2012 - The Last Word

Didn’t really want to let 2012 get away from me without the last word. Not that the date on the calendar – our Gregorian or any other –really has any meaning other than that which we ascribe to it. Like a birthday, or any red-letter day, it simply marks the progression of linear time, and in this case, a guidepost signifying completion of yet another trip around the sun. What a journey it’s been!

I could write a whole book today with the thoughts in my head that would trump an unabridged copy of War and Peace, but I think in the interest of time, I’ll stick with something more like, Journey to the Center of My Heart. 

What do I mean by “heart”? Surprisingly enough, it matters not what definition you give to it, be it the physical pump or the center of my consciousness…they are equally applicable to the subject of my Journey. My path this past year lead me down parallel realities, involving both a physical trip to hell and back, and a long, winding road into the very nature of ME; a trip of discovery into both the ordinary and non-ordinary realities of my life.

The backdrop of this Journey actually begins a year or so back when my youngest son, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, needed spinal fusion surgery, a top-to-bottom affair, a surgery that would reinforce his posture and ultimate comfort level through a brutal yet necessary procedure, that while benefiting him in one way, would severely curtail his ability to feed himself – one of the last bits of independence he possessed. The very idea of it will cause even the strongest of constitutions to tremble and pale, necessitating some serious re-evaluation of priorities. Although surgery was a smashing success, during some quiet space of time in my contemplations, my paradigm began to collapse. Like air out of a balloon, I had to close my business, and watched my economic life spin down the drain and got my walking papers on this game of Monopoly that we call our financial system.  In retrospect, I can say with all sincerity, “Wow…that’s a relief!” It’s hard to let go of many, many things. But I have found – without exception – that I haven’t missed anything. In fact, while my bank accounts hover a fine line between black and red, my life account is full to the brim with interest and derivatives and growing exponentially. I finally arrived at a point of acceptance, when the last bit of rug under my feet gave way.

Vision with optic neuritis on the left

After experiencing the loss of my vision in October, 2011, due to optic neuritis, and being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in December, that was at the top of the roller-coaster. In March my legs became numb, and my strength completely failed me. Functionally blind and completely wheelchair dependent…now there’s a place to start a spiritual journey. And so I did.

When I found myself physically powerless, I craved and sought for a source of power, if only to reassure myself that I was still alive. I discovered the sincere truth in the cliché, “Knowledge is Power”. When I had nothing else, I had my mind. My first line of defense was education. I can confidently say that I believe I know more about MS than at least two neurologists in this area. Do you know how many Ivy League schools and high ranking medical institutions have classes and lectures online for free? If I couldn’t see, I could listen. YouTube is your friend! Knowing all I could know about that which was affecting me physically empowered me to make the best and most appropriate decisions about my life and health, and finally gave me hope for at least a partial recovery, even if it meant new normal.

A happy side effect of this is that the acquisition of knowledge begets the thirst for more knowledge. So with nothing but time and a set of ears, I dove in. I followed every inquisition my mind thought up, down into the human body, from the organs, to the cells, to the atoms, to the electrons, to the quarks, to Plancks Constant, to the dark matter, and as much of the in between as my brain would allow. And I then turned back around and traveled from my body, to the atmosphere, to the moon, to the sun, to the solar system, to the galaxy, to the universe…as far out as our collective knowledge would allow. I entertained every theory I came across, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I wasn’t looking for answers…I was looking for understanding. I wasn’t looking for a bandwagon to board; I wanted enough information to make informed decisions about what I really believe. 

Summarizing even a fraction of what I gained isn’t happening here, but let me hit a high point or two on the graph.

Realization #1: Everything is all part of the same thing. We are, in fact, all connected. Our separateness is simply an illusion of our bodies. We are not separate, from each other, or from our Source. If you look at the smallest visible particles, you will find that they are little microcosms of the entirety of the visible universe. Pretty much everything that’s happening a-way out there is mirrored in what’s happening in every level down to the quantum. Fractals, toroids, geometries…it gives a whole new perspective to the old, “As above, so below.”  Everything is patterns, and if you understand a pattern, you will understand its meaning. Oh, I don’t think we’ve arrived yet…but we’re learning.

Realization #2: Everything is cyclical. From the rotation of the galaxies to the celebrations we share this time of year, to the cycles of birth, life and death found in everything on the planet, to the regeneration of cells. Life is not linear…it is cyclical. There are no endings without subsequent new beginnings. To understand this, is to open doors to still more levels of understanding of my very life and times. To embrace this is to begin to fully LIVE.

Realization #3: Everything is intelligent, for it is part of the fabric we are all made of, which is, in and of itself, Intelligence. And intelligence communicates. To fully appreciate a walk in the woods is to understand that the earth beneath your feet is communicating with you, as well as the trees and their leaves, the rocks, the wind, the rain, and the sun.  It is ALL communicating with you, but we don’t listen. And it doesn’t speak English. It all speaks the language of Intelligence – the language of the heart. You may not know the mechanics of photosynthesis, or even be aware that it is happening – but it is, and the trees are communicating this to you. This is their part. You may not appreciate the earth under your feet, but the rocks are in communication with the tectonic plates and crust of the earth, from which your body and food derive themselves. That’s a communication. I realized how much our culture has ignored this – and how much communication I have missed in being oblivious to that which surrounds me daily. Waking up to this, and beginning to really listen to the world around me, opens still more doors of understanding of both the simplicity and the complexity of life, and the tricky in-betweens. 

Realization #4: The greatest struggle we have as human beings is our duality. For everything that we have conceived of, there are two sides. Good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, north and south, polar opposites. And this makes sense in an electrically polarized universe. It gives us a context in which to function. But it also lends itself to the humans and their beliefs being polarized, and seeing other people as separate and on the opposite side is leading us into killing each other. We are so juiced up with this polarity that we can barely hear an opponent’s opinion without a fully engaged fight-or-flight response, with all the ferocity of a full blown life-threat, evidenced in our last election. 

For all of our pontification about what we, personally think is the “right” thing, way, or belief, there is an equal and opposite faction on the other side of the table, defending what they think is “right”, which to you would be “wrong”. We have become so polarized that our government can’t get over their partisan bias, and we have people who will kill another person for something as ultimately trivial as their religious beliefs.

This is further reflected in the two hemispheres of our brains. Our beauty-loving aesthetic right brain and our analytical, make-sense-of-it-all left brain, both giving us information about what we see and feel every day, influenced by our environment, education, preferences and choices. What we have failed to understand is that both sides of our duality come from the same consciousness. “Ban guns!” “Keep gun ownership protected!” are battle cries that come from the same consciousness. They are the two sides of the same coin. Which begs the question, just what is the coin?

Answer: It’s the neutrality of the HEART. The heart does not see a gun, a senseless crime, or a crushed freedom. It sees the energy of the entire interaction. It does not judge it. It sees only what is – and responds to it in the only language it speaks. Which, as I have discovered, is LOVE. In a humanity that lives from its true heart of love, this, and every other duality that divides us, becomes irrelevant and moot. 

Einstein once said, ”No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” To put a finer point on it, the bipolar government that brought us to the fiscal cliff will not be the government that rescues us from the fall. One picket line will never triumph over the other picket line. One religion will never prove to be superior to another religion, and the consciousness that brought you legalized abortion can be hassled all day and will still not bring about the requested solution of banning abortion. The shovel that dug the hole cannot dig you out of it. I have come to the understanding that we need a different MO.

Realization #5: In assessing my life and its course and direction, I have come to a rather simple conclusion. Not original, but suddenly true at a core level. There are only two choices of response to any situation in life: Fear or Love.

Both fear and love have multitudes of manifestations, but any reaction at all can be traced to one of these two responses. Both polarities in the examples above stem from fear: Fear that we will get shot, fear that we will lose our right to bear arms. Same, same. They both stem from the consciousness of fear – and can therefore never solve the issue satisfactorily. Fear that we will be killing our progeny and fear that we will lose our reproductive freedom are both modeled out of fear. We can see in these obvious examples another of Einstein’s contributions to our thinking,” Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  We will never war our way into peace. Not on an international level, nor on a personal level. 

And so on December 31, 2012, I am contemplating the lessons of my Journey to the Center of My Heart. Right back where I started from, but with a whole lot more understanding of just what the HEART is, and what it’s true function is. Heart is where love resides…the love that will solve all the problems of an insane, fear-driven world, as well as the troubles of a fear-broken heart. In learning to function in love instead of fear, my MS is now a fellow traveler, not my enemy. To hate it, resent it, attack it, and yes, even attempting to cure it...this all stems from fear. Afraid to have it, afraid it will make me it’s victim, afraid it will take my life, afraid it will hurt others…and on and on. Look at that…”good” things and “bad” things all stemming from the same thing! It’s not about the duality of good or bad. It’s simply about what IS. I have MS. Regardless of all that I may fear about it, I HAVE IT. To accept that, is to begin to understand it, and to grow in that understanding totally eradicates any vestiges of fear. It is a part of me, and I am not afraid of me. I love me. I take an appropriate treatment, not because I am afraid of relapse, but because I love life, and my mobility, and what’s left of my eyesight. If at any time my treatments should be discontinued for financial or other reasons, I am not afraid. 

The same could be said about my son's Duchenne diagnosis. I have written myself a credo that I keep with me. Let me share it with you: 

We are not victims of this disease. 

We are participants in the process of it. 

Unwilling I entered, however, to remain unwilling is to push away the great rewards of full, conscious, and willing participation. 

To embrace the process and LIVE it fully, taking joy in it by "extracting the precious from the worthless", slowly, my understanding opens up to the high calling of my son and I. 

And understanding makes all the difference. 
When I embrace the process 
I am not watching him die - 
I am watching him LIVE. 
In living and caring for my son, 
We participate in a LOVE that few would choose, but those who accept and embrace it - for all it's joy and sorrow - are rewarded with the fullness of LOVE beyond the ordinary.

In this context - my context - I am most blessed. 

Can you see the difference? I hope so – it’s a hard concept to convey, but I cannot begin to tell you how these ( and thousands of other) realizations have altered my world for the better, and I can wish no greater thing for anyone than the understanding and illumination that has marked this year for me, and the power of this in just one life. What would happen in the lives of many?

2013 promises to be a very bumpy ride. But we are living in a cyclical universe. Beginnings and endings really only exist in a linear timeline, and we are cyclical. It’s up to us to make the transition from a world torn asunder by fear into a world that can live together in love. And it can only begin in the small space in my heart…and yours…and yours…until together it would be OURS

May this be the year where we all awaken to our potential, begin to live from our hearts in love, and not in fear; the year we begin to implement the wisdom of the ancients, and "Be Not Afraid". 

Still Want Change?

Still want change you don’t think we are gonna get in the next four years? 

Don’t be so despairing…it might not be as hard as you think. It will only be hard if you THINK it’s hard. How badly do you really want change? Your actions will tell. 

Clearly, the system does not work. On Yahoo news, during the entire voting coverage they displayed a box which was monitoring Twitter and Facebook and recording the mood of the posts with regard to the political situation, in the categories of taxes, jobs, healthcare, etc. represented by circles on a chart. The entire evening, the screen was dominated by a large red circle, representing ANGER. Of the choices confused, sad, happy, worried…the red circle of ANGER stayed way in the lead. 

When you look at the downward spiral over the past how-many elections, you now know that we can expect only more of the same. When you take our monetary situation to its logical conclusion, you know that it can’t last. Of this we can be sure. Will we go to war? Will we turn into a police state? Will the sun give us the spanking we deserve? Will Yellowstone finally say “Enough!”? These things we don’t know. When the money fails, how will we handle that, as a people? Our future – of this Nation, of this planet – depends on your answer to that question.

Perhaps we should reference our Constitution? 

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving 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 or to 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"

You know, you might want to go read the whole thing, because it sounds like a really good plan…and it sounds like the antithesis of what we have in America today. I don’t like what I see. I did not vote for ANY of the financial deals with the banks, or to go to war, among thousands of other bits of legislation that are balloted about in Washington. According to this document, we have a right to change that if it gets out of hand. “It is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it…”. So says the document which every military man and police officer have sworn to uphold. So, we should have some back-up, here. 

 

Now when we look at our alternatives, to either alter or abolish, one sounds a little harsher. Abolish implies a more negative spin, but alter provides us a little more diplomacy, don’t you think? How, then does one alter their government, so that it again serves the people? It’s quite simple, really. You stop feeding it. And stopping feeding it has nothing to do with voting, or marching, or protesting. Not that there isn’t a place for such…but the real power is down lower on the current totem pole. It’s right down here at home with WE THE PEOPLE. 

Revolution will start in your house. Here’s a few helpful hints to start REALLY altering our government. 

The first thing each citizen should do is educate themselves as to the problem. Now, this can be totally discouraging and depressing. Gives you a hopeless stare and declarations of going down the shitter. But know this – you do not need to know all that much. As Ray McGovern said, if malaria is a problem, you don’t take to the swamp with a machine gun to kill the mosquitoes…you drain the swamp. What is the ROOT of the problem? You can read about the “mosquitoes” of a million political issues…but what you need to do is follow the money. I’m not, by the way, offering that as a hypothesis. It’s quite a fact and hardly a secret. The primary cancer in our Nation is the monetary system and its control of our government, and as a result…the people.

Think about it: Jobs, healthcare, taxes, union issues, mortgage crises…ALL of this is monetarily based and currently benefiting only the banks, and the people are paying for it. Even when you broaden the picture to include the theaters of war…again, it’s no secret that war is perhaps the most profitable endeavor on the planet – again…at the expense of THE PEOPLE. 

SO…enough about that. Now you know the problem. The next step to bringing the solution home is to now CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS. Really…it’s that simple. Fact: Nothing has ever taken place, and nothing has ever been done that did not originate with: A THOUGHT. Never, ever. That’s how powerful thought is. You don’t need to know the quantum mechanics of it – (although I highly recommend its study – it’s amazing science!) – you just need to look around you, see that it is quite evidently true, believe it, and act upon it.

Change your thoughts to what, you may ask? How about a focus on what we are working toward, rather than on what’s fucked up? Yes, you have to look at the problem, but instead of turning your thoughts to the ugliness of it, or fighting against something – begin to think about that which we are working toward. It may take time, but you will begin to see everything in a much better light. So, step one is changing your thoughts. Toward a solution, not away from a problem. Run toward something with courage, not away from something in fear. 

Now about draining the swamp. Step two: Take responsibility. This is OUR country. Bought and paid for with blood, which trumps money. When you realize that YOU and ME are what’s keeping the swamp open for business, feeding the mosquitoes, it’s kind of a bitter pill. We are in homes that cost money, require heat and energy that cost money, eat food that costs money, drive cars that cost money, with gas that costs money, with insurance, title and license that cost more money, to have things that cost money, to buy educations that cost money – and we just don’t have all that money. There is no lack of resources. Exhibit A, a new car lot. How many people need a dependable vehicle, but cannot afford one? How many homeless are there, and how many empty homes because they don’t have money? Almost NO ONE has enough money to buy homes or cars – not paid in full, as it should be. No…we need credit to borrow the money we need for these things. And the interest will cost you better than four times what the cost is. If you spend any intellectual energy on this, you will see that you are, in fact, a slave to the system. Just try and break away. See how long before they “catch” you. Your very life is in the banks hands. 

So what to do? How can you drain the swamp, if that is what we depend upon for our most basic needs of food, shelter and clothing? A little at a time. Need some ideas to start? 

Take inventory of your life. How much debt do you have? How much have you invested in propping up the swamp? Start to back away from it. Get rid of it by any means possible. Test your courage on this one. Too many people feel that money in the bank is some safe-deposit box. It’s not. Money NOT in your hand is no money at all. It can disappear with the click of a “delete” key. Your investments are NOT propping up the “economy” – it’s the skeletal structure of the monster that is consuming us. Take it back.

 And it’s worth mentioning, that YOU are NOT your credit rating. So what if you lose that? Does it REALLY define you? If it does, you’ve just got another symptom of swamp-dependence.  Start small. Close big bank accounts, and go local if you still need a bank. Get rid of credit cards, one at a time. Slowly withdraw your support. Take your tangible assets, then – a.k.a. CASH, and turn it into a means of supporting yourself. Got a nice 401K nest egg? Take it and buy that land you always wanted to and get out of town. Put solar panels on your house and get off the grid. Now THERE is a retirement program – providing your own energy. Buy everything from now on as if it were the last one you ever purchased. You will look for quality and durability, and will utterly avoid all items engineered for planned obsolescence. Begin to work your way toward the door of this place, into a place of freedom. In order to be free, you must learn to take care of yourself. 

If you’ve done that, by virtue of having changed your thoughts on the matters at hand, you are well on your way. If your neighbors, family and friends saw you solarizing your house, getting rid of your energy bills, your debts, your STUFF that you simply don’t need in favor of quality items that give you control back of your life, you think they won’t follow suit? If you did this today, while money still has the place that it does, you would be in great shape financially. So many less bills! So much surplus cash! 

With surplus cash, you can begin to truly take responsibility for yourself. You will begin to see how many parts of your life are really NOT in your control, and you will be inspired to take those back, too. 

As people begin to unplug from “nanny government” and the banking cartel, it will begin to collapse. It’s going to ultimately anyway…why don’t we opt for a controlled demolition? When it falls, it must not be allowed to rise back up with some new idea that will crush us all even more. And those who have already divorced the system will have all KINDS of ideas as to what actually works. They will have been doing it. 

If you need a precedent to look at, think about the depression. Plenty of farmers and people who still took responsibility for themselves were not affected by it. They saw the failure of money, and simply said, “Bummer”, and carried on with the way they were already living. Think the tribes in Africa with no electricity will care if the grid goes down? No…they take responsibility for themselves, and their families, and their tribes. Something we’ve kind of gotten away from, but if we take out of the giant that which is ours, we can currently purchase all that we need to be in the same shape when it all comes apart. 

And while you are starting this revolution in your home, be aware of opportunities to NOT go it alone. Co-op a garden, if you don’t like to play in the dirt. What do YOU have to offer someone else? Begin to see not the monetary COST of things, but rather change those thoughts and look for the intrinsic VALUE. You could not GIVE me a brand new flat screen TV for anything I have of VALUE. Your TV is worthless to me. I don’t watch TV. Now, if you had a set of cast iron cookware, I’d be happy to trade you something for that! 

While you are at it, learn to cook. Learn what it is you are eating. If I showed you the ingredients on a package of “Lunchables”, and asked you to feed it to your child, you’d have no problem saying no way. You won’t believe how much better you will feel if you take but a small step toward providing your own food. Weight will drop, as will your blood pressure, your cholesterol, while your energy level will only rise. This is a subject that requires its own post, but suffice it to say, you will realize how much you have missed being healthy. 

If the very idea of slowly but surely de-coupling from the monetary system that has both us and our government by the balls is not something we are willing to entertain, then we will never be free. We can never reclaim what has been lost so far, and we will watch a “New World Order” consume the planet, with us on it. 

Each American today must ask themselves this question: DO I REALLY WANT TO BE FREE? 

Don’t just pop off, “Yes, of course”, until you have contemplated the COST of your liberty and freedom. While we cite the blood of our forefathers as bearing the cost of our freedom, the whole point of this “revolution” is because the current system makes their sacrifice null and void. And WE THE PEOPLE are responsible, having allowed ourselves to have been lulled into a materialistic Neverland, and did not seem to notice as so many freedoms have been taken with the stroke of a pen, and with no vote by the governed.  In other words, we’ve sold our freedoms to the lowest bidder – and I’m afraid we are going to have to buy them back, as they don’t seem to be in much of a giving mood. 

But we don’t live in the 1770s anymore. We don’t have to sail all the way across the Atlantic just to deliver a message. This is 2012. I’d like to believe we are a little smarter now, with the technology that serves us. There are better ways to freedom than war and death. There is a way to peaceful abolition, and in this case, it’s simply a matter of taking back that which is ours…one at a time. Talk about trickledown economics. Simply stated, if we aren’t buying what they are selling, they are out of business. 

It doesn’t need to cost us blood this time. What it will cost is our consumerist lifestyle. Imagine a world where we have everything we NEED, instead of everything we WANT. Once your revolution starts, you will be very, very surprised and how many wants are running around your head and house disguised as needs. 

If we want REAL change, then we will have to change it ourselves, OUTSIDE of the current system. If we TRULY want to be free, then we will do what is necessary to secure that freedom, and it starts right in your own home, with YOU. We don’t need a show of hands or a vote to see who REALLY wants freedom to ring. We will know by your actions. 

There is much more to be said on this subject, but I will stop now with these thoughts for you to consider. What is the true VALUE of your very freedom – your very life, and the state of this Nation that our children and grandchildren will inherit? Do we have even a smidge of the intestinal fortitude of the founding fathers? They gave up their lives, breath and blood for it. Are we willing to give up the hind-tit suckling off a very sick cow for it? Are we willing to give up the tinsel and the trappings of our wants, for the very NEED of freedom? We all need to honestly answer that question.

We, the people, have the right to determine how this story is going to be written. But it won’t write itself. We don’t need to wait for some organization or group to “start a movement”. Just do it. Start today. Start small. See how good it feels to start moving toward independence once again. One at a time…we are the people, and we are powerful. We all need to be reminded of that.

The New Batman

 Hey, wait! What’s wrong with the old Batman?  Well, nothing, really, it’s just that he’s been confined to the comics and movies, and we are actually lacking him in real life where and when we really need him. But let’s look at the old boy, shall we?

Unique among the Superheroes, Batman is actually a human, and fully so. No super powers except his own brain which invents all kinds of crazy shit so that when he’s needed, he can really go to town. Get the job done right. A man of mystery, we know that he’s had a rough past, sporting money and a motive to avenge the murder of his parents. In the quest, he becomes the Caped Crusader, fighting crime on behalf of the citizens of Gotham City. His only enemies are the criminals. But for all his championed causes, he remains anonymous. 

Perhaps that’s the special charm of any of the Superheroes – not wanting the press, fortune or fame that could easily accompany their person. They are masked men. They perform on principle, on behalf of the public for justice. Funny, how in comic books, “right” and “wrong” are so easy to spot. We aren’t want to question the validity of a beating delivered by Batman, the morality of it, or even the method of it. All we know is that Batman doesn’t go after the people/public that he is seeking justice for. He’s always after the bad guy, and he always gets his man in the end. Then, it’s back to the Bat Cave, where he works on his projects, and awaits another Bat Signal.  

Apparently there is some appeal to this, because we’ve made Bruce Wayne another billion dollars in box office take for all the movies to his credit. But alas…Batman remains encased in celluloid, not to be heard from in our nation’s darkest hours. 

Until, perhaps, now. 

We have on the rise a new Superhero. Like Batman, s/he is human. Like Batman, s/he is technologically way ahead of the game. Like Batman, s/he is anonymous. But unlike Batman, this one is real. 

Our new Superhero is: ANONYMOUS.

Anonymous has some pretty humble roots – from what we know about it. What we know is that it’s not actually a WHO – it’s an IDEA – and that idea is that WE ARE ANONYMOUS. Something like, We, The People. There is no leader. There is no headquarters. There is no club. There are no meetings. Because we are all anonymous. Consider the accepted motto of Anonymous: "We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."

So what at they “fighting” for? Same as Batman; Justice. Freedom from tyranny and enslavement. The rights of all men to live freely upon this earth, our common heritage. Equality for all. But how do you stand up against such things like this in the world today? There is a reason that Batman is still just a cartoon.  Avenging one person at a time, tackling one enemy at a time…Batman would be at work for years upon years, even with the help of the entire Justice League! You see, these Superheroes are rather outdated, because they were still fighting fire with fire – violence with violence – hand to hand combat, where people would get hurt, and there was actually quite a bit of collateral damage that they don’t show you because it’s just a movie. This just doesn’t work. War never does. It only serves to perpetuate the problem. 

So enter our modern day Batman. We have a distinct advantage over our fictional friend – and that is the Internet. In fact, that is where Anonymous was born. Being anonymous, we are not exactly sure just when, but Anonymous considers the internet his home. His Bat Cave, as it were. All things in the Bat Cave are for Anonymous. No one must enter the Bat Cave with the idea that they will take anything in it for themselves and keep it for themselves, except perhaps knowledge. That belongs to Anonymous…and remember…we are ALL anonymous. Anonymous’ battlefield now has become the Internet. The goal is to keep it and the people who use it utterly and completely free. This is everyone’s World Wide Web, and Anonymous intends to keep it that way. And I’m really okay with that. 

The government and big business? Not so much. They are crapping their pants over Anonymous, because they have thought for a long time that they had the buttons that control the internet. One switch, and it all goes off. Not anymore. Not with Anonymous at the ready. 

In recent years, Anonymous has been everything from playfully mischievous, to national- security-level dangerous. You’ve seen the reports on the news about the “dangerous hackers” who are taking down web-sites, accessing highly secure information, and causing some serious disruptions for business-as-usual. And the media wants you to be scared! “They’ve got your credit card information!” “They’ve got your Playstation account!” “They hacked into PayPal!”  Trying to get you to believe that they are out to get YOU. Here’s the fact: They are actually out to protect YOU, John Q. Public. Because YOU are also anonymous. They don’t want your money, your account numbers, or your business. The only financial motive they have is for you to be able to keep your money. The real motive is to disable the criminals on the battlefield that is ours, where there is no bloodshed, no violence, no tyranny, no hostile take-overs, no raping of the planets resources, no guns, bombs or weapons of mass destruction. They are quickly pointing out that money you don’t have in your pocket is no money at all. It’s a computer entry on a machine. If that machine goes down – your money goes with it. The only power that is wielded over us is monetary at its core, and it has been used to enslave us. Our freedom and survival on this planet are at stake, here. Those who have all the money, who create the money out of thin air have us believing that we are subservient to their debt, and the rules they have created to maintain our servicing of it. 

If we take up our torches and pitchforks, our signs and guns and make a play for our freedom, things will get messy. People will get hurt. And the whole goal is to get people free, and happy, and living in peace. What a better way to do this than to simply unplug those who wield such power over us? A level playing field, now. But it would seem that Anonymous has a better handle on cyber-space than the world governments, or even the elusive “terrorists”. Every act of terror that hurts, maims and kills other people is counterproductive to ANY cause. It will only perpetuate it. The idea that no man, no institution, no corporation and no government can offer us what is already ours – our Natural Rights and Freedoms – is the driving force here. And since every single human being on the planet, and the planet itself, has the Right to Life and Freedom, you can’t go killing people to acquire it. Won’t work. It’s like Jesus said, you lay the axe to the root of the tree. We have had too many years now of simply trimming the branches. Anyone who has a small household budget can figure out when you’ve reached the debt point of no return, where you will never, ever be able to repay money you keep spending that you don’t have. Except the governments around the globe. They have been suckered into taking money they – I mean WE - can never repay, and the good ol’ USA is no exception. 

This is an entire tree – the MONEY TREE – in fact, that needs to be cut down completely, for the fruit it yields is poisonous. It served us well for a while. We planted it in the house! We ate from it, hung swings in it, but now it’s become a monster tree, and it’s no giving tree.  No…it is the antithesis of Shel Silverstein’s “Giving Tree”. It the Taking Tree.  

And the population can no longer endure trading our very lives and well-being to keep watering this mutant tree. It needs to come down before it takes the whole house down. It has already grown through the roof, and the debris is cluttering up our living room, in the form of useless materialistic garbage, as well as literal garbage. We have eaten our fill from this tree, and have been trained to do so from birth, mindless consumers who eat and eat and eat, more than our fill, tossing out the scraps in the midst of our garden, until the stench surrounds the entire house. 

Our ingrained gluttony for this fruit has led to a monstrosity that is consuming the very planet we live on. We have demanded so much fruit from this tree that there was not enough to go around. So some clever individuals with a severe appetite for the homage due this tree decided to forge some new fruit. Just make up some new leaves and fruits, and then ration it out at will. A new development in this hybrid monster tree is that there is no room on the natural tree for more fruit, so they are using the computers and the internet to propagate more fake fruit, and lie to you about the reality of it. They transfer fruits from one account to the other with ease, but will not take fake fruit in return. Oh, no…they want the real stuff…the stuff you sweat for. They want your work to produce food for the tree, water for the tree, and you are really nothing more than compost to keep the tree fed. Digital dollars don’t feed the tree – your hard earned dollars do. Your gold and silver and homes and cars and TVs and stereos and cell phones and clothes and shoes and food and energy do. And the tree continues to grow and demand more, and it’s now in the process of destroying the very roof over our heads – our home – our Planet. 

And it’s time to come down. We will either cut it down, or our world will collapse around it. Our choice.

Without this tree, we would be able to take the things of real value – our lives, families, children, education, travels, arts – and apply it to an entire garden of living, viable things that give back to us, and can produce enough for all living beings.

Since this tree has now decided to use the internet, it is beginning to invade our personal space. The little that we have left for ourselves is embodied in cyber space. Our ability to share, to connect, to KNOW, to be informed, is now being threatened by the rogue branches of this ever-expanding tree. And it needs to go.

So how do we take it down without anyone getting hurt? What tool will accomplish this? A simple mouse-click will do it.  A small bit of technology that can serve as the axe, in the hands of an expert hatchet-man – Anonymous. 

We’ve all seen the comics where the Superhero encounters his evil alter-ego, and the consequences of same. And the media will try and tell us that the internet in the hands of the Hacktivists is a dangerous place for us, the consumer. Big surprise. Fear mongering, when THEY are the ones threatened. It’s not your freedom that’s being threatened. It’s their control of YOU that is threatened. For them to assume that the power of Anonymous is a power that will harm the populace is to see that they have ZERO understanding of the motives of Anonymous. If it were a grab for their power, Anonymous would have all the same trappings: leadership, a place to call headquarters, names, faces, addresses, bank accounts, payrolls. But there is nothing like that.

The principle behind Anonymous is simple: People should not fear their governments; governments should fear the people. 

Not for the same reasons. People fear for their lives and freedoms. The government fears a lack of money, power, and control. 

Governments have succeeded around the globe at dividing the people, in what is a simple plan that has worked throughout history: Divide and conquer. They are doing it as I type. But with the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, we are reuniting. We can reconnect. We are all getting together on this invisible communication system, and we are starting to wake up to the fact that we are enslaved and controlled by a few. And we are the many. And this is not just in America – this is WORLD WIDE. This is our last chance. This is our last frontier upon which the human species can unite, and be heard. And when you threaten that…our last hope…well, them’s fightin’ words. And on the internet, we are ONE – we are ALL – and we are ANONYMOUS. Room for all. All belong. No censoring. No blocking. No monopoly. No cussed money. None rich, none poor, no lacks, no wants, no social barriers, no cultural barriers, no economic barriers, no educational barriers.  No race, no creed, no color, no sexual orientation, no country, no nation: Just Citizens of the World Wide Web.

Could all of this go horribly wrong? Could Batman turn on the people of Gotham City? I suppose. Exhibit A is the government of the United States of America becoming the laughing stock of the world, who started turning on its citizens a long time ago, eroding our freedoms with legislation, drowning us in debt and busy-ness and worthless educational systems. We are even being poisoned for profit. The only thing we have that the world still respects is our military –and now the government policies are turning the mighty US Military into the strongest group of terrorists on the planet. We are now responsible for more hurt, pain and terror on this globe than any cave-dwelling Middle Eastern group ever spewed upon the peoples of this planet. Turn their terrorist weapons over to read, “Made in the USA” on the bottom. But we made a buck off the deal, so who cares? 

Well, I do. And I think most people do if they stop to think about it long enough. And those who have are on-line, and are uniting their voices to say STOP IT!! This is NOT the will of the PEOPLE! Those of us who are first on the menu for the grab for world domination are already disconnected from the money tree. I can think of nothing that Anonymous could do to destroy what’s left of my life and well-being. My government is already doing that. World wide, people see something needs to be done, but we don’t want war. It’s much simpler to just unplug the machine. 

It’s a curious tale – history in the making. I am watching with fascination, and a subtle cheer, because a bloodless challenge is rising from the Anonymous Spider in the World Wide Web. And being a fan of the Underdog genre, I’m watching this one closely, with something that feels an awful lot like optimism rising as this one plays out. I certainly don’t see anything worse arising than what we have now. Perhaps there is an IDEA – an ANONYMOUS idea that can stop this train before we go over a cliff. I will be watching the unfolding.

Yeah…maybe I’m Bat-shit crazy. Maybe. But I’ll be tuned in – same Bat place, same Bat channel….