Components of Local and Worldwide Revolution:

Yes, a fanatic may be someone who demands a revolution when only a little course correction is needed. But what is a course correction of selfishness, individualism, exploitation, xenophobia and contempt for peoples, for nature, for compassion in a world of oppression, war and the disintegration of life? It is nothing more than a flimsy screen pretending to hide the putrescence of this evil, corrupt social system from an audience trained to follow cues of puppet masters. We will follow their cues no longer. We see the evil, and we will work to defeat it. It is the time for revolution. It is our destiny and our duty to discover and create a new system, a system that truly serves the people and serves the earth in which we live.

So now I ask you to push your assumptions to the side for a little while. We have to consider things with new, unclouded eyes.

Here are necessary components of that revolution, the revolution that must occur in our hearts, our homes, our local communities, our many lands and cultures and in that worldwide social bond, that One People that our revolution will create.

1. Demilitarization.

2. Reintegration with Nature.

3. Determination of resource use by the needs of living systems.

4. Socialization of human services.

5. Cooperative community dialogue.

6. Socialization of industry and agriculture.

7. Democratic planning of civilization.

8. Celebration of life.

What are these components?

1. Demilitarization.

Retask the armies. It will be one army. An army that does not fight wars. Go out and serve the people. Bring physical solutions to the large problems facing people everywhere. Build the service forces with young workers with decision-making power, who travel the world, learning to help in diverse situations.

And, also, carefully disarm all weapons of mass destruction, and dismantle all anti-social espionage and mercenary forces.

2. Reintegration with Nature.

Set these tasks for designers, architects and scientists:

- Restore earth’s ecosystems.

- Create spaces in which all people can live close to nature and learn from her.

3. Determination of resource use by the needs of living systems.

All living systems have value, including human culture.

Plan and implement systems of resource use that enhance, rather than destroy living systems.

4. Socialization of human services.

Periodically ask - What are the needs of humans now?

Continually determine - How can we meet the most urgent of those needs now?

Build the system that delivers what is needed.

5. Cooperative community dialogue.

The revolution is in our hearts. We all need to listen and change.

How can I open my heart wide enough for this diversity of peoples?

How can we move beyond our pride and our shame?

How do we unite?

6. Socialization of industry and agriculture.

Make these machines accountable to the workers and to all people.

Determine when to use giant production systems, and when to break the system into smaller, more local parts.

7. Democratic planning of civilization.

It’s only a revolution if the people are the motive force.

Democracy is when the people decide where to go.

Democracy is when the people educate themselves and learn how to create and to move forward as a single force.

8. Celebration of life.

Prove the revolution by throwing a party.

Celebrate and praise the workers, the planners, the living creatures, the places and our life together.

Sing that we have found a way to start becoming One People.

------------
(Two and a Half Year Space..)

-----------

Dance of Honor

In the dance, we pause, step back, feeling deeply

all light, all shapes, all sound, all music, all feeling

and all the most inner and outer pulsing

of life and time -

a pause of reconnection, an honoring pause -

And then our next step forward.

Will it flow in harmony?

Will it be a continuity?

Will it be an honoring?

Without - we come from a world of destruction.

Needing food and drink and heat and protection from harm,

we took.

And that taking was destruction -

eating, clearing, mining, burning, killing.

Will we pause to reflect on the creation, on the giving

that makes our taking good things possible?

Is there a step we can take in harmony with the creativity of nature?

Do we honor the forms and the inner life of trees and passing clouds?

Within - we are imprisoned in sadness.

Have values become barriers? These needs, these reasoned arguments,

these obvious principles, these well-grounded formulas are spoken.

And still our meeting is all disputes and conflicts.

If you are so sad, why are you not crying?

  If we feel these barriers between us, why are we not untying them?

Let us approach in gentleness, assumptions aside.

I come with nothing and offer everything.

Behind your eyes is a tempest and a silver dawn.

We are dangerous and driven creatures.

Yet it is in weakness that our strength resides.

As much as we know each other,

that much can our power grow.

As much as we accept one another,

that much may we accomplish.

Whether, in this dance, I step close or step far away,

This open hand is my promise that I will honor you.

Sculpture/Poem (B)

                 Sky

 And the loneliness extends forever.

How empty is the sky.

   All of these comforts

we clinged to

drop away.

There are no fortresses, walls

or hidden corners

for our protection.

The place where nothing grows -

  What is the fruit of heaven?

    Where may be the foundation

for my edifice?

  I will go there anyway.

  I will fly

Because this wideness

can not be denied.

The sky is a landscape -

Terrains so high,

  Rising crests so tumultuous.

Our hearts fly through the firmament.

 The eagles and swallows may guide us

to the far habitations

Of those, ever diving,

who never fall,

   Those who bring us fog

and mist and rain,

  Receiving the far beams of light

Here, above the earth.

   This untouchable wideness

  becomes a hope

of something infinite.

Our Job

Have you forsaken Earth - Oh worker?

Have you forsaken our wide family

that nourishes its children everywhere?

For now every bough and rocky crevice,

every grove and curving bay

and the hope of every heart

is in your hands.

What was the reason for the Union?

What created us out of scraping vassals,

out of exhausted, breathless human property?

It was not the jobs assigned by Owners

with their great plans and mansions,

with their exploitations and their wars.

We made the Union - out of our recognition of each other -

The garment worker’s bruised hands,

The mason’s limp, miner’s cough,

The young in poverty, the old in despair -

We made the Union when we saw that together

we had the power to change all that.

We made the Union out of active love.

Will we worship the jobs doled out by Owners,

and put our futures in bondage to their greed?

Or will WE set the jobs that must be done

to bring this Union to the future we all need?

They tried to portray the Union as a little faction,

grasping for a share of what is produced.

But we always knew this story was a lie.

Our interest, our constituency, is all the people

and all the Earth as well.

There we will find our real job.

We are the Union.

We will determine what jobs need to be done -

Together. - Everywhere.

And jobs for hire and owners will be no more.

Sculpture/Poem (A)

   These are prototypes or mock-ups of various things.

   This first one relates to the journey of the Dreamboat, a method of communication between spirits.

The idea originated in a playing piece or card in a spirit-related game -

There are actually two poems because a sail in this type of sculpture is flat and two-sided. There is a problem side and a hope side.

How can I comprehend

  A world so wide as this?

My foot falls,

and the dust settles

behind me.

Every drop, every torrent

returns to the sea.

This seascape, this cloudscape,

  this swirling turbulence

    stretches on forever.

How can any place be set?

How can a being such as I -

  be defined -

amidst this storm?

What seas did we travel

within our dreams?

  What were those things,

those beings, we saw?

  Not only out of my imaginings,

  my heart, my desire -

 But manifestations of other minds,

  so real that they were real.

The Dreamboat carries a cargo

of spirits’ notions

made substantial

  by our connections

even over great distances

and imposing gulfs.

 

Departure

Who are these children of the twilight?

Will there be a worthy craft -

among all these vessels bearing curses as their cargo -

that will carry them truly through this approaching night?

We might say that

trust comes easily to those who hold no aspiration,

who hold no hopes.

But perhaps they tell us,

“Cast off. Focus not on what is lost.

“We are sailing somewhere new.

“Perhaps it will be the place where friendship rules,

“and false oaths and false garments fall away unneeded.”

Some turnings and course corrections of 2016

It might be worthwhile to add some things to this blog which apparently still exists even though it's likely no one has visited it for many years.

Seeing that my book does not seem to have been completed, nor my game(s), nor that interactive modular floating sculpture thing, I think I will send out a few words and pictures here. I'll just assume for the moment they are really going out.

Maybe begin with this...


A button made by the
Syracuse Cultural Workers
(Hey, I'm from there!)

         Less Capitalism

There may be some alarm or confusion about this button. If I am in favor of reducing or replacing capitalism, how is it that I have given so much support to various businesses in my neighborhood, to other money-making enterprises and have run my own businesses from time to time?

Capitalistic enterprises, designed to produce some kind of profit, have existed throughout history, and will probably continue to exist in whatever social/economic/political system we eventually turn to. Socially, the enterprise can be an application of creativity to a social need. The entrepreneur, or artist, for that matter, who designs the specific or the general solution to a social need deserves some kind of credit for his or her contribution, as well as payment for expenses, just as any worker deserves compensation. If the compensation is fair, everyone benefits.

Capitalism, or the capitalist system, on the other hand, is an economic structure that determines how all enterprises, all labor, all resources, all living things and all wealth shall be valued in a society. And they are valued according to a single all-pervasive principle. That principle does not flow out of some moral or ideological discussion. It is rather generated and continually reinforced and expanded by the operation of the capitalist system itself. The principle of capitalism is profit is valued above all else, and whatever stands in the way of obtaining the greatest profit is to be eliminated. Those people most successful in this system, the capitalists, acquire the most wealth, and are in a position to drive society toward ever greater focus on profit-making above every other value and ever greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the most successful capitalists.

Karl Marx happens to present capitalism as a necessary stage in the progress of civilization that eventually is overthrown due to the contradictions embedded in an endless trajectory of profiteering. In any case, it is clear that a system that does not include benefit to humanity or to nature as primary values will become more and more anti-social as it focuses more and more on profits for a few people. Capitalism has been harmful to society for hundreds of years, but it has now reached the stage where its elimination is necessary for the continuation of human civilization and of life on earth.

Capitalism affects us all, not only as victims of exploitation and injustice, but as participants in the culture of profiteering. It is said we fight for equality and justice and power for the people. And we do. These things define us seeking something more than what we can get for our individual selves, something higher than mere profit, something helpful to society. Why? Because we care about all people; we care about the entire earth.  More Love. Less Capitalism.