Annihilation

Continuing my theme from last week...

A Perfect Circle - Annihilation Lyrics (Old Version) excerpted

Annihilation is to one the means to an end
Armageddon the war to end all wars, the extremists' end
Annihilation self destruction
The streets are on fire, death in our wake
Cars overturned, bodies are raped
You go on
Preaching religious dogma, while paying for and sanctioning vicious murders
Annihilation annihilation annihilation praise
Destruction
You go on playing with people's lives
Using their minds, you want total control
Stay in line
Annihilation
Annihilation the judgement day
Armageddon armagedon are you going to let them blow you away

The REAL Eco-terrorism ...

Thank goodness, 200 more trees and I can clock out and have a beer at the lodge.

ECO-TERRORISM....

You want eco-terrorism? I'll show you eco-terrorism. Look at the picture above. What a great legacy we are leaving behind — the systematic and total destruction of our environment so that we can have pretty wooden doorknobs or pretty little wood knickknacks that we can place on our over-crowded shelves.

For the record, I do not support eco-terrorism. I believe that if we can't save the world without hurting people, then maybe the world is not worth saving. As an extension of that, I don't think we should harm people's property either.

But look at the guy with the chainsaw — he's engaging in the LEGAL rape, pillage, and destruction of the Planet. Yes, the one-in-a-billion Planet that sustains an incredible assortment of life. We HAVE to destroy it so that we can make money and satisfy our immediate needs. WE HAVE to multiply our human numbers to ungodly proportions, and then we have to RAPE the Earth even more to support all the added people. WE HAVE TO because that's the way we've always done it. The Earth is a giant, eternal resource, and it's ours for the RAPING, and TAKING, and ABUSING, and NEGLECT.

AND NOW FOR A "DEEP THOUGHT" BREAK....

People who cling to paradigms (just about all of us) take one look at the spacious possiblity that everything they think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely there is no power, no control, no understanding, not even a reason for being, much less acting, in the notion or experience that there is no certainty in any worldview. But, in fact, everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it to be the basis for radical empowerment. If no paradigm is right, you can choose whatever one will help to achieve your purpose. If you have no idea where to get a purpose, you can listen to the Universe (or put in the name of your favorite deity here) and do his, her, its will - which is probably a lot better informed than your will.

—An excerpt from Donella Meadows' classic essay, "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System."

What? Donella Meadows is one of my great heros. In 2001, she died an untimely death from bacterial meningitis at age 59. What is she trying to say here? WHAT is she trying to tell the world?

Hmmm, to me this says that people are stuck on traditions, or "the way it's always been" and there's little momentum or energy to change things. And when you do try to change things, even if they are crazy wrong, you get great resistance from other people because: a) People don't like change and b) That's the way we've always done it, thus it is a TRADITION.

Allow me to give two examples:

• Holiday Cards - It's Christmas time and I get all these cards in the mail, often from vendors or people I hardly know. Okay, if you are going to send a photo of your kids or a nice end-of-year note, that's fine, but most of the cards I get simply say, "Merry Christmas, Jim and Terry." First of all, who the hell are Jim and Terry? Secondly, what a waste of a stamp, paper, and the Postal Service's energy. I mean, people spend lots of money and time sending off these Christmas cards, maybe because they've ALWAYS DONE IT or their PARENTS HAVE DONE IT, but what's the point? The recipient opens it, says "nice," and puts it in the pile with all the other cards. And there is no way the recipient can remember who sent what card — it just becomes a big blur. So, really, what is the point of this wasteful tradition?

• Smoking in Public Places - My God, we go to restaurants and suck in all this collective cigarette smoke and inhale numerous toxins. Why are so few cities and counties doing something about this? First of all, it amazes me that people are rude enough to smoke in a public building, but why isn't anyone stopping them? "Well, we keep the smokers in the smoking section," the restaurant manager says. My GOD, the smoking area is just an open area around the bar — do you think the smoke just hits some kind of invisible air wall and stays there? No way, you are poisoning every patron in the restaurant with that crap. WHY ISN'T ANYONE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT? So you call your local state representative, and they just kind of hem and holler that the restaurant owners and smokers might get mad. I mean, few politicians really want to take the lead on this, and they really don't want to stick their neck out, and they really don't want to piss off any potential voters. BUT MY GOD, THEY ARE POISONING US WITH THEIR SECOND HAND SMOKE!!!!!

So, the point is, people really don't like to change, even if their habits are wasteful, pointless, and even harmful. What Donella is saying above is that no one has a monopoly on "right." So, if you are trying to accomplish something, you can choose the "worldview" that works best. We shouldn't lock ourselves into an "it's always done this way" or "people might get mad" paradigm. Rather, we need to do what's right in our hearts.

After much deliberation, I cancelled my subscription to the newspaper. It has really reduced my supply of blogging material, but I got to thinking: A newspaper is a wasteful and inefficient way of disseminating information. Think of the trees, the energy used for the presses, and the gasoline used to deliver it. Crazy.

I challenge everyone who reads this blog to ask: "Why the hell am I really doing this? Does this make sense? Is what I'm doing helping to reduce my impact on the Earth? Is what I'm doing sustainable over the course of many generations?"

"Don't listen to that Canary, he's sick. "
— Dick Cheney

Escaping From This Crazy Society

My gosh, what is it? I dunno,
I think it's The One Right Way.

I just spoke with Paula who posted the ad about starting an intentional community. She is a self-described aging hippie, and she and her husband just inherited a fifty acre forest in Chilton Co. AL. That is where they would like to rehabilitate a run-down farm and start a ecovilliage with anyone who wants into it. ... They have not had much response
to the ad, but are still enthusiastic about the project.

Okay, I'm going to escape this crazy, dysfunctional, soulless society that I live in. I'm moving to Alabama to live in a self-sustaining community. I'm going to sell my house here in the Atlanta suburbs and build a little hut in Chilton Co., AL. I'll work on the farm and perhaps develop websites on the side for a little extra cash. I'm goin' baby — I'm escaping it all, especially my mother who tries to control me with her endless religious guilt trips. I'm gonna be free! Oh, but there's one problem. I have no idea where Chilton County is. Oh well.

But if I escape this World, then it is harder to save it. It is better that I take a stand, right here in Powder Springs, GA, and try to make a difference. The odds are against me, but if I can just help a few folks here and there, or if I can help to change just a few attitudes, then maybe it will be worthwhile.

Look at the bizarre situation our nation is in. We spend BILLIONS on health care. At the same time, the diseases caused by our affluence and by the thousands of chemicals we've released into the environment are keeping us sick. So, we spend BILLIONS to get better, and the money goes into the pockets of the massively wealthy medical industry. Then, we decide we want to live longer, so we give the medical establishment more BILLIONS. And in the meantime, the Baby Boomers are retiring by the millions and it's up to the American workers to support them, but we can't because our manufacturing base has moved to Mexico and China.

And what are Americans doing? My GOD, they are watching a Gilligan's Island remake on reality TV while the value of the U.S. dollar sinks, the trade deficit climbs, and the federal debt deepens. The will to resist and the desire to care has been beaten from our souls.

Our nation is ruled by a small but powerful clique who has learned how "to play the game" and they depend on the ignorance and apathy of Americans. They keep the masses in a drawer until they need their vote again. Then they pull out the little bobble-headed Americans and scream, "Guns, gays, abortion" and send them to the polls to re-elect the "righteous" politicians.

Our nation is so corrupt and spiritually crushed that the few who do resist are labeled "whackos" and promptly ignored. We have become a spiritless and cowardly mass. We go to our country club churches to pass out business cards and then we go to Hooters to eat onion rings, and we scream, "We need more values in this land." But our words are as hollow as our souls.

Perhaps one day soon I will give up on this crazy World or maybe I won't. At this point, I still have hope, at least a little.

Yellow Canary

What Have I Become?

Giddy up, go boy, whoa horsey.

There I was...

I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, walking the streets and talking to my friends, and everywhere I went there were homeless people asking for money. There are so many of them that after a while you don't even notice and you kind of get immune to it. And then as I was on the plane waiting to head back to Atlanta, it suddenly hit me, and I said to myself, "OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I BECOME?" It's like I just turned them off, and I didn't feel anything.

So now, for the past two weeks I've been feeling absolutely rotten. I've been giving a lot of thought lately as to how I can alleviate some of the misery in the world on a personal level, but God, there is so much of it.

But it's holiday time and many homeless will get a warm meal on Christmas Day and a little gift box filled with a toothbrush and comb. People, civic groups, and Churches will all do their good deed for the holidays. The rich will throw a couple of bent cans in the food box and then go on to their merry social events. People will give the Salvation Army guy a few bucks and feel really good about themselves for the next 10 minutes.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THEM? What about the poor humans who sleep in dumpsters and under bridges, while we are in our warm homes drinking our spiked eggnog and singing Christmas carols really off key?

With so much wealth in our country, why do have to accept a system where so many people live in misery? Why do we just walk past the homeless and think of them as part of the local ambience, as their desperate pleas for spare change are heard but ignored? What kind of people have we become and where is our compassion?

And I'm so troubled by people who say, "I give or volunteer because I'm a Christian." People should help one another NOT to get brownie points with God, but because it's the right thing to do. OF COURSE, God wants us to help others — you don't have to tell me you're doing it because you're a Christian.

Insensitivity...

I see it all the time ... people forgetting to tip a waiter, people abusing some poor store clerk, and people just being indifferent to others. I mean, I was at a dinner meeting two nights ago and everyone was so busy chatting that no one bothered to give the poor busboy some change. I mean, my God, this poor guy is human and deserves a couple of dollars. He has bills to pay too.

I believe it is the lowest among us who are the greatest among us. The humble people of the world who beg for food, change your hotel sheets, and wait on you at restaurants are the real heros, and they DESERVE your respect and reverence. Hell, man, show a little mercy. Give them some change even if they forgot to give you a lemon in your tea. Come on, they have FEELINGS. Just give them a few quarters before you jump back into your Lexus and return to your Alice in Wonderland life. Damn, I mean, come on, everyone deserves a little change.

Slavery and the Culture Prison

We bring you to America
to save your soul.

We Are Prisoners of Our Culture...

All we know is the world that we were born into, our traditions, what our parents taught us, and our surroundings. It's our culture, and it traps us and keeps us in a cage. We don't even think to break out of the cage because Mother Culture is all we know.

Mother Culture gives our our religion, our jobs, our traditions, our fashion styles, and we just go along with it. Whatever Mother Culture says must be true, and few of us question. But sometimes, some of us get this crazy sense that Mother Culture is doing things that are harmful, and we begin to question Her. When we do question, we receive a lot of criticism and mockery from those who support the status quo. It is the way it is, and you should not question, you little human!

A perfect example of this is the trend toward home gardens and organic foods. A lot of us are getting tired of all the chemicals thrown on our plants and injected into the animals we eat. A lot of us question the genetically altered foods, steroids, and other crap that we are asked to consume. But when we question or oppose this insanity, the Food Industry along with their spin doctors and minions, start screaming that we are anti-technology and that we want to take America back to the Hunter-Gatherer Age. See, people who profit from Mother Culture don't like those who question, and they sure as heck don't like change.

Ho, ho, what do you mean you won't
eat me? I'm a cross between a
strawberry and a Republican. The
food industry says I'm good for you.

A painful look back

Much to my regret, my great great grandparents owned slaves. This is something I'm ashamed of. The people who resisted this evil institution, like John Brown and Harriett Tubman are my great heros. If I was living in slavery times, I know I would resist, but I sometimes wonder if I would have the courage to risk my life.

Funny thing is, everyone in the South appeared on board with slavery — the state governments, the companies, AND THE CHURCHES! Naturally, the Christians justified this madness by saying things like, "We are saving their souls and keeping them from going to hell." The funny thing is, the slaves WERE IN HELL.

I urge everyone to question Mother Culture and break out of this prison that she has placed us in. She uses the churches, government, and corporations to beat us down and force us into conformity. Mother Culture claims she controls our finances, our security, and even our soul. But does she REALLY control all of these things? I know people who are resisting her everyday with co-op farming, bartering, and throwing TVs out the window.

If Mother Culture wasn't so destructive, I would just ignore her. But she is forcing us to live in a way that is not best for humans, and in fact, is self-destructive. She makes us live in such a way that keeps millions miserable and keeps our economy unsustainable. Unless you resist her, then you will deserve the fate she has in store for you.

My other great heros - the students of the White Rose



The following is a leaflet from The White Rose, a small group of German college students who resisted the Nazi government in 1943. Three members were executed. They are the greatest of heros.

Canary Sezs: This gives me goose bumps when I read it because I see so many parallels with the United States in 2004. Do you see the parallels?

Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day? If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order of history; if they surrender man’s highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass - then, yes, they deserve their downfall. Goethe speaks of the Germans as a tragic people, like the Jews and the Greeks, but today it would appear rather that they are a spineless, will-less herd of hangers-on, who now - the marrow sucked out of their bones, robbed of their center of stability - are waiting to be hounded to their destruction. So it seems - but it is not so. Rather, by means of gradual, treacherous, systematic abuse, the system has put every man into a spiritual prison. Only now, finding himself lying in fetters, has he become aware of his fate. Only a few recognized the threat of ruin, and the reward for their heroic warning was death. We will have more to say about the fate of these persons. If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer; then even the last victim will have been cast senselessly into the maw of the insatiable demon. Therefore every individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western civilization, must defend himself as best he can at this late hour, he must work against the scourges of mankind, against fascism and any similar system of totalitarianism. Offer passive resistance - resistance - wherever you may be, forestall the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last cities, like Cologne, have been reduced to rubble, and before the nation’s last young man has given his blood on some battlefield for the hubris of a sub-human. Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!

What I Learned This Year

Okay, Mr. Canary, start from the beginning.
Could you please tell me again about
those really freaky dreams you're having.

Another Year Is Coming To An End...

When you get older, the years become blurs, but this one wasn't. It seemed like a LONG year and so much happened. Good things and painful things took place this year, and I learned a LOT!

If you're like me, life is about capturing experience in little sound bites. You read something here, you hear a lecture there, then you see something on the History Channel, and everything combines to widen your mind.

The Story of 2004...

I did keep a journal during my last two summers in college. Now, this year, 22 years later, I started keeping an electronic journal again at the beginning of the year. In May, I converted my journal to an on-line blog. It is more fun to blog knowing that anyone in the world can read my thoughts. I'm sure that as I write this, President Bush is in his private study in the White House, sipping on coffee, reading my blog, and going, "What the..."

Moments of Epiphany

There were many this year, but I'll just hit the two biggies:

• Humans Are Not Flawed - I heard this at an Ishamel presentation in September. The famous book by Daniel Quinn, I would say this is the single, most important work of the past 20 years. Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household, all my life I was taught that there was something wrong with humans. But look at your dog, look at your pet bird, go to the zoo and view the animals. Is there anything "flawed" about them? No. Is there anything flawed about humans? NO! We are what the Creator made us, and we should rejoice in that; not spend our entire lives feeling guilty. Yet, even though we are NOT flawed, are irresponsible ways surely are.

• I Am Not A Bad Person - Once again, dealing with all the fundamentalist Christian guilt buttons that were installed in me has been the greatest struggle of my life. The objective is to make you feel like a rotten person whenever you don't conform to the "correct interpretation" of the Holy Bible. So, all this time I've been feeling like a bad human for questioning the religion and culture that I was born into. But then just two weeks ago I read an article in the Faith section of the newspaper, which was written by the ministers of five local churches in a community of Atlanta called Druid Hills. The theme of the article is that ALL Christians shouldn't be stereotyped by the vocal Religious Right. When it comes to the war, abortion, and other critical issues, these ministers appeared to have a similar outlook to myself. So, I squealed with delight because I realized that I may be a Christian after all — I just have a far different view from the traditional, Hard Right Christians. In fact, much of what I learned about compassion, unconditional love, and acceptance, I learned from my parents, my former pastors, and from the Bible. It's just to me, it appears that many in our country play the role of the Moral Christian, but their indifference on key issues and their brutal hypocrisy on other issues tells me a far different story. This is one of the main themes I've blogged about all year.

Humans are not bad and I am not bad!

Auto Industry Has Learned Well From Tobacco Industry

Little bird, what thee hell are
you trying to tell me???

President Bush has nominated a new Energy Secretary — a man after his own heart and soul. The so-called "plan" is to make the United States less dependent on energy from unstable parts of the world. The plan is boost domestic production by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, weakening clean air laws, and increasing the use of nuclear and coal resources. There has not been ONE WORD about CONSERVATION because the President and Congress are afraid of angering the auto manufacturers, power companies, and other organization who thrive on making the world a dirtier place. Worse yet, there is NO TALK on how to curb our emissions to stop Global Warming. The theme in Washington continues to be "live for now — don't worry about tomorrow."

Hurray for California who is standing up to the Righteous politicians and Earth-destroying industries by introducing some tough new emissions laws. But rather than calling on their engineers to rise to the challenge, the pathetic U.S. auto industry has let their monkey lawyers out of the cage and sent them to Sacramento. The monkey lawyers are digging through law books to find any angle they can to justify their gas-guzzling and polluting automobiles. Right now, their latest angle is something to the effect that states are not allowed to mandate miles-per-gallon — only the federal government can do that.


The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is a trade association of nine car and light truck manufacturers including BMW Group, DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen.

God bless the greedy, rich, selfish auto manufacturers who stuff their pockets with cash, and sabotage any serious attempts at energy conservation and emissions reduction. With their monkey lawyers, monkey scientists, monkey lobbyists, and monkey spin-doctors, they have the resources to fend off any threat and to keep their puppets in Washington in line. Of course, when you even get near these people their little buttons go off and they start screaming, "Jobs, jobs, jobs, economy, economy, economy!" In other words, if you actually ask a company to be responsible and do the right thing, rather than talking about innovation and how they will rise to the challenge, they give you a sob story about how many jobs it will cost to clean up their act.

On to Mental Wonderland...

• So, I ask: Why are so many churches built of pre-fab materials?

• How come smokers throw their butts and cartons out the window? Is the world their personal litter basket?

• How come so many divorced people are screaming about "the sacred institution of marriage" as a front for bashing gays?

• When Churches talk about "family values" how come they don't oppose the rampant consumerism and materialism in our society? Are they afraid of offending their best tithers?

• How come the owner of a grading company, who spends his whole career flattening God's creation, donates money for a new sanctuary and is then hailed as "a great Christian?"

• How come little yellow birds are so darn cynical?

• Why can't Congress focus on anything other than getting themselves re-elected? Maybe it's time for the states to gather together, close the federal monster they have created, and create a new government — one that can better focus on the future instead of being obsessed with "instant gratification."

• If humans are so good, why do they do things that are so bad?

I Don't Understand

Here me is, just getting older and feeling that
all of us are in the final scene of great play.

Well, SO MANY things ...

...Have been floating around in my belgueared mind that I don't know where to begin. My, those organic organs inside our skulls are such complex mechanisms. So why were we given this incredible organ? So we can learn to throw litter out the window? So we can burn incense to the gods? Who really knows.

So WHAT am I thinking about?

I just can't get out of my head the incredible hypocrisy of the so-called Moral Majority. It troubles me greatly every day. If they weren't helping to destroy the environment and dragging us into wars, I wouldn't pay much attention to them. But they seem to hold the keys to the vault and they ain't handling it very well.

First off, I have stretched my mind, thought outside the box, and I cannot comprehend how ANYONE could vote for the current crooks, egotists, and opportunists who control the Republican Party. If you didn't like the Democratic candidates, you could have at least voted for Libertarians, or Ralph Nader, or you could have even done a write-in vote for Alfred E. Neuman. But why George W. Bush and his gang of crooked politicos in Congress? Why, why, WHY??

Let us review..

Let us look at what the Moral "Family Values" politicians have been up to lately:

• Federal debt increased by $413 billion, and the trade deficit is up to $620 billion.

• Republicans change their own rules to keep Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) in his post, EVEN if he is indicted for corruption.

• Much of our federal debt this year is courtesy of the $137 billion tax cut that Congress gave to businesses. Make a contribution to a Congressperson and you will be repaid generously.

• Even though the U.S. government is straddled with debt and deficit spending, Congress passes a spending bill that's full of pork. Hurray! Lobbyists received an early Christmas present from the God-fearing Republicans.

As mentioned before, I am a progressive Republican at heart, but the maggots who have infested the Grand Ol' Party are as corrupt as any Third World dictatorship. They scream, "God, pro-life, sanctity of marriage," and then we go jumping off to the polling places like bunny rabbits to give them our vote and our unquestioning allegiance.

More from the front...

A fellow Canary on the other side of town noticed an interesting sign recently. She investigated a little and here is what she found:

The week before the election I noticed a huge sign along the road about a lecture on the war, which read: "Come to this lecture, find out the truth about the war before voting." I thought maybe it was some cool anti-war people and got the name and phone number of a gentleman. I called him and politely asked him what the talk would be about. What I got from him is that he, (a VERY right wing evangelical) believes that the war in Iraq is God-ordained and is tied up in their belief that Israel is sacred to God above all else. They believe George Bush was "sent by God" to attack Iraq and this war will bring "final judgement," whatever that means to them.

Right, this explains everything. Okay, everyone - go sell your house!

Bob Barr Says Something Good...

Bob Barr, the the former conservative Congressman who led the impeachment effort against President Clinton has been behaving better lately. As my Congressperson, he and I were at odds because of his poor voting record on the environment and family planning. However, after leaving Congress he joined the liberal-leaning ACLU, where he has been working on privacy issues. He has been fairly cool in opposing the proposed gay marriage ban in the constitution. Today he was on the radio in a panel discussion with Neal Bortz. When a question came up about how gay marriage threatened the family, he said something to the effect:

The real threat to the family is not homosexuals. Rather, it's parents not spending enough time with their kids and their addiction to consumption and materialism (paraphrased).

Well, said Bob!

Sources: Tom Blackburn, columnist for the Palm Beach Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.