Mah^piya áya cha inihinmiciye

So, what do we study and why bother? Well, for starters we really must begin the transformation with as much awareness as possible of the ‘problem’ confronting us. To change or shift, our conscious linguistic expression of our beingness must be motivated by an undying, unwavering belief that what passes for the consensual reality of our fellow americans is not Dharmic, is not right action. Any reticence to change will instantly convert to no change at all. This cannot be a little thing; it must be complete and utter. This shouldn’t be a difficult task however.

I used the following sequential dialectic with my Eighth grade GATE class and found it to be both revolutionarily transformational and sufficiently simple and basic for everyone’s needs. We begin with a careful and detailed analysis of the actions of those who control economic power in the world today. We can view these machinations in two forums. First, we look at the various year-end fiscal reports of the Fortune 500, and second we review the legislative expressions of the representatives of the money--the US Government, congress, executive, and judicial.

In the first case the difference between profit and loss, or really between profit and 400+% mega profits, grows from the relationship capital holds with labor. The absolute indicator of profitability is the ratio of expenses for labor versus costs of materials. When this ratio squeezes towards 1:1 rather than say 14:1 or 200:1 then the profitability skyrockets. We must remember that the salaries of executives are not considered as expenses for labor but rather a renumeration for services towards increasing profit.

Regardless of the competition for capital investing among the big 1000, the reduction of cost of human labor is the absolute benchmark for success. Several economists have pointed out that the goal of corporate capital is to drive out the costs of labor through machine intervention. One group of estimates from the Institute for Policy Studies and the American Economists Association reveals that up to 60 % of all labor in the US economy will be replaced by machine; this amounts to 90 million more people out of work in America alone with no future employment in their vision. These figures include the service sector as well as the information analysis new-world order. My question is why? What, or really in whose, best interest does this shift in how people survive benefit? After all, the Chief Administrative Officer for the County of Los Angeles stated in her testimony to the Assembly of the State of California that “we must change the way people are expected to survive.”

In the simplest of contexts changing the survivability of the human population, through eliminating their relationship with the means of production, service, capital investing, etc., would indicate that the very wealthy 1% of the Earth’s population have a succinct awareness of the fragility of the environment to human existence. In the ultimately long-term view mechanization of the economy would mean a cleaner more sustainable corporate world. If you doubt the applicability of this, merely remember that when the baby boomers were growing up they were told that by the end of the century most of their daily work would be converted to leisure lifestyles. Of course they(you know, them, ) didn’t have the foresight or vision to predict the ruin of human spirit exampled by homelessness, substance abuse, violent muckings, and other depredations of the population. But to the corporate capitalist, so what? Shifting the economic burden to the individuals to survive without support from employment further isolates the elite from the potentialities of environmental collapse.

consumer capitalism comes as a package--you cannot have these goods without the social disintegration that goes with them...increasingly we are part of a worldwide movement of rejection of developmentalism, of a crazy industrialization that manages to avoid addressing basic needs

So, if the business community is changing from a human labor based condition to a electronically controlled hermetically sealed bio-spheric single species driven system, then what legislation does the business community buy from government. The most direct and simplest manner with which to assess and evaluate the progress that legislatures are making towards satisfying the imperatives of corporate capitalism is to critique the current budget debate at the Federal level. First and foremost, the debate is not at all about expenditures of funding nor long range changes in the doing of the business of government. No! This debate is really about who lives in the 21st century.

The words of Governor Lamm should suffice to bring the issue close to heart. Echoing the sentiments of the LA County CAO, the “former” governor stated during the recent health care fiasco, referring to the adjustments to the Medicare and other SSI programs for the elderly, that the senior citizens had “a duty to die and get out of the way.” The gentleman is currently directing a group of former Democratic politicos who are studying the possibility of running a second nominee to the convention. This group called proverbially the Gang of Seven includes such long-time fear mongers as: Bill Bradley, Lowell Weicker, Paul Tsongass, Gary Hart, Tim Penny, and Angus King. Even the Speaker of the House has offered his own little suggestion to ‘getting out of our way.’

Earlier last year Newt Gingrich pronounced, “I am prepared to say to the poor, ‘You have to learn new habits. The habits of being poor don’t work.’”

When the US Congress engages in the rhetoric of budget battling to disguise the real heart of the issue they even slip into the proverbial blatant admission of intent.

During the course of last year’s budget debate in the House of Representatives, John L. Mica (R.Fla) held up a sign saying DO NOT FEED THE ALLIGATORS and presented the committee with a moral allegory. Alligators he said, were like recipients of food stamps. Let them once become accustomed to “unnatural feeding and artificial care” and sooner or later they turn lazy and mean...Not only did the alligators fall ill but, even worse and more to the point them became dependent--unfit to fend for themselves and a burden on the productive members of their native swamps.” no alligators in the lifeboat” lewis lapham, Harpers

We do know that like the bears in the Rocky’s and the mountain lions in California, alligators in Florida which are found to be living off the human side of the scale are hunted down and killed with extreme prejudice. I can only think that the Congressman was echoing both his Speaker’s wishes as well as those of his financial supporters, when he advocates the removal of inferior species from the human realms.

The message is quite straightforward and without much obfuscation. Indeed, the blatant use of language which defines the proposition as being us having power over them is the rhetoric of choice throughout the major corporate owned and operated media. And you know it really does make sense from the elitist Euro-centric white man’s perspective. The budgetary proposals which link the supposed arguments for balanced budgets and debt reduction are filled with the nefarious and most vile suggestions that could only benefit rich white men. A partial list includes:
∑ elimination of all support for teen age parents and their offspring, severe restrictions on access to health care,
∑ the end of AFDC and Food Stamps over a seven year cycle, gutting of all environmental regulations,
∑ defunding all environmental clean up and enforcement,
∑ selling off public lands to private resource developers,
∑ proposals to eliminate the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and of course the EPA,
∑ elimination of funding for post-secondary education,
∑ increase the military and energy corporate spending.

Why are these proposals offered? It seems that the most recent documentation from space shuttle research and other earth bound studies describe significant changes in the global health of GAIA. These changes include:
∑ Global warming of one-third to one-half degree Fahrenheit per decade, culminating in a rise in sea levels above four feet in 2035+ 5. Such changes already have spawned the massive flooding of farm lands, tremendous droughts, millions of deaths world wide---all from a one and one-half degree rise since 1960. Expected total change if all production of green house gases were stopped by 2000, will produce a planet incapable of supporting 90% of the life forms currently viable. As of Fall of 1998, the North Polar Icepack was thinner than ever previously recorded, warmer than ever, and the Polar Sea was less saline than ever. These conditions could only be attributed to global warming caused by human neglect.
∑ The loss of six percent (6%) of the Stratospheric OZONE since 1980, leading to the increase in UVA/UVB levels over the whole of the planet. The increase(6%/decade/10X) will continue for a minimum of 150 years if all chemicals which destroy upper level atmospheric OZONE were discontinued by 1993. Such is not the case. Increases in ultra-violet radiation destroy the genetic integrity of all life, virtually ending the future development of protozoans, monerans, protists, etc., in the polar oceans. 70 % of all GAIA oxygen and 61 % of all ocean food sources come from these kingdoms. World wide, the amphibian population, an indicator species for increased ultraviolet radiation, has been decimated and genetically damaged, in some cases, beyond repair.
∑ The rapid reduction of all arable lands due to erosion of fertile soils will destroy the ability of the planet to support large populations of humans. The principle causes to the loss will include: over-fertilization from fossil fuel based chemicals; flooding due to the damming of rivers and other large scale water projects; urbanization of agricultural lands on a global scale; and the necessary massive over production of high protein products to the detriment of all.
∑ The immediate effects of large system natural disasters are economic. There are no longer financial institutions in place which can generate the necessary liquidity of capital to literally plug up the losses from future natural disasters. Worldwide economic collapse is imminent due solely to the non-exisitence of the actual funds.
∑ Estimates range up to 60% of all wealth as being generated on computer programming rather than the useable value of any given resources. In times of disasters of ‘biblical proportion’ the intrinsic value of goods and services are based on their ability to ease suffering, not on their dollar or equivalents. Only systems of barter and trade in energy, foods, and above all fresh pure water will exist.
∑ Planet wide pollution from industrial and service operations has toxified most of the available fresh water on the surface of the planet. The persistent use of underground storage for toxic wastes of all forms is destroying the sub-surface aquifers throughout the globe. Clean, fresh, pure water for safe consumption and food production is no longer a viable economic reality. The trends demonstrate that water will become the most fought after commodity of the 21st century.

So what does this mean to the corporate elites? Great wealth is believed to be the basis of power and therefore the progenitor of solutions for future human life. If, given sufficient wealth, groups of individuals believe they will be capable of purchasing safe habitats for their survival. These habitats will include: safe water; clean foods; proper health care; high technological support systems using all remaining available fuel sources; biospheric prophylaxis and multi-stage flitration systems for breathable air and reduction of radiation both man-made and natural; sophisticated hvac units to preserve the viable range of climatic conditions required to grow plants and animals for food sources; etc..

Obviously the rich would need to purchase the loyalty of many armies and other outside services to preserve their lives. The most probable vision of this course would include much from Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale , in which the wealthy have shut off access to their geographic region and use expendable human resources to maintain the safety and cleanliness of same. The most basic and all too entirely obvious conclusion is that billions of people will have to die suffering deeply and gravely so that a very few(less than 1/2 of 1% of the Earth’s population) can survive the environmental breakdown.

There is an underlying philosophical etiology of this scenario which encourages both its coming to pass and the lack of resistance to it. It can best be summed up in the context that for the Judeo-Christian-Muslim civilization the provebial expression suffering builds character applies to all human relations, while for the Buddhist-Indigenous populations their mantra of suffering is the cause of all human problems and only compassion will suffice evinces the aura of GAIAN wisdom. It is clear that the arithmetic of the rich based on the corporate capitalism of “western civilization” must by its own definitions show that might makes right and only the strong survive and other such platitudes of Darwinian social and physiological triumphs.

The simplicity of the rational solution to the degradation of GAIA, “killing off inferior species to insure the survival of the fittest against all other odds” is not a new concept. Indeed it reeks of a certain traditionalism from the earliest of Christian empire builders. Dare we forget the Native indigenous american peoples!

One further extremely important aspect of cultural and species specific genocides is the evolutionary diversity of the MEME pool. The studies of the evolutionary/revolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins, in such works as The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype and River out of Eden, proposes that in much the same way that genes carry the patterns of development and inherent GAIAN wisdom from generation to generation so to do MEMES. These are the units of coding for memory or information survivability and are tagged to the DNA of all life forms on the planet. In we humans our memes would possess cultural attributes and, given a proper set of philosophical constructs, could be manifested through what Jungians describe as cultural archetypes.

Certain MEMES gain, over eons, the capacity to become highly successful replicators and thereby, weaken their competition. This monopolization of information and singular patterns of survivability, tend to encourage mutations and random fractal based chaos which needs fewer opportunities to destroy the once mighty and powerful Selfish gene/ meme/phenotype; a process described as the loss of evolvability. It is therefore imperative that the greatest distribution of meme/gene diversity be propagated through both cultural and species diversity to insure the best possible sources for evolvability. Preserving diversity is then the role of all species but especially those that are more prone to the lure of the Selfish. (re: homo sapians sapiens;\global corporate capital consumerism). We can read this as the meme for the whole lineage and traditional western mind virus we have referred to as the Judeo-Christian-Muslim civilization.

In the most “wig-bubble” parameters, human memes carry all of the proto-typical information for the entire manifestation of the GAIAN DNA as ‘it ‘ has been revealed. Such a view would necessitate the recognition of the greatest possible diversity of all species as well as of all human cultural possibilities; this being due to the need for the information which is dormant from generation to generation to re-express itself to itself. Without this interdependent reconnection the memes would be justified in losing the capacity to carry the referential symbolisms and thereby empower the carrier(i.e. homo sapian sapiens) to eliminate the potential survivability or evolvability of the diverse information/ sentient being streams.

It is afterall the long term welfare and survival of the children which is our essential role. And without the diversity of cultures and languages in our classrooms how can children grow to learn to respect and cherish the necessary diversity of all species. This is a cyclical demand. For all life to exist in healthy harmony, the new generations of two leggeds must protect all species. To do this they must learn that diversity is maximally beneficial. To learn this they must experience cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom. Cultural and linguistic diversity grows solely from the diversity of the species of the planet, GAIA.
Elegance is the best and perhaps even the only revenge against chaos, my good old trail buddy, he said. And the key to elegance is play. As who knows better than our fun-seeking verbal jeweler the intrinsic importance of the play repeat play of light and shadow and also sheen, sparkle, glitter, and twinkle? If you miss that and the verbal and auditory equivalents to it, such as connotation in words and overtones, chords and so on in music, shame on you my good man. You might as well be a stone, or a particle or a wave. Because we’re talking about the quality and potential range of human consciousness, my fellow sojourner.

These words of Albert Murray describe the context of the pedagogical tongue. As educators we are programmed and conditioned to respond to the curriculum with our minds preset to a configuration of form and structure. To be mentors and teachers in the most human sense we need to deconstruct our programming and open our minds and hearts to the “elegance of being.” And that essential elegance is found not in monochromatic monocultural milieus but rather in the diverse classrooms across California where we can hear in their voices the subtle elegance expressed with sparkle and twinkle and overtones and connotations.

The other night i had the opportunity to sing and pray with Lightning Horse, a keeper of the sacred white buffalo calf pipe given to we Lakota nearly 20 generations ago. I later told my students about this because the return of the sacred white buffalo woman can only be analogized with the hope filled desires of Christians around the world to see Jesus of Nazareth again walking around with them. The strength of spirit that one receives from such pure joy greatly outweighs the visage of the Grand Inquisitor. It was an experience that my pubescent herds called really cool!

One of the residues of the evening was an image in my mind of a painting that was being left unfinished; and i can only describe it this way:

a large canvas is covered in light blue lines which give only the slightest hint of shape, form, and texture. the spaces between the lines are matrixed with constantly changing patterns of numbers. this is quite literally a “paint by number” blank which no one seems to want to hold, color, or finish.

I believe the numbers are changing through the efforts of critical commentators whose views are trying to portray a vision of the future of the United States as accurately at possible given the machinations of capital, human greed and beliefs, and ultimately the decay of the planet GAIA. What keeps the painting from being finished is the anxiety and fear that the final image seems to be evoking as it develops. I think this pattern holds true for every writer who attempt to grasp the golden ring of prescience.

But!! It is time to show the world what the painting will look like so that there might still be a chance to significantly change the vision and the outcome. The refusal to paint the picture continues to empower the double face Unktehi spirits who would destroy our world.

So here’s how i see it:

When colored by the numbers the painting becomes a view of the US dominated by corporate capitalists who have used the conservative christian agenda to assert the dominance of a few white males to the positions of complete and autonomous authority. Most of country looks like scenes from BLADE RUNNER or CLOCKWORK ORANGE or ROLLERBALL. The political authority rests in hands of the moneyed puppets we see in handmaid’s tale, snowcrash, and virtual light. Whole cities are used as prisons for people of color and poverty in which they must fend for themselves among the toxic and poisonous remains of planetary decay. The heat and humidity are unbearable. The enclaves of the rich white people are islands of biospheric separation protected by the use of sophisticated technologies which were developed under the guise of star wars. Robotic armies directed by virtual commanders hunt down the pockets of thought and consciousness much like those found in farenheit 451 or the diamond age drummers. Symbolic iconographic media pollutes the dumb-downed minds of the serfs and peasants whose only sustenance comes as rewards for performing hazardous and toxic services jobs and cleanup. And this is just America.

My sense is that these visions are neither harmonious nor appealing. My sense is that we hope they go away. My sense is that wishing and hoping are not capable functional elements of change.