Sixteen Tons

A soggy Good Evening from the GreyNorWet to all of the Brethren out there.  The Reverend has just returned from a moto sojourn down to the equally soggy Northern coast of California.  There was communing to be done, motos to be ridden and matters of import to discuss.  

The esteemed Brothers and Sisters of the wheel had ridden many a mile, and from points far flung, to be at the annual gathering.  Amongst the laughter and jests there were serious discussions, compeers comparing ideas on all the things that oppress and poison our people.

Whilst discussing the insidious tentacles of the Down-Pressor corporations, and the many ploys and tricks that the demons use to ensnare our Brethren, one of our most thoughtful members commented that "We are all working for the company store."  I am here to tell you Sisters and Brothers, those words resonated with me, yes they did.

It is my belief, good Brethren, that we live in a society that is largely formed by the input, machinations, and connivances of the modern corporation.  We are not always aware of the many layers, veils, and stratagems of the Down-Pressor and the corporate minions, but they are always there, sometimes operating in the open, sometimes in the shadow.  When single, huge companies control manufacturing, transportation, marketing and retailing, there is, indeed, the spectre of the company store, a spectre which then controls our lives.  

One arm of the Down-Pressor controls the mass media of this contrived world, spewing their messages over the TV and radio, trying to convince our people they must have this thing or that thing for their lives to be complete.  Another arm of the Down-Pressor goes to developing nations to harvest the raw materials for cheap crap products.  Yet another tentacle produces and markets the useless garbage that we are lured to buy, which then quickly becomes actual garbage when it is discarded to make way for the next must-have, yet useless, piece of consumer junk.  

Back in the day, my Brethren, the Company Store in a mill town or mining town called all the shots.  There was no pretense of freedom, no subtlety.  The Company paid the workers in script and the script was only good at the Company Store where goods could be had at inflated prices or not at all.  There were no other options.

Today, a shining example of freedom is held up to us in the form of Free-Market Capitalism.  If we would simply allow this wonder of the world, and its keepers, free rein, all of the Brethren would be led to a land of prosperity and ample cargo, enough to satisfy our every need.  There is no Company Store, there is only free choice as far as the eye can see, aisle after of aisle of gleaming consumer goods at low, low prices. 

Lies, Sisters!  Snake-Oil, Brothers!  

Young people, if they have an opportunity for college education, are coming out of the system in hock up to their eyeballs before they even start a career.  The Down-Pressor absolutely loves the Government backed, and bankruptcy immune, system of student loans.  From that point on, the Corporations have their hooks into us, trying with every device at their disposal to bind us more and more tightly into the cycle of live, buy, consume and die.

Without awareness, Sisters and Brothers, we are all just shopping at the company store.  It is better hidden than it was in the past, but it is larger, more organized, and more insidious than anything the coal company or linen mill owners ever imagined.

Keep the faith, keep your eyes open, and strike a blow!

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.

Gradual

A good day to all of the Brethren out there on this fine Sunday afternoon.  

On Friday, I had an opportunity to take care of an overdue errand, namely, having new tires installed on the Rev-mobile.  It seems that tires fall into that category of things that get bad so gradually, we almost don't notice the process.  I have to admit, the ride in the Rev-mobile was getting louder, and, as the tires wore out, the balance was off.  The balance issue got to the point that the front end had a little shimmy.  The whole process, however, was so gradual that I almost took the sorry state of the Rev-ride for granted.  

Driving away from our hard-working Brothers at the tire shop, I was amazed at the difference.  Night and Day, Sisters and Brothers, Night and Day!  

This brings to mind that story of the boiling frog.  The anecdote is that a frog, placed in a pot of water on a stove, won't notice the increased heat of the water if it the water is heated gradually.   Never mind that modern biologists have refuted the notion, citing experiments that show the frog will simply jump out rather than turn into a nasty frog soup.  The story has become the poster child description for anyone of us who stay in a bad situation too long.

You might ask "Rev, what in Dog's holy name are you blathering about?" and you would be justified in doing so.  Well, Brethren, I will tell you what I am blathering about.  Some processes are so gradual that we cannot see the deleterious effects of the process until it is almost too late to recover.  Such, good Brethren, can be the nature of consumer debt.  

A hard working Sister or Brother is doing the best they can to make ends meet.  The economy slows down  or maybe the hours get cut at work.  Gas prices go up and the budget gets strained.  Whatever the reason, the credit card comes out to bridge the gap, but at the end of the month, the bill can't be paid off.  Well, we made it through this month, we will just have to knock that bad boy down at the end of next month.  Meanwhile, a few more of life's little irony sticks come to rest up against the head of our Brethren and the credit card gets used again.  We make the minimum payment, the household is secure for the month, but in the background, that water is getting warmer and warmer as the balance grows on the debt while we are only paying off the interest, if that.   Without too much time passing, we could find ourselves hitting the $11,000 national average for consumer debt.  Now, dear Brethren, we have a long, hard row to hoe to pay that monster down.  

What we are talking about today, as we have been for a while, is the awareness of debt.  I believe that is is fundamental to our purposes for all of the Brethren to have a full awareness of the nature of debt, and of the slippery paths for falling into debt.  Without an understanding of how we got into the mire of consumer debt, it is going to be difficult to start the process of getting out of the mire.

We are back around to it:  we have to see the chains, and know what the chains are, before we can break the damn things and lives of freedom.  When we strike the blow, Bothers and Sisters, we have to know what we are striking, we have to know where to aim.  I believe that raising our awareness of debt, and the process of indebtedness, is one of the most important tools we can develop in out struggle for personal financial freedom.

Enjoy you Sunday Sisters and Brothers.  Live large, live strong, be well, and strike a blow!

That Which Doesn't Kill Us...

All of the Brethren know what it is like to get whopped up side the head with a big branch of the old Irony Tree.  It is like the time that a Brother, after scrimping and saving, manages to get a new set of tires on the family car.  Two days later, someone totals the car.  The Brother walks away unscathed, and is thankful for it, don't you know, but the rig goes away and with it, the new rubber.  You know that the Insurance Downpressor, he doesn't give a hoot about those new tires when he writes out that skimpy settlement check.  That rubber could have lasted two more days and that $ 600 might still be in a pocketbook closer to hand.

Once upon a time, a truly remarkable friend and I were mulling over the existence of the working person's irony, and the occasional poundings that were dished out as a result.  Like many a wiser feller and feller-ette  before us, across the sands of time, we decided that we would invent a cosmology to explain the origin of the regular ass-kicking that people take when they get too comfortable.  I am sure, My Brethren, that you have experienced the ass-kick that I am referring too.  It starts in hundred dollar increments, and goes up based on the seriousness of the wake-up call that an individual Sister or Brother has been courting.

What came of these mullings was the concept of the Universal Tool Shed, also know as the UTS.  Now, when you picture the UTS, it can look like whatever one of the Brethren envision it to be.  For our purposes, the UTS was a smallish wooden shed, a little dilapidated but in a trendy, Sunset magazine sort of way.  Country Chic on the outside, pure Universal capriciousness on the inside.  Vines were growing up the side of of it and it had a door that had to be lifted slightly to get it to open.  Inside the UTS, however, were big, heavy, blunt instruments waiting to be wielded by the ever watchful Universe. 

Now this is where one can fill in any sort of deity one wishes because, after all, its just a cosmology.  Go crazy.  For our version of the UTS, my friend and I posited, well, a Universe.  The Universe, actually.  The Universe has a very quirky sense of humour, delighting in meting out the proper reward for smugness, complacency or, even better, a lack of mindfulness.  When, in its omnipotence, the Universe notes a particularly cocky individual needing a little wake-up smack, it saunters (the U never hurries) over to the shed, lifts the door open, and calmly peruses the options.  Will it be a shovel, a spade, an ax handle?  Perhaps a pickaroon or a pulaski?  Small dalliances with lack of awareness might only require a bash with a broom, but Dog help the Brother or Sister who deserves the post-hole diggers.

Having been a somewhat regular recipient of lessons via the UTS, I now have a modicum of understanding  about the workings of the U.  If, for example, a lazy Brother, such as myself works hard to find a calm place in life, mercifully devoid of the opportunities for growth, well, the U has to intervene, does it not.  If there is one thing the UTS cannot abide, its coasting.  So, with an almost smirky little grin, just bordering on reluctance but not really, the UTS is utilized to dispense a fine whacking to said Brother, knocking him back into the stream of growth.  

In our cosmology, The Universe is, indeed capricious, but only because it knows better than we.  It sees us when were sleeping, it knows when we're awake.  There is an air of benevolence, a strong sense of righteous "this-is-for-your-own-good" type aura that surrounds The U just as it is wielding its blunt weapon of choice down upon our heads.  

I have yet to evolve to the point of appreciating the smack of something heavy out of the UTS.  But, these days, as I rub my noggin, I can recognize the sign of a master at work.  It is only through awareness that I can hope to evade the Downpressor and his snares of consumerism.  And it is only through a heightened group awareness that we can work together to defeat the Downpressor, rather than just eluding him.  It is nice to know that, anymore,  I won't be asleep at the wheel too long before I will feel the loving touch of the UTS, banging me back to consciousness.

Meanwhile Sisters and Brothers, Be Awake, Be Strong, and Strike a Blow!