Corporate Street vs Occupy Wall Street

I am a New Zealander and I have never really been without. Now at 66 years of age I am materially well off in the sense that I don't want for anything and can pretty well do as I like. That is not true for everyone. As a New Zealander I am particularly fortunate in that oppression and violence are mild in comparison to much of the rest of the world. And although I do not want, my heart feels very passionately about how we act toward each other. The face of those in charge is impersonal the world over. And if we, you and I, want to join the ranks of those who make the rules, then we are expected to dress in a particular way, to follow the rules of whatever organisation we are trying to gain entry into. To not follow the rules is to be seen as a pariah, an outsider. The powerful all dress in a particular way, at least in the west. The powerful have similar beliefs and part of the similarity of those beliefs is that the world looks the same from that angle. It is not a view from the gutter; it is not a view from a position of being exploited; nor is it a view from the position of one receiving welfare! And although those who may be called the movers and shakers, 'know'' that the disadvantaged exist they do not feel it. It is cerebral and their storyline probably runs along lines like - 'they need to pull their socks up', 'they need to take advantage of opportunity', 'move where the work is'. The underlying belief is that if 'they' the disadvantaged had not wasted their opportunity they would not be disadvantaged.

But there is more. The figures tell us that 1% of the American population holds 30-40% of American wealth. That is scary. But what is scarier is that many of those 'have-nots' largely believe in the American dream. They look from the same place and see the same world and figure its ok to be without. Not that they don't want more. They figure they just lucked out. The German playwright' Goethe said somewhere in his memoirs that the man, the phenomena, 'Napoleon' was only possible because France was made up of a lot of little Napoleons. He would have said that Germany during the war was made possible by a lot of little Hitler’s. In New Zealand I get a strong sense of mediocrity high and low. So America now which is suffering from corporate greed may be said to be made up of main-chancers. It is endemic; it is like right inside in the gut so it's not about making a wrong choice. In a sense it's like taking a wrong turn because it was thought to be an okay thing to do.

I BELIEVE that we all end up in the boat we end up in because of what beats in our hearts. We end up amongst those who best reflect us. The old adage ' birds of a feather flock together'. But we can change what is in our hearts. A nation, a world can change its mind. This seems to be what is happening. When Bush and Blair took the world into war in the East there were so many qualities that made up the events that followed. I wrote this poem at the time and will share it with you.

I know that this danse macabre;

Being played out in the desert,

Being played out in the streets of Basra,

Being played out in the streets of Baghdad,

Being played out in our newspapers,

Being played out on our airwaves,

Being played out in our houses of debate,

In the canteen, and on the factory floor;

Is just the rattling of old sabres;

We have heard it all before,

And amidst stories of carnage,

Amidst stories of joy,

As half a nation make like

Mafia bank robbers in their balaclavas,

With sawn off shot guns,

Little Al Capones of Iraq,

The little Italy of Arabia,

Fight till we die;

And children, old men and women,

Sprint crying for freedom from a regime of hate,

As the soldiers from the west,

Ride in, much like the cavalry in Custer’s time;

Except Custer’s cavalry at Little Big Horn,

Helped secure a once proud nation on reservations,

Retired humans of the wrong skin colour;

Made crushed and spiritless, by the greatest nation spawned in this century;

America – throbbing with industry and vibrant with charisma,

Waves of new culture through every other nation on earth,

Oh to be American!

And this flagrant spark is just a dance of life and death;

And today my wife of thirty years flew out of my arms,

Into the arms of another,

Wars in the desert of married bliss,

Of children that we love and that love us,

Of dirty nappies – broken bones – bruised knees, bruised egos;

Of prayers on bended knees, as one son falls from the cliffs

At Piha; twenty metres onto cruel rocks, every bit as sharp as desert sands,

Thank God to live;

Of proud moments of motherhood, fatherhood,

Quarrels and making up,

Marriage, a dance of life, now death.

I know that while the boots of marauders clump the streets of,

Unlikely sounding towns, in far flung desert lands;

Whistling songs of freedom in a hail of lead;

With one hand tossing projectiles of death,

With the other tossing some gap toothed boy,

Dying for the sight of freedom in western boots,

Onto victorious shoulders;

Protective arms of peace;

Sobbing women greet this army of liberation,

Feeling the weight of years, lift from bowed shoulders;

I know this scene; it’s the danse macabre;

A dance of life and death.

The Danse Macabre,

The dance of life and death,

Plays out in every human breast;

The dance on the factory floor,

The dance in the boardrooms,

The dance in the bedroom,

The dance in the playground,

The dance at the dinner table and over the washing up,

The dance in the hotel bedroom,

The dance on our roads,

The dance in our bars and discothèques,

The dance of life and death.

As I said there are many facets to every question. Because, many of those who opposed the war, particularly in America, hated Bush for what he did; and yet in a way, it was his actions in Iraq and later in Afghanistan, which led to the Arab Spring and thence to the Occupy Wall Street. There is no difference between these latter two events. We think they must be because the Arab Spring is taking place in places of need and poverty and war. And 'Occupy Wall Street' and its spinoffs all over the world even to Aotea Square, New Zealand, are taking place in peaceful democracies. Yet that's not true. This is a silly example yet it is true what I say. I hated when large stalls started printing computer check out instructions on their product packaging. It felt like a number. On my life somehow. But then they stated placing them directly on some products such as CD's, books, DVD's. And these are items I am buying for my own personal pleasure and I have these barcodes all through my book shelves, all through my DVD collection. And nobody asked me. If they had I would have said - no thanks - find another way of keeping track of your stock etc. But nobody asks. And that is the smallest tip of corporate mentality. Like car parks with big signs spelling out 'NO RESPONSIBILITY'. We are not responsible. And this is the whole difficulty. Because if I have a business - someone can point the finger at me and say. - You did this and you shouldn’t have. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. But in a corporation if I ring up to complain I can only talk to an agent. And even if the agent did it they are only acting on the behalf of a headless chook. And my City Council is a corporation. My government is a corporation. And if I want to complain whose ears are there to hear me. And if I have a legitimate complaint I haven't the wherewithal to take a corporation to court. If I wish to take my local council to court they have all my tax dollars to protect them and if that runs out they can hike the taxes. That was tongue in cheek but it’s sort of true.

If we do wrong whether as an individual or as a legal enterprise we must be responsible. We all know this. Because if there is a child on the street hungry, without shelter we say - how sad. And look around for someone to do something. But if that child is ours we hold out our hand and help. And yet all the children are ours. Let me look in to your eyes and say - I don't know you.

There is no single Truth

Life is a little like a diamond, many faceted; in that when we begin to describe it, we have then to turn around and say - but we also need to look at it like this. So I ended the last post by saying that global warming by human action is significant but not as significant as our position in our solar system's precession around the heavens. Then I went on to say that that which is on the surface is also a reflection perhaps of the inner state of humanity. These two things are both rather large statements even on their own but together they may seem provocative and unlikely to the rational mind. Yet we can understand each one in our own world. Memory tells me that when the world relied on sailing ships to ply their trade that at one time they went around the Cape of Good Hope, but when the route through the Suez Canal was built this became a preferable route. The reason was that sailing around the southernmost tip of Africa apart from being longer was very dangerous. It was originally known as the Cape of Tempests. Anyway think about this for a moment. As a sailor things were fine until you reached the Cape. Then the level of 'Care' had to be increased because the tempestuousness of that part of the journey was so much greater. So on a much larger scale seems to be the case with our journey through the heavens. The movement of our solar system in its cyclic progress through the heavens is different at different times. At those times of greater galactic activity we have to take more care. That is one thing. There is a correspondence between the inner and the outer worlds and there is a correspondence between the individual and the world we live in. THink! What is the difference between a pimple and a volcano? Both are nodes to the surface allowing an unusual activity causing eruption to reach the surface. The earth needs the expression of a volcano. A person needs the eruption which is a pimple to take part in the cleansing of the system. The winds that howl around the earth these days, the tornadoes that blow are not any different than many human phenomena. An explosion of laughter to an ant is cataclysmic. Equally so is an explosion of anger. A fart, a sneeze, a belch all of these we can comprehend as movements of earth. The thing is that 'we' and by 'we', I mean, those of us who belong to the progressive people on earth, know, as the less fortunate that belong to 'backward' 'aboriginal races don't, that the earth is an object. It does not have emotions, thought, sensation... The thing is that the indigenous do know. That is why they treat earth as a Goddess, the winds, the Sun are not just explosions of dead air, the burning of a neutered planet but Gods and Goddesses, Spirits to be propitiated that we share earth with. The indigenous laugh at us far harder than we them. And our relationship is symbiotic. We need earth to be alive and well to feed and shelter us not to blister us with a harsh sun, chastise us with great vents of air. Drown us in water. Scorch the earth and denude it of food. Strip it naked so that she is bare and we are left starving. We have become arrogant. Knowing as much as we do yet we know so little!

Behind the official storyline

I find it slightly intimidating all the titles. It would seem to make more sense to me to be able to place a series of blogs under each title depending on what you felt like writing about but with my present level of computer aptitude I have to live with what I have. I haven't written here for a while and part of the reason is I have been busy doing other stuff that needed doing but that of course is the story I tell myself. Because I did on a number of occasions go to write but I didn't know what string to pull. I have been reading a number of new books that have only just been published. One of them Gregg Braden's 'Deep Truth', I was reading today where he talks about world crisis in terms of - 'if what is happening in the world is not considered a crisis what is?' That is not a quote it is a paraphrase. And of course he is right. There have always been trouble spots on the earth; there have always been disasters, some of mammoth proportion. But a lot is happening right now. And mainstream media is not contextualizing what is going on. Well they are, but not everything. There is a lot of talk of global warming but 30% of Republicans in the USA don't apparently believe it is happening. Icebergs are melting, glaciers are disappearing all because of higher than normal temperatures over a protracted period of time and large parts of Earth’s population are still saying it’s not happening! In North Africa wars, revolutions, rioting, demands to leaders from people like you and me, who are laying down their lives because they crave change! Because they have found the strength to say enough is enough. They have noticed that their leaders who once would have led them through their desert habitats in their nomadic wanderings and protected them from others who might have found advantage in attacking them. Those, who; once used their wisdom and experience to find out appropriate areas where the tribe might feed; their natural protectors. But suddenly it’s like blinkers are removed and everybody wakes up and realizes that they are being abused, they are nothing but serfs. The blinkers are coming off all over the world. We don't see it quite yet, but we are getting there. Our own western democracies are little better. Nobody gets to be president of the United States these days without a lot of money. It is the same all over the world - the privileged classes hold most of the wealth of the western world. And there has been a recent 'economic theory' which says - we are not going to tax us - this small proportion of all of you's because our money is what makes the economic world go around. So the rich are not heavily taxed. Never mind that everybody else are having their houses foreclosed on, are losing their jobs, have a failing social infrastructure.  Wherever there is money these same ‘job provider’s’ are out-sourcing the work anyway to maximise their profits. They are not being taxed so that they can provide goods at a much cheaper price, so that they can give something back to the community that helps sustain them but given this freedom, they act in a way that provides even more for them. There are newspaper and magazine articles addressing these issues but not in a contextual fashion. There is a lack of respect for person in the world today. Those who hold the strings of power appear careless generally of those whose labour they use and of those for whom they provide, whether we are talking goods or services. When I work for you I need to know that what I am doing is what you want. But business and government today has grown very arrogant. Law and regulation are essentially in the community to care for and allow everybody the space and freedom to experience life in the way they need to, to grow in the way they need. What do YOU think is the reason for law and regulation? If my city, Auckland, of going on two million people did away with all parking meters what might happen apart from a loss of revenue? The thing is, the sense is, that councils take my money because they can. And what should be the highest duties that might be placed on a citizen, to give time to city or national affairs!!! So when I hear of very nice thank you salaries and golden handshakes and super cities and I know there are those in my country who have profited very nicely in government and local government positions. And this is your money. I hear of a new corporation and then I see that they have moved into very expensive premises, prime city premises... This is not about respect and civil duty. It is about power over others.

When Britain’s youth rioted for three days or however long it was I thought - here it comes. There are so many stories of fraud perpetuated in seats of power. Whether it's Roman Catholic priests, newspaper moguls! The characters who perpetuated the hacking scandal in British newspapers were bosom buddies of those in government, in the police! And then the Prime Minister spoke of the dereliction of the parents? And, that, mobile phones might be immobilised if it happened again. And he spearheads an austerity program which protects his friends and puts 'his people out of work and out of their homes' and he wonders why they riot. He sees that their actions are not all good but he can't see himself. They are 'his people' because he is the 'Prime Minister', the First Minister, the one that needs to get it right. And now 700 people have been arrested for protesting in New York. About; what? They don't know - but they know that things aren't right.



Countries throughout the world are broke. Pension funds are broke. Town Councils are broke. The only ones who have money aren't taxed because the experts on that part of how life is lived - the Economists say it’s not a good thing and millions of people who should know better believe them. The land has been spoiled - for profit. There are those out there that if they can see a way to turn a buck turn it. And it spoils it for everybody else.



There is a strange anomaly. Cities and nations throughout the world are suffering unusual drought conditions, being devastated by cyclones, tornados, hurricanes, just plain storms. Sea levels are rising, the polar ice is melting, temperatures are rising and everyone is talking global warming and care of the planet and so they should be. But there is more happening that the eye does not see and very few people really try. There is a great deal of solar activity for one but the really interesting bit is that there is this Mayan calendar and then there are all these prophesies from Nostradamus, whom everyone has heard about, Edgar Cayce, the Hopi Indian amongst others. And the talk is all end of the world or is it? It may be end of the world as we know it. There is a little main stream scaremongering from Hollywood and the like but peeling back the layers of the onion reveals something new. We all know how the Church rewarded Galileo when he said that the Earth moved around the Sun? He was made to recant. Well eventually the Church had to move and allow modern science its day. But while this was taking place, before Galileo had time to formulate his new knowledge, Hernan Cortez was on his way to the Yucatan Peninsula, where, on behalf of Spain, he set about with great determination the dismantling of an Empire - the Mayan's - which in the a few artefacts which remain from their civilization; demonstrate a knowledge of the Earth in relation to the heavens far beyond what Galileo had conceived. Because what the Mayan calendar demonstrates is the knowledge that our solar system including our Sun actually orbits over a period of 26,000 years approximately; around what has become referred to as the Galactic Centre; which is essentially the axis on which our whole milky way spins. It is its, our Milky Way’s gravitational Centre. And on 21 December 2012 we are as far from this centre as we ever are during our orbit around it. And that position apparently always produces a change in our climate very similar to what we are experiencing now. So although there is no doubt that our commercial and social practices may not be very good for our home planet, it is the cycle of the earth through the heavens which is causing the unpredictable weather patterns, not the, so called, Global Warming. The evidence from previous cycles suggest that the present warming is the precursor to a more severe cooling of the planet and these events take place over a considerable period of time of which 21 December 2012 is just a marker.

There is more. People often have evinced puzzlement over what happened to the Mayan and talk of the destruction of a civilization. And in a sense that is true and yes it might be a puzzle. But in fact they have not in another sense gone anywhere; because there are Mayan still living who have maintained connection with the knowledge which is being spoken about. And here I would like to speak in more generalised terms. We have what we refer to as the indigenous peoples, by which we mean those who were here first. In my own country, the Maori speak of themselves as the Tangata Whenua which means literally the people inhabiting the land. It is a useful term as a Universal description of this task. That which is indigenous is that which occurs naturally at a particular geographical place. So, there is a relationship between all life. Earth itself, plants trees, animals, people; are all related. So the indigenous have rituals that honour the place of everything. And sickness in this context must be seen as related to one's own person. You don't get sick by getting a virus or having an accident. There is a correlation with being and circumstance or condition and wellness is getting back in synch. So in one sense what is happening to our planet is because of where it is in its galactic cycle. But in another sense it is as it is with its wars and tsunamis and earthquakes and shaking of the its financial markets, and it’s power brokers and those who are downtrodden and those who rise up because this is a little like that moment when the kettle boils and water turns to steam. Anything is now possible and this is our moment. More on another day.