Channeling

Today, today Sisters and Brothers, I am down with Tyler Durden, the character created by Chuck Palaniuk in his seminal work "Fight Club."  Describing the IKEA culture we have descended to, he urges:

"F**k off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may." 

Today, my Brethren, is a radical day.  Today, I can clearly see the chains.  Today is a day for iconoclastic action.  It is a good day to throw off the shackles.

I know of one of the Brethren who has been suffering.  Like many of the Brethren, he is in a spot between hardness and the rock wall.  Trapped by a house he cannot afford, beset by health issues, he finds himself confined in a cage of consumerism.  This is a cage that he willingly built, having bought the line, drunk the Kool-Aid, whatever you want to call it.  He heard the siren call of stuff, had the means to answer, and did so.  And now, now our Brother suffers, yet at the same time he is now awake!  He knows he built the cage.  His eyes are open.  

Now is the time.  There is surely pain and hardship to come for our Brother, and for many of the Brethren.  We are, Brothers and Sisters, faced with hard choices.  Yet the difficulty of choices made with awareness are far preferable to those "choices" made caged and blinded.   

Please, Sisters and Brothers, remember that a population addicted to the next consumer purchase is a population that is easy to hoodwink, easy to control.  Let us, each of us, help ourselves and help the Brethren by starting our own little Project Mayhem.  Take a little piece out of the system.  Do it today.  Every small act of barter, of conscious spending or not spending, every choice to support local or sustainable business models, each of these actions makes us stronger.  

On a day like today, a radical day, maybe we can even pull off something larger than a small act.  The Down-Pressor likes to rain the hammer blows on our heads, the heads of those whom they believe are sleeping.  The Reverend says, let the hammer fall on the chains instead!  

It is a good day to be strong, Sisters and Brothers, a good day to strike a blow!

Mojo

Hello Brethren!

This weekend, The Genetic Envelope is camped out at the Fortress of Solitude.  Our conversation turned to all things consumer and I mentioned that Mojo Nixon was right.  The GE was not familiar with Saint Mojo, so I hipped him to Mojo doing "Burn Down the Malls"

In the interest of nominating Mojo for official Sainthood status amongst our Brethren, I am offering up this link.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAoh_yteKkc

Remember, Sisters and Brothers, Saint Mojo (for I declare him to be such) wrote this song in the late 80's.  When are we going to wake up my Brethren, when????

Mythology

Greetings Friends and Neighbors.  The Reverend Squeaky-Eye is perplexed.  I have been searching for a thing and I cannot seem to find it.  It is a thing that gets talked about a great deal.  In fact, it is almost impossible for one of those politicos to open their oily mouths without mentioning it.  And yet, when I look around for some substance, it plumb eludes me.

What is this thing I am looking for?  What I am looking for, good Brethren, is any evidence that what we used to call the "Middle-Class" still exists in America.  I hear the talking heads blathering about the Middle Class, and about what is good for or not good for the Middle Class.  I hear the politicos making empty promises that pander to the Middle Class tax base.  But while all this noise is spewing from their lips, I see less and less evidence that the American Middle Class, the traditional buffer that rose up betwixt Labor and Capital, still exists.

So, my Brothers and Sisters, I am beginning to doubt the myth.  The traditional Middle Class dream, that of a family home of one's own, a car, and all electric kitchen and a secure job with a steady company, was oft held out as a thing to aspire to.   This mode of being, touted as the American ideal, could be had through hard work, education, and perseverance.  

I think its gone, this (now lower case) middle class.  I think that its existence has become a myth, something with which the DownPressor keeps us amused and distracted as he pushes down our wages, sends our manufacturing jobs overseas and eliminates worker's healthcare.  

I wish this is what we could call "Bush league psych-out shit, Man!" but I don't believe it is.  I believe that the middle class is the victim of a concerted effort by the Corporate powers-that-be, an effort aimed at reducing the freedom and political will of a group of people who were a problem.

This is just an opener, folks.  There are a lot of ins, a lot of outs, to consider.  We can't let our thinking get uptight about this.  So this evening, I am just raising the issue.  We will be back for a closer look at this missing class and what might have brought that eradication about.  

Hammer Blows

A good morning to all of the Brethren today.  The Reverend's heart is heavy, Sisters and Brothers.  It seems that the hammer blows continue to fall amongst those that are nearest and dearest.  I know that life can be hard, can be full of challenges, and I know that each of us must sometimes rise to those challenges.  And yet, and yet my friends, I would feel a little lighter if just a few of these blows would fall on the Down-Pressor, instead of on the heads and hearts of the hard-working folks around us.  But the Universal Tool Shed's choice of targets is not within my range of influence.  I suppose that the Down-Pressor should rejoice in that lack, for if it were in my power, the blows that would rain down...  well, you get the picture.

I know a hard-working Brother, one of the Brethren, who is clearly demonstrating to me the nature of courage in the face of adversity.  I am so proud of this man, and with good reason.  Now the Brother we are talking about, he has been watching his employer lay off folks in waves.  For months now, this Brother has known that his turn would come.  Despite sending out a flood of resumes and going to myriad job interviews, no other source of employment has been forthcoming.  The sword of unemployment hung over his head, and now it has fallen.  Does he moan and complain?  No, my Brethren, he does not.  

To add to this, the same Brother has troubles on the home front.  He had purchased a condominium after being forced to move out of five apartments in two years, as each successive apartment converted to condos.  This was at the height of the last real estate bubble, when the speculative Down-Pressor ran amuck with greed.  Our Brother finally purchased a modest condo so that he could avoid moving again.  That condo is now worth just over a third of what the Brother owes on it.  After some careful thought, he decided that he had no choice and, with the loss of his employment, he stopped making his mortgage payments.  Eventually the bank may foreclose, but the condo is actually worth less than the cost of a foreclosure.  Again, in these tough times, does he moan and complain?  No, he does not.

I will let his attitude speak for itself.  I only hope that if the blows rain down on me, as they have on him, that I am able to maintain the positive attitude this Brother displays every time we see each other.  I give him a huge tip of the Rev Lid, and I want him to know that he is an inspiration to me, and hopefully to the rest of the Brethren out there who are struggling through these times.