Our friends picked the entertainment for the evening, and we followed along not knowing what a treat we had coming our way. The Freight and Salvage is representative of the gray haired folks who quietly filed into the performance that evening; I'm pretty sure few were younger than 40 and most were Country Joe McDonald's generation. I bet most folks there had been to a concert with a headband like the one of the singer in a poster, back in the day. Anti war protesting is just a thread of the fabric of life in Berkeley and has been since the days when Country Joe and most of us present milled around People's Park and maybe even faced the "Blue Meanies" as they pushed the people back on Telegraph nudging us along, their helmets secured. But tonight the hall was a lot of quiet murmurs as we got our coffee and hot cider and waited for the show to start.
Joe McDonald walked on stage with a haircut that in no way reflected the long wavy hair of the 60's; his eyes were clear and his message straight. Turns out he has spent a lot of time studying Woody Guthrie. Other than an association with the depression days, grapes of wrath period I knew little about Woody Guthrie. As Country Joe conveyed through Guthrie's writings the life Woody Guthrie led and the people he encountered, shocked oh's and ahs erupted from people involuntairly. To say life was hard during the depression doesn't do it justice and these writings filled in the blanks and cravices having those people and those experiences become a presence to us, just as Woody Guthrie himself did. The depth of this man in his descriptions of the men who took the long hard roads revealed in fact a full on romantic and a gentle person who saw on so many levels everything around him. His songs and his poems were stunning in their impact and the comparison to today and the talk of a depression had to be made as we sat in the darkness as Country Joe strummed his guitar and spoke.
It suddenly seemed ridiculous that our culture, present time, there is a conversation about depression as if it had something to do with the event that happened in the 30's. Cable news personalities rant and rave about the losses and possible losses all day long, throwing around terms that seem to convey that our country is in real trouble because we have all, all lived way too well for too long relying on a bunch of possessions that we couldn't pay for except through credit. Compare Woody Guthrie who spoke about the line around the hardware store where men went in and got JAKE, in the darkest days of the depression. It was supposed to help whatever ailed you and had a content of at least 80% alcohol; poisoning by alcohol was not at all uncommon in the 30's Guthrie reports in his writing. This was where men turned when all was lost and the road was all that lay ahead as they piled up the wagons with everything they could carry in the dust storms of Oklahoma.
And let's see by comparison, what we have to deal is all these entertainers on television telling us how bad it is amped up and hysterical. The truth is right across the board, we're all taking a cut in pay, a reduction in our lifestyle and hopefully having a look see at what is really valuable about our life and where we can contribute what extra we have, be that time or resources to support the community around us.
The highlight of the evening with Country Joe as he gave us Woody Guthrie was an amazingly sensuous poem - describing his profound joy at being a man found who didn't realize he was lost till he found himself in the heart of his woman. A gentle giant who suffered kindness in the face of defeat was who this man seemed to be. We sitting together left the show stunned and appreciative of the impact that man Woody through Country Joe, and Country Joe himself contributed to us. Our cup runneth over.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
A New Economy-Back to the Future and Karl Marx
Having just returned from two weeks in Sayulita, Mexico where the news whenever I saw it was a couple of copies of items in the NY Times on a sheet of paper printed and left at the coffee houses. Iam refreshed and seeing a little differently than before. I've decided to take myself away from the addiction of having the TV on blasting away all day with the same headlines generating and regurgitating the same headlines all day long. And the moderators who give the impression they are in a position to make a judgement we the public should respond to, agree with or the like. Kind of like going to the grocer and having the grocer tell you what you should have for dinner authoritatively. How would the grocer know what you require or what you should consume. Even Rachel Maddow is a bit taxing and she is fresher than most with questions that provoke your thinking, not rehasing and selling specific viewpoints that engrandize her importance. I am being selective with The Nation Magazine, Newsweek and the New York Times, Daily Kos and the Huffington Post. But the best info this week in reference to "Economic Crisis and the Bailout" I found on Public radio; a series on how Cuba formed community during their economic crisis when the US had an embargo that had oil, gas and food become non existent for their people's use. Also on KPFA, there was an Economist, Rick Wolf,in New York who basically gave a view of our situation that Karl Marx spoke of long ago. Karl Marx is coming up in references as the discussions of the economy; in that the infusion of $787 trillion may not do more than emergency repair to our economic problem we're being asked to take a deeper look. Looking deeper into the means by which we got where wee are and a shift in our relationships and our lifestyles may be the necessary true element of change that is required. Comparing our sitation with Cuba may be like Apples and organges given our ethos and identity are embedded in individualism and competition; this does not exclude a shift to seeing our lives through shared goals and common good or community, but it does require a step in that we have not considered but may now need to take on.
Marxism speaks of the fact that when you separate people from their ability to produce their own food, specifically out of the farm land and into the urban area, you have lessened people's power in their own lives. They now need to go to the city, get a job and with the money from the job purchase the food, pay the rent. A breakdown in the job and the money loss leaves the person unable to provide for themselves or their families. Well, Rick Wolf of the New School of New York, gives a full discussion of how our lives have changed specifically since 1970. That is the monies we have available have decreased since then. Money had more value relative to the costs at that time, and the families had women at home to take care of them, and the women had the means to be taken care of throughout their lives. At that time only 7% of the women worked outside the home; in the households and these women were in the position of taking emotional and physical care of their families and had the expectation of being taken care of themselves. Divorce was rare. At that time the cost of living began to increase and even with the increase in salaries, the actual value of the monies was reduced ongoingly. These monies were important to the workers in relation to their ability to consume, Wolf says. Consumption is vital because when people are separate from the power of producing their work, consumption becomes increasingly important. The lack of satisfaction in work that is not creative nor does it include the power of the individual to determine its outcome or use, Wolf points out, is the basis for the need for the shopping malls and the entertainment required by the worker. Since the paychecks by the men don't cover the lifestyle and haven't for sometime, the women have gone to work now at a rate of 74% of women work and those monies only allow the family to keep up. 4% of the women worked in 1970. The caretaking of the family is still on the woman's shoulders primarily as the sociologist have maintained, and the women come home tired and cope with the stress of their situations in many cases by the use of antidepressents-some 43% of the population use one form of antidepressent, Wolf claims.
OK, so what is the opportunity given these facts by Wolf and other economists? Back to the land, back to the future is what it looks like to me. Sharing households-only 22% of the population are in the man/woman/children scenario, the remainder are a mixture of friends and family members or living alone. A shift in our reality to see our lives through a different lense that offers more clumping of resourses, clusters of arrangements in dealing with the costs of our lives, financially and psychologically it would seem. Every word about the US economy says we are not going back, can't go back to the economy we have exploited and maybe it's not all bad is what I'm saying. What are your thoughts on this subject? Let's engage in nothing less than creating the future that lies ahead with intelligent optimism-what do you say?
Marxism speaks of the fact that when you separate people from their ability to produce their own food, specifically out of the farm land and into the urban area, you have lessened people's power in their own lives. They now need to go to the city, get a job and with the money from the job purchase the food, pay the rent. A breakdown in the job and the money loss leaves the person unable to provide for themselves or their families. Well, Rick Wolf of the New School of New York, gives a full discussion of how our lives have changed specifically since 1970. That is the monies we have available have decreased since then. Money had more value relative to the costs at that time, and the families had women at home to take care of them, and the women had the means to be taken care of throughout their lives. At that time only 7% of the women worked outside the home; in the households and these women were in the position of taking emotional and physical care of their families and had the expectation of being taken care of themselves. Divorce was rare. At that time the cost of living began to increase and even with the increase in salaries, the actual value of the monies was reduced ongoingly. These monies were important to the workers in relation to their ability to consume, Wolf says. Consumption is vital because when people are separate from the power of producing their work, consumption becomes increasingly important. The lack of satisfaction in work that is not creative nor does it include the power of the individual to determine its outcome or use, Wolf points out, is the basis for the need for the shopping malls and the entertainment required by the worker. Since the paychecks by the men don't cover the lifestyle and haven't for sometime, the women have gone to work now at a rate of 74% of women work and those monies only allow the family to keep up. 4% of the women worked in 1970. The caretaking of the family is still on the woman's shoulders primarily as the sociologist have maintained, and the women come home tired and cope with the stress of their situations in many cases by the use of antidepressents-some 43% of the population use one form of antidepressent, Wolf claims.
OK, so what is the opportunity given these facts by Wolf and other economists? Back to the land, back to the future is what it looks like to me. Sharing households-only 22% of the population are in the man/woman/children scenario, the remainder are a mixture of friends and family members or living alone. A shift in our reality to see our lives through a different lense that offers more clumping of resourses, clusters of arrangements in dealing with the costs of our lives, financially and psychologically it would seem. Every word about the US economy says we are not going back, can't go back to the economy we have exploited and maybe it's not all bad is what I'm saying. What are your thoughts on this subject? Let's engage in nothing less than creating the future that lies ahead with intelligent optimism-what do you say?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Stone Cold Winter in 75 degree weather
Living in California, Winter has in the past been several weeks of rain off and on and enough chill in the air to make the hot tub in our back yard a rewarding excursion-warming us to the bone, a warming that stays with you, takes the stuff out of you. Whatever you've been carrying around, in the chilled darkness as you dissolve into the liquid heat of 102 degrees, disappears as your body is enveloped by the heat. No more bones, no more sharp angles or sharp thoughts-it mellows you out. Well, that is not this year. It's hot. And it feels wrong. The winter duldrums, the stone gardens bereft of new life in the 75 degree weather and strange white sun light have me longing for rain to cool the earth, to feed the earth, to replenish the earth. The promise of the mission of the Spring to bring life to everything around us is not now. The winter's gray and wet imposes our sealing ourselves off from the outside. That provides the opportunity to regroup, rethink, reevaluate, take less action and more focus and concentration as a response to the demand of the outside being difficult to deal with at best. Waiting for spring, waiting for the buds to appear that's how it is in Winter, but how it is is that the red maple has not lost it's leaves and some other trees have started to bloom-out of synch, out of time.
Global warming, that's what they say. A perfectly brilliant woman said today-oh how can they talk about global warming when it's freezing cold, extrememely cold in different parts of the country, more freezing than usual. Well, of course, that's global warming also actually. What I think is there is adaptation, there is accommodation and change is underway and we will meet this change. We already are becoming conscious of the our carbon offset, the steps we can take to account for our use of the planet is the green book philosophy and this is huge compared to 5 years ago when only the "freaks" were looking in that direction. Now we're all some degree aware and some degree responsible. More would be good, but everyone has the question: are we going to get to keep the world as we know it and if so what can we personally do to have it be that way. Give up our cars and bike or walk, some amount of that goes on where I live but it's because this is a university town and walking is definitely reasonable and biking, a bit of a gamble out there with cars and an occasional bust up with the bike participant being the loser of any such occurance.
Global warming, that's what they say. A perfectly brilliant woman said today-oh how can they talk about global warming when it's freezing cold, extrememely cold in different parts of the country, more freezing than usual. Well, of course, that's global warming also actually. What I think is there is adaptation, there is accommodation and change is underway and we will meet this change. We already are becoming conscious of the our carbon offset, the steps we can take to account for our use of the planet is the green book philosophy and this is huge compared to 5 years ago when only the "freaks" were looking in that direction. Now we're all some degree aware and some degree responsible. More would be good, but everyone has the question: are we going to get to keep the world as we know it and if so what can we personally do to have it be that way. Give up our cars and bike or walk, some amount of that goes on where I live but it's because this is a university town and walking is definitely reasonable and biking, a bit of a gamble out there with cars and an occasional bust up with the bike participant being the loser of any such occurance.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The New Year! The New President!
Today in my dance class, Evelyn, who inspires and drives us to an effort that took abit after my taking a 3 week vacation from class, was talking about going to Washington to see Barrack Obama become President. Just getting on the plane with her husband, putting on a backpack and doing whatever it takes to get close enough to see the new President come down Pennsylvania Avenue is her goal. Sounds good to me!
What are your plans for the 20th of January 2009? My friend, Nancy, just invited me to go to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Nob Hill where there will be a vigil the night before and a service at Grace Cathedral for the new President. That's the night before. But the day of the actual Inaguration, we plan to be at the Ella Baker Center. Now, especially now, that's where I want us to be.
I was introduced to the Ella Baker Center after hearing Van Jones speak at a Pachimama event; I was so taken by him, what he had to say. He said the Pachimama people had heard of his work in Oakland to stop the Violence on the streets. Young black men killing young black men. Police shooting young black men; young black men shooting police often enough to have the city of Oakland on edge and the people in a state of resignation about what to do. I had experienced the grief of a family that lost their twin sons 21 years old years back. The thing I most remember about that experience was the minister saying: remember the young black men - in prison or dead- are not the end users. They are being exploited, their lives wasted --used and spit out or laid out on the concrete while the people making the money and the people with the money to purchase walk on. Ab and Ob were the twins. I also remember their mother singing with all that she had surrendering her pain to the Lord she said.
But what drew me to Van Jones and the Ella Baker Center was that they are dealing with this loss with the families, with the community and they ARE having an effect. In a meeting I attended not long ago for the families affected by the violence, I realized that both sides of the violence are victims and in the context of this work, both are brought in, both are given the knowledge that they are not alone. When you figure that something like 48% of the young black men bail on high school and have little to look forward to in the future, you can see that the excitement and the glory of having a moment even if it involves a gun but that they don't plan on getting killed or being killed, but think this action might bring them a semblence of a life, you can see where they'e coming from. So what I witnessed in this last meeting was the embrace of the people who come to the Ella Baker Center: to show love to all the parties involved. The Center wants to give hope to young people by giving them training and a dorm instead of a dead end jail that communicates they're nothing to anyone. The Center wants to educate the public on the fact that in the current youth system produces a recidivist rate of 68%, offering no hope and a turn around almost guaranteed. And very simply what I saw was inclusion and compassion in their mission is making a dent.
There are people who have worked with the Ella Baker Center and Van Jones since the beginning, I think it started with 400 seven or eight years ago, and at awards dinner, there were 4000; a growing recognition that a difference is being made. In 2008, there was a reduction in the killings on the street, and in the meeting I attended, a solid number present were the young people speaking about the part they want to make in having this change happen. The lights are on. Someone is home. And there is going to be a new president.
And then you have a man of 22, at the Fruitvale Bart station, two other friends sitting next to him on the concrete platform, he is pushed down on his face by one BART officer who has his knee in his back while another officer is looking in the direction of the car full of New Years Eve celebrants on the train taking the picture shouting out in outrage at the treatment they can see from the BART train. Another officer has his knee on the back of this young man, this young man having at best only his mouth as a means to respond to the officers pressing him to the concrete when the BART policemen reaches for his gun and fires it into this 22 year old's body point blank.
So where I want to be as Obama takes office is with the Ella Baker Center. I heard that Obama asked Van Jones to be on his Transition Team, and I felt like the same lines that reached people so far and so deeply in the population can be a current to actually produce light in the darkest corners of the darkest hours and shed light to heal and bring about the needed change for this segment of the population that is beginning to feel they will be heard and seen. This is the new year and the new possibility.
What are your plans for the 20th of January 2009? My friend, Nancy, just invited me to go to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Nob Hill where there will be a vigil the night before and a service at Grace Cathedral for the new President. That's the night before. But the day of the actual Inaguration, we plan to be at the Ella Baker Center. Now, especially now, that's where I want us to be.
I was introduced to the Ella Baker Center after hearing Van Jones speak at a Pachimama event; I was so taken by him, what he had to say. He said the Pachimama people had heard of his work in Oakland to stop the Violence on the streets. Young black men killing young black men. Police shooting young black men; young black men shooting police often enough to have the city of Oakland on edge and the people in a state of resignation about what to do. I had experienced the grief of a family that lost their twin sons 21 years old years back. The thing I most remember about that experience was the minister saying: remember the young black men - in prison or dead- are not the end users. They are being exploited, their lives wasted --used and spit out or laid out on the concrete while the people making the money and the people with the money to purchase walk on. Ab and Ob were the twins. I also remember their mother singing with all that she had surrendering her pain to the Lord she said.
But what drew me to Van Jones and the Ella Baker Center was that they are dealing with this loss with the families, with the community and they ARE having an effect. In a meeting I attended not long ago for the families affected by the violence, I realized that both sides of the violence are victims and in the context of this work, both are brought in, both are given the knowledge that they are not alone. When you figure that something like 48% of the young black men bail on high school and have little to look forward to in the future, you can see that the excitement and the glory of having a moment even if it involves a gun but that they don't plan on getting killed or being killed, but think this action might bring them a semblence of a life, you can see where they'e coming from. So what I witnessed in this last meeting was the embrace of the people who come to the Ella Baker Center: to show love to all the parties involved. The Center wants to give hope to young people by giving them training and a dorm instead of a dead end jail that communicates they're nothing to anyone. The Center wants to educate the public on the fact that in the current youth system produces a recidivist rate of 68%, offering no hope and a turn around almost guaranteed. And very simply what I saw was inclusion and compassion in their mission is making a dent.
There are people who have worked with the Ella Baker Center and Van Jones since the beginning, I think it started with 400 seven or eight years ago, and at awards dinner, there were 4000; a growing recognition that a difference is being made. In 2008, there was a reduction in the killings on the street, and in the meeting I attended, a solid number present were the young people speaking about the part they want to make in having this change happen. The lights are on. Someone is home. And there is going to be a new president.
And then you have a man of 22, at the Fruitvale Bart station, two other friends sitting next to him on the concrete platform, he is pushed down on his face by one BART officer who has his knee in his back while another officer is looking in the direction of the car full of New Years Eve celebrants on the train taking the picture shouting out in outrage at the treatment they can see from the BART train. Another officer has his knee on the back of this young man, this young man having at best only his mouth as a means to respond to the officers pressing him to the concrete when the BART policemen reaches for his gun and fires it into this 22 year old's body point blank.
So where I want to be as Obama takes office is with the Ella Baker Center. I heard that Obama asked Van Jones to be on his Transition Team, and I felt like the same lines that reached people so far and so deeply in the population can be a current to actually produce light in the darkest corners of the darkest hours and shed light to heal and bring about the needed change for this segment of the population that is beginning to feel they will be heard and seen. This is the new year and the new possibility.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
SIGNS OF THE TIME
Two things happened yesterday I wanted to put out there: 1) a friend in my dance class that I've attended for 8 years had gone missing for a couple of weeks; it turns out Lisa was in Japan; she is an author whose work on Japanese culture is well credited, particularly the giesha girl as her area of expertise. Last time she was gone it was to go to Hollywood to be the technical adviser for the Geisha film a couple of years ago. But this time she wasn't in Japan for that purpose. Far away from the US of A with the election happening, she and her party up and decided to take a trip Obama, Japan, a few hours away from their location. Who knew there was an Obama, Japan? But that morning, the morning after the election, her party went to the township arriving around noon only to find the whole town not on their jobs or visible. They were told the whole town was up celebrating throughout the night the win of Barrack Obama as President of the United States.
Then a very dear friend studies with Lazarus very seriously every year. She shared with me this content: Obama is the perfect leader for this time; his brings less fear and all the hope of the NEW NOW. This higher place we are all reaching for has brought Obama forth as the leader of the Western World. That's funny, he has always said 'it's about you, not about me."
Meanwhile I'm filling out the forms available at change.gov that allow any of us who want to engage to find a place where we can serve in this next Administration. I'm thinking here in oru communities, just like in the campaign. Kind of like millions of people are responsible for the election of Obama and the change underway; we might never know their names or them ours. But there is something we can all contribute. Step one - filling out the application, doubts and all, that that will result in finding that place, cog in the wheel dynamic. The hardest part!
Then a very dear friend studies with Lazarus very seriously every year. She shared with me this content: Obama is the perfect leader for this time; his brings less fear and all the hope of the NEW NOW. This higher place we are all reaching for has brought Obama forth as the leader of the Western World. That's funny, he has always said 'it's about you, not about me."
Meanwhile I'm filling out the forms available at change.gov that allow any of us who want to engage to find a place where we can serve in this next Administration. I'm thinking here in oru communities, just like in the campaign. Kind of like millions of people are responsible for the election of Obama and the change underway; we might never know their names or them ours. But there is something we can all contribute. Step one - filling out the application, doubts and all, that that will result in finding that place, cog in the wheel dynamic. The hardest part!
Monday, November 17, 2008
A New Day-A New Time
Yesterday George and I went down to the flea market to hear the drums. We don't go very often, usually when we have friends from out of town who have brought us down the block to visit the market and enjoy the drums, but they can be heard from our house every Sunday late PM. On the way we met two neighbors who over the past ten years, a vague wave has been the agreed upon acknowledgement from them. But the invitation was there to speak, and visit about the project across the street and was a warm exchange. Then once we were there at the drum circle, two of the women there and a couple of the drummers made eye contact, head dipping slightly in greeting. What's so unusual about this you may well ask. Well, we have been here for ten years and this is the first time my black neighbors and the black musicians did more than than the vague wave no eye contact. And this is what I believe the election of Obama has done for us: there is the invitation to engage and a trust I haven't seen ever, an opening allowing expression beyond the limits we all agreed to. I saw that in working in the campaign office and wondered if it would prevail; it's like in that environment young old, rich poor, black, brown or white the walls were down and the commonality of our purpose and our enthusiasm prevailed. To see that out in the world we are all reaching out to have this whiff of possibility become reality is so gratifying, and makes more real the potential I experienced the night of Obama's election. No misunderstanding here, the work is all in front of us but we're ready for this NEW DAY-NEW TIME.
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