Laughing at Power

In one or several of the martial arts, not sure which ones, there is a Chi blocking technique used to try to disarm an opponent's energy field or protective shield just before engaging in one-on-one fighting. It is to quickly take your hand and make a swooping motion from the top of the opponent's head and then down through the center and lower chakra areas without even touching the opponent. This apparently reduces the ability of the opponent to defend himself/herself and even weakens the opponent's overall strength. More on this later.

With the overwhelming evidence of the inadequacy and increasing irrelevance of governments and corporations around the globe, it has gotten to the point of absurdity and sometimes even hilarious. Take for example the fact that the FBI arrested several Amish farmers months ago for delivering raw milk across the Mason/Dixon line. Wow, who saw that coming? Amish activists/terrorists will be the death of us all! The Amish must have a secret agenda to kill all of us with their raw milk so they can take over the world! We must have our government protect us from these evildoers!

I just realized that our government draws a very fine line between activist and terrorist, because now you can be arrested for either and treated as an enemy combatant, thereby being detained indefinitely without trial, even if one is only thinking about or planning to deliver raw milk across state lines. Can you say, "Minority Report?" You can easily imagine this scenario being played out as a scene right from that movie..."Mr. John Hochstetler, you are under arrest for the future smuggling of raw milk into the state of Maryland." You can't make this crap up! Okay, maybe I made up the "Minority Report" thing, but we're really not that far off. If this weren't so hilarious, it would be insane...or maybe the other way around. Anyway, this brings me to my point.

How many times have people all over the world marched in protests by the millions only to have little or no affect on the status quo? Obviously, there have been exceptions to this throughout history, but I think there are ways we can kick it up a notch. But also, how many times has truth been spoken to power, even in a formal political forum, and it actually made a difference? Again, I think you will agree, not that many. Here's another; how many times have we elected new politicians into office only to end up eating the same crap we kicked their predecessor out of office for? I know, a lot, right? In other words, it seems that no matter what serious action we take, protesting, speaking out or voting, nothing, for the most part, seems to change for the betterment of the masses.

So I've come to the conclusion that we take ourselves and especially politicians way too seriously. We need to lighten up! It is time to start finding the humor in life and laugh at ourselves and at the people we vote into positions of power.

I can remember some of the hearings Congress would have with people like Donald Rumsfeld and BP oil executives when there would be protesters who would start yelling in opposition to a position someone was taking in the hearing. Within a few seconds, they were taken away by security guards and the hearing would continue somewhat unfazed by the disruption. So I thought it might be a good idea to instead of yelling in such a serious action, that it would be better to just laugh hysterically. Of course, maybe yelling out the occasional, "You can't be serious, ha, ha, ha," or, "You're kidding, right? Ha, ha!" Laughing at power makes many statements, often without saying anything. It says, "we are not taking you seriously" or "we have zero respect for this clown act" or "this government has made itself irrelevant" or"you have no power over us" or "this is so ridiculous, it's hilarious" or "you're joking, right" or "are you crazy?"

In my judgment, this is a form of Chi blocking, as I spoke about above. It is also a form of reducing the ere of seriousness and power to child's play. That's how I really feel about some of our politicians; that they just never got out of their school-yard-bully phase. Besides, I think we all have felt a little bullied by our government and certain corporations at one time or another. Yeah, you know what I mean...they keep trying to take our lunch money and wanna push us down in the dirt.

The only problem I could possibly project would be an angry and raging reaction from the bullies to the people who are doing the laughing. What could be the possibilities there? Maybe the laughing activists could be subjected to completely unreasonable arrests, searches, detentions, drug tests, etc. But what I believe would actually prevent such ridiculous tyranny, would be the fact that the laughing action would be done in complete public view. Think about it. The media coverage on something like this would be priceless! Imagine the headlines..."Activists Get Arrested for Laughing!"

Obviously, it is impossible to predict the reaction and outcome to the action of laughing at power, but I think it would be really interesting to see what happens. I mean, what do we got to lose? We've already tried a lot of things. So it remains to be seen what the power of laughter really holds for us.

It's the Economy, Stupid...or is it?

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has inspired people all over the world, has had its critics. While the movement intended to join all of us together, well at least the 98 or 99% of us, I've noticed there seems to be a more even split, particularly in the US. I had seen a Fox News poll that included close to 400,000 Americans that said about 49% approved and supported the movement and about 47% disapproved of it. Granted, Fox News is certainly the most conservative main stream media outlet on TV, so those numbers would probably show even more support of the movement had the poll been taken on any other news outlet. But still, this shows that there are some divisive issues here.

It seems that no matter which "lame stream" media outlet you look at, there is little if any support of the movement. As a matter of fact, it took the media a long time before they even started reporting on it. This should tell you something about corporate media. The movement had to get going to the point that they, the media, couldn't ignore it. When the reporting finally started, there was a lot of downplaying, criticizing that there wasn't a clear message. They were being insulting that it was a movement of nothing but goofy drum-playing hippies without a purpose in life and nothing better to do. The protesters were threatening the very fabric of capitalism/society and pushing us towards Marxism and revolution. And I'm sure there are a few other criticisms I left out here, but you get the drift.

With regards to the movement's message, it has not been able to be put into a nice concise little 30-second sound bite, which the lame stream just love to eat up and then regurgitate at you through your TV screen. Yes, it is true there are a lot of issues that people are ticked about in the movement. But when it comes down to a simple message, I have yet to see a protest sign that says, "The economy sucks and I'm here to make it stop sucking!" That, my friends, would say it all and would give the media something to hang its hat on. Who could disagree with the fact that the economy is tanking with no end in sight? And all anyone hears these days is that sucking sound coming out of your purse or wallet.

While the movement has tried to separate the have's (1 or 2%) from the have not's (98 or 99%), the media has succeeded in manipulating almost half of the US population into believing they are better off not changing much of anything, except for maybe their representative in congress and/or the president. The folks that have been manipulated, tend to blame the government for the missteps in the economy, claiming that over regulation has suppressed corporations from creating jobs, providing loans, expanding infrastructure, etc. In reality, the exact opposite has been true. Not that government is not at any fault. But I think we all have to distinguish between the corrupter (corporations), and the corruptee (government). In other words, I tend to blame the initiator of the corruption more than the one who gets corrupted by accepting the monetary favor. Because as they say, everyone has their price.

The fact is, corporate deregulation has been happening since the Reagan administration with his, "trickle-down economics," and has been carried on throughout the Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and the Obama administrations. I've noticed that as corporations deregulate themselves through the government, our individual liberties start eroding away as well, but that's a whole other blog. The fact remains obvious that Reaganomics just doesn't work, but it's taken us 30 years to realize it. It's a system where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears into the lower class. (Insert sucking sound here.)

So it baffles me as to why almost half of Americans refuse to include themselves in the 99%. Because if you look at their financial standing, they are definitely part of the 99%. I guess maybe they're holding onto faith that someday they'll be in the 1 or 2% if we keep going full-steam-ahead, business as usual. Or maybe they're just not "rock the boat," type of people. Or maybe they forgot that just 2 or 3 years ago the Tea Party was on the streets protesting about some of the exact same issues. Maybe they don't want to be affiliated with drumming hippies. Or maybe...just maybe they're in a total state of denial that our government system and our money system are broken and corrupt to the core! And if that is true, then we have to look at all the ways they/we have given our power away. Okay, maybe that last sentence could take me into yet another blog, so I'll spare you.

But now we're getting somewhere. It's very, very difficult to admit that the country, who's flag you have waved, pledged allegiance to, paid taxes to and fought for, has failed its citizens. The greatest country in the world is falling into an economic and political abyss. And the ones in denial are holding onto the last threads of the rope to try to keep it from tumbling anymore, as well as even trying to hoist it back up. But these systems are like old, beat up cars. You can only repair them for so long until its not cost effective anymore, and you end up having to get a new one. These failing systems no longer work for the people and are certainly not cost effective to save.

So the Occupy Wall Street movement understands this. All those "hippies" are not in denial. They know there needs to be a complete system replacement and not just an overhaul. They know that there needs to be a revolution to make that happen. They know that there's no other way it can happen. And they are willing to unplug the patriarchy.

I will leave you with two things. Here is a link to an article written by a multi-millionaire, Mike Dillard, who gave a pretty fair depiction about his experience at the Occupy Wall Street protest. Even though I disagree with some of his assessments, it is still insightful. Also I'd like to leave you with a timeless quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest monetary system, which freed the common man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution."

Are We Really Independent?

Since surviving the July 4th holiday with lots of friends, relatives and food, I've been pondering just how independent are we as a country? After all, isn't that what July 4th, Independence Day is all about? The Declaration of Independence ramped up the Revolutionary War that had been going on for about a year. We wanted to be free from the all the laws, taxes and religious persecution that were dominant in England at that time and have the independence to run our own country. With that would come the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So the question of "are we really independent" is more about how are we doing in maintaining these rights as well as not letting the rules of England run the show here in the US?

If we look at all of these things on the surface, most of us would say that we're not doing too bad. But if we take a closer, more objective look, we see a whole different picture. Take for example taxes...one of the biggest reasons we declared independence from England. Are we paying taxes to England? Well, not directly. But we are paying taxes that help prop up banks and oil companies that have British connections. But at the same time, most of our taxes go to our own government to pay for all the things that a government does, like military/protection, government workers salaries, social programs, infrastructure upkeep, national parks, etc. But now it appears like a lot of our money is going to corporations who provide services to the government at, in some cases, significantly inflated prices. It doesn't appear that we are getting a lot of "bang for our buck." We have the most expensive and technologically advanced military in the world by far, exceeding the next top 20 countries combined! Yet we seem to have a lot of trouble defeating our enemies these days. Two world wars were fought and ended in less time than we've been in Iraq, at least as far as our involvement in those wars were concerned. Now we have the never ending war on terrorism. Therefore, our involvement in wars has put a seemingly unending burden on US tax payers.

There were no federal taxes early in US history until after the Revolutionary War when George Washington, along with Alexander Hamilton, tried to tax whiskey to help pay off the federal debt of $54 million dollars that had been mostly accumulated by the recent war. That started what has been known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This resistance felt that this young country was doing things that England had done, and felt that they needed to fight against a tax on whiskey/moonshine, which was used as currency during those days. It's not hard to see how local, state and federal taxes have snow-balled out of control in our country today. As of 2009, the above average US citizen pays 57.7% in total taxes!

From the religious perspective, again most would say on the surface we're not doing too bad. Let's take a more objective look again. When the Europeans, mostly British, first came to this country, we started wiping out the American Indians by the millions. They appeared to the newcomers as savages and pagans, which was a perception of extreme difference from themselves. Of course, the American Indians were also an obstacle to acquiring the land that the settlers felt they needed to own for their survival. Some settlers along with the federal government committed genocide over the course of several hundred years to establish themselves in the new world. No religious freedom was tolerated by the settlers then.

Then there's also the Salem Witch Trials, where roughly a couple dozen people were either executed or died in prison for being proclaimed a witch. It's surprising to think that people at that time were leaving a country (England) for religious persecution reasons ended up recreating religious persecution in their new found land!  While we're not hanging people anymore for having different religious beliefs, we are imprisoning people for peacefully demonstrating against illegal wars. Most of these people demonstrating for peace are religious people who do feel that the issue of war is a moral issue. They also come from a variety of different religious backgrounds with a common belief in peace.

Today, the Christian faith has all but taken over our government. People are sworn into office and sworn under oath in our courts of law on the Christian bible. The line of separation between church and state become blurred when we allow only Christian viewpoints to be promoted in the public school systems. For example, a lot of public schools allow kids to wear t-shirts promoting Christianity, but not t-shirts promoting atheism or any other religious belief. If parents wish to educate their kids in a school that promotes Christian ideology, their are private schools that will do that. Public schools are not a place for religious education or promotion.

In summary, I guess for the most part one could say that we are independent from England. The problem is, from all that I've laid out above, we have become England.