Comment by Gail on December 4, 2011 at 12:58pm

Though I too like Chris Hayes (he is very cute), I am not in as much agreement with you on the wisdom of his position.

Chris Hayes is as interested in his own security as any of us are.  Right now, he is part of a pretty safe group of people with camera presence, a fairly quick mind, and an ability to keep up with events as they occur on a show of his kind.  But that's as far as I can go in agreement.  Let me explain by telling you a story from my own life.

I have had a couple of jobs where I was the first (and in one case second) woman in the US to hold such a position position in the financial industry.  In the second job (where I was the only woman in the US doing the work) I was working on a straight commission basis.  I as told that based on what others do, I should expect to ear somewhere around $x.

Six months later, my income was double that.  My boss told me that he had to give me a pay cut because I was earning more than the men.  So?  I said.  So I'm a woman and men take me out.  I don't have to take women out.  I don't need as much.  I handed him my portfolio and suggested that he compare the numbers therein with what anyone else in the market place is doing.  Reminding him that I was on straight commission, I asked him to do the math and do whatever he felt was fair.  He came back the next day and said that he wouldn't cut my pay, but I found a new job (in the same industry) and left anyhow.  I knew it was only a matter of time ...

Today, the same job that was once so lucritive for me pays "women's wages".  The job is no longer an executive position.  It is a clerk's position.  It has been devalued because it has been found that women are exceptionally good at it.

Chris Hayes reminds me of who I was during the Carter years.  I was earning great money, I had a great life, and life looked rosey.  I heard about all of the problems, but I had a job and the suffering never really touched me - other than I had to pay someone to stand in line for me to fill my gas tank.

Chris is looking at the Occupy movement from the outside in.  Many look at it from the inside out, and what a different view that is.  If the day comes that his job can be done by computer animations or simply someone willing to find a way to bypass union rules and do the job for less, Chris and those of his kind will also become part of the 99%.  He may not want to think about it, but it's a possibility in his lifetime.

Chris is a good television personality, but he is not well versed in the inner workings of our economic policies.  He seems to regard as irrelevant the recent books of Peter Scheizer and Jack Abramoff - both outlining the extent of the corruption in congress - where bribery, insider trading, and profiteering (embezzlement) are everyday practice.  He works for a company that does not want those who look at what is not there, so you get only half of the picture.  (MSNBC is different from FOX in that FOX just makes up most of the issues.)

Of course Chris and your wise reverend do not like to contemplate the failure of the entire economic system.  I don't either.  But I see it as being inevitable, and I think that we serve ourselves and humanity well by creating a system that will soften the blow for all of us.  If the economy fails, is that catastrophic?  ABSOLUTELY!!!  But for as long as we now live in the most corrupt nation in the world  - according to a growing number of indexes, (and thanks to Dr. Bryzinski who pointed them out) - we have been shut out of any ability to straighten things out.

We have been taught lies about how government works - in our government-funded education.  We have been denied pertinent information for "alleged" national security reasons.  We have been fed mistruths because of national security.  How can such an inadequately educated population  (who are told that their diploma means that they are educated) figure these things out. We are now a peo

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 4, 2011 at 1:13pm

Gail,

 

Ah Hah!!! I suspected we had much in common.

 

My view on occupy , what they have done right and wrong, what they should be doing now are my own thinking, my own views.. All I write and speak are.  I speak only from my own authenticity.

My view on Occupy taking a non partisan postiion that witnesses and informs , stands in solidarity with all afflicted by what has broken is my own. having listened and observed carefully.

 

You might notice all my blogs have been on this theme.

 

+ I think it is useful to point to what is being said and discussed by others especially in public and influential forums that are outside the domain that Occupy Cafe might usually engage.

I agree with you the prospects for  safe navigation of all of us through the nightmare created by Ben Bernanke, Bill Clinton on his way out the door, Alana Greenspan and those who beleieved in him are bleak.  There will be  alot more darkness before we see light agian no matter what we do.

But still, mobilizing all of us, the entire 99% who are socially and politically disenfranchised, can make some difference, can begin moving us in the right direction.

Occupy needs to be looking more outward and have more of its purpose. dedicated to bringing those 99% voices together through witness and solidarity.

Comment by Gail on December 4, 2011 at 1:46pm

What is the right direction?  What can we all agree on and why should we agree on "that"?  How can we trust one another after having been so socially disenfranchised - as you so aptly put it.   How can we move forward without a vision?  How can we make informed choices without adequate information?  These are questions I am asking myself.

Knowledge is Power, yet in my area, I see very little interest in education that is necessary for us to do what needs to be done.  Perhaps THAT is the banner that all can unite under.  Simply Knowledge is Power (let the sun shine in).  Hold Teach-Ins that teach the real story of our common history and the real story about the atrocities that we call our economic system.  Hold "meditate-ins" and teach about the evidence that shows the power of meditation.  Teach manifesting.  Have manifesting support groups to encourage others.  But who would come to the Teach-In?  I haven't found anyone in my area.  Then again, I am not in the most beautiful state of Maine.

We are a people who are functionally uneducated.  We need to fix that.  So how to sell it?  Logic doesn't work.  Fear only promotes more fear, and fear blinds us to reason.  What is left?  I don't think that I have ever been so dumbfounded by how to proceed as I have been as a part of Occupy.

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 4, 2011 at 2:45pm

Gail,

How can we trust one another? What can We all agree on?, what is the right direction?  Those are the right question but we don't have to answer them all up front.before we start moving in a direction that is very different from the direction the country, the globe has taken us in over th e past three decades.

Each of us can do that right where we are in every moment..we can pave the way for more listening more recognizing one another as fellow family in the 99% by what we do and say.  We don't need to wait for Occupy or anyone else to tell us what to do and so far Occupy has not been effective in  doing much more than sending out a pulse that for a brief moment caught everyone's attention.  Clear from the Black Friday results what the 99% want is what they had this past two decades when the bottom 80% of the economic ladder were spending 100% of their incomes.  Occupy didn't hold the attention of the 99%.

I have personally been standing with supporting speaking with those who have been doing this real work of witnessing,naming, holding up..stopping what further disenfranchises, furthering what is standing up for meaningful action and meaningful chnage..Occupy hasn't done that at all.

I'm horrified by Occupy Housing..shows how completely disconnecetd Occuy is from the real conditions of the victims of the housing mortgage scandal..can you imagine..occupying foreclosed housing as squatters to provide for their own survival..There are hundreds of millions hurt by what happened..how do you think the owner sof those houses will feel seeing Occupy squatting..especially when occupy hasn't even supported Tammy Baldwin in her resolution disagreeing with the presidents plan to grant banks immunity from criminal liability for their criminal acts.

So Occupy is getting a lot of the credit for many things that have happened as a result of the pulse of energy they sent through the system and now a lot of attention through the voice of Jesse LaGrecca..but no one is waiting to see what Occupy is going to do next..

I think Occupy could use that mor wisely and constructively to build an authentic voice of the 99% but only if their entire strategy becomes about witness and solidarity to the circumstances people are actually in..naming and giving witness to what good is happening in Congress..what really horrific things are going on.

We don't teach or learn in "teach ins" we teach and learn in actually taking up the work that needs to get done and finding a way to do it.

 

 

Comment by Gail on December 5, 2011 at 6:40am

I learned much in the last Teach-In I attended, but it was not the type of information that I could take into the world and immediately turn into change - because we are so disconnected with and distant from our own government. I can write congress and my local newspapers and I can tell people what is going on, suggest a solution, and encourage support for my idea, but so far, I have been very unsuccessful in effecting change. (I’ve been working on this problem since the mid 80s) I am so frustrated that I am starting to think that the only way to fix what is so broken is to admit that it is so broken as to be not-fixable- so let the economy fail. And it IS that broken. It cannot be fixed without restructuring the entire economic system. That’s just fact.

If people are uninterested in even understanding at what point the whole thing broke (1816 with an unconstitutional Supreme Court decision called Mc Culloch v. Maryland that established the national bank and sent power rushing out to the Robber Barons), and they remain unwilling to repair the break - meaning that the playing field can never be re-leveled and power never be measured out in equal proportions, what chance does Occupy have of success? It doesn't.

I stand for "fix the problem first" AND THEN address the issues that are meaningful to the American people - whatever they are. Only then will we have the power to do so.

I do not stand for attacking symptoms, which is what I THINK I hear you suggesting. I believe that's a clear waste of time. In a corrupted system, you can beat one symptom into the ground, but another will immediately arise to take its place and we become like hamsters on a hamster wheel, always chasing symptoms. It is this very diversionary tactic that has left us victims of the corruption that has brought so much misery into the lives of so many. We are being manipulated because we have been TAUGHT how to be manipulated. We have been intentionally taught that in our own corrupt, government-sponsored educations and in the churches that our government encourages us to attend.

So, yes, witness to the corruption in Congress. (Have you read Peter Schweizer's book "Throw Them All Out" or Abramoff's book "Capitol Punishment? If not, please google them and watch the author interviews on You Tube and 60 minutes archives of last month). Witness to the pain that the corrupt government is inflicting in the lives of many in order to line their own pockets. But then show the people how to stop it AND prevent it from ever afflicting humanity again. That’s what I stand for.

The ultimate collapse of the economy is the most terrifying thing that most people can think about. I understand why people would rather work against their own best interests and pay the criminals in government to oppress them. It's a matter of survival - for themselves, their children, & their grandchildren. Time IS running short however. We can either crash or have a controlled crash. I am for the controlled crash. That’s why I support parallel economic models or even alternative ones.  They will lessen the damage.

Until we are able to step outside of our understandable fears, the fundamental underlying problem remains (the one that came before and caused the initial break in our political process). The fundamental Judeo-Christian worldview is provably in error. It is literally unsustainable and self-damning. It is a cruel and inhumane worldview that disenfranchises the many for the benefit of the few. If we cling to the fundamental mistake in the common worldview, we will never find the courage to do what needs to be done. We will pass that problem on to our children, and by then, unless we prepare THEM to do what we did not have the courage to do, we give them a much larger problem.

We need to start talking about our God-concepts, but we will never do that. THAT’s the biggest hindrance to fixing what is broken. We need to talk about the di

Comment by Gail on December 5, 2011 at 6:44am

Continued:  We need to talk about the difference between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of the christian church. We need to talk about all of the evidence (agreed to by Jewish scholars) that recognizes that Torah is a myth rather than a narrative of historical fact. We need to show how the Muslim religion is also based on the same flawed understandings and whatever else exposes their lies. We need to undermine the marriage between the church and the state. I don’t know of anything other than a horrific war (which is probably coming more quickly than we care to think about - because only another war has any hope of bringing temporary & incomplete improvement in our economy while diverting the American people from recognizing the fundamental problems inherent in a war-based economy. Only this will allow the massive corruption to continue. It exists because we are afraid and our fear is being used against us.

So some fight for better medical insurance while a few “looney tunes” work to teach healthy ways of living a holistic life (one that prevents illness). Some fight for big brother to help SOME OF the oppression that big brother is intentionally using - while the “looney tunes” work to teach life-skills that render oppression meaningless. Some fight for increased national defense while the “looney tunes” work to introduce peace. We can’t deal with any of these conficts without the willingness to talk about the common denominator of all of our problems.

All this because the people of the United States are exactly like the people of Air Strip One in George Orwell’s “1984”. They are calling slavery freedom. They are calling ignorance strength. They are calling war efforts peace efforts. They are convinced that they are correct (because they have been intentionally TAUGHT that it is correct – by both the church and its partner, the state, whose survival depends on our ignorance of this). Thus too many fight to ensure their continued slavery, eternal wars, and censorship of ideas that would allow Americans to come together to solve their many problems.

There is another way, and I believe that only education will allow Americans to agree to fix what is so broken. At the same time, I have yet to find anyone interesting in having a Teach-In about the very things that America needs to know in order to FIX what is so broken. We can teach about anything but that. Dear god, not that!

I’m disappointed in the Occupy movement and I have lost faith in the American people. Are they in denial or in a delusion? Is there a difference? But when the shit hits the fan, I know that many will finally begin to be serious about finding a solution. Should we really be looking at how to speak to those who are just awakening from their nightmarish denial? How do we do that without reinforcing the need for the very things that we fear and find abhorrent?

I am interested in knowing if what I have said here makes sense to you. I am finding it very hard to work with Occupy and tend to my own safety in the upcoming crisis. I am thinking that a house divided against itself cannot stand – and I am a house divided for as long as I beat my head against a wall calling out to those whom the very laws of physics say that I am unable to reach using the means that our current worldview say is possible.

Peace,
Gail

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 5, 2011 at 8:06am

Dear Gail,

 

I see what you see.  I see a system that is so broken no one can even imagine a cure..a way out..I see a whol e population that doesn't understand that.  Those are both facts.

I too am overwhelmed, absolutely stunned by what I see. Stunned to understand it was going on the whole time and I never saw it.  I lived with the illusion that the new deal was a done deal, forever the "innerstructure: of America, that all we accomplished in comsumer protections and environmental protections was forever also part of our "innerstructure".  That veil too is pierced by all I have come to know and understand about the economic and political realties around us now.  There are no certainities.  No Matter waht we do.  As Rev Roberts wrote in his eloquent and wise post, the earth and her people will cry for a very long time.

I don't believe that what you and I want to see will happen in our life times..it will take decades to bring it all around.  I do what work I can to contribute to that, in any way I can.  We have to  just do that work, whatever it is for each of us without ceasing, in the face of great uncertainty.

My work, the work that I am called to do able to do is  perhaps different from what you are called todo.

 

What the world needs is what awakens us.

Our work, whatever it is to stay awake.

Comment by Gail on December 5, 2011 at 8:22am

You said that you don't believe that it will happen in our life times.  Perhaps that is the core of my disappointment.

I remember something that happened to/with me when I was four.  It had to do with the bringing about of peace on earth.  Now, in retrospect, I find it most amazing that a four year old would even know that there wasn't peace on earth, but that's what the astonishing revelation was about.  Now I have doubts about my ability to see it through.

Oh well, I'll keep working on the problem in my own way as you work on it in yours.  Peace and thanks.

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 5, 2011 at 8:49am

Gail,

In your commitment you are bringing about peace on earth..it is all the work we commit to now and carry out every day  and encourage others to that will make this hpapen.  We will see that we are moving in the right direction in our life time..we will know that the earth and her people will get there after our time..we will know we have somehow been part of that and we will never stop working for that in our life time.

My first "revelation"  that what we worked decades to secure and build as the nations' "inner structure"  was not permament came  after 11 years as a member of the NYS Banking Board when new Supeintendent Neil Levin at his first Board meeting with us said "What, what's the CRA?  Well have to get rid of that" ( The CRA was part of the banking consumer protections that were dismantled on Clinton's way out the door and that after 8 years lead to the 2008 crisis).And in a flash I saw that all we had worked for and thought we accomplished wasn't permanent and was being undermined, eroded, taken apart piece by piece day by day.  It took 6 decades to build that "inner structure" we thought was secure forever..and things were much simpler when I retired from public life in 1997.  Now that I have taken time to study the scale and impact of the dismantling that has taken place, the place of derivatives in the global market; our entrapment in derivatives ( which I fought my entire 11 years on the banking board), how much control corporations have over our daily lives via our congress, how now we as a nation cannot even control our own destiny by any chnages we might undertake..I see a very long process..and also a radically different direction.

What we can do now, establish in our lifetimes, is the "master plan" for that transition which must begin now with all of us working on it.

Peace & Thnaks to you as well

Lindsay

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