. We should work with government agencies to obtain proper permits, zoning, hygiene, safety, etc. We should help funnel those with needs such as drug withdrawal and treatment into agencies that can help with such problems. We should have facilities that can actually provide such help.

No one deserves a free ride is true enough. Neither should anyone be driven down so low that they feel that they have nowhere to go. Those are two sides of the same coin. We all need to plan better and in the ultimate sense, we are all in this together.

Personally, I have been a terrible planner and I certainly appreciate that some are better at that than others. I am all in favor of working with those that are good at planning and hope they will take on leadership roles. I recognize both my own strengths and weaknesses. I do what I can within the limits of my personal nature, the limits of the economic system, as well as my relative physical, mental and emotional well being. Of course, some days I am more capable and accomplish more. Some days I am just a mess.

Extreme poverty, the lack of shelter and social services, the existence of hunger and suffering, are complicated interwoven issues that need to be addressed through better planning. We have to start somewhere, and do something and we have to work with what is actually available and possible. Tents and blankets are better then nothing. Shacks are better then tents. Villages with sanitation and social services would serve community needs much more efficiently than haphazard temporary shelter.

We each have to make better choices. We all have to make better choices. That sounds like a plan.

How Do You Spell Banana & When Do I Get Paid?

by Zvi Baranoff

Sometimes I feel like the child that is asked to spell “banana” and proudly answers “bananana…”. The youth knows how to spell it but doesn't know when to stop.

It pretty much has all been said before, by better writers and deeper thinkers years or decades or centuries or millennium ago. There is still nothing new under the sun. For that mater, surely any wisdom that I can possibly pass on has already been passed. Likely I have already written down what I think about it all and what more needs to be said? Yet, somehow there must be more to it, I think as I “...nanana…” to infinity.

Now I am in my seventh decade of living on Planet Earth. I learn stuff all the time. Perhaps I am wiser than I was when I was young. I certainly have more experience and have been exposed to more stimulus. I have way more information available literally at my fingertips. Yet, many of the problems that we Earthlings face in this Century are the same that we faced in the last Century - the century in which I was born and lived most of my life. For that matter, some of the problems have been around since long before that. I have written about much of it over the years.

We do, however, have some special matters at hand that may not have occurred to very many a few decades ago that are now very serious front burner, attention demanding concerns that we just can no longer ignore or postpone. I have been pointing out the critical nature of our condition for what feels like forever.

It may be human nature to always put off until tomorrow what we can. There is a certain logic to that. If one puts something off long enough it may just resolve itself or someone else might get around to it. Sometimes, though, we all must face the consequences.

Since as long as I can remember I have been jumping up and down, shouting “Why?!?” and writing about solutions.

I started sending Letters to the Editor when I was in Middle School. I have been writing for a long time. I would get my letters published often. I have also had articles and esays published in various outlets. I was also involved at times on the publishing level, which means that I helped raise the money to print what I had to say. Now, in the internet age, I publish somewhat regularly through my blog and on social media so the cost to me is the time and effort. (Maybe it should be a book,some might say.) I just keep giving it all away.

There are always economic and financial matters that factor in to when and how we address every issue. Some gain from every action and will make a financial transaction out of every form of human interaction. Some people don't give anything away.

Rebellion may very well be a deep part of human nature but the system seems to find a way to monetize and capitalize on every impulse. If you doubt that, consider Jesus turning over the tables and the short span between his execution and the establishment of the Catholic Church. If that is too esoteric, consider Rock & Roll. Consider Che Guevara's image on advertising and T-shirts. Consider the White Bicycle Experiment, Shared Housing, Environmentalism, organic food, Tiny Houses, recycling and weed!

So, everyone is turning a buck on everything, and I am still writing for free!

Thinking and writing is a lot of hard work. It may not look like work, but nonetheless that is what it is. Work is a four letter word. It ends in “k” and it is best if you do it primarily for love. If you do it just for money you may be called a whore.

Assuming that we are not about to wash away the Capitalist System and replace it with a nonmonetary alternative sometime in the next few weeks, I need to monetize my writing. Everyone is selling something and that is all I have to sell. I may have been giving it away for decades, but it is time for this old whore to get paid.

So, much of what you will find between the covers of this book has already been published online, although there are corrections, improvements and further elaborations. Some of this is new. Some of the tales have never been told before. The primary difference is that I get paid, and why shouldn't I?

They will tell us that “it” is impossible or not practical until they can figure out how to turn a buck on it. Then, anything is possible. Even the publishing of this book. We cannot live on just love and air. As things are, we all need money. What's a writer to do?

Bananana...buy copies for your friends and buy the next book too when it comes out. We all have to do our share to keep the economy humming, because that's what we do here on Planet Earth.

Surely, it is human nature to keep doing things the same as we always have, until we start doing something else. As a planetary culture, for our collective survival, we best start doing all sorts of things differently in the near future than we have in the past.

I will keep writing.

Facebook Echoes - We Reap What We Sow

by Zvi Baranoff

Centuries ago philosopher monks pondered the question of the falling tree in the woods. If no one is there to observe the tree falling, did it make a sound? The modern equivalent to this riddle is at the heart of the Facebook Effect.

All sorts of political and social debates take place on various levels on Facebook designed formats. Lines are drawn and we choose up teams and we play the intellectual equivalent of dodgeball. If minds are changed or opinions are influenced through the process we do not know. If any of the dialogue that takes place within Facebook affects the physical world, I have my doubts.

I am beginning to draw some conclusions as to what it all does to me.

In the world we all grew up in people form organizations for specific purposes and the organizations require active participants in order to continue to exist. Whether we are speaking of a political party or a bridge club or a charitable or social group, someone needs to actually do SOMETHING in order for the group to continue.

Years ago I was invited to join a Polish Cultural organization. The requirements of membership were; to be invited by a member, to claim (not prove) some Polish heritage and to pay a small annual membership fee. The purpose of the organization was to skirt the draconian Blue Laws in effect at the time and operate a neighborhood bar on Sundays. Without a purpose no organization lasts long. This Cultural organization thrived.

Arguments, debates and disagreements may bubble up over projects, plans, philosophy, ideology, strategy or style. When enough people agree enough of the time, something actually happens. Whether we are talking about organizing a potluck supper or electing a candidate or erecting a monument or cleaning up the community center, ENOUGH actual people need to be involved in order to make SOMETHING happen.

In order to be a member of any group one needs to be in general agreement with the group. There needs to be certain common agreements, but certainly everyone will not agree about everything. So, there are lots of valid conflicts and reasons for folks to disagree with each other. If the general agreements break down, some may leave and find other ways to spend their time. The purpose of the group defines the membership and the members define the group.

Around the same time that I declined to join the Polish Drinking Club, I was actively involved in a community newspaper that published - at least, for a while - on a weekly basis. Those involved came from different cultural, social and economic backgrounds and from various political streams. We disagreed about much so there was much to argue over. But, questions of ideology or even style were only valid within the context of some real, practical questions.

Rent, printing costs, typesetting, layout, distribution…all of these are the matters that determine the viability of a newspaper. While the organization strived to operate on a basis of equality and consensus decision making, there were some kinks that became obvious before long.

At the weekly meetings there were plenty of people that wanted to make editorial decisions but at layout sessions only a handful would show up and as this would drag late into the night only a very few would stick it out to make sure the work got done. I suppose that if the newspaper had been serving a true and viable social need it would still exist. Perhaps we should have been selling beer on Sundays. Real life conditions are full of real life choices requiring exertion to facilitate and for better or worse result in actual consequences.

On Facebook, a “group” needs a group page and membership is determined by whomever opened the group page.

Debates that take place in this context serve perhaps the purpose of sharpening our wits or perhaps exposing ourselves to a perspective that we may not have been aware of. (See - I am trying to be positive.) The debates on Facebook however almost never are about actual projects in any sort of practical way. There are good reasons for this. The debates are taking place in cyberspace between people that likely do not actually know one another except through cyberspace. In fact, we may be unsure of the others’ real name, actual location and true intent.

I got caught up in one of the great cyber debates that left my head spinning and my spirit in turmoil. It all started over an article I posted on a Facebook group page. I was attacked, dragged, defamed and accused. After a while, I had to go back and reread the article posted to remind myself what it was about and why I posted it in the first place. The comments and responses were so divorced from the reference point that I began to distrust my own memories. That, in my opinion, was the intended purpose of most of the comments - to destroy the link to the actual world where ideas and words have meaning.

The Internet fosters a concept of ultra equality, where all ideas have equal value and hold equal weight. In practice, that means a surrender of verifiability. If everything is equal the random utterances of fools is the same as the thoughtful analysis of experts.

This is a problem that has, of course predated the Internet in Anarchist circles. We believe in equality and allowing everyone a voice. We promote consensus as a form of decision making. When put into practice we find the tendency of dilution rather than distillation and paralysis rather than process.

All things being equal, which of course they are not. So, we battle on in an imaginary world over control and dominance of uncertain territory. Maybe the real purpose is to keep the debates happening in realms that have no physical effects.

After a particularly exhausting exchange with some sort of cyber creature I communicated to a friend that I questioned the value of participation in these sorts of dialogues. She told me how important it was for “the thousands of people” that were seeing my input. Of course, I have no way of knowing if thousands or hundreds or tens or a handful of people actually see. I would have to assume that most that saw that particular thread would quickly get bored and scroll on to something else. I try to limit these interactions. I have noted the pattern. When I see it emerging I ask the question that always ends the debate. Agent provocateur or fool? One way or another, there is no value to continue the waste of my time!

The best way to measure if anyone is out there is by the responses. Much time on Facebook is a matter of nearly empty echoes. I have posted on matters that I considered important and have had zero response. Maybe the effect is on the subliminal level.

One time during the height of the short term Trade War sabre rattling with our neighbour to the north, a Canadian news agency ran an article about the tensions. I posted a somewhat tongue in check apology to Canada in the comments section, assuring Canadians that Americans loved them and were looking forward to better relations once we got rid of the current President whom most of us think is an idiot. Over 2000 clicks, mostly thumbs up and hearts and hundreds of favourable responses including nice emojis and emoticons. Oh, it warms my cyber heart to feel the cyber love.

I have a page on Facebook that I manage that has around 4000 followers. The page is called Bookworms and focuses on literature, arts, bookstores, libraries, censorship issues and whatever else I feel is appropriate. (https://www.facebook.com/HabitatBookworms/)

Some of my posts get lots of attention and some get none. As manager I get to see more data about who is seeing the posts. One might assume that with 4000 “followers” that around 4000 people would be seeing each post but evidently that would be untrue. Under each post Facebook will have a line showing how many they claim have seen the particular post and an offer to boost the number if I pay them! Some posts may have been seen by a couple of thousand but most are far fewer. Exactly how many is probably never knowable. Interestingly, I have had posts that I am told have been viewed by zero people that have been “liked” by one. I suppose that is based on some sort of advanced mathematical formula that I will never understand.  Anyway, why one post would be seen by a thousand and another post by fifty is a mystery to me but I am sure it makes sense to the algorithm and the computer mind. The relative importance of the post does not reflect the level of response. The biggest response results from the fluffiest of posts, usually consisting of a picture of a library. A cat picture with books is always a big hit!

We hope to educate and enlighten through our processes. We are aware that we need to be entertaining in order to gain and keep attention. However, I am unsure how much I contribute to our collective enlightenment. Sometimes I think I am just a dancing bear.  Sometimes I think I am only talking to myself. Facebook is unconcerned about the educational value of my input. Facebook just hopes that all the scrolling and clicking will lead to the sale of some eco-toaster or the purchase of a vacation getaway or the marketing of the social preferences of the those that take notice of the content that I have contributed to their marketing scheme.

I am, however, drawn in by the spectacle. I check to see if my posts are clicked on, if my comments are appreciated. It is akin to the old pinball machines with the flashing lights and ringing bells, grabbing and holding one's attention.

Years ago, when cell phones were just becoming popular, someone suggested that we give cell phones to all the crazy people that are walking around talking to themselves. With cell phones they would no longer appear to be crazy. Now we all have cell phones. Now we all appear to be talking to ourselves. Perhaps we have all gone crazy.

One effect that I am pretty sure of is that the more time I spend with scrolling on Facebook the less quality thinking and writing takes place. I get caught up in what is “trending” rather than in what is important. I debate fools over fine points of mindless abstractions.

I write on an internet connected tablet. I write best when my internet connection is disabled. Of course the internet helps with fact checking and research and keeping up with important world events but the notification of seeming action that consist of somebody “liking” something or “commenting “ on something is background noise that can be quite distracting.

On the other hand, when I add a new essay as a blog post, in order to get my writing out into the world I post links on Facebook. Is there really another option? This post will serve partially as a cyber social experiment. We can assume that the algorithm at work determines who gets to see the posts. Do you suppose that if “Facebook” is in the title of the article it will be treated better by the algorithm? Will using the word “Facebook” often in the text increase the cyber circulation? I am inclined to believe that it might but there is probably no real way to tell.

Time Is Relative If You Are Doing Time for Pot

by Zvi Baranoff

One of the difficulties of writing about marijuana these days is that the ground is rapidly shifting under our feet. What may have seemed impossible a short time ago is actual now and what may seem unlikely now will be quite possible before the ink is dry or the electronic blips make the rounds of social media cyberspace.

I am reluctant to speak of inevitability concerning pretty much anything besides gravity and inertia, but I think that it is safe to say that marijuana will be legal in most of the world before long. Of course, one's sense of time is relative and relative freedom is often determined by zip codes or other arbitrary borders.

I was in High School in a working class New Jersey suburb in the 1970s. Jimmy Carter was President and I was told that marijuana will be legal really soon. The local cops seemed to take pleasure in pulling our cars over and turning our pockets inside out.

As a young adult I was busted several times for simply possessing small amounts of cannabis or a pipe or roach clip and once for growing two plants in my backyard. Yet, even with the harassment and busts, it seemed inevitable that prohibition would end soon.

The Berlin Wall fell and they celebrated there with rock & roll, smoking pot out in the open for all the world to see. I was busted that very same day for a small bag of weed.

By the 1990s there was already a widespread recognition of the efficacy of cannabis and broad public support for patient access to this most beneficial herbal medicine. I was arrested in Key West, Florida for supplying AIDS patients with cannabis.

A decade later I was arrested and charged with marijuana trafficking. A charge of possession with intent to distribute landed me in a Federal Prison Camp where I sat while state after state liberalized their cannabis laws, several more recognized medical marijuana and Washington State and Colorado legalized recreational. It can't be much longer, pot prisoners told each other as we each sat out our full sentence.

I served out my sentence and years of Probation as well. We moved to Oregon where I registered to vote and cast my first ballot in nearly a decade, voting to legalize marijuana. There are folks still sitting in jails and prisons for weed. Some are serving Life Without Parole.

We now recognize medical marijuana in most of the USA and we just lifted the ban on hemp growing as well as interstate trade in hemp. Canibinoids derived from hemp are now legal nationally. At last count, ten states have legalized marijuana for adult use and there may be another half dozen by the end of 2019 or even by the time you read this.

I am pretty sure that the inevitability of legal cannabis is really not that far away. I am sure that the people sitting in prisons are still saying that to each other. Perhaps, before long, they will get to go home. Perhaps, some day soon, we will have a discussion concerning reparative justice.

Goodbye Petroleum. Transformation Now!

On August 28, 1859, George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig on a well drilled especially to produce oil, at a site on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

by Zvi Baranoff
The petroleum industry is holding the world hostage. It is time to shut down petroleum. A rapid phase out is needed and we now have the technological and resource availability to act.

We have reached a point where the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels but those that profit from them are acting as obstructionists to slow the transformation and continue their economic domination for as long as possible. We need the political will power to move more quickly. The phase out needs to be as immediate as actually possible and not based on the bottom line of a dying industry and their claims of feasibility.

First things first. Governments need to stop all subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, both the obvious and hidden subsidies. The obvious are tax breaks and incentives given to these corporations. Less obvious is the military protection that governments provide to keep oil flowing. Nearly obscured are the health and social costs of the use of these fuels that we share without the industry paying for the damages done. They need to pay for the full and true costs of their operations before claiming and spending any profits.

No new permitting of infrastructure development for the industry should be allowed. No new exploration, drilling, pipelines, rail cars, refineries. We need to be moving towards phase out and continued investments in outdated technology is not wise.

We must invest in the mechanisms that will most rapidly displace the use of fossil fuels. We have reached the point where going forward, the alternatives are less expensive - even in the short run - than continued use of the outdated techniques.

The transformation is assured at this point by economic pressures and ecological realities. The rapidity and short and medium term nature of the shift is quantified by how we act and what we do politically as well as within our personal and shared financial actions.

Divestments from fossil fuels are beginning to have some effect. Reinvestments in alternatives doubles the effect.

By elimination of all governmental subsidies to fossil fuels the corporations that profit from them would bear the full costs of doing business. The increased tax revenues and the decrease of government expenditures would ideally be invested in the development of our alternatives. Simple elimination of the subsidies evens the playing field but reinvestment changes the game.

In the USA we now have a new tool at hand to speed the shift away from the petroleum dominated economy. We have long hypothesized that hemp could replace petroleum as a fuel but have been hampered in testing the theory due to the continued prohibition of cannabis. In 2014 however, an experimental program allowing limited cultivation of hemp was introduced. The experiment has proved the viability of the crop for the USA and beginning in 2019 hemp will be reintroduced at a significant level throughout the country.

The industrial infrastructure to utilize this resource will determine how quickly we can move from the dependence on the extractive petroleum to the agricultural based alternative. Investment in that infrastructure through consumer and farmer cooperatives has the potential to encourage a significant economic diversification while displacing the outdated dominant financial force of petroleum. National and local governments of course can encourage the development of the processes through incentives, loans and infrastructure investment. With or without governmental assistance, investment capital will seek out profitable options.

The simplest and quickest way to use hemp as fuel is the utilization of seed oil. Diesel engines, oil burning power plants, homes that heat with oil and oil lanterns for that matter can all function as well or better using hempseed oil. Hempseed is also ideal as an industrial lubricant and as motor oil. The machinery for pressing hempseed oil already exists. The oil at this point is used primarily as a health food supplement. A shift of that level alone would make a fundamental change in energy consumption, air quality and global warming. Beyond that, anything made from petroleum can be derived from hemp when the infrastructure is in place.

The most optimistic outlook for phasing out of the internal combustion engine involves decades. Full development of hemp as a biofuel will allow us to displace petroleum within a few years with a far better option for a liquid fuel. The distribution networks for liquid fuel are already in place. Today's gas stations will pump tomorrow's hemp fuel. This allows us a rapid withdrawal from petroleum without the deep shock of cold turkey.

What can we do in the next growing season and can we now seriously approach the transformation in terms of a five year plan? By guaranteeing markets for seed, American farmers will certainly cultivate what the consumers want. Now we can put the pedal to the metal and see how things work where the rubber hits the road. The only road is forward.

Redemption - Teaching the Bible in Public Schools

Judah and Tamar, a painting by Horace Vernet

by Zvi Baranoff

A good story, a clean piece of fiction has a beginning, a middle  and an end. The characters have understandable motivations and they follow through in logical and believable patterns. A hero will act heroically. A villain will be defeated. In the end there will be redemption. In a movie it will all wrap up in around an hour and a half. Riding into the sunset as the credits run and thematic music plays we are pleased by the sense of balance and truth and goodness. A novel may take longer but the effect is the same. The last page turns, the cover is closed.

Life, however is a lot less orderly, a lot more messy. Time warps in on itself. One may be in the right place at the wrong time. Certainty and uncertainness coincide. We seek pleasure. We try to avoid pain. We try to make amends. We bring about new harms.

Religious or not, we seek redemption. Individually and collectively we strive. We marry and then marry again, sure that this time we will get it right. We overthrow monarchies and install dictatorships. We topple dominant orders and replace them. We move from place to place or from job to job. Like legendary knights seeking a Holy Grail we are unlikely to find what we seek.

For certainty we turn to faith, for many Biblical. If Redemption can be found, why not through Baptismal Immersion? Individually we seek out moral leaders with trustable instructions. Some call for a Biblical societal approach, a theocratic governmental hand and Biblical education in our public school systems. I can only assume that those that want the public schools to teach the Bible to young impressionable minds have never actually read the Bible, are unfamiliar with Biblical stories and may never have stepped into a public school either.

Redemption through a Messiah is a physical matter dependent on the proper bloodlines and the actions of all the predecessors. We set our moral compass and count on the salvation of our immortal souls for Redemption through the line of David, through Perez, via Divine intervention. The Bible tells us so. The Bible also speaks of another form of Redemption, that is the Redemption of a bloodline by a brother or close relative.

The bloodlines that lead to the Messianic possibilities is most troubling if we seek to understand it through a Biblical study, as sketchy the information is that we can draw from that source. We are offered at times what seems to be excessive details and at other times insufficient details or motivations. The predecessors to what promise perfection are deeply flawed, clothed in deception and manipulation.

David, a war hero and king, peered from his rooftop over at Bathsheba bathing and he wanted her bad. He has an illicit affair with her and impregnates her. David conspires to bring about her husband's death so he can marry Bathsheba. This is the line of Redemption through David. David's lineage of course comes about through the actions of his forbearers.

The Royal Messianic line is dependent on the key actions of Ruth, the Moabite, Tamar, Judah's daughter in-law and the elder of Lot's two virginal daughters. Each of these women were seeking Redemption in their own way.

The line of David is traced back through Ruth, the Moabite. Ruth sought Redemption. When her husband died leaving her childless, she followed her mother in-law back to the land of the family's origin. Her mother in-law encouraged her to find Redemption in the bed of Boaz, a relative of Ruth's father in-law's line. She crawled into his bed while he was sleeping. That particular bloodline is the line of Perez, Tamar's first or second son, depending upon prospective. The Moabite line is derived from Lot's eldest daughter.

Tamar's tale is sad and tragic. She was married to Judah’s oldest son. When her husband died, leaving her childless she was married to his brother, as was the custom of the day. The brother was reluctant to impregnate her and chose to spread his seed elsewhere. His name has become synonymous with masturbation. He died without impregnating her as well. There was one more son left but Judah feared that poor Tamar was cursed, the possible cause of death for his sons so Judah has her sent away from his youngest son. Tamar was seeking Redemption when she disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her father in-law. The Messianic line is dependent on this manipulative misrepresentation and seduction.

Tamar becomes pregnant with twins as a result of this liaison with her father in-law. When the time of birth comes the infants inside her struggle. A small arm emerged and a red thread is tied to it. The arm withdraws and the other brother is birthed followed by the second, deemed legally first, we would assume, by the red thread, or maybe not. Perez is the name of this child, the name signifying a breach. This is the bearer of the Messianic line, the direct line of Judah. The one with the red thread is named Zerah.

Lot was tipped off by a pair of undercover angels to the imminent destruction of the City of Sodom. He was granted the opportunity to escape along with his family. His oldest daughters and their husbands blew off his appeals to flee with him into the wilderness. Sodom and the neighbouring town of Gomorrah are totally annihilated, including the family left behind. The two younger daughters along with Lot and his wife escape. The Divine messengers told the refugees not to look back but Lot's wife could not resist and winds up a pillar of salt.

With two virginal daughters, Lot settles into a cave and lives there. How long this arrangement lasts we do not know but the daughters fear they will never have families. They may have believed that there was no one else left on Earth.

The daughters, never named in the text, conspire to assure their destiny and lineage. They get their father drunk two consecutive nights and each take turns bedding Lot and each become pregnant. The older of the two names her son Moab meaning of my father while the younger of the two names her son Ben Ammi meaning son of my father. The Bible does not say what form of family life was practiced or when they chose to live beyond the cave. Two great nations result from the exertions of these young women. From the first one's son Moab eventually derived Ruth and the Messianic line. The younger daughter's lineage also plays a role by being the nation that assures the death of Bathsheba's husband, freeing her up for marrying David and birthing the Royal and Messianic line.

How the virginal daughters of Lot managed to get their father drunk enough to not know that he was having intercourse with virgins and yet be sober enough to fulfill his fate is never explained in the text.

One can hypothesize that each of these young women could possibly see into the future and understood the role they played in our collective Salvation and Redemption. Perhaps they carefully plotted their actions for a greater good, a sacrifice for the future. Perhaps the seductions were a form of religious sacrifice like the blood sacrifices of the Temple that is built by their very future descendant, David's son Solomon.

Or, perhaps they were blinded by lust and driven by forces beyond their understanding. The story is ambiguous. There is no explanations of the actions but only the stated results. What we suppose that Lot's daughters were thinking as they straddled their father in carefully calculated and timed erotic performance is left for each of us to devise on our own. Were they imaging the future birth of a Messianic Redeemer or seeking a more immediate and personal redemption and completeness, we do not know. We do not even know their names but we know that their carnality is an essential element in our ultimate Salvation.

I wonder how those that think of the United States as a Christian Nation would have these tales taught in our schools. There seems to be no beginning, middle and end but only a continuous loop of seduction and destruction and desolation and desperation with the hope for completion and satisfaction delayed or disrupted.

From these beddings we map our Salvation so surely they are Divine acts. The Messianic age is not to be trifled with, not to be undone. If we are a Christian Nation, or as some would have it a Judeo-Christian Nation, then the origins of our moral structures need to be understood and surely taught in our schools.  Will the seduction of Lot be performed in school plays? Will Tamar's prostitution be used as a role model? Do we want our daughters to seek out the beds of wealthy relatives as Ruth does? If we believe this to be true and God's will then surely these lessons should be taught. If not Divine will and actual history, then these thematic tales are nonetheless foundational in our collective cultural consciousness.  I am unsure if most elementary students are ready for these classes or that very many public school teachers are capable of teaching the lessons. I would be interested in the opinion of local school board members concerning these matters.

to all my dead poets

by Zvi Baranoff

I pour off part of my first cup of coffee

a tribute to all my dead poets

published and unpublished

the poets that died too young

rhythms suspended

the poets that left by accident

or on purpose

or as collateral damage

the poets that went out in a blaze of glory

or maybe just a blaze

who lived and died like rock stars if only in their own minds

and the ones that quietly slipped away

sometimes of old age

sometimes

to the poets working in factories or mines or warehouses or as migrant farmworkers or in offices sometimes looking managerial or at schools appearing to be academics or janitors or as gas station attendants or panhandlers or newspaper vendors or bookstore clerks

poets that don't have the time to write down the words and are too tired to remember them later on yet still there

beating within the industrial rhythms

in their heads in their bodies

in their waking and in their sleep

the unwritten poetry

the poets on the streets listening to the sound of the city

the poets in the forest or on the mountain

or in the checkout line at the grocery market

counting the change watching the kids

who don't know that they are poets or maybe they do

I pour off the first shot of whiskey from the bottle

to all my dead poets

and drink a toast to the living

A Manifesto for Transformation: How do we get from here to there?

by Zvi Baranoff

Updated on December 10, 2018

I wrote this “Manifesto” in 2011. Looking it over after all of these years, I am still fairly pleased with the work, but nonetheless there are updates that the original work deserves.

The general premises are still, I believe, accurate and I stand by the strategic approach and the cultural and political analysis. I stated that we faced monumental, serious tasks that required collective conscious action. That is at least as true now as it was at that time.

Evidently, much around us changes over seven or eight years. There have been political shifts that have taken place that change the nature of some of the issues I raised.

Before this moves into print format there will likely be some alterations. For now, I will resist a major editing and/or rewrite and add a few notes and updates in the form of this new introduction.

On a less important level I noted a few places where it should be edited for clarity and one paragraph that made me scratch my head and wonder what I was trying to express. There are also a few places that need formatting changes, also for clarity sake.

Also, when I wrote the original piece I made a positive side reference to Habitat for Humanity. After I wrote that I had the experience of being employed by that “non profit” corporation for around three years. I learned that their cultivated image is quite different from their institutional practice. My intent was to conjure the image which is all “feel good” and not the reality which is a chain of thrift stores that underwrite a poorly managed construction and mortgage company that has zero effect on housing stability.

When I wrote the original piece hemp was illegal to grow in the USA. In 2014 an “experimental” hemp growing program was introduced. This allowed states working with various educational institutions and a pile of regulations to raise hemp legally, on a trial basis. The “trial” proved to be incredibly successful.

In the current Farm Bill, which is working the way through to become law, most of the regulatory impediments to the reintroduction of hemp are lifted. This is huge and something I advocated in the original piece but at that time seemed still very far away. Now, the key next step in full utilization of hemp is the development of infrastructure for processing.

In the years that passed since the original writing, we have also had tremendous progress on other aspects of cannabis law and access. Medical marijuana is now available to some extent legally in most of the USA. Unregulated personal use (so-called recreational) and a legal market is now the law in significant portions of the country as well and various forms of decriminalization is also becoming more common everywhere else.

Now that cannabis is more widely available we can begin to draw some conclusions about the effect of cannabis on public health. Where cannabis is more widely available we are discovering that opioid problems are reduced and medical costs are lower as well. As cannabis becomes more normalized we are likely to understand that legalization will be foundational in expansion of health care.

Over the last few years we have seen the idea of Medicare for All, very much to the credit of Bernie Sanders campaign, becoming a mainstream platform position. This is very positive. Universal Health Care is a rational policy and a reasonable demand. A likely pathway forward will involve incremental expansion. We may see some of this happen on a State level before further progress is made on a Federal level and we may see piecemeal advancements.

Concerning housing, the trend of shelter insecurity has worsened over the years. One bright spot however is the Tiny House Village approach that has grown exponentially. Some of this grew out of the actions of Occupy Wall Street activists. The key questions of land ownership and management that I raised are as valid and important today as they were at the time of the original writing.

We have seen the issues of mass incarceration move forward and some progress particularly on the State level. We have not however yet seen a true reversal. There is much work to do on this front. Over the last couple of years we have also seen the incarceration of undocumented immigrants and a reorientation toward privatized for profit corporate prisons added to the general equation of mass incarceration.

I did not foresee some of the counter trends of right wing populism and authoritarianism and I certainly did not predict the election of Donald Trump although I never assumed a totally benign governmental system. Confronting and dismantling of fascistic organizations was not raised in the original piece. While I did address confrontations with the State I gave little thought to the possibility of non state actors that would need to be addressed as well.

So, with these addendum in mind, please take a look at the Manifesto and see what there rings true and is applicable and useful. The time is now and the work is at hand. We still only have one viable Planet to live upon and it is up to us to choose how we will carry on and assure that.

A Manifesto for Transformation: How do we get from here to there?

First posted on June 30, 2011

A Short Introduction & Disclaimer

There is little forward thinking going on. Corporate interests rarely see beyond the next financial quarter. Political interests look to the next election cycle. Most working people see as far as the next paycheck, perhaps the weekend or if they are optimistic the next vacation.

Of course there is widespread recognition that all is not well, in spite of the Smiley Face presentation of the Powers That Be. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the alternative viewpoints most likely to be presented fall into two categories.  One alternative viewpoint is apocalyptic – religious, economic, political or environmental. The second is the false hope of snake oil salesmen that everything will be just fine if we tinker with the mechanisms of the system and buy into an easy solution of their picking. The first breeds despair. The second breeds complicity. There must be a third choice.

There is much wrong politically, economically and environmentally. There are some forward thinking people working on shifting the way we see things and developing actions to shift the terrain. Change of monumental proportion will need to be made in a relatively short time frame. What is required is not simplistic or easy, but is essential. The changes essential for human survival will require a significant shift in consciousness and practice.  I believe that the human race has incredible capacity for learning and bringing about change.

The issues I discuss here are international, but the targeted audience for this essay is North American readers. The position we find ourselves in as United States citizens is unique. The USA makes up approximately 5% of the world’s population but we consume around 25% of the world’s resources. The “Land of the Free” also incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners. The USA dominates the world economy and for better or worse is an international trendsetter. This gives those of us living here a moral imperative to take decisive action. I address ways that we can help support efforts for peace, justice and environmental sanity worldwide, but our primary actions need to be here, where we live. Physician, heal thyself.

Movements in countries worldwide can and should support each other’s efforts. We need to act in solidarity and will more and more need to act in a coordinated manner, but the place to begin, with each of us is in our own communities. I make no claim to have all the solutions, but I attempt to bring voice to a new approach. This is a call to action.

A Manifesto for Transformation: How do we get from here to there?

It is becoming more and more self evident that without an overall transformation of our culture, our political system and our economy, not only will life on this planet be difficult and often brutal, but may actually become impossible. In recent years we have begun to see a coalescence of ideas and movements that have in the past operated in fields of their own. A worldview that encompasses peace, environmental sanity and social justice is beginning to be recognized by a broad range of activists. Small scale, decentralized programs are blooming throughout the world that offer a glimmer of hope and serve as direction beacons for the future we must develop for our mutual survival. As we fine tune our common visions, we need to establish strategies to bring about the essential changes in a coherent way and with a rapidly accelerated pace.

What has become increasingly clear is that we can no longer consume the resources of the earth faster than the earth can replenish those resources without rapidly reaching a significant crisis point. We have done so for centuries but we cannot continue so for even decades. We need to reformulate our understanding of wealth and happiness and learn to live within the context of our one and only viable planet.

A relatively tiny percentage of the human race now consumes most of the world’s resources and a significantly large number of people eke out a marginalized living on next to nothing. Questions concerning equitable distribution play in here, but class conflict is not the crux of the matter. Unfairness aside, we are all on the same sinking ship. This is not the time to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is time to load the lifeboats. The industrial model of the last century will not carry us forward to the next. We need an entirely different approach.

We must develop an international strategy with a focus on local action to build self reliant and sustainable communities. By building strong and vibrant local economies we can enrich and support ourselves without exploitation of people and resources on the other side of the world. Likewise, with wise, ecological development, Third World communities can bypass the disastrous and detrimental industrial processes that the so-called advanced industrial nations went through.

The links between inappropriate practices in one part of the world inherently affects the rest of the world. We do not live in bubbles. Air pollution knows no borders. Neither does desertification, melting polar ice caps, deforestation, disease or hunger. What affects one region will affect the rest of the world, directly or indirectly. Developing wise practices to conserve resources and preserve our environmental security is in all of our interests, whether it is a solar project in California or an energy efficient cook stove in Uganda. Rational and sustainable farming practices are needed worldwide and a garden in one’s yard or on an urban lot is a good start no matter where on our planet you live.

Our struggle takes place on three fronts. We have the ongoing political struggles that take the form of lobbying and electoral campaigns. There are the aspects of resistance against corporate and state power that span the spectrum from boycott to mass demonstrations to civil disobedience and sabotage. And there is the direct action of building the new society in the shell of the old. Successes on the first two fronts tend to be more dramatic and headline grabbing. However, building a lasting economic and cultural base is essential to carry us forward into a transformative new paradigm.

Beyond Illusions

We need to build a stable state economy that sees beyond financial exchanges and paper profits. We absolutely need to get beyond any illusion that increased production and increased consumption is either desirable or possible.
Even among environmentalists there are those who foster the illusion that we can simply change our sources of energy and continue to consume at present levels. This is a form of self delusion and a misrepresentation. Wave a magic wand and make every car in the world today electric; the air quality would certainly be better but there would still be too damn many cars. While we can certainly place solar panels on virtually every rooftop, turning vast swaths of our deserts into solar fields to provide unlimited electricity to huge soulless cities is not my idea of sustainability. And turning Africa’s farmlands into production fields to fuel European automobiles is morally reprehensible.
 
We cannot simply tinker with the methods of production and continue onward. Useless crap made from recycled materials is still useless crap. Fulfilling work is a blessing but unsatisfying drudgery to feed the needs of corporate task masters and financial manipulators – even in hydrogen powered factories or solar lighted offices – is still a form of doing time. Substantial changes in the way we live not only are essential but are truly desirable. Eco-sleight of hand and enviro-capitalist exploitation will not save the planet, will not improve the quality of our lives and will not enrich our spirits.

We must hurry up and slow down! We must learn to consume less as part of living more. Our goal must be more than merely making changes in technology, as desirable as developing and implementing new technology may be. History is not a train moving forward on one track with inevitable results. We have choices that go beyond simply redecorating the train or even switching out the engine. We need to transform our lives and our culture. We can create a future on a different track.

Land is Liberty

The basis of all true wealth is land. Without land we are all landless peasants, whether we are campesinos or high tech workers or employees at Starbucks. On the other hand, control of land opens opportunities to truly take control of our own lives rather than simply being trapped between bosses and landlords. An impediment to the rapid proliferation of the post-industrial community base is the lack of a coherent strategy for land acquisition.

We need to carry forward the social experimentation on a long term basis. We must create an economic base that will allow for building a network of alternative communities and institutions, promote the new technologies and encourage the artistic and spiritual development of a revolutionary culture. The decentralized projects that center on new forms of housing construction, backyard and community gardening, radical recycling projects, community building and cutting edge energy sources are acting as incubators for the new society.

We have moved forward in fits and jumps. The Back to Land Movement stemming from hippie communes of the 60’s and 70’s and the Squatters movements of the 1980’s have each contributed to the momentum. Unfortunately, neither wave was sustainable. The first relied heavily on the generous resources of a few relatively wealthy benefactors’ to purchase land and inexperienced communards to eke out subsistence. The next wave challenged private property and state interests in a direct manner in a way that, though noble and righteous, was fraught with internal conflicts and destined to fail due to the power of the state apparatus.

Squatted land, while “free” is an insecure base. Without a secure title guaranteeing the ability for continued occupation any project is tenuous and investing in infrastructure is unrealistic. Likewise, rented property is at the mercy of the landlord and local real estate market trends. Without the security of a very long term lease, how can one make the investment of labor or money required to develop organic farms, build experimental structures, install solar panels, etc?

Private ownership answers some of the problems noted above but is beyond the reach of many, becoming increasingly difficult for working class people. A 30 year mortgage ties one down to a long term economic relationship with bankers holding out a glimmer of eventual property ownership. Loans are offered based on the bank’s expectations for financial return and are hinged on an economic outlook that differs significantly from our own world view. Traditional mortgages from traditional banking institutions are difficult if not impossible to get for the funding of experimental projects. An individual or family making monthly payments will work full time with little if anything left over once the monthly bills are paid.

Bankers & Realtors for the Revolution

We need to form a National Transformation Land Trust dedicated to promoting the sorts of future oriented development that we support. By holding the land in trust and offering very long term leases (30, 50 and 100 years) to Transformational enterprises we can spread out the cost and financial risks of our social experiment.

The priority for land acquisition is to establish food production and distribution serving the greatest need. Focus should be on establishing organic farm communities adjacent to urban areas, urban farms on inner-city lots, sustainable housing near these urban farms and cooperative food markets for the distribution of the produce. A particular need is to establish housing for people working on sustainability projects.

We need to develop a step by step mechanism of building equity using a financial strategy in some ways similar to private or corporate real estate investors, but with a different set of goals and a unique operating system. As we acquire properties, we can offer favorable leases to cooperative enterprises that promote our shared vision. The equity from each property acquired will be used to back new loans to acquire new properties.

How do we get started?

We need to start by bringing together a circle of progressive property and business owners. We need to establish the Land Trust as a non-profit organization and set things so that it can receive tax deductible donations but we need to think well beyond the mechanism of a charity. People should also be able to think of the Land Trust as a secure investment. We should seek out funds from a broad base of supportive investors by offering low cost bonds. By selling bonds – similar to savings bonds – we give an opportunity for a broad range of individuals to be involved. As properties are acquired, the rents from the properties will also be reinvested for more land. Additionally, the fund can offer short and medium term loans to leaseholders to fund construction costs for housing, greenhouses and work spaces, purchase of farm equipment, solar and other energy development projects and start up capital for enterprises.
I don’t think I can emphasize enough the importance of a very broad financial base. By holding a $50 or $100 Transformation bond - amounts that can literally be raised by children from pocket change – we can create a broad base of shareholders in a shared vision of a much more satisfying future.

Shelter & Food Security

Millions of people worldwide – the vast majority of the world’s population in fact – are either employed in dissatisfying and unfulfilling work, underemployed, unemployed, in the army or in jail! We constitute a great and deep well of untapped potential. Even in the richest countries, even among the wealthiest of the classes, the level of dissatisfaction is high because it is evident that material goods in and of themselves do not produce happiness.
The official unemployment rate in the USA has been hovering around 10%. There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that the actual rate – considering the chronically unemployed and the seriously underemployed – is significantly higher. If you take in to consideration the entire American population (including those too young or too old for employment, the disabled, those that choose not to work, etc.) less than half of us hold jobs. Even within this context, a recent poll showed that half of those that have jobs would quit if they could! Yet, in spite of all this, there is little discussion concerning the nature of work and the value of human potential. Politicians and economists do not speak about our visions and desires. But when Johnny Paycheck sang Take This Job and Shove It, he voiced the feelings of millions of working folks. We can recreate work to reflect our true values.

A basic level of material security is clearly needed by all. By making basic shelter and food a core priority we create conditions where we free up and access our most important resource – human potential. As we expand our ability to insure a minimum standard of economic stability for an activist community, the creative wealth and experimental vibrancy of the individuals involved can truly flourish.

We need to mobilize the unemployed and the discontented, idealistic youth and visionary artists, the marginalized and the frustrated, the hopeful and the hungry, those who have never held jobs and those retired from years of self-sacrifice to the alter of the economic system. One by one, dozens by dozens and hundreds by hundreds, a bonding of mutual aid and a creation of an alternative economic and social reality is beginning to take place. We can and must encourage this process.

The North American Road Trip

Envision the W.P.A. but without the government. Envision Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters meeting Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity. I see a road trip of massive proportions crisscrossing the continent. Walt Whitman’s and Woody Guthrie’s spirits spurred forward by tech savvy computer geeks and media wizards.

A scenario: A small local core group laid the groundwork by scouting out the right location; a block of abandoned row houses is adjacent to a large vacant lot.  With the help of the Transformation Land Trust made up of sharp negotiators with a serious understanding of the ins and outs of real estate, purchase of the seemingly apocalyptic landscape was negotiated and the deed to the property is now held by the Land Trust.

What follows is not a random happening. It is well thought out and carefully orchestrated.

Picture this: A busloads of volunteers pour out of brightly decorated, vegetable oil powered buses onto a desolate section of an American inner city. Pageantry and music marks the occasion. Surely a media event, local television and newspapers are there as the busses unload. With garden and construction tools in hand, the crew pitches in.

By the end of the day, debris is cleared, a garden is plotted out and the row of buildings is nearly habitable, and within days there is an internet café, a bicycle co-op, a farmers market, a tool sharing warehouse, a thrift store and a recycling center up and running. There is a collection center as part of an international solidarity program to gather and store used computers and bicycles for distribution in the third world. There is living space above the shops. Now, like the directions printed on the back of your shampoo bottle, “lather, rinse, repeat”.  Some of the volunteers may stay on to help out at this location but the buses move on to the next town and do it all over again!

The pooling of resources and tools coupled with the use of volunteer labor and recycled or donated materials will greatly accelerate the growth of equity of each property, creating conditions that help facilitate the next project. As each project gains traction, a financial base is created that can support more and more activists. With the sense that shelter and food are no longer tenuous, the material conditions to support the political and cultural transformation are encouraged.

Reversing the Industrialization and Corporate Consolidation of Farm Land

The industrial model for food production is large mono-culture farms “efficiently” producing food for urban “consumers”.  The introduction of pesticides and fertilizers changed the face of food production and stimulated the increased consolidation of land ownership into fewer and fewer hands. The North America Dust Bowl of the 1930’s was largely a manmade ecological and economic disaster, the result of poor farming practices that destroyed the topsoil of the North American Midwest.

Personal bankruptcy drove farm families off their land and desolated local economies, stimulating the largest mass migration in American history and a shift of our culture from agrarian based to urban. The process of economic consolidation has marched on. Government subsidies have largely encouraged the development of the larger farms leading us to the present corporate control of so much of our farmland and our food supply.

The trend is worldwide. Forced Collectivization was the policy of the Soviet Union and all the countries under the Soviet influence. The result in those countries was also the removal the masses of peasants, turning them into urban proletariat. In spite of the euphemistic use of the word “collectivization” the policy was the industrialization and centralization of production. The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet economic model collapsed but the industrialization has not been reversed.

We are now seeing a trend in Africa where multinational corporations are gaining control over vast amounts of farmland. The primary economic incentive is the potential of energy production, using Africa’s farms to “feed” the fuel needs of Europe. This parallels the use of the North American Breadbasket to grow corn for ethanol. This trend epitomizes the addictive nature of our energy consumption. Like junkies that will choose heroin over food, we seem poised to giving up our food producing farms to maintain our habit of excessive energy consumption.

The idea that we can grow fuel and continue to consume at today’s rate is a greenwashing lie. It is most insidious with the use of corn based ethanol. Producing fuel from corn consumes nearly as much fuel in production. The only way it makes any sense is with continued government subsidy. To replace the amount of petroleum fuel currently being consumed in the USA with corn based ethanol would require virtually every acre of food producing farmland to be converted to energy producing corn.

The only plant that can be used with any efficiency in North America to produce fuel is hemp. Hemp can theoretically produce ten times more fuel per acre than corn. Unfortunately, the commercial cultivation of hemp in the USA has been effectively suppressed by corporate interests and the United States law. The suppression of hemp beginning in 1937 further exasperated the damage done to our agrarian economy as a result of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Reintroduction of hemp cultivation for use as fuel as well as for fiber use in the production of paper and cloth and as a source of building materials such as fiberboard has great ecological and economic potential. The political struggle to change the laws that suppress hemp must continue until the laws are overturned. But even if we were able to establish a hemp based economy tomorrow, that would not be a justification for unfettered consumption. No matter what the source, we must reduce use.

The Transformation Land Trust has the potential to act as a buffer against the trend of corporate takeover of our remaining farms.  The Land Trust can work with families owning existing farms to secure their use of the land in perpetuity. The Trust can help by acquiring indebted properties and offering very long term and adaptable leases in place of bank debts. The Trust can purchase farms that have gone under or properties that families no longer wish to farm and help establish alternative organic farms.

The support of rural farms works hand in hand with our development of urban gardens and food coops. Urban gardens can produce a significant portion of a community’s food supply. Nonetheless, there is a continued need for rural farms. By bolstering a rural farm network, we can foster a true independence from corporate food.

Additionally, rural areas offer far greater options for experimental construction. Most urban areas hinder experimental construction with an extensive web of permit requirements and governmental inspections. Rural alternative farms will be the incubators where the effectiveness of the new wave of experimental architecture and the cutting edge in solar development can be hashed out.

The Prison Industrial Complex & the War on Drugs

When Nixon declared a “War on Drugs” 40 years ago he understood what he was doing. The War on Drugs has never been about the common good, no mater what rhetoric was used. Nixon felt (rightfully) under attack from the anti-war movement and the counter culture. By declaring “drugs” public enemy number one, Nixon was able to draw a line in the sand and effectively used Middle America’s fears of crime, drugs, the “other” and the unknown as a wedge to divide the interests of the American working class.

The right wing understood the value of Cultural Warfare. The Left (on the whole) tucked tail and ran, giving up any moral argument. “Drugs” became the third rail of American politics. The Liberals and the Left gave up the moral high ground on the issue and drugs have been used as an excuse to strip social liberties and build a culture of mass incarceration. Nixon was discredited and driven from the Presidency and any public discourse, but his War on Drugs is a legacy we still live with.

The prison industrial complex perhaps is enigmatic of what is wrong with the American economy.  Prisons produce nothing of value, cost the general public and enrich the few. The market is totally subsidized by government manipulation of market conditions. Over half of all prisoners are drug prisoners. As a result of a wide array of “tough on crime” laws including minimum mandatory sentences, three strike laws, the abolition of parole programs, etc. we have turned imprisonment into a growth industry. The United States locks up more of its own citizens that any other country in the world. A quarter of the world’s prisoners are in the USA.

The justification for the War on Drugs is the rate of drug use, yet the overwhelming vast majority of so-called drug users use no illegal substances other than marijuana. Clearly a majority of all drug arrests are for simple possession of marijuana. (Granted, most of these arrests do not result in prison time, but they do consume precious resources of cops and courts.) Marijuana prohibition is the linchpin of the War on Drugs, the cornerstone of the American War on Drugs and the entire Prison Industrial Complex.

America’s War on Drugs has global environmental consequences. The use of defoliants to destroy drug crops is wrecking havoc on rainforests. The military suppression of traffickers pushes processors into jungles. In the USA National Forests are damaged by illegal marijuana grow operations. As more cannabis is now produced indoors in grow houses – the practice a direct result of marijuana prohibition -unbelievable amounts of electricity are used to grow plants that would otherwise grow happily in backyards. And a side effect of all this is the continued suppression of hemp in the misguided legal and economic attack on marijuana’s industrial cousin.

The violence and death that is the result of America’s War on Drugs is also global. The huge profits guaranteed by prohibition fuel an industry with the primary purpose of supplying drugs to the United States. The Drug War in Mexico grabs some headlines. 40,000 people have been killed there since their government chose to ratchet up the military approach. Further south and beyond our immediate attention Central America is also embroiled in Drug War violence. The murder rate in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is four times higher that that in Mexico. Keep an eye on Western Africa and expect an uptick in violence as Africa becomes the transit choice of South American drug traffickers heading to European markets.

In Mexico we are now seeing the beginning of a mass movement to end the War on Drugs.  A peaceful movement challenging the Mexican Government, corruption and the militarization of law enforcement is taking root and finding voice just south of our border. This mass non-violent movement deserves our solidarity through parallel and supportive actions in the USA. After all, the War on Drugs was manufactured in the USA. It must be dismantled here.
We are just now coming seeing politicians beginning to pull their heads out of the sand on these issues. The high cost of maintaining prisons and the continued failure of prohibition policies is becoming increasingly clear.

Conversely, the broad recognition and acceptance of marijuana as medicine, now legally recognized by sixteen states, has softened up the national psyche to discussions of cannabis legalization. The direct action of dedicated medical marijuana providers, many of whom face prosecution and some that sit today in American prisons helped bring us to this point. Until the Federal laws change, medical marijuana will be available only through the tenuous links of a modern Underground Railroad.

The Wheels of Revolution

In the industrial world the bicycle is often seen as a toy or at most a recreational accessory. The potential of the bicycle as a tool of social change is often overlooked. I see the bicycle as freedom in action, a counterbalance to a transportation regime dominated by the automobile. The petroleum industry holds us hostage but we can choose to pedal away.  More and more people are learning to live car-free.

For the Third World, the bicycle offers transportation which means access to education, work, and markets. Bicycle coops in America have become instrumental medium to create a positive link between advanced industrial societies and the newly emerging post-industrial societies of the Third World. Old bicycles and bicycle parts are being collected by activists as part of an overall campaign of bicycle advocacy. Shipped by cargo container loads to Africa and South America, the bicycles are being distributed by bike coops at the receiving end.

The bicycle has shown the way for a wide variety of direct aid to Third World communities. Alternative construction projects, solar energy, agricultural assistance and computer and internet access are combining to create conditions that will allow villages to leapfrog into the Twenty First Century. Much of this work through non-profit organizations has been piecemeal. As the strategy I envision for the USA expands, I foresee an opportunity to increase support and encouragement for this type of international development. After all, we share this planet as well as common dreams and aspirations.  

What the Health Care Debate Missed

For nearly two years the national media and the body politic of the USA seemed to be consumed by a national debate over health care. The debate focused on drug and hospital costs, insurance, lawyers and government policy. Progressives lined up with the President with hopes of a National Health Care program. The opposition ranted and raved about “creeping socialism” and government interference into our lives. What was frustratingly missing from the whole dialogue was any discussion of conditions that lead to health or illness.

The primary causes of illness are pollution, poor nutrition, stress and lack of exercise. By reducing energy use and wasteful production, supporting and developing clean energy, going organic, planting gardens, changing the nature of work, and making our urban areas bicycle and walking friendly we can do much to improve health and reduce the costs of health care.  The policies and strategies discussed in this program directly address these issues. A National policy that promoted health would most certainly make sense as a centerpiece of a National Health Policy. Much of this, of course, falls outside of the mechanism of State intervention and we can and should move forward to make our lives more livable with or without the help of government.

Mass Movements and Street Actions

Wide scale dissatisfaction often leads to mass demonstrations. Where the conditions are ripe, mass demonstrations can bring about regime change. The Arab Spring started in Tunisia has been felt around the world. European youth are camping in the streets. Some participants in the Peace Movement in Mexico credit the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt as their inspiration. This can all be very exhilarating. We too have plenty of reason to take our issues to the street, but street action alone, even when governments are toppled, is not enough to bring about the sorts of changes that we require.

Mass demonstrations in the USA have been effective as a mechanism of opposition as in the Vietnam era anti-war movement and the anti-nuclear demonstrations. We certainly need to be in position to mobilize supporters and work in conjunction with others around a wide array of key issues. The building of our alternative economy helps create a base for mass organizing. The focus however must remain on the medium and long term development of a true alternative to the deteriorating established institutions.

Workshops, Universities & Playgrounds of Revolution

We both learn and we teach from experience. Each step along the way we have the opportunity to bring in new people, share our knowledge as well as learn from their experiences. We also live in artistic and joyful ways. The technical skills of construction, solar installation and organic food production combined with the social skills of consensus building of voluntary cooperative enterprises are all learned skills. The value of training should not be underestimated. On the other hand, we do not operate with a mapped out plan or a set of blueprints. We are building experimental workshops, universities where the students take on positions of leadership and playgrounds - yes, this can all be a lot of fun – as we humanize our culture and create a future for the generations to come.