The Peter Finch Network

40 Years Left

2011-04-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

Dear People,

In recent weeks, a preponderance of scientific, anecdotal, and attitudinal evidence has led me to conclude that the human race has about 40 years left on planet Earth. I am convinced that the entity whose love and support has provided the matrix of support necessary to host, nurture, and sustain biological life is sick. Our true Mother is sick.

I believe that the greedy, expedient decisions made over the past 250 years by some of the leaders of our ‘civilization’—our so-called “Captains of Industry”—have caused dis-harmony and dis-ease for the planet. And, like any natural being with an illness, I believe Mother Earth’s—Gaia’s—self-protective immune system is in the process of fighting back against her body’s dis-harmony and dis-ease, fighting to restore harmony and health. I believe that her body's natural healing response will kill off much of the biological life on the planet's surface--including the human race.

I believe our Mother has a fever.

In humans, a fever is one of the body’s first defensive lines of immune response. The fever creates a heightened temperature that may prove inhospitable to any invading ‘parasites.’ Fever is an automatic response—as I believe ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ are for Mother Earth. I’m guessing that our host’s temperature presently is the equivalent of a 100*F temperature in a human. This is not enough warm enough to totally eradicate any dangerous invaders, but it is warm enough to begin causing changes in the biological environments in which we live and our food and nutrient sources grow and thrive. I believe that Mother Earth’s temperature will continue to rise—that it will rise to what is the equivalent of a 106* or 107*F fever—and that this rise will occur within the next forty years, and that it may sustain itself at that level for more than a hundred years.

At 106*F very few invaders can survive. At 107* and 108*F even the survival of the host entity is in question. I think Gaia will survive her illness. But her recovery might be slow: hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years. But, in the life span of planet Earth, a thousand years would be the equivalent of less than a day in the life of a human. We humans have only been living on Mother Earth for the equivalent of about a week of her life span—we’ve been wreaking havoc with her health for less than an hour. But she has noticed: Her immune system is now fully aware of the invasion. Like the ebola virus, our rise to toxic levels has been fast and powerful. The effect of the proliferation and explosion of our human population is actually more like a skin disease: it is, luckily for Gaia, limited to the surface of the planet. However, as in humans—on which the integument or dermis is the largest organ of the body—the skin is key to the protection, nourishment, and cleanliness to the internal environment. Can a human survive a systemic attack on the skin? A sunburn? Exema? Poison Ivy? Multiple bee stings? Skin cancer? Of course it can. I guess it all depends on what kind of attack this is deemed to be.

40 years. With 40 years left—and who knows what kind of quality of life the planet will support during the last 30 or 20 years—and with little or no hope for future generations to live, much less survive, what kind of pursuits, both short- and long-term, would be valid or even advisable? I mean, I have children about to enter adulthood. What recommendations and/or advice should I offer them given the knowledge and beliefs that I have? For example, of what use is college? Of what use is planning any kind of ‘career’? Of what use is trying to create anything for posterity? Of what use is living for tomorrow—of living in humble mindfulness of the seventh generation ahead—if there is such little chance of survival about 40 years down the road?

The choices we humans are faced with, as I see it, are fourfold: 1) We can go into ‘Survivor Mode,’ preparing for the harsh times ahead. 2) We can stay in ‘Denial Mode’ (as most of us do now), acting or pretending as if there’s nothing wrong—as if life is going to go on just as it “always” has. 3) We can choose to live in ‘Party Mode,’ living hedonistically, with reckless abandon—looking for the next best ‘high,’ laugh, or ‘rush’—with disregard to potential consequences for, “Who knows: Tomorrow we may die!” 4) We can go into ‘Buddha Mode,’ focusing all our energies into getting to know the spiritual side of all of this while learning to detach from the horrors and sorrows occurring all around us while we still occupy bodies on planet Earth.

Most of us will, both consciously and unconsciously, find ourselves tapping into all four modalities—even on a daily—perhaps even scheduled—basis.

A fifth ‘occupation’ I see many of us placing a little time and energy into is that of planning for our own deaths on our terms. By this I mean that we will all spend no little time trying to decide how (and when) you would want to end your stay on the planet. Rather than stay, wait, and watch for the pain, suffering, and physical demise of life and healthy, comfortable living conditions, you plan for your own ‘suicide.’ Out of this preoccupation I foresee support groups forming out of which will come ‘suicide pacts,’ ‘suicide groups,’ and mass suicide events. I imagine these groups and events will almost naturally arise out of the Party and Buddha modes, while, eventually drawing in members from the Denial and even Survivor modes as they come to accept the harsh realities of ebbing life support on the planet.

So, which will it be? How will you choose to deal with the end of Earth’s hospitality? How will you choose to deal with the impending discomforts, diseases, and demise of life-supporting conditions facing all of us within this next generation? How will you find meaning and purpose in your life, in your day, in your relationships, in your choices from this day forward?

"Turn the Blue States Red!"

2011-03-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

While we watch in shock and awe as floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, democratic uprisings, and other natural phenomena occur on our small blue planet, we Americans have been distracted from paying attention to the equally frightening events happening in our own states. A new batch of Republican Party puppets have been ruthlessly bulldozing a series of unnatural and anti-democratic legislations and court rulings into law, pulled off at the command of their capitalist masters. With slogans like, ‘Turn the blue states red!’ ‘Destroy the Democratic Party!’ and ‘One party for all!’ we might as well recognize this push toward the ‘New World Order’ for what it really is: the unveiling of the new fascism.

Humans and human rights, democracy and democratic principles, empathy and morality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness be damned; We, The People, do not figure into the decisions, policies, plans, feelings, or even thoughts of these greedy zealots except in terms of control, use, abuse, and other plutocratic motives. We, The People, are less than pawns, less than infantry fodder, less than human to these sociopath robber barons: We, The People, are disposable, renewable resources.

When historians look back upon the wave of crimes against humanity legalized and enabled in these acts they may compare the ensuing reign of totalitarianism to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung. However, instead of a face or voice to associate with these criminals, history will remember their corporate logos. The faceless masterminds and financiers orchestrating this show are luxuriating securely behind the protection of their corporate ‘bodies,’ their lackey politicians, their armies of lawyers, and their privatized military forces.

For several decades now, we Americans have been sitting back and watching the creation of the new slavery. We are enslaved to our jobs (because of a ‘need’ for income), we are enslaved to our bills (especially our mortgages and credit card debts), we are enslaved to the information we receive through television, schools, and media advertising, we are enslaved to the American Dream. The problem is: the American Dream is—and always has been—a false dream. The American Dream of ‘rags to riches’ success only rarely occurs and when it does it is usually achieved by strong-willed mavericks who think and act ‘outside the box’—who have not cowed to our ‘privatized’ (read: “corporatized”) system of brainwashing. To prove my point: How many of the current richest people in America a) came from the lower class, and b) did not attend private or at least suburban high schools?

So, the question becomes: Are We, The People, willing to sit back and take it? Are we willing to accept “the new normal”? Are we the meek little sheep the ultra-rich capitalists have worked so hard to try to mold and shape? Or are we awake enough and convicted enough to stand up and fight for our natural-born rights and privileges—yeah, even for our very lives? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: on our terms or theirs? Is ‘democracy’ a word that We, The People, get to define, or is it one that we let corporate money define for us? Maybe the truth will finally be realized: Like oil and water, democracy and capitalism are incompatible. Put it on a ballet: “Which is more important to you: the rights of people or the rights of money?”

2010-04-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hey, People! Great news. World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which just took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19 to 22, 2010, has just published its "People's Agreement." It is an AMAZING document which tells the truth as to how we got here and what we need to do to get out of this dire situation.

Go to www.pwccc.wordpress.com to read it. Now.

Power to the People!

Is a "Peaceful Revolution" Possible?

2009-12-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

People are losing faith and patience in the ability of their politicians, their government, to effect change--the kind of real, meaningful, We, The People-serving change we all know is so desperately needed. More and more people are convinced that a real revolution--the kind of revolution in which people risk their reputations, their property, freedoms, and rights, the kind of revolution in which people willingly risk their very lives--has become necessary for us to ever see real change. Many believe that such a revolution is imminent--that the mishandling of economic, environmental, and political issues is causing people to wake up, to get angry, to want to "take matters into their own hands."

My 16-year old step-daughter is one of these so convicted. She keeps asking me whether or not revolution can occur without violence or bloodshed. In his book Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken talks about change coming from small, often local, "grassroots" movements and organizations which, multiplied by the thousands, and connected around the planet via the Internet, he believes could be the (inevitable) means to such a "peaceful revolution." What do you think?

Come on, People! N1H1 is a Small Thing!

2009-10-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

Come on, people! Let’s put some perspective on this over-blown, super-hyped N1H1 thing! Just look at some of these statistics I’ve come across recently and you may get my point.

One in three Americans will contract cancer—a disease (under any name) that was almost unheard of at the time of this country’s founding.
One in two children in this country are at all kinds of health risks (heart disease, diabetes, immune system compromise, etc.) because of obesity.
One in three children in Michigan have type 2 diabetes—a far greater and costlier health risk than a couple weeks of aches and pains.
One in eight children in Michigan will depend on food stamps this year.
The vast majority of the food being pushed upon us is neither tested for health safety nor considered for true nutritive value.
Monocrop cultures and petroleum-based soil and plant treatments have depleted the health of our soil to such a degree that the USDA says that the nutritive values (inherent vitamin and mineral content) of today’s fresh produce has one third of the value that they had in the 1950s.
The majority of Americans experiencing overwhelming debt, home foreclosures, or who are filing for bankruptcy, do so because of insurmountable health care bills.
One in 11 Americans will serve jail time!
The average American will be involved in a lawsuit four times during his/her lifespan.
70% of the world’s lawyers are in the United States (which has 5% of the world’s population)!
From 1979 to present the average household income of Americans has risen only 10% while the cost of a college education has gone up 230%!

When I graduated from Kalamazoo College in 1980 it was the most expensive school in Michigan at $7,200 per year. (It began at $4,200 in my freshman year in 1976.) (Thank you, Dad!) Now you can pay $40,419 per year (a 516% increase) so that you can (hopefully) secure an entry-level job at a salary of (hopefully) 10% more than thirty years ago. Great! Get into debt early so you are forever beholden to financial institutions and forever motivated by the fear of being foreclosed upon or of losing one’s job. Work 70 to 80 hours a week for a job for which you are salaried for 40 hours because if you don’t, “someone else will”—or because, if you sacrifice your job, you’ll risk financial disaster. Or, better yet, forego the “higher education” route, enter the workforce at age 16 or 18, only to find yourself held captive by a modern system of servitude which provides the lowest wages and worst benefits in the “developed” world.

Corporations have usurped the rights intended for We, the People; with their enormously deep pockets they have been able to elbow their way through the court and legislative systems to acquire the same “personhood” status that you and I share. Yet, corporations aren’t born, they don’t die (check the obituaries!), they aren’t citizens, they can’t vote or serve prison time or serve in the military, they don’t have to comply with compulsory school laws, they can’t get sick or suffer mental or physical trauma and disability, you can’t call one up and have a conversation with s/he/it; they aren’t human! And yet, corporations have obtained legal access to all of the rights and benefits entitled to us living, breathing humans under the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact, at present, they own and run our government, this country. (Just ask the well-intentioned, people-oriented Barack Obama.) Corporate lobbyists write and pay for the laws made in this country, their full-time staffs of lawyers and unlimited funds can and will bankrupt any individual (“competitor”) by dragging them through the legal system before any justice can ever be meted, and the executive branch is staffed with former (or current??) corporate executives who create, institute and execute policies that benefit who? Corporations! And notice how our presidents have enjoyed creating a state of perpetual war because it allows them the “right” to trump human rights, civil liberties, and individual constitutional rights, so that they can make a ton of money for themselves and their friends! Our country is messed up! This is not the country our Founding Fathers envisioned!

Corporations refuse to take responsibility for the health risks their polluting habits are presenting to our planet—to all life on this beautiful little planet—but they’ll whip up any and every advertising or scare campaign to get us to buy, buy, buy their useless, senseless, untested, and often (though debatably) harmful products and/or services. And they’ve learned this amazing trick: If they help write the laws in this country, they can create an officially authorized framework that supports and protects their “freedoms” while at the same time manages to allow them to be free from liability, blame, and responsibility for any harm that their products, policies, or services might cause—whether intentionally or unintentionally. A vaccination may kill or drastically alter your child’s life but it is illegal to sue a pharmaceutical company for damages or criminal charges. A corporation can go bankrupt, its executives go untouched and actually make money from the action, and yet the employee that retired after 35 years of dedicated labor can be left high and dry without pension or other contractually-promised retirement benefits.

The gap between the rich and the poor has been widening rapidly since 1980; the middle class is disappearing as more and more workers are falling below poverty lines. The average CEO in America makes more than 411 times as much as the average worker. Does this mean that the average CEO is 411 times smarter than the average worker? Does s/he work 411 times as hard as the average worker? Of course not! So, then, what makes the average CEO 411 times as valuable as the hourly-wage earning employee?

Over and over again our Founding Fathers saw the future pitfalls our country could take and, indeed, has taken: The dangers of having a standing army, the evils of a National Banking system, the dangers to democratic freedoms of overly rich, overly propertied families (an aristocracy), the dangers of allowing religions to infiltrate and/or mix with government, and, their number one fear: the power and influence of corporations and their monopolies.

My point is: N1H1 is such a small thing—a mosquito bite compared to the cancers eating away at industrialized “civilization.” So, get a grip and put your energy into the real issues: the causes underlying our disease-ridden society need our attention.

The Accepted Practices of Capitalism

2009-10-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

(There can be no question or argument as to whether or not the following practices are in fact “accepted” because: 1) they occur every single day, 2) we allow them to go unquestioned, unchallenged, and unopposed, and 3) we pass them on—we teach them to our children.)

Murder

Rape

Pillage

Plunder

Piracy

Conquest

Slavery and enslavement

Genocide

Imperialism

Greed

Avarice

Hoarding

Force

Coercion

Domination

Lying

Deceit and deception

Withholding and concealment

Dishonesty

Misinformation

Inconsistent, pragmatic morality (amorality)

Self-serving morality

Selfishness

Ruthlessness

Denial

Dissociation

Callousness

Arrogance

Prejudice

Bias

Competitiveness/competition

Jingoism

Separation

Elitism

(Please feel free to add any that I have forgotten)

Michael Moore Is Getting Closer to the Truth

2009-10-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore's latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, is his best effort to date. He continues to zero in on the core issues affecting America's decay and demise. I feel that Michael is doing a much better job at flowing back and forth from factual to anecdotal information. I am also always impressed by the before-unknown information he manages to bring to light. For example: corporations' "dead peasants" life insurance policies taken out on low level workers, without the knowledge of the insured, with benefits going solely, and quietly, to the corporations; the number (and names) of corporate banking executives (especially from Goldman Sachs) shuttling back and forth in and out of high level policy-affecting government offices; the friendly, modern, and open Cuban health care system willing to see and treat American heros that have been rejected by our own health care system; the bin Laden family members being whisked away--the only planes/passengers allowed to fly out of the U.S.--after the events of September 11, 2001; the 2001 Bush inaugural motorcade riot that was so effectively covered-up; the U.S.-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world crime and prison statistics; etc. I am impressed with this film most of all for its willingness to take on and expose the abuses and corruption of the most powerful corporations and institution in the world: the banking financial center of Wall Street. That governments now serve as mere puppets to corporate interests is well established in the film but more time could certainly be devoted to it. Perhaps in his next film.

My admiration, enthusiasm, and inspiration, however, were dashed in the last scene of the film. In it, Michael is bravely wrapping a yellow and black "crime scene" ribbon around a building (assumedly on Wall Street). Over the scene his narration is waxing about his dream of a return to democracy. Then he asks for our help. I was crushed to realized that he will probably never get that help because the vast majority of Americans are stifled by the fear that comes with their own enslavement to the capitalist system. Their debt, job insecurity, health care expenses, retirement worries, and diminishing constitutional rights will prevent them from rising to the occasion (to help fight for a return to democracy). Plus, our exceedingly effective education system and corporate media mill has masterfully succeeded in numbing, dumbing, and distracting us from truth and reality. Sorry, Michael! Too many robot sheep out here to help you on your crusade. BUT: We wish you luck!

Presenting Douglas Rushkoff's "Life, Inc."

2009-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

Please find the article from Douglas Rushkoff's book, Life, Inc., below.

Your Money or Your Life: A Lesson on the Front Stoop

I got mugged on Christmas Eve.

I was in front of my Brooklyn apartment house taking out the trash when a man pulled a gun and told me to empty my pockets. I gave him my money, wallet, and cell phone. But then--remembering something I'd seen in a movie about a hostage negotiator--I begged him to let me keep my medical insurance card. If I could humanize myself in his perception, I ﬁgured, he'd be less likely to kill me.

He accepted my argument about how hard it would be for me to get "care" without it, and handed me back the card. Now it was us two against the establishment, and we made something of a deal: in exchange for his mercy, I wasn't to report him--even though I had plainly seen his face. I agreed, and he ran off down the street. I foolishly but steadfastly stood by my side of the bargain, however coerced it may have been, for a few hours. As if I could have actually entered into a binding contract at gunpoint.

In the meantime, I posted a note about my strange and frightening experience to the Park Slope Parents list--a rather crunchy Internet community of moms, food co-op members, and other leftie types ded- icated to the health and well- being of their families and their decidedly progressive, gentrifying neighborhood. It seemed the responsible thing to do, and I suppose I also expected some expression of sympathy and support.

Amazingly, the very ﬁrst two emails I received were from people angry that I had posted the name of the street on which the crime had occurred. Didn't I realize that this publicity could adversely affect all of our property values? The "sellers' market" was already difﬁcult enough! With a famous actor reportedly leaving the area for Manhattan, does Brooklyn's real estate market need more bad press? And this was beforethe real estate crash.

I was stunned. Had it really come to this? Did people care more about the market value of their neighborhood than what was actually taking place within it? Besides, it didn't even make good business sense to bury the issue. In the long run, an open and honest conversation about crime and how to prevent it should make the neighborhood safer. Property values would go up in the end, not down. So these homeowners were more concerned about the immediate liquidity of their town houses than their long-term asset value -- not to mention the actual experience of living in them. And these were among the wealthiest people in New York, who shouldn't have to be worrying about such things. What had happened to make them behave this way?

(...post continues after the jump)

It stopped me cold, and forced me to reassess my own long-held desire to elevate myself from renter to owner. I stopped to think-- which, in the midst of an irrational real-estate craze, may not have been the safest thing to do. Why, I wondered aloud on my blog, was I struggling to make $4,500-per-month rent on a two- bedroom, fourth- ﬂoor walk-up in this supposedly "hip" section of Brooklyn, when I could just as easily get mugged somewhere else for a lot less per month? Was my willingness to participate in this runaway market part of the problem?

The detectives who took my report drove the point home. One of them drew a circle on a map of Brooklyn. "Inside this circle is where the rich white people from Manhattan are moving. That's the target area. Hunting ground. Think about it from your mugger's point of view: quiet, tree-lined streets of row houses, each worth a million or two, and inhabited by the rich people who displaced your family. Now, you live in or around the projects just outside the circle. Where would you go to mug someone?"

Back on the World Wide Web, a friend of mine--another Park Slope writer--made an open appeal for my family to stay in Brooklyn. He saw "the Slope" as a mixed-use neighborhood now reaching the "peak of livability" that the legendary urban anthropologist Jane Jacobs idealized. He explained how all great neighborhoods go through the same basic process: Some artists move into the only area they can afford--a poor area with nothing to speak of. Eventually, there are enough of them to open a gallery. People start coming to the gallery in the evenings, creating demand for a coffeehouse nearby, and so on. Slowly but surely, an artsy store or two and a clique of hipsters "pioneer" the neighborhood until there's signiﬁcant sidewalk activity late into the night, making it safer for successive waves of incoming businesses and residents.

Of course, after the city's newspaper "discovers" the new trendy neighborhood, the artists are joined and eventually replaced by increasingly wealthy but decidedly less hip young professionals, lawyers, and businesspeople--but hopefully not so many that the district completely loses its "ﬂavor." Investment increases, the district grows bigger, and everyone is happier and wealthier.

Still, what happens to the people who lived there from the beginning--the ones whom the police detective was talking about? The "natives"? This process of gentriﬁcation does not occur ex nihilo.

No, when property values go up, so do the rents, displacing anyone whose monthly living charges aren't regulated by the government. The residents of the neighborhood do not actually participate in the renaissance, because they are not owners. They move to outlying areas. Sure, their kids still go to John Jay High School in the middle of Park Slope. But none of Park Slope's own wealthy residents send their kids there.

Our online conversation was picked up by New York magazine in a column entitled "Are the Writers Leaving Brooklyn?" The article fo- cused entirely on the way a crime against an author could threaten the Brooklyn real- estate bubble. National Public Radio called to interview me about the story--not the mugging itself, but whether I would leave Brooklyn over it, and if doing so publicly might not be irresponsibly hurting other people's property values. A week or two of blog insanity later, a second New York piece asked why we should even care about whether the writers are leaving Brooklyn--seemingly oblivious of the fact that this was the very same column space that told us to care in the ﬁrst place.

It was an interesting ﬁfteen minutes. What was going on had less to do with crime or authors, though, than it did with a market in its ﬁnal, most vaporous phase. I simply couldn't afford to buy in--and getting mugged freed me from the hype treadmill for long enough to accept it.

Or, more accurately, it's not that I couldn't afford it so much as that I wouldn't afford it. There were mortgage brokers willing to lend me the other 90 percent of the money I'd need to purchase a home on the block where I was renting. "We can get you in," they'd say. And at that moment in real estate history, putting even 10 percent down would have made me a very qualiﬁed buyer. "What about when the mortgage readjusts?" I remember asking. "Then you reﬁnance at a better rate," they assured me. Of course, that would be happening just about the same time Park Slope's artiﬁcially low property- tax rate (an exemption secured by real- estate developers) would be raised to the levels of the poorer areas of the borough. "Don't worry. Everyone with your ﬁnancials is doing it," one broker explained with a wink. "And the banks aren't going to just let everyone lose their homes, now, are they?"

As long as people refused to look at the real social and ﬁnancial costs, the market could keep going up--buoyed in part by the bonuses paid to investment bankers whose job it was to promote all this asset inﬂation in the ﬁrst place. Heck, we were restoring a historic borough to its former glory. All we had to do was avoid the uncomfortable truth that we were busy converting what were being used as multifamily dwellings by poor black and Hispanic people back into stately town houses for use by rich white ones. And we had to overlook that this frenzy of real- estate activity was operating on borrowed time and, more signiﬁcantly, borrowed money.

In such a climate, calling attention to any of this was the real crime, and the reason that the ﬁrst reaction of those participating in a speculative bubble was to silence the messenger. It's just business. The reality was that we were pushing an increasingly hostile population from their homes, colonizing their neighborhoods, and then justifying it all with metrics such as increased business activity, reduced (reported) crime rates, and--most important--higher real- estate prices. How can one argue against making a neighborhood, well, better?

As my writer friend eloquently explained on his blog, the neighborhood was now, by most measures, safer. It was once again possible to sit on one's stoop with the kids and eat frozen Italian ices on a balmy summer night. One could walk through Prospect Park on any Sunday afternoon and see a black family barbecuing here, a Puerto Rican group there, and an Irish group over there. Compared with most parts of the world, that's pretty civil, no?

Romantic as it sounds, that's not integration at all, but co-location. Epcot- style détente. The Brooklyn being described here has almost nothing to do with the one our grandparents might have inhabited. It is rather an expensive and painstakingly re-created simulation of a "brownstone Brooklyn" that never actually existed. If people once sat on their stoops eating ices on summer nights it was because they had no other choice--there was no air- conditioning and no TV. Everyone could afford to sit around, so everyone did. And the fact that the denizens of neighboring communities complete the illusion of multiculturalism by using the same park only means that these folks are willing to barbecue next to each other--not with each other. They all still go home to different corners of the borough. My writer friend's kids go off the next morning to their private school, those other kids to public. Not exactly neighbors.

Besides, the rows of brownstones in the Slope aren't really made of brown stone. They've been covered with a substance more akin to stucco--a thick paint used to create the illusion of brown stones set atop one another. A façade's façade. As any brownstone owner soon learns, the underlying cinder blocks can be hidden for only so long be- fore a costly "renovation" must be undertaken to cover them up again.

Likewise, wealth, media, and metrics can insulate colonizers from the reality of their situation for only so long. Eventually, parents who push their toddlers around in thousand- dollar strollers, whose lifestyles and values have been reinforced by a multibillion-dollar industry dedicated to hip child- rearing, get pelted with stones by kids from the "projects." (Rest assured--the person who reported this recurring episode at a gentriﬁed Brooklyn playground met with his share of on- line derision, as well.)

Like Californians surprised when a wildﬁre or coyote disrupts the "natural" lifestyle they imagined they'd enjoy out in the country, we "pioneer," "colonize," and "gentrify" at our peril, utterly oblivious to the social costs of our expansion until one comes back to bite us in the ass--or mug us on the stoop. And while it's easy to blame the larger institutions and social trends leading us into these traps, our own choices and behaviors--however inﬂuenced--are ultimately responsible for whatever befalls us.

Park Slope, Brooklyn, is just a microcosm of the slippery slope upon which so many of us are ﬁnding ourselves these days. We live in a landscape tilted toward a set of behaviors and a way of making choices that go against our own better judgment, as well as our collective self- interest. Instead of collaborating with each other to ensure the best prospects for us all, we pursue short- term advantages over seemingly ﬁxed resources through which we can compete more effectively against one another. In short, instead of acting like people, we act like corporations. When faced with a local mugging, the community of Park Slope ﬁrst thought to protect its brand instead of its people.

The ﬁnancial meltdown may not be punishment for our sins, but it is at least in part the result of our widespread obsession with ﬁnancial value over values of any other sort. We disconnected ourselves from what matters to us, and grew dependent on a business scheme that was never intended to serve us as people. But by adopting the ethos of this speculative, abstract economic model as our own, we have disabled the mechanisms through which we might address and correct the collapse of the real economy operating alongside it.

Even now, as we attempt to dig ourselves out of a ﬁnancial mess caused in large part by this very mentality and behavior, we turn to the corporate sphere, its central banks, and shortsighted metrics to gauge our progress back to health. It's as if we believe we'll ﬁnd the answer in the stream of trades and futures on one of the cable- TV ﬁnance channels instead of out in the physical world. Our real investment in the fabric of our neighborhoods and our quality of life takes a backseat to asking prices for houses like our own in the newspaper's misnamed "real estate" section. We look to the Dow Jones average as if it were the one true vital sign of our society's health, and the exchange rate of our currency as a measure of our wealth as a nation or worth as a people.

This, in turn, only distracts us further from the real- world ideas and activities through which we might actually re-create some value ourselves. Instead of ﬁxing the problem, and reclaiming our ability to generate wealth directly with one another, we seek to prop up institutions whose very purpose remains to usurp this ability from us. We try to repair our economy by bolstering the same institutions that sapped it. In the very best years, corporatism worked by extracting value from the periphery and redirecting it to the center--away from people and toward corporate monopolies. Now, even though that wellspring of prosperity has run dry, we continue to dig deeper into the ground for resources to keep the errant system running.

So as our corporations crumble, taking our jobs with them, we bail them out to preserve our prospects for employment--knowing full well that their business models are unsustainable. As banks' credit schemes fail, we authorize our treasuries to print more money on their behalf, at our own expense and that of our children. We then get to borrow this money back from them, at interest. We know of no other way. Having for too long outsourced our own savings and investing to Wall Street, we are clueless about how to invest in the real world of people and things. We identify with the plight of abstract corporations more than that of ﬂesh-and-blood human beings. We engage with corporations as role models and saviors, while we engage with our fellow humans as competitors to be beaten or resources to be exploited.

Indeed, the now- stalled gentriﬁcation of Brooklyn had a good deal in common with colonial exploitation. Of course, the whole thing was done with more circumspection, with more tact. The borough's gentriﬁers steered away from explicitly racist justiﬁcations for their actions, but nevertheless demonstrated the colonizer's underlying agenda: instead of "chartered corporations" pioneering and subjugating an uncharted region of the world, it was hipsters, entrepreneurs, and real- estate speculators subjugating an undesirable neighborhood.

The local economy--at least as measured in gross product--boomed, but the indigenous population simply became servants (grocery cashiers and nannies) to the new residents.

And like the expansion of colonial empires, this pursuit of home ownership was perpetuated by a pioneer spirit of progress and personal freedom. The ideal of home ownership was the fruit of a public- relations strategy crafted after World War II--corporate and government leaders alike believed that home owners would have more of a stake in an expanding economy and greater allegiance to free- market values than renters. Functionally, though, it led to a self- perpetuating cycle: The more that wealthier white people retreated to the enclaves prepared for them, the poorer the areas they were leaving became, and the more justiﬁed they felt in leaving. While the ﬁrst real wave of "white ﬂight" was from the cities to the suburbs, the more recent, camouﬂaged version has been from the suburbs back into the expensive cities.

Of course, these upper- middle- class migrants were themselves the targets of the mortgage industry, whose clever lending instruments mirror World Bank policies for their exploitative potential. The World Bank's loans come with "open markets" policies attached that ultimately surrender indebted nations and their resources to the con- trol of distant corporations. The mortgage banker, likewise, kindly provides instruments that get a person into a home, then disappears when the rates rise through the roof, having packaged and sold off the borrower's ballooning obligation to the highest bidder.

The beneﬁts to society are pure mythology. Whether it's Brooklynites convinced they are promoting multiculturalism or corporations intent on extending the beneﬁts of the free market to all the world's souls, neither activity leads to broader participation in the expansion of wealth--even when they're working as they're supposed to. Contrary to most economists' expectations, both local and global speculation only exacerbate wealth divisions. Wealthy parents send their kids to private schools and let the public ones decay, while wealthy nations export their environmental waste to the Third World or, better, simply keep their factories there to begin with--and keep their image at home as green as AstroTurf.

People I respect--my own mentors and teachers--tell me that this is just the way things are. This is the real world of adults--not so very far removed, we must remember, from the days when a neighboring tribe might just wipe you out--killing your men with clubs and taking your women. Be thankful for the civility we've got, keep your head down, and try not to think too much about it. These cycles are built into the economy; eventually, the markets will recover and things will get back to normal--and normal isn't so bad, really, if you look around the world at the way other people are living. And you shouldn't even feel so guilty about that--after all, Google is doing some good things and Bill Gates is giving a lot of money to kids in Africa.

Somehow, though, for many of us, that's not enough. We are fast approaching a societal norm where we--as nations, organizations, and individuals--engage in behaviors that are destructive to our own and everyone else's welfare. The only corporate violations worth punish- ing anymore are those against the shareholders. The "criminal mind" is now deﬁned as anyone who breaks laws for a reason other than money. The status quo is selﬁshness, and the toxically wealthy are our new heroes because only they seem capable of fully insulating them- selves from the effects of their own actions.

Every day, we negotiate the slope to the best of our ability. Still, we fail to measure up to the people we'd like to be, and succumb to the tilt of the landscape.

Jennifer has lived in the same town in central Minnesota her whole life. This year, diagnosed with a form of lupus, she began purchasing medication through Wal-Mart instead of through Marcus, her local druggist--who also happens to be her neighbor. Prescription drugs aren't on her health plan, and this is just an economic necessity.

Why can't the druggist cut his neighbor a break? He's trying, but he's selling at a mere hair above cost as it is. He just took out a loan against the business to make expenses and his increased rent. The downtown area he's located in has been slated for redevelopment, and only corporate chain stores appear to have deep enough pockets to pay for storefront leases. It sounded like a good idea when Marcus supported it at the public hearing--but the description in the pamphlet prepared by the real estate developer (complete with a section on how to compete more effectively with "big box" stores like Wal- Mart) hasn't conformed to reality.

Marcus's landlord doesn't really have any choice in the matter. He underwent costly renovations to conform to the new downtown building code, and needs to pass those on to the businesses renting from him. He took out a mortgage, too, which is slated to reset in just a couple of months. If he doesn't collect higher rents, he won't make payments.

Jennifer stopped going to PTA meetings because she's embarrassed to look Marcus in the face. As their friendship declines, so does her guilt about helping put him out of business.

Across the country in New Jersey, Carla, a telephone associate for one of the top three HMO plans in the United States, talks to people like Jennifer every day. Carla is paid a salary as well as a monthly bonus based on the number of claims she can "retire" without payment. Without resorting to fraud, Carla is supposed to discourage false claims by making all claims harder to register, in general. That's how Carla's supervisor explained it to her when she asked, point- blank, if she was supposed to mislead customers. She feels bad about it, but Carla is now the principal breadwinner in her family, her husband having lost a lot of his contracting work to the stalled market for new homes. And, in the end, she is preventing fraud. How does Carla sleep at night, knowing that she has spent her day persuading people to pay for services for which they are actually covered? After seeing a commercial on TV, she switched from Ambien to Lunesta.

One of the guys working on that very ad campaign, an old co-worker of mine, ended up specializing in health- care advertising because nobody was hiring in the environmental area back in the '90s. Besides, he told me, only half kidding, "at least medical advertising puts the consumer in charge of her own health care." He's conﬂicted about pushing drugs on TV because he knows full well that these ads encourage patients to pressure doctors to write prescriptions that go against their better judgment. Still, Tom makes up for any compromise of his values at work with a staunch advocacy of good values at home. He recycles paper, glass, and metal, brought his kids to see An Inconvenient Truth, and even uses a compost heap in the backyard for household waste. Last year, though, he ﬁnally broke down and bought an SUV. Why? "Everybody else on the highway is driving them," he explained. "It's an automotive arms race." If he stayed in his Civic, he'd be putting them all at risk. "You see the way those people drive? I'm scared for my family." As penance, at least until gas prices went up, he began purchasing a few "carbon offsets"--a way of donating money to environmental companies in compensation for one's own excess carbon emissions.

In a similar balancing act, a self- described "holistic" parent in Manhattan spares her son the risks she associates with vaccinations for childhood diseases. "We still don't know what's in them," she says, "and if everyone else is vaccinated he won't catch these things, any- way." She understands that the vaccines required for incoming school pupils are really meant to quell epidemics; they are more for the health of the "herd" than for any individual child. She also believes that mandatory vaccinations are more a result of pharmaceutical in- dustry lobbying than any comprehensive medical studies. In order to meet the "philosophical exemption" requirements demanded by the state, she managed to extract a letter from her rabbi. Meanwhile, in an unacknowledged quid pro quo, she installed a phone line in the rabbi's name in the basement of her town house; he uses the bill to falsify res- idence records and send his sons to the well- rated public elementary school in her high- rent district instead of the 90 percent minority school in his own. At least he can say he's kept them in "the public system."

Incapable of securing a legal or illegal zoning variance of this sort, a college friend of mine, now a state school administrator in Brighton, En gland, just made what he calls "the hardest decision of my life," to send his own kids to a private Catholic day school. He doesn't even particularly want his kids to be indoctrinated into Catholicism, but it's the only alternative to the eroding government school he can af- ford. He knows his withdrawal from public education only removes three more "good kids" and one potentially active parent from the system, but doesn't want his children to be "sacriﬁced on the altar" of his good intentions.

So it's not just a case of hip, hypergentriﬁed Brooklynites succumb- ing to market psychology, but people of all social classes making choices that go against their better judgment because they believe it's really the only sensible way to act under the circumstances. It's as if the world itself were tilted, pushing us toward self- interested, short- term decisions, made more in the manner of corporate share- holders than members of a society. The more decisions we make in this way, the more we contribute to the very conditions leading to this awfully sloped landscape. In a dehumanizing and self-denying cycle, we make too many choices that--all things being equal--we'd prefer not to make.

But all things are not equal. These choices are not even occur- ring in the real world. They are the false choices of an artiﬁcial landscape--one in which our decision-making is as coerced as that of a person getting mugged. Only we've forgotten that our choices are being made under painstakingly manufactured duress. We think this is just the way things are. The price of doing business. Since when is life determined by that axiom?

Unquestionably but seemingly inexplicably, we have come to oper- ate in a world where the market and its logic have insinuated them- selves into every area of our lives. From erection to conception, school admission to ﬁnding a spouse, there are products and professionals to ﬁll in where family and community have failed us. Commercials en- treat us to think and care for ourselves, but to do so by choosing a corporation through which to exercise all this autonomy. Sometimes it feels as if there's just not enough air in the room--as if there were a corporate agenda guiding all human activity. At a moment's notice, any dinner party can slide invisibly into a stock pro- motion, a networking event, or an impromptu consultation--let me pick your brain. Is this why I was invited in the ﬁrst place? Through sponsored word- of-mouth known as "buzz marketing," our personal social interactions become the promotional opportunities through which brands strive to be cults and religions strive to become brands.

It goes deeper than that second Starbucks opening on the same town's Main Street or the radio ads for McDonald's playing through what used to be emergency speakers in our public school buses. It's not a matter of how early Christmas ads start each year, how many people get trampled at Black Friday sales, or even the news report blaming the fate of the entire economy on consumers' slow holiday spending. It's more a matter of not being able to tell the difference between the ads and the content at all. It's as if both were designed to be that way. The line between ﬁction and reality, friend and marketer, community and shopping center, has gotten blurred. Was that a news report, reality TV, or a sponsored segment?

This fundamental blurring of real life with its commercial counterpart is not a mere question of aesthetics, however much we may dislike mini- malls and superstores. It's more of a nagging sense that something has gone awry--something even more fundamentally wrong than the credit crisis and its aftermath--yet we're too immersed in its effects to do anything about it, or even to see it. We are deep in the thrall of a system that no one really likes, no one remembers asking for, yet no one can escape. It just is. And as it begins to collapse around us, we work to prop it up by any means necessary, so incapable are we of imagining an alternative. The minute it seems as if we can put our ﬁnger on what's happening to us or how it came to be this way, the insight disappears, drowned out by the more immediately pressing demands by everyone and everything on our attention.

What did they just say? What does that mean for my retirement account? Wait--my phone is vibrating.

Can the hermetically sealed food court in which we now subsist even be beheld from within? Perhaps not in its totality--but its development can be chronicled, and its effects can be parsed and understood. Just as we once evolved from subjects into citizens, we have now devolved from citizens into consumers. Our communities have been reduced to afﬁnity groups, and any vestige of civic engagement or neighborly goodwill has been replaced by self- interested goals manufactured for us by our corporations and their PR ﬁrms. We've surrendered true participation for the myth of consumer choice or, even more pathetically, that of shareholder rights.

That's why it has become fashionable, cathartic, and to some extent useful for the defenders of civil society to rail against the corporations that seem to have conquered our civilization. As searing new books and documentaries about the crimes of corporations show us, the corporation is itself a sociopathic entity, created for the purpose of generating wealth and expanding its reach by any means necessary. A corporation has no use for ethics, except for their potential impact on public relations and brand image. In fact, as many on the side of the environment, labor, and the Left like to point out, corporate managers can be sued for taking any action, however ethical, if it compromises their ultimate ﬁduciary responsibility to share price.

As corporations gain ever more control over our economy, government, and culture, it is only natural for us to blame them for the helplessness we now feel over the direction of our personal and collective destinies. But it is both too easy and utterly futile to point the ﬁnger of blame at corporations or the robber barons at their helms--not even those handcuffed CEOs gracing the cover of the business section. Not even mortgage brokers, credit- card executives, or the Fed. This state of affairs isn't being entirely orchestrated from the top of a glass building by an élite group of bankers and businessmen, however much everyone would like to think so--themselves included. And while the growth of corporations and a preponderance of corporate activity have allowed them to permeate most every aspect of our awareness and activity, these entities are not solely responsible for the predicament in which we have found ourselves.

Rather, it is corporatism itself: a logic we have internalized into our very being, a lens through which we view the world around us, and an ethos with which we justify our behaviors. Making matters worse, we accept its dominance over us as preexisting--as a given circumstance of the human condition. It just is.

But it isn't.

Corporatism didn't evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living--the operating system on which we are now running our social software--was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self- sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory.

Its basic laws were set in motion as far back as the Renaissance; it was accelerated by the Industrial Age; and it was sold to us as a better way of life by a determined generation of corporate leaders who believed they had our best interests at heart and who ultimately succeeded in their dream of controlling the masses from above.

We have succumbed to an ideology that has the same intellectual underpinnings and assumptions about human nature as--dare we say it--mid- twentieth-century fascism. Given how the word has been misapplied to everyone from police ofﬁcers to communists, we might best refrain from resorting to what has become a feature of cheap polemic. But in this case it's accurate, and that we're forced to dance around this "F word" today would certainly have pleased Goebbels greatly.

The current situation resembles the managed capitalism of Mussolini's Italy, in particular. It shares a common intellectual heritage (in disappointed progressives who wanted to order society on a scientiﬁc understanding of human nature), the same political alliance (the collaboration of the state and the corporate sector), and some of the same techniques for securing consent (through public relations and propaganda). Above all, it shares with fascism the same deep suspicion of free humans.

And, as with any absolutist narrative, calling attention to the inherent injustice and destructiveness of the system is understood as an attempt to undermine our collective welfare. The whistleblower is worse than just a spoilsport; he is an enemy of the people.

Unlike Europe's fascist dictatorships, this state of affairs came about rather bloodlessly--at least on the domestic front. Indeed, the real lesson of the twentieth century is that the battle for total social control would be waged and won not through war and overt repression, but through culture and commerce. Instead of depending on a paternal dictator or nationalist ideology, today's system of control depends on a society fastidiously cultivated to see the corporation and its logic as central to its welfare, value, and very identity.

That's why it's no longer Big Brother who should frighten us-- however much corporate lobbies still seek to vilify anything to do with government beyond their own bailouts. Sure, democracy may be the quaint artifact of an earlier era, but what has taken its place? Suspension of habeas corpus, surveillance of citizens, and the occasional repression of voting notwithstanding, this mess is not the fault of a particular administration or political party, but of a culture, economy, and belief system that places market priorities above life itself. It's not the fault of a government or a corporation, the news media or the entertainment industry, but the merging of all these entities into a single, highly centralized authority with the ability to write laws, issue money, and promote its expansion into our world.

Then, in a last cynical surrender to the logic of corporatism, we assume the posture and behaviors of corporations in the hope of restoring our lost agency and security. But the vehicles to which we gain access in this way are always just retail facsimiles of the real ones. Instead of becoming true landowners we become mortgage holders. Instead of guiding corporate activity we become shareholders. Instead of directing the shape of public discourse we pay to blog. We can't compete against corporations on a playing ﬁeld that was created for their beneﬁt alone.

This is the landscape of corporatism: a world not merely dominated by corporations, but one inhabited by people who have internalized corporate values as our own. And even now that corporations appear to be waning in their power, they are dragging us down with them; we seem utterly incapable of lifting ourselves out of their de- pression.

We need to understand how this happened--how we came to live for and through a business scheme. We must recount the story of how life itself became corporatized, and ﬁgure out what --if anything-- we are to do about it.

While we will ﬁnd characters to blame for one thing or another, most of corporatism's architects have long since left the building-- and even they were usually acting with only their immediate, short-term proﬁts in mind. Our object instead should be to understand the process by which we were disconnected from the real world and why we remain disconnected from it. This is our best hope of regaining some relationship with terra ﬁrma again. Like recovering cult victims, we have less to gain from blaming our seducers than from understanding our own participation in building and maintaining a corporatist society. Only then can we begin dismantling and replacing it with something more livable and sustainable.

AN AWARENESS TEST: So You Think You're Not a Robot?

2009-04-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This blog entry may be difficult to digest. If you choose to read it, it could shake your world a little. Be sure to keep in mind that I am not sharing anything that, at some level, you do not already know. My intention is but to re-mind you that you have a choice. At all times. In every moment. The lessons is: We are all robots.

We are all robots. That is, we are, none of us, behaving with the natural, God-given rights and freedoms with which we were born. We have all been conditioned to think, act, and believe in “norms” which are not natural to our human beingness. We are all the products of a prescribed, programmed “curriculum” which tries to create submissive, self-alienated, externally-motivated automatons.

The most dehumanizing part of our robotic condition is the ignorance: we are programmed to be unaware of our circumstances, of our choices, numbed by constant and unrelenting pressures into accepting our situation. If you wish to test this position, please take the following test.

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE NOT A ROBOT?

An Test of Awareness and Perception

Were you born speaking a language? No, you learned it in order to be able to communicate and interact with others, but you also learned it in order to fit in.

Do you own or drive a car? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Do you own a computer?

Do you live in a house or apartment?

Do you have a television?

Do you subscribe to cable?

Do you own an iPod?

Do you own a cell phone?

Do you use the Internet?

Do you own/use a dishwasher?

Do you own/use a dryer?

Do you own/use a microwave?

Do you use money?

Did you pay taxes last year?

Do you use banks?

Do you own any credit cards?

Do you wear clothes?

Do you buy new clothes?

Do you buy clothes seasonally?

Do you own/use more than one pair of shoes?

Do you take more than one shower per week?

Do you shampoo your hair more than once per week?

Do your clothes get laundered after one wearing?

Do you wear makeup?

Do you color your hair?

Do you shave your legs or armpits?

Do you visit a doctor annually?

Do you visit a dentist every six to nine months?

Do you believe a doctor necessary for the safe delivery of a baby?

Did you have your children immunized?

Do you use fluoridated toothpaste?

Do you subscribe to a trash pickup service?

Have you ever eaten at a “fast food” restaurant?

Have you ever eaten at a sit down restaurant?

Do you know the source and trail of your daily food?

Do you eat popcorn when you watch movies?

Have you watched more than one Super Bowl in your lifetime?

Do you call yourself “American”? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Do you believe you live in a democracy? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Did you vote in the last election? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Did you vote for either the Democratic or Republican parties?

Do you revere the American flag? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Do you believe that some wars are necessary? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Do you believe happiness is related to income? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Do you believe going to college is necessary to get a good job/big income?

Did you attend school/Do you send your children to school? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

Do you feel as if someone or something else is in control of your life?

Do you have any compulsive, addictive, anxiety-based behaviors? Is this the result of a biological survival need or is it a learned behavior?

If you have answered “yes” to any of the above questions, and “learned behavior” more often than “biological survival need,” then your conditioning has been successful: your thoughts and behaviors have been shaped and modified; you are not fully living according to the freedoms and rights with which you were born. You are a product of a programming service called “acculturation,” “socialization,” and/or “western civilization.”

Who Is Teaching Our Kids?!

2009-04-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

A teacher who began the year, we thought, as an elementary substitute teacher in the K-12 charter school my daughters attend, was then brought in as a long-term sub for the algebra teacher during her pregnancy leave, and has now, mysteriously, moved into a more 'permanent' role, even with the return of the post-partum mom. Stories emanating from our daughters and their friends who have been or still are in this teacher's classes come in causing more and more alarm. We hear repeatedly about Mrs. M's proud boasting of her drug using younger days, about her choice to play rock and roll music ("Queen") during class, her hands off "let the book do the teaching" approach to teaching, and her hard-headed arrogance and unwillingness to work cooperatively or collaberatively with either her peers or her students.

"I feel awful today but I can't miss school because Mrs. M won't let me turn in work late," announces our near-hysterical 15-year old Algebra One student, a normally all-A's student bent on getting the best grades possible so that she can get in to the best college possible. "I failed today's test and Mrs. M won't let me take it over, do a make up, or do any corrections for extra credit." And then, a few days later a 'progress report' comes home announcing her current grade: F. Then there are the numerous accounts of the copious amounts of junk food Mrs. M brings in for the kids--to win favor--which one teacher, Mrs. M's 'partner' in middle school math, claimed was undermining her own popularity among and enjoyment of her students.

"My two friends, who are math wizzes and never get anything less than A's, now have Mrs. M for Algebra One and they were just informed that their third quarter grades are C's." And now the kicker: It turns out that Mrs. M 1) is a volunteer (working "out of the goodness of her heart"), 2) was, during the previous summer, the math tudor to the son of the school board president(who has already been accused of trying to micromanage the school, of strong-arming teachers, and of masterminding the Board's recent policies of distance, deceit, and deception), and 3) is the landlord to the school's current "interim" executive director. So what are her credentials? Is it legal for an unpaid volunteer to submit student grades? Shouldn't we parents get some kind of input or at least be informed on the kind of nutritional input our school and school representatives are offering our children? Volunteers are supposedly screened with a very thorough background check. Shouldn't we parents be alarmed about the daily presence and influence of a proud and boastful "former" drug user in the lives of our children? The most telling question I may ask of our school administrator is whether he and Mrs. M are sleeping together. Otherwise, I cannot for the life of me figure out why she is acting as a classroom teacher in a public school.

The Mysterious Effect of Antonin Maniqui

2009-04-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Here follows an excerpt from the manuscript of Drew Fisher’s soon-to-be published novel, The Mysterious Effect of Antonin Maniqui. These ‘media reprints’ makeup the novel’s Prologue.

THE

MYSTERIOUS EFFECT

ANTONIN MANIQUI

A Novel

By Drew Fisher

PROLOGUE

(Reprinted from The New York Times Book Review, Sunday April 23, 2004.)

Rip Van Winkle Returns
Antonin Urlov Maniqui publishes his second novel after a 35-year absence.

MATURITY quells the emotional fires of youth while nurturing its corollary: resignation. Daily and yearly confrontation with reality causes idealism to give way to pragmatism, even cynicism. This is nowhere as evident as in the new novel by Antonin Urlov Maniqui, Ideas as Opiates, being released this month by Hestia Press. Known for his 1969 cult classic, Inc. (Charles Scrivener & Sons), Maniqui has returned to the narrative stage after an unexplained, Salinger-like, 35-year absence.
Leaping into the limelight with a best seller at age 34, Maniqui gave voice to the insecurities and dreams of the youth of the Sixties. He accomplished this with such insight and empathy that Inc. helped to spawn a generation of hip-talking, utopian-walking pop-fiction writers. Indeed, due to its historicity and universal appeal, the generations that have grown up since the Sixties have likely found Inc. on their teacher-assigned or friend-recommended reading lists.
The arrival of Ideas as Opiates comes with no little mystery and intrigue. One of the surprises is the fact that this is only Maniqui’s second publication. The sensitive novelist disappeared after a rather dynamic and well-publicized exit from the set of a television talk show in 1969. No one seems to have a clue as to what this talented wordsmith has been doing for the past 35 years. Immigration records show that Maniqui left the United States in 1969 and has never returned. Reliable sources maintain that he has assumed permanent residency in some Western European country, possibly Ireland. However, his exact whereabouts remain unknown.
In yet another curious twist in the Maniqui dossier, Ideas as Opiates is a sequel to Inc. Trever and Inc, the two hippie idealists who tread heavily in the eye of the hurricane that raged around them in 1969, are back to entertain us in 2001—or so we are lulled into believing. While all but the last chapter of Ideas appears to take place in the year 2001, the truth is—or so the author would have us believe—that the dynamic duo are traveling through space and time, choosing from a variety of time-locations in which to insert themselves for the sake of collecting experiences. With each entry into earth reality, the two are apparently subjected to a kind of amnesia, which is supposed to better enable them to more fully engage in the events of their immediate surroundings.
It seems that, according to Maniqui, life is like stepping into a movie role with each and every moment offering the actor-cum-student a multitude of choices as to ‘how to play the role.’ Each choice, then, presents any number of lessons, while at the same time setting into motion myriad consequences, each with its own particular chain reaction of linear repercussions.
Maniqui’s gift-wrapping of New Age ontology proves totally superfluous, which is disappointing, for his presentation of life in 2001 stands well enough on its own. As with Inc., Ideas presents a fast-paced, wonderfully witty yet thought provoking collection of social satire. If Maniqui’s intent with the final chapter is more to open the door for future installments of the travels and travails of his heroes, then he is forgiven. Maniqui’s style is so fresh and up-tempo that any contribution of the adventures of Inc and Trever—even in pulp form— is welcomed.
The experiences of this episode of Inc and Trever’s participation in the game of the human experience are derived from their ‘waking up’ to find themselves bombarded by the myriad stressors and stimuli demanded of East Coast suburban life. Maniqui makes no apologies for his blatant indictment of 21st Century Western koyanaquatsi. A veritable feast of vignettes exposing the dysfunctional dynamics of American family, work, and society are served with humor and wit, yet often leave a rather acerbic after-taste. Americans, the ultimate masters of denial and escape, will find it often uncomfortable and even embarrassing to be confronted with some of their own foibles—especially the likes of avarice, arrogance, extravagance and xenocentricity.
Though Ideas as Opiates is considered a sequel to 1969’s Inc., there exists a most noticeable divergence from the emotional tone of the original. The playful rivalry that existed between ridicule and hope in Inc. is totally absent from Ideas. Actually, aside from the feeble spiritual escape clause in Chapter 50, Ideas is starkly void of hope; one has the foreboding sense that Inc and Trever are up against insurmountable forces, that the tide of darkness has triumphed. Whereas the social commentary in Inc. was transparent and often shamelessly derogatory, its bite was offset by a strong strain of optimism. It is, in fact, Inc.’s optimism that makes it such a popular favorite. Is it Maniqui’s age or his isolation—or a combination of both— that has borne this new cynicism? Does the author truly believe Western civilization has tipped the scales beyond any hope for recovery? Inc! Trever! Dudes! Say it ain’t so!
Despite the new despondent tone, Maniqui remains eminently readable. A master of capturing the voice of the times while confronting his audience with its enslavement to absurdly contradictory behaviors, Maniqui’s snappy dialogue is alive, entertaining, and often poetic. One can only wonder —with no little wistfulness—what Maniqui-isms we’ve missed due to his long silence. Let us hope we won’t have to wait another 35 years for the next printed effort from the now 68-year old author.

(Obituary reprinted from The New York Times, July 2, 2004.)

Author Antonin Maniqui Found Dead

Antonin Urlov Maniqui, reclusive author of bestselling novels Inc. (Charles Scrivener & Sons, 1969) and Ideas as Opiates (Hestia Press, 2004) was found dead yesterday in his home outside Donegal, Ireland. Cause of death appears to be heart failure. Maniqui was 69 years old.

* * * * * *

(Reprinted from the Petoskey News-Review, July 5 2004.)

Petoskey Author Maniqui Dead

Antonin Urlov Maniqui, formerly of Petoskey, was found dead in his country home outside of Donegal, Ireland, Wednesday. Irish authorities say he died of heart failure. He was 69 years old.
Born June 1, 1935, in Detroit, Michigan, to French-Russian immigrants, Victor and Katerina (Myshenskyeva) Maniqui, Antonin grew up an only child in Detroit and later Petoskey, where he graduated from high school in 1952. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, and Masters Degrees in linguistics, philosophy, and fine arts from Columbia University, New York. Never married, Antonin leaves no living relations.
Author of two bestselling novels: Inc., published in 1969 by Charles Scrivener & Sons, and Ideas as Opiates, published in 2004 by Hestia Press. Ideas currently sits on bestseller lists in 43 countries.

(Reprinted from TIME magazine, July 12, 2004, page 26+.)

Life Imitating Art?
Reclusive author Antonin Maniqui wrote two very popular, critically acclaimed, yet controversial novels. Could he have been the author of more than just fiction?..................26

Massachusetts Senator John Quincy Moran. Corporate giant-killer James N. Audley. Surgeon General Kathleen Phillips-Rees. Patrick ‘Father Joe’ Gavenucci. Composer/filmmaker Robert Francis Stahrender. Name six things that these five high-profile public figures have in common. Answer: 1) All forty-somethings. 2) All American-born. 3) All innovators in their fields. 4) All very driven to break old social patterns with new, human potential- realizing reforms. 5) All named as beneficiaries of recently deceased author Antonin Maniqui’s estate. 6) All stumbled upon the reclusive author’s home in Ireland during the fall of 1985.
Separately.
Accidentally.
On consecutive days.
Totally oblivious of one another.
“It’s all rather surreal to me,” says Senator Moran. “I spent one day with the man when I was 25. That’s it! And suddenly I’m in his book’s dedication, I’m at his funeral, I’m in his will!”
The ‘dedication’ from Maniqui’s recent novel, Ideas as Opiates, refers to five ‘visitors’ from the autumn of 1985, naming ‘James, Frank, Kathleen, Patrick and John’ as his ‘Children.’ The fervor of interest spurred on by the publication of Maniqui’s critically acclaimed international bestseller sparked a worldwide manhunt that only just ended with notice of the reclusive author’s death last Tuesday.
Mystery solved. On Sunday, ‘James’ Audley, Robert Francis ‘Frank’ Stahrender, ‘Kathleen’ Phillips-Rees, ‘Patrick’ Joseph Gavenucci, and ‘John’ Moran served as pallbearers at Maniqui’s funeral in Donegal, Ireland. Adding to the bizarre mystery of this story is the claim the five make that none of them had any contact with Maniqui before or since their 1985 serendipitous visits. Yet, the heirless author named these five Americans as equal beneficiaries to his estate---which is estimated to be worth about $10 million not including ongoing royalties.
“I can’t believe he even remembered me!” exclaimed Phillips-Rees. “His book, that night, changed my life, but to think that I’d done anything worthy of his remembrance or praise is beyond my comprehension.”
The five American reformers also claim that before Sunday they had never met one another. “Of course I know of Senator Moran, Dr. Phillips-Rees, Father Joe, and James Audley,” said Stahrender. “But, no, I’ve never met any of them before.”
When asked why they were in Ireland during the fall of 1985 the responses are strikingly similar. “Soul searching,” declared Moran. “Getting away from it all for a bit,” said Audley. “Needing time to think,” claimed Gavenucci. “Wanting to do something for myself, for once in my life,” admitted Phillips-Rees. “Escape, introspection, and planning,” from Stahrender.
Not one of the five lost souls had a clue they would be meeting Antonin Urlov Maniqui---a writer whose first novel, Inc., all five admit to having held in high esteem. “It changed my life,” said Stahrender. “My wake up call,” said Audley. “Inc. helped me to believe in my self,” said Phillips-Rees, “to really see that I had choices.” “It was the first book I’d ever read that made me think, ‘this guy knows me! He’s talking about me!’ said Gavenucci. “A great book,” acclaims Moran. “A kind of ‘declaration of independence’ for the 20th Century.”
“I picked up Ideas as soon as it came out,” said Audley, whose personal legacy includes being lead attorney for 1999’s People v. Mall-Mart Supreme Court decision which formerly stripped corporations of their previously assumed ‘personhood’ status. “I must admit, the dedication kind of through me for a loop. I knew it was probably me. But, why?”
“Ideas brought back to mind the debt I owe him (Maniqui),” said Patrick ‘Father Joe’ Gavenucci, whose efforts have led to securing local and govern-ment funding for his urban and ‘com-munity learning center’ project, the nation’s fastest growing educational reform movement. “I would never have come to where I am were it not for my night with Antonin Maniqui. I’d either be a bitter, mechanical Catholic priest, or I’d have quit religion, married, and be doing the 9-to-5 routine.”
“I had never met the other four, but I was dying to find out if the ‘John’ reference in Ideas was me,” said John Quincy Moran, Senator from Massa-chusetts and founding member of the growing Constitutional Party for Reform (CPR).
“I’ll never forget that day in Ireland,” said Dr. Kathleen Phillips-Rees. “I got caught in an unexpected rainstorm,” recalls the champion of people-oriented health care. “Rain was pouring down. The first house I came to was Maniqui’s. We talked by the fire. Or rather, I talked. He mostly listened. Next morning I left rejuvenated, my will focused, new goals forming.”
If the careers of these five shakers and movers are any indication, it would seem that a visit with Antonin Maniqui has life-changing repercussions. Would that we all could have been so lucky.

(Reprinted from TIME magazine, July 12, 2004, page 31.)

T H E M A N I Q U I L E G A C Y

The 5 Children of Reform:
Saviors or Satans?

James N. Audley. Corporate lawyer turned corporate giant-killer. Lead attorney in the landmark case, People v. Mall-Mart, in which the Supreme Court struck down the ‘personhood’ status of corporations. With the claim that the writers of the Constitution had never intended for corporations to be eligible for the same rights as natural persons, that our Founding Fathers had in fact worked expressly toward the eradication of all forms of tyranny---including that of ‘faceless corporations’---all rights and privileges assumed by corporations since the 1880s were summarily stripped. Though the world continues to recover from the ensuing economic collapse and Y2K Depres-sion, the decision is viewed as a landmark victory in the human rights movement---a turning point in the ‘Return to Democratic Principles’ movement---as it brought fully to the public eye an understanding of the divergent goals of democracy and capitalism.
John Quincy Moran. Nuclear physicist turned politician and political reformist. Founder of the Constitutional Party for Reform and first third party candidate to be elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Massachusetts in 30 years, Moran has worked tirelessly for recognition and acceptance of the ‘quantum oneness’ of all things via a return to principles of ‘probable democracy’. Vaulting to national prominence in the 1990s with his book, Reinventing the Constitution, and cable TV miniseries, Revisiting the Founding Fathers, Moran’s efforts have resulted in new legislation for campaign finance reform, the rewriting of the 14th Amendment, and ballot access reform in order to unlock the Republican-Democrat two-party stranglehold on the nation’s political system.
Kathleen Phillips-Rees. The nation’s second female Surgeon General creates bold, paradigm-changing policies in the health care field. Building a medical practice and bestselling books on the premise and catchphrase that ‘health care is about health and caring’, Phillips-Rees has dedicated her career to ‘returning the power of health care back to the people.’ An avid proponent of patient education and ‘team approach’ health care, Phillips-Rees’ work has opened doors for the public acceptance and legal licensure of many ‘nontraditional’, ‘alternative and complementary’, and ‘naturopathic’ health care and healing traditions.
Patrick Joseph ‘Father Joe’ Gavenucci. Former priest and teacher turned social activist. Founder of the ‘community learning center’ movement which has found funding, facilities, and local interest in over 17 major cities and countless smaller towns and municipalities. ‘CLCs’ are a combination public library and school offering community support 24-hours a day. They offer state-of-the art technological services and grass roots learning resources for all kinds of formal and informal educational, vocational and social activities. Some key Gavenucci maxims: 1) “Everyone is learning all the time;” 2) “Everybody---in every community---has something of value to teach or share;” 3) “Everybody has something they would like to learn;” 4) “Everybody---of all ages---needs a safe place to go where they feel welcome, where they can experience community, where they can feel free to learn whatever they wish to learn;” and, 5) “Schools and schooling are antithetical to freedom and individual rights.”
Robert Frances ‘Frank’ Stahrender. Award-winning musician and filmmaker, pioneer of DVD and music video production technologies. Stahrender’s frustration with barriers between performer and audience led to the creation of Opus Humanae, an audience participatory concert experience in which musicians plug in and play, dancers move among the crowd, live microphones are available for anyone, video and sound are mani-pulated by ‘computer jocks.’ The result is spontaneous, unrehearsed, live performance art at its most raw---out of which have come the indie cult favorite Opus Humanae Live films. Permanent Opus Humanae venues have been established in over 50 cities in 13 countries around the world. Proponents love it for its encouragement of the artistry in everyman, while opponents condemn it for promoting ‘paganism’ and ‘debauchery’---citing several acts of violence related to Opus Humanae events. Though reaction to Stahrender’s ideas from critics and fellow artists was at first rather cool, acceptance of Opus ‘bacchanals’ is now virtually universal.

(Reprinted from TIME magazine, July 12, 2004, page 28.)

M A N I Q U I IN P R I N T
Inc. and Ideas in Review
Ideas as Opiates (Hestia Press), Antonin Maniqui’s time-twisting novel set loosely in a ‘self-created singularity’ sequels his 1969 cult classic, Inc., by tracing the ‘evolution, devolution, and involution’ of the two protagonists from Inc., Inc and Trever. The book opens with the two rule-bending, reality-testing, morality-challenging, politically active hippies ‘suddenly’ finding themselves in a strange new world.
“Hey, man. What happened to the Sixties?” laments Trever.
“Big Brother won, man,” Inc tells his buddy as they look at each other’s short hair and business suits. “Can’t you feel it?”
Reminded of Brendan Frazer and Alicia Silverstone in 1999’s Blast from the Past, the duo soon figures out that they’ve somehow leaped forward 30 years (it’s 2001). Hypothesizing that they’ve been passing the years in a kind of somnambulant trance, a horrified Trever proclaims, “Zombies, man, we’re zombies!”
In their new reality---one that holds true for most of the remainder of this 532-page novel---the two have not only aged 30 years but they’ve conformed. They each have the standard three-car suburban houses, the 50-hour corporate desk job, the dysfunctional first and second marriages, and of course the requisite chaos that comes with having kids and step kids, wives and ex-wives.
Dark comedy runs rampant throughout the pages of Ideas, but it is the fresh new characters with their wise-beyond-their-years banter that allows Maniqui’s brilliance to shine.
Inc’s bright, confident, empathetic 18-year old son, Jah-man, and Trever’s bring-on-the-world 19-year old daughter, Nasty (Anastasia), happen to push every paternal button their respective fathers never knew they had (and vowed in Inc. that they wouldn’t have). With their casual on-again, off-again romance and more relaxed (Maniqui would say, ‘evolved’) attitudes toward relationships---and especially sex---Jah-man and Nasty provide plenty of push to their fathers’ comfort zones. The mirrors Trever and Inc are forced to look into are at once frustrating, horrifying, and laughable. To the reader they are discomforting and often quite embarrassing.
The dysfunctional dynamics between Inc and his first wife, the paranoid, emotionally-dependent, Freaky (Frances), and his cool-as-ice, corporate-climbing second, Amanda, and Trever and his first and second wives, Alex (“Good-sex”) and Tiffany (“Can’t-get-any”), respectively, are conveyed humorously but, again, prove painfully real. Maniqui is presenting us with a rather grim reflection of our times.
The Maniqui genius, as it was in Inc., is with dialogue. Fast moving, each character highly idiosyncratic—the conversation is always very real yet peppered with occasional questions or observations so candid, so brutally direct and honest, that they never fail to catch us off-guard. Maniqui has once again made satire of our day and age while at the same time offering inspiration and hope for a healthier, more optimistic future.
In the most delightful twist of Ideas as Opiates, the last chapter (titled ‘Yep: a log’) has Inc and Trever ‘wake up’ to find that their adventures in the 21st Century were all an illusion. They are in fact traveling through time, searching for ‘interesting’ experiences. The per-sonalities and situations they take on during their travels are a result of their own choosing. Everything, every moment is dependent on choice---conscious or unconscious (the latter due to familiar or comfortable patterns, called ‘habits’). In the end, Maniqui’s message is that we are all free to wake up to choice—free to recognize the myriad choices we have available to us in every moment—if only we humans would just wake up and take back control of our lives. Or, as Inc would say in his cheerfully naïve way, “Volez!”

(Reprinted from TIME magazine, July 12, 2004, page 29.)

T H E M A N I Q U I I D E O L O G Y

Just before a frustrated Antonin Maniqui fled from his last live interview he was heard to say, “No. That’s not what I mean. You just don’t get it. How can I get you to understand?” That was in 1969. His first novel, Inc., had just reached the New York Times bestseller list. Thirty-five years later, with his new novel, Ideas as Opiates, Maniqui may have figured out just how to get us to understand.
With Inc., Maniqui was able to capture the zeitgeist of the youth of the time. The eponymous protagonist of Inc. is burdened with the pull of polar forces of his near-paranoid concern for the Orwellian direction of his world while at the same time able to tap into his youth for the highs of living in the moment. Fear and hope are the novel’s true lead characters/agonists.
In Ideas as Opiates Maniqui also adroitly captures the spirit of these new times---our post-911, debt-ridden, Prozac-popping, technology-obsessed culture---with his display of “barely controlled chaos”---the overwhelm of daily American life. But what is disturbingly absent from Ideas is the hope so strongly ascendant in Inc. While choice is a constant theme in Ideas---“You are always, at every moment, in every second of every day, in choice,” parrots Inc’s daughter, Anastasia or “Nasty,” right in the face of her father---these characters are living under such megastress that there is no time for introspection---barely time to breathe. The priority is on escape. “It’s the American way,” justifies Inc’s second wife, Amanda. “We know how to escape better than anyone else in history.” Drugs, alcohol, food, television, shopping, travel, sports, fitness, dieting, even mental illness all provide a many-layered failsafe network for escape from the pain and suffering of the human experience.
Maniqui’s satirical farce illuminates and criticizes the evils in this system while using lucid dream sequences to allow his reader to ‘feel’ and ‘enjoy’ the full scope of emotions presented in the human experience. Inc’s comment to Amanda’s inquiry as to how it felt during one of his dreams seems to encapsulate Maniqui’s solution to the mind-numbing choices of waking life: “It felt great. I felt alive!”
The final chapter of Ideas is well cited for it’s comical escape from the “horrors of the 21st Century” and hollow but uplifting end. However, overlooked is the likelihood that it may contain the real belief system of Antonin Maniqui: that we are really just traveling in and out of human form on a kind of Buddhist reincarnation rollercoaster---all for the simple purpose of seeking interesting experiences; becoming human for the sake of the unique experiences presented in the panoply of human emotion. Life for life’s sake, being present for the fullness of the emotional experience.
The last lines of Ideas as Opiates contain a rather curious and cryptic reference.
“Hey, look,” Inc points to a robed figure on a nearby cloud. “There’s that Vinoba dude again!”
“He’s cool,” responds Trever. ”Let’s hang with him for a while.”
“Volez!”
Vinoba Bhave was a twentieth century Indian ‘saint.’ (d. 1985) A contemporary of Mohandas Gandhi, known mostly for his commitment to non-violent anarchist principles, Vinoba believed that small community life presented the healthiest dynamics for the fullest realization of human potential--which is to love. This may in fact present Maniqui’s deepest hope: that the world can return to a state of simplicity through small communal life. He certainly held no affection for the dehumanizing effect of Western society’s frenetic pace, impersonal urbanization and suburban sprawl or the robotic effect of our throwaway society’s rampant consumerism and profit-driven materialism. Volez!

ENTRE-LOGUE:

Ireland and Antonin Maniqui in 1985.

AMONG the undulating grey and emerald green landscapes of the ancient island called “Eire” by the Celtic peoples who have inhabited it for hundreds of generations, sits a craggy, battered-looking bulge in the extreme northwest known as County Donegal. Named Dhún na nGall or “land” or “fort” “of foreigners” for its many Viking raiders and settlers, but known locally as Tír Choniall for the Tyrconnell family that once lorded over this ancient feudal earldom, Donegal’s topography is quite different from other regions of the fair land that is called Ireland. Though luminous green mosses blanket much of these rugged, rocky landscapes, Donegal stands out for its startling absence of trees and for its far more rocky presentation. The rocky terrain we speak of often sports a rainbow variation of colors—particularly in unusual shades of “brown.” Observe, striated next one another like layers from a petrified log: deep purple-browns with sandstone yellow-browns next to rusty reddish-browns sidled between green-blacks.
The rugged countryside is sparsely populated with few examples of human society except for a sporadic scattering of seaside fishing villages occupying safe harbor inlets. Indeed, once one has traveled west of the town of Donegal, the occasion of towns, villages, or even crossroads, diminish noticeably. Though factories can be found to the north, the west has little to indicate any interactivity among the family of man. It is said that the non-fishing people who have come to live in rural Donegal are probably looking to hide, that they are looking for a place to be left alone, to be anonymous. But there are the rare souls who are purposely looking for a place in which to commune with Nature and her elements in some of her rawest, bleakest forms. Such was the attraction for Antonin Urlov Maniqui when he stumbled upon the area late in 1969.
Two miles north of Donegal town lies Banagher Hill. Unofficially the southern most peak of the Blue Stack Mountains, it is really just an oblong ridge running north-south between the wind- and water-carved Sruell River Valley to the west, and Lough Eske to the east. Still, Banagher Hill’s 1288-foot peak offers impressive panoramic views, weather permitting, of both valleys as well as the mountains to the north and Donegal Bay to the south. Small homes and cottages dot the countryside south of the Blue Stack Mountains, around Lough Eske, Banagher Hill and the Sruell River valley, sometimes sparsely, sometimes in a more neighborly fashion.
A most curious sight is presented by the well packed and, therefore, seemingly well traveled, grey-graveled, fairly level, two-track road that circumnavigates Banagher Hill. The road appears to be traveled well enough yet leads to nowhere in particular, connects to very few, much less traveled, off-roads, and offers access to a sparse number of homesteads.
It is upon this rather odd, desolate, and circuitous path that one such cottage, a small bungalow built of flat grey stones with a grey slate roof, occupies a rather solitary yet sociable-looking spot on Banagher Hill’s western slopes. Sitting just next to the small stone cottage, also on the east side of the Donegal return road, is the rather bizarre spectacle of what appears to be a grove of overgrown, under-groomed Christmas trees (perhaps the abandoned project of a previous owner). A few grazing sheep dot the hillside above the cottage while below the road, into the Sruell River valley, lay fallow pastures down to the river’s edge where more cottages and an occasional tree are sprinkled.
Antonin Maniqui purchased his small stone cottage, along with its 240 acres west of the road on the slopes of Banagher Hill, in 1970—paid for in full, for the whopping price of £3,000 Irish. The bank, which had acquired the property after the death of its last owner (the last of the previous owner’s family, a Surrey, England resident, had neither the interest nor the money with which to settle her distant cousin’s debts, so therefore, chose to give it up to estate auction and bank ownership), had been so excited at the site of Antonin’s green U.S. dollars, that it actually raised its asking price with Maniqui sitting there, in the bank, holding the advert from the most recent edition of the local newspaper in his hand. In a gesture of good faith—and in hopes of earning the future good graces of the town’s primary moneylender—Ant counter-offered at an even higher price. This maneuver did, in fact, prove invaluable during the successive home-improvement projects to which he subjected the cottage—including repairs to the roof and walls in 1970 and again in 1984, installation of a washing machine in 1973 (replaced in 1991), the addition of a solar powered hot water heater and outdoor hot tub in 1977, and an interior re-insulation project in 1994. Antonin remained living there in his isolated spot in the Donegal countryside, sans companion, until his death in 2004.
Weather-wise, the autumn of 1985 was remarkable for its irregularity. The usual daily battle of wind and weather currents rising up the Sruell River valley from Donegal Bay and down from Banagher Hill and the rest of the Bluestack mountain range were accentuated by sudden and unexpected appearances of heavy fog and/or brief unpredictable outbursts of heavy rainfall. The usually misted landscapes and peoples found themselves unusually mystified.
The week of All Hallow’s Eve and All Saints Day was no exception to this freakishness. On Tuesday, October 29, 1985, Antonin had just returned from his Tuesday trip into town when his first visitor arrived. A round trip of approximately seven kilometers, Antonin was rarely seen to step out of this routine. Arriving to post bill payments and collect his mail at the Post Office/Tobacconist shop around half past ten, Ant then crossed the street to visit the bank (to deposit royalties and investment income checks, etc.), followed by a stop in at the corner grocer for a week’s supply of victuals, (seasonal vegetables, breads, cheese and condiments, occasional canned goods and/or personal hygienics), and finally ending with a seat at the Brannagh Pub for the Tuesday lunch special (usually some kind of shepherd’s pie) and pint of “half-and-half” (equal portions of Harp’s Lager and Guinness Stout) and some chatter with the usual group of ‘pub grubbers.’ It took some time, but eventually Ant became an accepted and welcomed member of the afternoon pub house gossip. Preferring to join in on discussions of the local weather and agricultural topics—and occasionally in the issues pertaining to local politics and commerce—Ant’s contributions were respected and often sought after. “What’s the Yank think?” and “Will the renowned recluse author please speak!” were two of the favorite goads of the good-hearted regulars.
Depending on his payload and the portents of weather, Maniqui was known to make his return walk home circumnavigate Banagher Hill: for a sight of the blue waters of Lough Eske. Though in the habit of daily walks, rare was the occasion in which he would travel south toward town—other than Tuesdays, of course. Most often his perambulations were directed to an inspection of his acreage, but Antonin was, from time to time, known to hike among the Blue Stacks north of Banagher Hill—again, depending on weather, and much more likely during the summer months.
All in all, Antonin Maniqui was considered a rather reclusive, stay-at-home kind of man. Nobody seemed to begrudge him the least for it. Which is probably one reason he felt so at home here. And why he stayed.

Independence

2009-04-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

I am a small community anarchist by temperament and belief. This being said, I have often fantasized about seceding from the union, declaring my own little farm independent of the United State of America, creating an autonomous government-less dot on the map—like San Marino in Italy or Andorra between France and Spain. If a small community of people chose to do the same, why should they not be allowed to do so? Why should we—or rather, why should the government—stop them? Why shouldn’t a person or community of people be allowed to choose their own form of government—just as frustrated colonists did in 1776? What binds individual humans to one nation’s laws and property rights? Where is the contract? Where/when did I sign?
The binds of government—any government, no matter how enlightened or altruistic—are quintessentially despotic and tyrannic; the relationship of the governed to its government is that of slave and master. How can it be otherwise? The relationship is based upon control and force; even in the best of circumstances it involves an abdication of some personal power in return for (the illusion of) a feeling of relative safety; a hypothetical exchange of rights and privileges for protective services. Government makes a promise. In good faith, the governed trust their government to keep its promise—to keep them safe. (From what, I’m not sure. From one’s neighbor, perhaps?)
I understand that the morality of the elite wealthy puppetmasters who control the US government, court system, and economy (and they would like to think, masses) is pragmatic, that is, they see it as their right and obligation as socio-cultural leaders to choose the appropriate morality fit for the particular moment or situation (which translates into whichever morality allows them the advantage in a given moment or situation—which means that they are able to rationalize any morality).
Perhaps a popular revolt could be instigated among the sheep by a legal and Internet campaign to secede from the Union. Or perhaps it must be done individually, on at a time, as a microcosmic assertion of our natural born democratic rights. Like this:

WE THE PEOPLE, formerly of 1111 Cinterly Road, Mancelona, Michigan, USA, do solemnly declare our independence from the governments and agencies of those United States of America. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
 That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,
 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, by men, for men, and that these governments should derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,
 That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter, discard or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, it is their moral obligation, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
 Such has been the patient sufferance of this Couple; and such is now the necessity that compels us to cast off our former systems of government. The history of the present government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over its inhabitants. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. The United States government and its agencies and cohorts have:
 Continuously created laws which favor and benefit unnatural persons, called “corporations,” over that of the natural persons it claims to serve and from whom it supposedly derives its authority;
 Increasingly chosen to interpret the United States and Michigan constitutions and their laws in ways which grant favor and lenience to the moneyed privileged and to unnatural persons, while at the same time ignoring or even denying the Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness of the working classes;
 Allowed the influence of representatives of the moneyed to become the dominant influences with regards to the writing of, passage of, and interpretation of law and policy;
 Closed its ears to the voices of the people, of the world;
 Chosen to prioritize foreign policy issues and spending over that of domestic needs;
 Chosen to pursue a policy of imperialistic perpetual war and now, as result, a state akin to martial law at home;
 Repeatedly and consistently chosen to favor capitalism over democracy;
 Repeatedly and consistently chosen to grant clemency or amnesty to the crimes and criminal acts of the rich and powerful;
 Turned a blind eye to, allowed, and even sanctioned criminal acts in domestic and foreign policy, especially in the areas of rights of privacy,
 Repeatedly and consistently chosen to not protect contract property as its laws and constitutions have promised to do;

We, therefore, Toril Narissa Fooker-Bisher and William Andrew Bisher, III, wife and husband and co-inhabitants of the Bisher Farm, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of, our selves, solemnly publish and declare, that this farm and its inhabitant are, and of Right ought be, a Free and Independent state, that we are absolved from all Allegiance to the U.S. governments, and that all political connection between us and the state of Michigan, the United States of America, and all other states, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent State, we have full Power to do all the acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Can a Country Have No Name?

2009-04-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

CAN A COUNTRY HAVE NO NAME?

That’s what my wife and I are trying to find out. We have filed for secession from the United States of America. We don’t want to join any other country, and we don’t even see any reason to assume a new name, it’s just that we no longer wish to be governed by the laws and government of the United States. We do not seek conflict, and we certainly don’t want to alienate our neighbors, we’re just tired of the governments of the United States and its subsidiaries (Michigan, Antrim County, Mancelona Township) and they way they treat us. We love the Declaration of Independence (See Below), the Bill of Rights, and the principles and ideals of democracy. It’s the way the courts, Congress, the President, multinational corporations, and even local officials interpret the Constitution and their laws and ordinances that we no longer wish to be a party to. We watch in disgust at the infantile and self-serving displays of deceit and immorality now being practiced within American government; we no longer see any adherence to or respect for the lofty tenets and high principles manifested in the Spirit of 1776. So we’re seceding. Just us. And, of course, our 29.5 acre farm off of Cinterly Road—the same 29.5 acres farmed by my father and his father all the way back to 1896 when my grandfather paid for it in cash with the earnings he’d accumulated from working in the timber industry. We no longer wish to have the protections of government of the once great United States of America. We just want to be left alone to continue doing what we’ve been doing for over a century: farming.
We’re nearly self-sufficient and self-sustained here. We are off-the grid and fairly energy-independent with our wind turbine, solar panels, eleven acres of woods that provide fuel to heat our wood stove and a fairly lucrative maple sugaring business. We have two wells—one of which provides water to an underground cistern-system, which then provides radiant heat and cooling to our house. Our fields and gardens provide us with nearly everything we require. Our main concern is that the US will remain on friendly terms with us so that we can freely cross the border in order to visits friends and family and continue to trade with local and mail-order businesses. We have no need of any financial connections to the US. We are willing to trust in the goodness of others and in the will of God for our safety. My wife and I have not subscribed to health or dental care or insurances for nigh on twenty years; we have always paid cash for any local services needed (which we also hope will be allowed to continue). We see no need to create our own currency—especially seeing that so many countries in the world are converting to the American Dollar for their own currency. We hope the US government won’t mind. Within our own little country we really won’t have any need to do that kind of business. My wife and I are more than happy to help each other out without the expectation of exchange or accounting. We also see no need to set up any form of “government” seeing as we’re pretty set in our ways and can manage to settle our petty disputes through interpersonal dialogue. We don’t expect to want to do any business with any foreign countries other than the above-mentioned private businesses in the United States. We have no debt, do not own credit cards, operate quite happily without a telephone, have never owned a television. But we have become rather fond of the Internet. It has, in fact, become our primary method of contact with our children and grandchildren. But, all in all, we really just want to be left alone. We are tired of being unlistened to, guilty-by-association, participants in the rape and plunder of the planet and its peoples. For years we tried to figure out how we could direct our tax dollars so that the taxes we dutifully paid would not be used for war and the military industrial complex.
For years we begged our government representatives—even paid law experts—to find a way we could “earmark” our tax dollars for specific causes that we felt supportive of. To no avail. Now, rather than continue to be given no choice, rather than continue to have to watch the erosion of our Constitutional rights, rather than have to submit without choice or recourse to the abusive and inhumane foreign and domestic policies of a government which is controlled by money, not “we the people,” we have decided to leave. No more taxes. No more guilt and shame at being a unwilling participant in the atrocities and crimes against nature and humanity perpetrated on behalf of greed and profiteering. We Declare our Independence. But, must we have a name? If so, why not “The Bisher Farm” as it has always been?

WE THE PEOPLE, formerly of 1111 Cinterly Road, Mancelona, Michigan, USA, do solemnly declare our independence from the governments and agencies of those United States of America. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
 That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,
 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, by men, for men, and that these governments should derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,
 That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter, discard or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, it is their moral obligation, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
 Such has been the patient sufferance of this Couple; and such is now the necessity that compels us to cast off our former systems of government. The history of the present government of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over its inhabitants. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. The United States government and its agencies and cohorts have:
 Continuously created laws which favor and benefit unnatural persons, called “corporations,” over that of the natural persons it claims to serve and from whom it supposedly derives its authority;
 Increasingly chosen to interpret the United States and Michigan constitutions and their laws in ways which grant favor and lenience to the moneyed privileged and to unnatural persons, while at the same time ignoring or even denying the Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness of the working classes;
 Allowed the influence of representatives of the moneyed to become the dominant influences with regards to the writing of, passage of, and interpretation of law and policy;
 Closed its ears to the voices of the people, of the world;
 Chosen to prioritize foreign policy issues and spending over that of domestic needs;
 Chosen to pursue a policy of imperialistic perpetual war and now, as result, a state akin to martial law at home;
 Repeatedly and consistently chosen to favor capitalism over democracy;
 Repeatedly and consistently chosen to grant clemency or amnesty to the crimes and criminal acts of the rich and powerful;
 Turned a blind eye to, allowed, and even sanctioned criminal acts in domestic and foreign policy, especially in the areas of rights of privacy,
 Repeatedly and consistently chosen to not protect contract property as its laws and constitutions have promised to do;

We, therefore, Toril Narissa Fooker-Bisher and William Andrew Bisher, III, wife and husband and co-inhabitants of the Bisher Farm, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of, our selves, solemnly publish and declare, that this farm and its inhabitant are, and of Right ought be, a Free and Independent state, that we are absolved from all Allegiance to the U.S. governments, and that all political connection between us and the state of Michigan, the United States of America, and all other states, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent State, we have full Power to do all the Acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Schools Are Not Democracies

2009-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Democracy in Our Schools

“Schools are not democracies.”

What a sad, cynical statement.

“Schools are not democracies.”

I have heard this belief proclaimed by teachers, administrators, board members, college professors, business leaders, parents and even students. I have also uncovered the harsh reality that the United States is not—and may never have been—a democracy. This does not change the fact that many Americans have latched onto the ideal of democracy; they believe democracy is not only possible but worth ‘fighting’ for (and I don’t mean the type of fighting our soldiers are doing, based on the misleading slogans that our Presidents have used to send our youth to war, such as: “to preserve democracy,” “to spread democracy,” “to defend democracy,” and “to establish democracy”). Thanks to the inspiring words of America’s Founding Fathers, the people who believe in democracy embody and nurture in themselves and in others life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What Is ‘Democracy’?

In true democracies everybody has a voice, everybody’s opinion is deemed worthy, yea, is required. Unfortunately, true democracies cannot be found in his-tory books. Many republics and oligarchies have tried to lay claim to the ‘democracy’ designation. Alas, they are mere pretenders. The fact is that in ‘civilized’ man’s previous dabblings with ‘democracy’ some segment of society has always lain disenfranchised: be they slave, indentured servant, non-landowner, people of color or of differing language, women, and, of course, children. In 1789, the list of people intended to not be covered under the protections of the Bill of Rights and Constitution included all of the above. Some ‘democracy.’
Still, the spirit of democracy—the allure of democracy—has spurred countless individuals and groups to action. They educate, raise consciousness, organize, unionize, demonstrate, even bear arms. It is democratic spirit that brought us to this point in history in which slavery is outlawed (supposedly), women can vote, and the landless and naturalized citizens—even illegal aliens—have constitutional rights. (Had constitutional rights. See the PATRIOT Acts.) We have come a long way. But, there is still a long way to go.

‘Democracy’ Is an Intrinsic Desire

“Schools are not democracies.”

I can’t imagine saying this as if it’s okay—as if there’s nothing we can do about it! Like Seal said in his 1992 award winning song, “There’s a sky full of people but only some want to fly, isn’t that crazy? Crazy!” Yes, it’s crazy.
Democracy is a product of a human archetype; it is a life- and self-nurturing ideal we carry in our subconscious throughout our lives, a goal our unconscious mind is in the constant state of trying to realize. Democratic principles—coming out of Natural Law and Natural Rights—are the internally motivating force behind man’s search for freedom, his pursuit of happiness. They are the reason the oppressed yearn and fight for their freedom—why individuals seek independence and autonomy. Just ask any former slave or concentration camp survivor—or an immigrant or migrant worker: the drive and desire to create freedom, independence, and happiness is inextinguishable. Yet some humans grow so distracted by the constant barrage of external stimuli that the internal thrum of peace and contentment are drowned out, even forgotten. Their hypervigilance keeps them so outwardly focused, so stuck in the ‘fight or flight’ mode of functioning, that they forget the kind of joy and comfort that are available to them when they choose to be masters of their own lives. That choice is not an easy one; it is a choice that big businessmen and their politician lackeys would just as soon see you forget. Hence the true lesson of compulsory public schooling: “You will do as you’re told, you don’t have a choice, so shut up and step in line.”

American Hypocrisy

“Schools are not democracies.”

When schools are not democracies what does that say about our society? That we don’t want to practice what we preach? That we’re hypocrites, or, worse: outright liars? That we don’t want to be Americans: to live up to the responsibili-ties set upon us by our forefathers—that is: to uphold democracy?
We say we live in or want to live in a democracy, yet we won’t allow democracy to be taught to and experienced by our children in schools? Why? Shouldn’t our children be receiving exposure to and practice with the skills necessary to practice our hallowed democracy? Or is the real truth that none of us wants democracy—that we certainly don’t want it for our children? Are we happy, content, or apathetic being told what to do, submissively proffering blind obedience to our ‘leaders’ and ‘superiors?’ Why is it that we don’t want our children to have the chance to be equal with these ‘leaders’ and ‘superiors?’ And what exactly do you think those ‘leaders’ or ‘superiors’ did in order to earn their authority? How can one believe that the longer we play and the more we conform and ignore our hearts and souls that we will earn the opportunity to become a ‘leader,’ ‘superior’ or policy maker? What is it about conformity and complacency that you believe will earn you happiness and a fulfilling life?

Kim Overton and Concord Academy

Kim Overton is the co-founder of an award-winning charter school named Concord Academy. Kim is a believer in democracy. She is a believer in the equality of human beings of all races, colors, creeds, nationalities, sexes and even ages. The school she and her husband founded in Northern Michigan was created with democratic beliefs and values in mind. They sought to nurture creativity, critical thinking, and diversity. They provided an environment for learning and growth through cooperation and collaboration. With K-12 under one roof, they sought to create a ‘family’ or perhaps ‘one-room schoolhouse’ effect. They preferred to try to celebrate the differences between individuals. They promoted collaborative program and curriculum design. They gave teachers and children a voice and showed them that their input was truly valued—that it, in fact, helped steer the course of the school.
Corporations and the business/corporate world function without democ-ratic principles in place. Likewise, the public school system, following the business model, functions without democratic principles at work. Concord Academy is not a public school, or rather, it was not founded upon the public school model. Concord Academy was created to be different, to offer something different.

The Struggle to Revive Democracy in Our Schools

Though I hear and feel the numbness and apathy toward the anti-democratic changes imposed upon our schools by No Child Left Behind, the Michigan Department of Education, and more business-minded school board and school administrations, I see and hear the commitment and energy of a few who still wish to hold out, who dare to hope, to even speak up for, democracy. These courageous, principled, and passionate people are engaged in a crusade—a crusade for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a battle for the very possession of their souls and the souls of their children. Will they succumb to the pressures of conformity and the daunting litany of rules and regulations imposed from ‘above’ and ‘without’ or will they succeed in keeping alive that spirit which caused Kim Overton to create a school—the same spirit that caused our American forefathers to put their lives and possessions on the line in order to shake off tyranny and oppression?
These are the people who believe, as Kim does, that the educational experience offered and gained in our schools be one that nurtures within each community member the flame of democracy—the desire and palpable need to achieve individual identity and confidence, to experiment with and learn mutually supportive, inclusive, collaborative skills, to explore and gain confidence in creative and critical thinking, to walk out into the world with skills that enable them to be self-sufficient adults.
Schools have a choice. They can be vehicles for the growth and develop-ment of human beings or they can be vehicles for the control and molding of little factory/corporate robots. Many schools, Concord Academy included, contain in their mission statements wording purporting the belief that education is a bring-ing out, not a pouring in—that is, that education implies the use of a nurturing, nature-supporting environment, not a coercive, prescribed program. However, this is not the truth—this is not the fact—of our schools’ practices. Schools are not nurturing the natural, God-given talents of each and every one of the individuals in their communities. Schools are guilty of quite openly trying to force community members into prescribed, ‘poured in’ behaviors, skills, and information packages.
I believe schools have been moving even closer toward this latter scenario since the creation of the No Child Left Behind laws. The end result of this movement—and one could argue that it is also the desired result of this legislation—is the production of a uniform line of programmed automatons. The adverse effect of this result—from a humanist perspective—is that these assembly-line produced consumer robots—worker bees—may require the remainder of their lives to recover from and unlearn the conditioning and indoctrination from their school years in order to be able to relearn how to breathe, think, speak, and act for themselves. It is my opinion that people who know that they are free to breathe, think, speak and act for themselves and who are able to take conscious advantage of this knowledge are higher functioning human beings. They are more trustworthy; they act from higher, more altruistic motives. They are more creative and more desirous of seeking information—of being active lifelong learners. They are more capable of self-governance, and more effective and successful collaborators.
We are doing such a disservice to today’s children (and adults) by bom-barding them with prescribed learning expectations, by forcing them to qualify their personal self-esteem according to how well they memorize the dates of Charlemagne’s eldest son’s birthday, or the Binomial Theorem, or the definitions of ‘clauses’ and ‘gerunds.’ We should be exposing them to the real skills and mental issues they are likely to encounter daily in ‘the real world.’ We should be giving them ‘real’ things to do, ‘real world’ problems to tackle. We should be exposing them to experiences that will develop their ability to meet, analyze, and come up with creative solutions to problems they will encounter in their lifetime, including morals, values, ethics, philosophy and religion, debate and forensics skills, opinion writing, how to maintain and manage personal property (including personal, household and business budgeting), the intertwined biology, chemistry, and physics of living working systems (e.g. growing, storing, and preparing one’s own food), environmental awareness and activism, community service and social responsibility, democracy in theory and in action, effective physical and psychological self-care tools, and the list goes on.
In order for democracy to ascend and prevail, children must be exposed to and experience for themselves what democracy looks, sounds, and feels like. In order to do this, students need to be given some voice in their curriculum—a say in the experiences and lessons their education can provide for them. It is, after all, their education we are talking about. “Each generation may find it necessary to reinvent their world,” Thomas Jefferson said. This may well turn out to be especially true for this up-and-coming generation. So, let’s try to give them the op-portunity to pick up the tools they’ll need for this daunting task.
If your knee-jerk response to this proposal is oppositional—because “they’re just children,” or because “they don’t know any better”—then we have already condemned the next generation to failure, we have given up hope, we have already dispassionately sentenced them to our own sanitized and scientific compartments of inferiority and dependency. Unfortunately, we have been conditioned into thinking that all young humans are incapable, unformed, ‘wild’ and, if truth be known, ‘dangerous’. “Innocence” we call it. We have been taught to be unwitting accomplices in the business of prolonging the mythical and fairy-tale period of growth known as ‘childhood’ for as long as possible.
Before the 1840s the period of partial or limited involvement in the basic activities of life—called “childhood”—was extended to about the age of seven. At seven, young humans were fully engaged, fully functional within the immediate community. With the industrial capitalists’ growing need for large, localized, ro-botized labor forces, that period was elongated to 12 years (sixth grade). (Schools became the instrument of robotization.) Then to eighth grade. Now it is at 16 years when a ‘child’ is eligible for freedom—considered capable enough to attempt adult life. But, should you want entry into the corporate and/or professional world, ‘high’ school and college degrees are necessary to pass out of childhood and into ‘adulthood.’

Democracy and Hierarchical Structures

Many school administrators and school boards are out of touch with Nature’s intrinsic motivator. This is evidenced in their repeated decisions to clamp down on democratic freedoms and move more toward a corporate/military model of hierarchical structure. Hierarchies do not support democracy. Hierarchies flow toward control, toward the limitation of freedoms, toward social stratification (‘castes’), and are naturally supportive of dictatorships and tyrannies (the ‘top’ of the pyramid). Democracy supports a “man is inherently good and should be trusted” foundation of beliefs; hierarchies support a “man is basically evil and cannot be trusted” attitude. Hierarchies foster “me against you” and “us versus them” mentalities, which, in turn, create discord, disharmony, disparagement, disregard, disdain, dispute, distance, and disease. Hierarchies nurture isolation, distrust, hypervigilance, and fear. Democracy nurtures cooperation, collaboration, trust, mutual respect and appreciation, and love.
Don’t get me wrong: It is not my wish to eradicate all contraries. After all, it is only through contrasts and comparisons that we can really get to know our world. What would the yin be without the yang? How could we know goodness without knowing wrongness, joy without pain and suffering? But there comes a time when everyone learns to step back from the game of dualities, when one realizes that one has a choice—in every moment. We have the freedom to choose between optimism or pessimism, love or fear, joy or suffering, the perspective of ‘me’ or that of ‘us,’ between democratic principles or conformity to oppressive structures.
Which do you choose? Are you for democracy or not? Real democracy? Do you wish your children to learn what democracy is—what it feels like, how to practice it? Or do you want only the theory to be memorized for test regurgitation? If you’re at all like Kim Overton and me, you believe democracy is not only an attractive ideal but also an achievable practice.
Take notice of some of the issues challenging the world today. Then ask yourself, “If I were trying to prepare my child(ren) for the world out there, for the likely future, is this what I’d be teaching them/wanting them to learn? Is my child’s school truly preparing my child for the real world in which s/he will have to live?” Is it?

The Phenomenon of Compulsory Schooling

2009-04-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

The phenomenon of compulsory schooling has only existed for about two hundred years. The Prussian government, humiliated by the ease with which Napoleon and his Imperial Army had ransacked their proud army in what some historians still consider the “worst defeat of all-time,” a one-day defeat of the what had previously been the most highly reputed and “unrivalled” military force in Europe, at the Battle of Jena on October 14, 1806, instituted a broad-scoped form of state-mandated mass schooling in the early 1800s. Though many Americans came under the influence and admiration of the revolutionary Prussian education system, it was not until Horace Mann and his Harvard cronies conspired with New England business leaders of the Industrial Revolution to get the first compulsory school laws passed in the United States in 1852.
Out of a human history of about 12,000 years, 200 is not a very long time. Still, there are many who will automatically argue that the conception (first found in the writings of Plato and much later illustrated in detail by Rousseau) and institutionalization of schooling have been signs of progress, of the evolution of our species, another benefit and advance coming out of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. While these arguments may have some merits, the fact remains that compulsory schooling is a system that is by its very nature forced upon a population--it is, after all, compulsory and, therefore, in need of questioning: Why is this system forced upon we the people? Is this system really necessary for the achievement of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as promised in the foundational documents of our democracy? Is this a system that we, the people, would choose naturally to impose upon ourselves? Is this a system that truly nurtures the potential of the promise of our natural, inalienable, and democratic rights?

My Bio Brief

2009-03-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

I was born and raised in an affluent American suburb, schooled at the neighborhood Catholic and public schools, summered at the local exclusive country clubs, played all the typical country club sports, and could barely be kept indoors because of the amazing backyard we had. Whatever the season and sport, our backyard played host to multiple daily neighborhood events, be it ice hockey on our home-made 90’ x 20’ rink, climbing trees to pelt neighbors and passersby with apples or crab apples, soccer, baseball, wiffle ball, football, badminton, “scrub,” kick the can, numerous variations of tag, superheroes, basketball, tennis, snowball wars, fort building, obstacle course, leaf raking, gathering and burning, hide and seek, playing “spy” in the neighbors’ yards, etc., etc. Later, a northern “summer cottage” appeared and eventually turned into my family’s year round home. Spiritually, the woods and waters of Northern Michigan became home very easily for me as Nature and Her Beauty nurtured my soul much more than concrete and steel; no matter where I traveled, what I studied, or whomever I hooked up with, my heart always remained firmly anchored there.
My first twenty years were spent traveling pathways that were both prescribed and expected among my family’s social strata: I was an ‘A’ student, exhibited compliant school behaviors, was an above average athlete, played my part as an integral family member, respectfully dated girls of equal social standing, willingly worked at nominal, minimum wage paying summer jobs, jumped right into a pre-med major at an exclusive liberal arts college right out of high school, enthusiastically joined in on the stereotypic college social scene. I was the model of innocent naïveté, blissful ignorance, and unconscious conformity.
At twenty, while on a train in France, all by myself, I experienced “an awakening”: the sudden realization that I was my own person with my own talents, interests, and desires; that I didn’t have to live the programmed life that society had ordained for me or that my parents wanted for me; that I was free to make choices for my self based upon my own values and beliefs, my personal likes and dislikes, my unique interests and curiosities.
I quickly recognized that the path I was on—the course of study and career choice I had “chosen” for myself—were not my own but from a kind of set of brainless defaults. People born into the same class that I was were traveling the doctor, lawyer, PhD or business routes. Though I did not realize it at that time, this was my first brush as an “adult” with the feeling that school was an artificial, unnatural—even surreal—and definitely unhealthy holding place for normally capable and vibrant human adults. Where elementary and high schools are veritable prisons designed to keep young humans out of the mainstream while indoctrinating them to certain thought and behavior patterns, colleges and universities are more akin to theme parks intended specifically to provide a diversion or an escape from fully functional participation in real life activity.
The ensuing years were spent pursuing learning, knowledge, and social situations of my own interest and curiosity while trying to discover and deprogram the conditioned patterns in my life (e.g. alcoholism, codependency, and addiction, escapism, materialism, xenocentric pride and prejudice, dissociative personality traits, child-like dependencies and the Peter Pan Principle).
I think that the significant point here is that it took me the occasion of being alone, being totally out of my zones of comfort and familiarity, to provoke—or, perhaps, more like, allow—an internal conflict and confrontation to occur with my self so that I might wake up, come to life, take my power back into my own hands. Career choices revolving around children and control over others followed while I myself became unwittingly subjugated and “enslaved” to contracts, “bosses” and other “superiors” in hierarchical settings. All of this forced me to carry on reflecting, seeking out the source of my anxieties and insecurities—which, of course, served to make possible my continued growth in self-awareness and, ultimately, to help me reclaim more and more control of my own life.
An art and beauty lover as well as a naturally solitary and introspective person, I was able to learn to find “my people” through and in music, literature, film, holistic health, education, and spirituality. In my twenties I had the privilege of experiencing the presence, input, inspiration, and support of many, many artistic “muses.” In my thirties I had the honor and good fortune of connecting with the mother of the two girls who would chose me as their father. In my forties I had the unexpected and incredibly humbling experience of being reunited with my twin soul, my cosmic partner, my “other.” Now, in my fifties, I am blessed with the amazing opportunity of the rediscovery of my own voice, my own thoughts and opinions, and the means for their expression. With this voice I aspire to help provoke thinking in others, to raise awareness and consciousness as so many have done for me. I may not say anything that you have not already heard—and most certainly will not say anything that you don’t already know—but, still, it is my sincerest hope that my words may serve to help you illumine small tidbits of your own Truth, to bring to your own conscious awareness more of the Beauty and Joy that is your authentic self.

Time is a wastin'--HERE I AM!

2009-03-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hello Cyberconsciousness, welcome to my world!

I've been thinking about things. For about forty years. And when I finally decide to try to express some of my opinions--to try to get published--I find the road too long, too barred with obstacles, too oppressed with other people's time lines, too designed to thwart my voice, to edit my thoughts. So, rather than play by any one else's rules, HERE I AM! Live. Any time I wish (or that you wish). Thank you for tuning in--for giving me a chance. I hope you find my words and perspectives intriguing if not provocative. My goal is to get people to think, to wake up from the malaise of the brainwashing they've been subjected to.

Wondering about my name? Some of you will remember the news anchor from the 1976 movie, Network, played by actor Peter Finch. Tired of the bullshit he was subjected to and forced to report, he went on a live rampage on television saying he was "mad as hell" and that he was "not going to take it anymore." In reverence and deference to the spirit of that powerful role, here I am: The Peter Finch Network. RAGE HARD!

My main targets are "education" (state-enforced compulsory schooling), capitalism ("capitalizing on the compliance of the brainwashed masses"), consumerism, two-party politics, fear-based thinking, anti-democracy, government and media propaganda, Pragmatism, the soul-less society, etc., etc. etc. Look for my first entries soon.