It has been given to me to be free...

[Mouse]

Funny thing lately, begun to realise how truly smashed and vandalised our freedoms are.

It is becoming clear to me that we have been betrayed.
How can we find just representation?
We shall upturn this nonsense.
We shall stand up and reclaim our liberty.

I would like to see an illustration of this, to understand it more clearly. I would like to see Freedom described like a great tree
that asks each of us
to fulfill our promise.

And within that living tree our archetypes flourish, leading us on in the dance of exploding joy which is duty fulfilled, a peaceful heart. The people we need to lead us are here when we look around at each other in the interactions and circulating currents of our selves with our various natures and abilities growing towards the light.

The necessity for this is clear and immediate. And so we proceed, like stately galleons bearing our cargo of souls, who's ears might hear the sweet call of freedom.

It has been given to me to be free, and so I must pass it on, for it illuminates my desires and my nature, and makes an electrifying storm between my ribs that carries me, like an ocean, to a richness of being alive that is in itself immense, bringing its own sufficiency.

[Mouse]

That's all very well, but now it's bedtime and I'm hungry. What am I to do? Perhaps a small piece of cheese.

[Cal]

I'll go for a biscuit and some milk ... such is freedom.

[waldopaper]

We will adapt to our own land... our own neighborhood (or not) as events unfold and circumstance becomes more fluid.

"Activists" these days literally give me the bad ass (I won't go into detail), especially the sign-this-petition call-yer-congressperp twits... followed closely by the johnny-come-lately "rise up and smite the evil government" fucking Ron Paul meatwads. Just NOW figuring this out, Tom Pain-in-the-ass? I have now flagged all my "activist" email as spam. It's too late for all that shit.

Nobody would believe "these people" were/are that evil (greedy/ stupid/ whatever). Nobody would believe "9-11" was an inside job... or the "elections" were rigged. "conspiracy theories." yeah, right. people waved flags and yellow ribbons to "support" the wars of aggression. they still do. the "debates" natter about the "nuclear threat" in fucking IRAN. and "terrorists." "going after Osama BL" (who's been dead for years).

like anybody's going to care about any of that shit... including the "terrorists" ... when we're all living in Bushvilles and eating our fucking shoes. yeah... we'll all be wakkin about it like Donald Duck... but...
the prisons are built and ready. the "laws" are in place. (where was everybody when THIS was going on?) the "police" have armored vehicles and automatic weapons ("homeland security," you know). the roobs will gladly take "jobs" rounding up other roobs. "do something??" all you can "DO" now is survive... and try to do it without killing anybody.

hunker down and get ready. here it comes. I don't know how YOU see it... but I see it this way (at least in the USA): it aint the "system" or the "government" because there IS NO "system" or "government." There's the "Culture of Looting" and half the population that's dumber than a fucking dirt clod and meaner than a rusty barbed-wire toilet seat. That's why the "debates" consisted of two sock-puppets puffing out their budgie-chests and pecking furiously at the mirror to prove who could be the buff-ruff-toughest "commander-in-chief " so a bunch of lard-ass football-fans can feel "safe" to wattle their chins at their soon-to-wink-out big-screen teevees.

"Chief" of what? "Commander" of 200 thousand over-armed under-brained kids chewing up rusty taxicabs with twin-.50s to keep Tinkerbell's light on? If they ever get home, they're going to be mighty disturbed that their "GI benefits" are just ass-paper because all the rich shitpokes left behind was Milo Minderbinder chocolate-covered cotton because of the- (what do your local lacquer-heads call it- bail-out or "financial rescue plan?) collapse/ depression/ whatever.

But- no problem- the Sturmabteilung will be hiring, and they can get 3-hots-and-a-cot herding the rest of us Useless Eaters into "detention centers." The triple-chinned twits have willingly contributed their own genetic effluvia to the rendering plants of the rich in hopes of getting bones and blessings. Their own children are no more than chaff... natural byproducts of groaning grunts following fried potatoes and football games. They are the faith-based community. They have faith that their fat and feces will be banished by belief. Most of us will perish alike in the famine and farce of "countries" and "governments" and "elections."

It is indeed given to us to be free. The question is: can we keep it?

[Mouse]

Yes Waldo, we've got all manner of torches to light the way and a lot of people just discovering that they have fed on lies.

[waldopaper]

Martial law just can't happen soon enough for these turds. They're the buff-boof boyz all ready to hunt "socialists" or Jews or "jihadis..." whatever. They must blame SOMEBODY when it all slides into the loo. Perhaps the "civilized world" will handle it better... but I think the US is in for a 30-year civil war.

Best to form islands of green reason as far as possible from the burning cities, kapos and bully-boyz. Buy beans while the dickheads buy ammo... and practice invisibility.

[hannah j]

I don't even know how to break back in to rbc, has been so long. When I took off on the train no one had heard of the palin. I had been watching all the youtube entries of the jackbooted thugs in Mpls. It was before the other thugs in dc decided that 'all of a sudden' the folks who had gotten us into this economic mess with their pattern of greed which they encouraged the hoi polloi to imitate. I have been listening to eastern young mothers talk of 1.2M dollar 1300 sq ft flats in the east village, which has an average household income of 55,000 per year. How can there be any sanity found where that exists. I got sandbagged on the train by two fundies who were so smug it was all I could do to keep representing for all the secular humanists (or whatever) that they judge to be less than human. I did quite well, but ended up in the dining car drinking a split of mediocre merlot at dinner. I had excellent dinner companions though, a woman coming back from the dem convention and a gay guy (first thing out of his mouth after hearing of my recent convo) who is a librarian moving to nyc. Oh, and then when I was visiting my dad, riding in Griffith Park (see my home page) the horse I was riding, my dad's, tripped and fell, twice with me in three days. I am still recovering, Really screwed up my left arm....I can type though. I picked this place to post because the stormtroopers will not like me, or my life, and the fundies might not care if we all get caught up in this. I was told basically, not being godly will take you down.
I wish people were writing here more, are you writing somewhere else???
Hannah

[BO]

I think we're writing less because we've reached the "I told you so" phase. No dire predictions needed...we're here.

Certainly not gloating though. Actually, rather depressed by it all.

This is still a good place to rant and garner support if needed. Kind of a family atmosphere here now. Members are out living their lives best they can, yet show up from time to time to share experiences. The outrage has been replaced with a sense that the ship is going down and we've got to make our own way to the lifeboats.

Sounds sappy, but there aren't too many other folks I'd rather communicate with than those here.

[pan]

We spent the weekend planting perennials and re-contouring the back planting areas. Plants are half off so they can get rid of their inventory. I could barely sleep last night because I was so sore. Ms. Medusa has fully recovered (we think) from her vertigo so she is able to enjoy being physical - which means I have to try to keep up with her drive to get it all done.

The wash machine we bought two months ago broke - it's under warranty but we now have to go to the coin op. laundry to do a load while we wait for it to be fixed. We also bought a new upright vaccuum, tried it and took it back, did a bunch of research, went back tried to find a decent one. Being a "smart consumer" is a full time job - especially since the CEOs are more interested in mergers and take-overs than making a good product. I really can't stand having to enter into American shopping culture. It is as foreign and threatening to me as the fundie culture.

[hannah j]

Boy, you are not kidding about the smart consumer thing.
Glad to hear you are taking advantage of the clearance sales, Fall is a great time for planting. We are going to plant some trees (well, patrick is) before long, too.
post a pic of your new paradise.

[hannah j]

Funny, so many times lately, from somewhat conventional people, i have heard 'the hippies were right.' But I was listening to wait wait don't tell me yesterday and McGovern (george not maureen) said, when invited to say itoldjaso..."I learned along long time ago even before I got into politics, the one thing you don't want to say to someone who already feels betrayed and injured is 'i told you so', that's not a good idea, "But aren't you the injured and betrayed party here?""The whole country was." Later the host said G lacked the killer instinct, why he lost, after all, watergate occurred months before the convention.

I do want to encourage train travel (you can avoid the fundies even though i didn't) I met a lot of young people on the train from california to chicago (I got off in denver) Also a crazy (read sane) guy of Irish descent,, who entertained us with a few songs, and was traveling the world by rail. He encouraged communities to form exgovernmental committees around survival issues so that the gov can't come in and try to save us. He had a 'manifesto' as did another sweet young man, child of semihippies, who dropped out of college in the same way a lot of us did in the 60s, to find himself. He had spent the summer in a buddhist retreat in calif, gone to burning man with the green tortoise bunch (had a great time there) and is heading back to NH. Also ran into a recent stanford graduate and discovered that maybe there is a common language that alums have in spite of the years of age difference. He was taking a chance on love, moving to chicago for a girl. I went from newton, ks, to LA, later to davis and to denver, for 250 dollars. Biden is an amtrak supporter so maybe it will get some attention. Ridership is up.

I am getting a greenhouse in a few weeks, very excited about that. http://tinyurl.com/463ogk
I hope my arm is healed enough to help put it up. I probably should have had is looked at. Turns out the horse's hooves were left too long when he was last shod (only a few weeks before I rode) and the farrier trimmed them and reshod him and he stumbles no more. Bad luck for me, but better me than my dad.

Well, that's it from lifeboat kansas.

[curt]

It was given to me to be free and to break free. Yesterday evening, while studying Swiss immigration laws, I found another hurdle or maybe a wall? It's up to me to get over it and I can. But to really get passed that barrier, I would have to give up my US citizenship. I'm quite free to do so even if my partner of 25 years objects. Feeling free and thinking one is free is not enough. To be free, you have to be able to break free. Don't get me wrong. You can be free without leaving home. Oops, I used that word again.