RE: OCCUPY Oakland- My Response to Those who Justify Violence

http://hellaoccupyoakland.org/city-hall-intentionally-left-open-for-vandalism/
(This actually applies to those who insist on violence as a tool anywhere.)

Posted 2-12-2012 8:22pm PST

Peaceful ? OCCUPY Oakland. Non Violent?

I am reading Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail. Everyone should read it.

The Civil Rights Movement was and stayed a non-violent movement with dignity that rose higher than the violence that came at it and it still inspires the world-- despite police dogs, bombings and horrific violence conducted upon protestors by police.

From Dr. King's letter: " Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on non-violence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: 'Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?' 'Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?'...."My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and non-violent pressure".etc. etc.

I have been to several Bay Area Occupy Camps and I have witnessed many people leading in peace and there is also many arguing for their right to violence. The OCCUPY movement broke down with loosing a spiritual (not religious) center. Setting up to take care of the homeless and poor is noble but using the plazas to also at the same time fight "police" is splitting the focus. Fighting City Hall? A Mayor? What is OCCUPY about?

The Civil Rights, The Anti-Apartheid , the No Nukes Movements had goals and all used a variety of non-violent and peaceful approaches -- and they all achieved their goals with diligence .

Life is a journey - new generations and new issues come and go -- nothing remains static and I still believe OCCUPY can regain its place only through non-violence and coordinated respectful and focused goals. OCCUPY cannot cover every issue under the sun. OCCUPY will not win with violence be it words that hate police or smashing property.

The General Strike in Oakland was an example that had many issues crying for attention -- the two free speech
microphones that were set up were in constant use with many causes asking and competing for justice.

Eckhart Tolle in his book "The New Earth" refers to much of what we bring along in our lives....This could be a handbook for OCCUPY-- in what Dr. King refers to as a self purification...and in relation to what Tolle writes about is our recognition of "pain" that controls our thinking and how to release from that as a step in the evolution of consciousness on our planet . And I believe that has to happen ALL over the planet -- A GRAND Awakening where the daggers and bombs and smashing and killing and drugs and abuse and sexual slavery etc. stop everywhere.

As Tolle mentions... we are a society that pays to see violence as entertainment (Films, Video Games) and thinks that is ok.

There may a come a time when we cannot stomach the pain that drives us to shameful acts of violence and we will wake up to that. I hope to live long enough to see that happen.

Report From Capitol Hill- End Blowing up Mountains

I just returned back to our temporary HQ at the church parish hall down the Street from the House and Senate Buildings here on Capitol Hill.

I wish I can have Jane from Wiles County Virginia sit down and talk to you and tell you what it is like to live with the blowing up of mountains and where over 25% of her County has been surface striped mined. Wendy from West VA. operates a CSA farm and there is an application out for Mountain Mining 2 miles from her mom & dad's house.

Then there is Dorothy who brought us photos of the layers of coal dust covering her porch and newspaper stories of the boulders flying out from the Mountain Top Blasts that have killed people or crashed thru roofs in houses. In 2004 3 year old Jeremy Davidson was asleep in his bed when a boulder rolled off a rock slope where there was coal company road access construction work at night happening above their house -- and the boulder smashed thru the wall of his house and killed little Jeremy.

Then imagine dirty water coming out of your taps in the kitchen and bathroom thatsmells like rotten eggs and looks like nasty foul tomato soup mixed with mud. Picture miles of mountains blown off and nothing left but a moon scape...familes forced to move...this is all due to strip mining on steroids! Please help-- The people here who came from Appalachia. They are counting on you and me to help stop this destruction.

Coal from blowing up mountain tops in Appalachia account for less than 5% of U.S. electricty generation according to the 2010 Department of Energy data. Many of the layers of thin coal seams lie deep below the surface and blowing up the mountains to reach the coal means scraping off the the trees and dumping them into the valleys or burning them then blowing up the mountains as far as 500 to 800 feet deep using millions of pounds of explosives- then the coal dust comes DAILY-- then the drinking water if polluted by heavy metals including aresenic, lead, mercury is ruined. The devestation cannot be repaired nor the trauma and harm suffered on the people of Appalachia be mitigated.

The Clean Water Protection Act can do the right thing for the people of Appalachia. No in this country should have to suffer the horrors of what our fellow American families in Appalachia are living with.

We are working hard to convince Congress to do the right thing and sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act that will be introduced into the House tomorrow and we are asking for co-sponsors and with the help of your phone callsyou can help by asking your Congressman to co-sponsor this Clean Water Protection Act-- The Bill # will be assigned tomorrow-- but no need to wait -- just please get to the phones and ask your Congressman to co-sponsor this Clean Water Protection Act--

for more info ----

http://www.ilovemountains.org/

Helping Moms and Kids- In Action

In this age of patriarchy-- that serves no one, am listening to the horrible misogyny and verbal attacks on Planned Parenthood and on women by the wacky pundits whose names I shall not mention ( why give them publicity?). Now, we all know Congress has gone insane. How can you be sane when you are spouting from a place of power over rather than empowering others?

Now I found this absolutely dear alternative to business as usual...watch this two minute video
than get off the Internet and call Congress and then kindly but diplomatically give them hell!
Then start working on the campaign for 2012 to make sure this Country does not go further right
to the wing nuts.

How about supporting moms and kids? I am tired of hearing about saving the unborn when we can't take care of the born and we keep trashing Mama Earth! Something is quite wrong here.

Make a Difference with MoJo!Click Here

So .... we have a choice you know...to sit by and do nothing or to make a difference. It does matter...you matter and you can contribute to stemming the nasty pollution of words out there.
Hmmmn..... visualize our grandmas washing out the mouths of Congress and those silly pundits with soap! And then nothing but bubbles come out every time they try to speak!

Please turn and around and look at the real issue and stop making Unions or workers scapegoats!

Please turn and around and look at the real issue and stop making Unions or workers scapegoats!-

by Redwood Mary on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 8:57pm

Union and Non-Union Workers and the public do not understand how unions are the fall guys and gals in this breaking of the banks...and the resulting huge distortion between classes and the gutting of the middle class needs to be understood. The financial sector, in essence , hijacked the everyday basic economy that you and I and everyone operates in and as jobs were automated jobs disappeared the wages went flat or dropped as profits insanely increased... the wealth that was accumulated was a disproportionate share ! Remember the Timber Wars in Northern California? -- as mills went into 24/7 production and timber was being cut unsustainably –clear-cut (as opposed to managing for sustaining the ecosystems--) to keep up….case in point Maxxam from Texas took over Pacific Lumber in Northern California -- financed with junk bonds -- and they pitted workers against so called environmentalists as Charles Hurwitz raided the pension funds of the Pacific Lumber workers to pay interest on the junk bonds -- all of a sudden the felled timber ( by the laborers) was being sent to Mexico and elsewhere .. but the timber companies were making money hand over fist and at what and whose expense? Corporate Timber cut and ran , raped and plundered just as we and many before us all predicted they would cut- gut it and run. -- As the forests were destroyed (by many Timber Companies) I recall CalPERS pension funds had invested $’s in these and other extraction industries and in other high risk financial market" products" as they are called . Note: CalPERS did not have “Prohibited Ineligible investments in Tobacco companies; Insider Trading or Restricted companies or any other Committee-approved restriction,” until 2010 yet they are still into derivatives.

All the while the watersheds were drying up and the salmon habitat was disappearing and this impacted the collapse of the once sustainable fishing industry--( the records are all there! ) We were trying to warn everyone and got laughed at for trying to show that our canaries in the coal mine- who were/are the marbled murrelet and spotted owls were going down and so were the salmon.

Back to the here and now--where did this new concentrated wealth go? Some wealth went to offshore tax shelters and hedge funds-- hedge funds and derivative markets were newly created thanks to The Maddoff tycoon types and with the blessings of cronies who were in SEC and of govt. Some of this excess money could have been taxed in way to benefit the communities --where the wealth was generated to then compensate for those workers impacted (transition, re-training etc.) or R&D for new technology which could bring new jobs ( like getting us off oil!~) or to hire people to repair the damage of rapacious damaging extraction industries and to repair public infrastructure that they all used such as highways, bridges, and for other community services- but was instead always asking for tax breaks-- and their profits invested into speculative high dollar risk ponzi schemes.

Remember this wealth was generated by labor or extracted from the earth—who rightfully owns the profits of labor?

One of the issues is to understand is how pension funds were then co-opted and thrust into the high risk derivatives/ hedge funds banking schemes and then bets placed on bets upon bets and so on.

The very pension trustees from all sectors – banks --unions to govt. officials (State and local ) gave their blessings and we need to ask why pensions need to be given to private players who invest in shares that speculate on your - our retirement?

The insanity of the mortgage- banking and home development industry story is another Chapter.

BUT of this ruthless out of control brand of capitalism... we can have a humane economics where stockholders, pension funds, MBA students, managers, corporate invest ment holdings, accountants and workers all ask and question is this good governance, and is making profits just for speculation by private firms to the exclusion of the common welfare justified? . Get this- back to Calpers-" If CalPERS staff determines that it is in the best interest of CalPERS,consistent with CalPERS fiduciary responsibilities, to (see their INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM – Attachment C Page 8 of 24 Copyright © 2010 by CalPERS) consider an investment that would directly impact California public sector jobs, staff will present the investment to theCommittee for consideration." CalPERS is just one example.

Someone please turn and around and look at the real issue and stop making Unions or workers scapegoats! The Tea Party doesn't understand it either... we need large scale reforms of the Financial Sectors' Ponzi schemes... reform the government POLICIES and all that supports this imbalance.

Feel Free to Share my blog ! Peace!

Mary No-Eyes & Mary Summer Rain

The wisdom that we need to hear is not on FOX News or CNN.
Mother Earth is calling to us- but do we hear?
I happened to be clearing thru my computer file clutter and found this amazing link to the
words of Mary No-Eyes ~ Purely by chance, renowned author Mary Summer Rain met No-Eyes, a blind Chippewa visionary gifted with prophecy.


According to the Audio Book Summary of the recordings:
Mary No-Eyes teaches Mary Summer Rain about the history of the Chippewa people& shares her wisdom and perspective on life and offering startling but compelling visions of the future, including some upheavals on the horizon. Listening intently to her teacher and new friend, Summer Rain learns about the unique relationship between the Earth Mother and the many creatures in her domain.

The Audio Phoenix Rising: No-Eyes' Vision of the Changes to Come is available at:http://www.theaudiobookstore.com/authors/mary-summer-rain/

And there is the book :

Spirit Song: The Introduction of No-Eyes [Paperback]Mary Summer Rain . Summer Rain, Mary: Phoenix Rising; 1987/1993, Hampton Roads Publg. Co., Norfolk, VA


The following is from those compilations where Mary No Eyes has said:

"Earth Mother in bad labor. She gonna give birth to something great. She already in first labor hours... She be in great pain now... It be great Phoenix that gonna rise up again just like all times ago. He already here... He been forming for years now. He all ready to break out of Earth Mother’s womb... She gonna give up great Phoenix soon..."
In her summary of The Phoenix Chronicles, Mary Summer Rain listed some signs of the times and the birth of the Phoenix:

Massive blue collar strikes, relocation of key factories overseas, computerization of factories, extended import & export embargoes & taxations, increased unemployment, widespread factory shutdowns, excessive taxation, small business failures, insolvency of many banks, stock market misdealings & decline, drastic construction decline, devaluation of real estate, increase in corporate crime, drop in level of manufactured goods, increase of corporate monopolies & takeovers, widespread layoffs, runaway credit purchases, cash as only accepted tender.

Several close meltdowns & leaks, seeping radioactive dump sites, two catastrophic meltdowns, radioactive pollution of land & rivers, several major accidents of nuclear missile trucks carriers and the transportation of nuclear waste, radioactive releases caused from geological instability.

People’s revolt and resistance movements, draft evasion, public's discovery of coverups, nuclear exchange. "Crouching/Massive Revolts & Government Turnaround, Taxation refusals, war resistance, policy disagreements within government body, major upheavals within governments.

And then Flying Free/Rise of the Age of Peace where there is Total equality among people, discontinuance of all meat ingestion, construction reforms, cessation of most severe natural disasters, pollution-free energy innovations by way of the Earth’s magnetic field, rise of the Indian nation through widespread adaptation of its Ways of natural living and deep human philosophy~

Musings on what sets us free?

Scandals....War...Politics...Stress...Tension...Markets are up & down...everything seems upside down?
Environmental Degradation...The Newspapers full of senseless unkind and insane acts of inhumanity. Hate. Rage. You even see it on the road-- people risking their lives to speed, pass and cut others off. Why?

What stories are we telling ourselves?

Time to step back and see where our stories as a collective body of people, a community, a family, as nations, a race, a creed, a gender have brought us.
Time to examine our stories and what stories we want to nurture or keep repeating from generation to generation.

I still love and re-read Eckhart Tolle's Book the New Earth- Awakening to your Life's Purpose.

" If you were not familiar with our contemporary civilization, if you had come from another age or another planet," states Tolle, " one of the things that would amaze you is that millions of people love and pay money to watch humans kill and inflict pain on each other and call it 'entertainment' "." Drama" .."The pain-body.. magnifies the ego's need for enemies".

Interesting. How many of us are even conscious of this thing called EGO? We are trapped in "Object"consciousness .... Most of our lives are cluttered up with things, material things to have or get or things to do, things to think about", he explains.

Is this freedom?

How do we cut through this? How can we bring sanity back to our planet?

First we have to be aware that much of what we do is in fact informed by stories that we carry on with....and with habits... or ways of doing things that we never question if they even make sense or if they really serve us. Gossip out of control? I sat at a table the other day and heard a person hold court with gossip and stories and gossip and finally no one was speaking as this person droned on and on with petty details of " he said.. she said".

We are trapped in our own insanity. Because we are evil? I don't think so.

Can we tolerate being quiet and still enough to examine the thought-less-ness that stands in the way of being aware of what a high price we are paying for carrying around egos of pain, hate, feeling less than, scarcity, greed, that empty spiritual hole that can't seem to be filled with enough distraction, activity, sex, drugs, noise, music,TV , Internet, video games cigarettes, success, needing to be the leader, the winner, the hero?? etc. etc.?

Why are we so afraid of quiet? of stillness? of nature?

"The greatness of life arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody's life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing greatness. " To read more of these easy to read concepts do spend time with Tolle's book The New Earth...a sin Slow time-- quiet time... aware of the ego talking to you as you read. Warning! Your ego may just kick and scream all the way through!
Just Read The book!

I rarely go to the cinema. I find many films just pure feeding of fear or keeping us feeling scared -- like the negative newspaper stories we read everyday. Where are the good news stories of people caring for each other? or Overcoming hate and fear or depression?

I just recently saw the film Invictus...it reminded me of the brilliance of how a leader helped a nation cross the lines of a horrible history together... where
(not perfectly and still imperfect) Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the first President of a free South Africa initiated a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land. He called upon the national rugby team to take on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Ah! He could have led with revenge and hate for the other. But who is really the OTHER?

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley 1875

This poem gave strength and courage to Mandela while he was incarcerated.
Henley, at the age of 12, despite a severe bout with TB successfully passed the
Oxford senior student student exams in 1867. In 1875 he wrote the "Invictus" poem from his hospital bed after having his leg amputated after the disease progressed to below his knee.

See The Trailer! See The Movie: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1889666329/

and Learn about the man:
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php

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Redwood Musings

Hearts beating, the earth is
virgin Forest trembling.
(how do I)
Sweep my arms
around the Trees to protect them?
--by Redwood Mary