Party Like It’s 1699

Party Like it’s 1699

“Your season draws nigh, as the north wind blows.”

                      Chasing them down to take a picture seemed gauche and distasteful,
  so I went back to town and bought a quilt

           

          Above is an Amish buggy I was trying to take a discreet picture of. Its way off in the distance and I was starting to feel like paparazzi trying to get a good picture.  I wasn't after the photos after all, I was wondering what is in their hearts and what is in their heads. Bucket list stuff. Seeing America on the cheap.
    I’m visiting the city of New Holland, Pennsylvania in an attempt to parachute into Amish Country to check them out for myself.  A parade route was filled with lawn chairs from townspeople who were reserving their spot for the harvest festival parade to begin that next Wednesday. Clever front yard mini-landscapes, and some very hip, thrift shop owners.

         I Noted some really good vibes outside of town too, Amish children playing and riding bicycles near their farms and the locals respectfully going around the horse and buggies of the Amish on the main roads. 

    While wary of strangers, the Amish seem unaffected by technology, happy in their ways and purposeful in their tasks.  Quick too, their horses were really hoofing it and they didn't cause any traffic problems that I could see.
        I'm a little skeptical about the "technologically impaired" aspect of the Amish when I see rubber tires and such and I wonder what kind of Smithing was needed to make their bicycles. I know for a fact that the carriage wheels are handmade and many of the carriages are made locally,  "Amish Paradise"  goes... 
              'I take a look at my wife and realize she's very plain

                      But that's just perfect for an Amish like me,

                     You know I shun fancy things like electricity."

       Now if I was the typical tourist I would cynically note that the best way to find the Amish was to follow the horse poop in the roads. However, their patriarchal system aside, I have some real respect for them now after having taken a closer look.

        That October I traversed many of the farm roads as I headed to that seed company in Lancaster I read about. A seed store the Amish shop at. Most distinctly on this trip was noticing how beautiful their horses are. Whatever the horses are eating, it's good for them. 

    When I came out with my purchases, a precisely painted Buggy and an absolutely beautiful horse were parked next to me. Once again tempted to take a picture, I drove over to the corner of the parking lot to prepare for the next leg of my trip instead. I know they don't like being photographed.

      The last thing I was going to do was take a picture of the buggy with a dude sitting in it.

          Around the time of the vengeful hysteria of 9-11, when Saudi hijackers created a war in Iraq, America was out for blood. A flag-waving, Muslim hating minority vowed revenge. Around the same time, there was a mass shooting and five deaths at an Amish schoolhouse.  Shocking the country, they forgave the shooter.  I thought, wow America … the bloodthirsty tyrants of mass destruction, here’s how real christians act. What part of ‘turn the other cheek’ don’t you understand? 

How did the Amish lack the bloodthirsty, vengeful hysteria of George Bush's America?

      

Big rocks and small yards in New Holland Pa. 

         I walked a good deal around New Holland and there were no scuffles or people rushing or upset ...(except a bicycle riding Amish dude who was trying to make the green light. He gave the skank eye to a boneheaded tourist that stopped in the middle of the intersection and got in his way as the light turned yellow).  "An Amish with a 'tude, you know that's unheard of" --- Weird Al

New Holland Pa.

         The Amish talk with outsiders and they are not deaf, dumb and blind. A friendly merchant, a grain salesperson, a potato wholesaler, or the driver taking 500 pumpkins to Florida. 

    The working people all talk with each other and the Amish know a good deal more than they are given credit for. Remember they don’t watch TV and conversations with people is where they learn the most about the outside, and people talk too much and they learn a lot.

     Different sects have various strictures and freedoms with the strictest of them living in the less accessible hinterlands.

       I found it amusing and ironic that they hung their clothes to the electric pole by the street. All kinda laundry drying outside and fields full of

PumpkinsSquashandCorn being harvested.

       Do you kind of get that they are actually Anarchists and Preppers and Survivalists?  They follow the rules that they have to, such as stop lights, but have cut off all ties with the US government. They think Satan is the tapeworm eating America and they plan to outlast Satan.  

      They are a country within a country, like the Basques in Spain or the Kurds in the middle east but not wanderers like the Tinkers or Gypsies. The Amish are a community that allow their young to decide their future by living among the outsiders during the wild oats phase as is discussed in the video above. 

     You may have watched the TV series about the Amish and found them cautious and thoughtful   when the rules are broken.

         During this period, they will be deciding on having an adulthood that is filled with non-stop chores during the daylight hours, or they may choose a life among the capitalist Americans and the vicissitudes of the market, subjecting themselves to the inherent cruelty of capitalism.  Not having a job to do is unheard of in their world.  Everyone has skin in the game.   

Note lawn chairs on the right saving a space for the parade 

When this capitalism crap shits the bed, guess who won't even notice

       So I’m in one of the large thrift shops and I see a partial quilt that I really liked and I talked to the lady whose mom was an Amish. That's how they say it. She showed me something her mother made and it was quite nice, and then we looked at a piece that caught my eye. The dates 1903 1904 and women's names were stitched in it. Possibly the corner of a very large quilt? Fascinating stitching and colors.

       With the ladies 100 years dead, I thought I had gotten myself a bit of an antique, but it was also time to listen. $35 but the price is negotiable and I was going to say 25, but it was obviously worth more than that, so I said thirty and I had it. In the meanwhile, people volunteer information and I followed the banter between the co-owners about quilting incidents. I learned a lot more that way than if I asked stupid questions like a witless tourist. 

       As I went to leave to go to Hershey Gardens, I stopped at a farmstand.  Finally an Amish in full regalia I could talk to. I didn’t know if they were brainwashed zombies so I didn’t know what to expect. I was out to get seed potatoes from the Amish which was big on my itinerary from the git-go. But there was nothing sprouted, they were all perfectly beautiful Kennebecs.  
       “October is when we plant them in Florida," I had told her. It can get cold some fall and winters and that would slow the growth down some years, and we harvest in April, mostly from containers. Fresh Florida potaters February to April. 

         Luckily no customers came along for a bit and she told me about how they specialize. Different people have different talents and tools and she hinted on how their barter system works. Got into a seriously normal conversation for a good twenty minutes till somebody finally came in.

         My planning was extensive for my trip, even growing a mustache-less semi-beard despite having   no sideburns. Here I am smiling with my Amish face.
        So whatever it was, this Amish maiden was so real and open and fun to talk to, I’m thinking, you know, these people are probably pretty cool in actuality.  Use your head and don’t mess with them. I feel bad they got that religious burden.

        Instead, bond with people about agriculture. Considering we eat three times a day, a thousand times a year, an important part of the revolution is food.

        What do I see in gas stations across America? Amish this and Amish that. As I left Amish country there were piles of squash at the end of peoples driveways. 50 cents a piece on that beautiful October afternoon.

      If you treat people who are different, like fish at the Atlanta Seaquarium, don’t expect any warmth or confidentiality. Talk about the guy that cuts the silage at the end of the growing season, or discuss tricks of the trade regarding tomatoes and potatoes, well that's another story. Not, "why do you hang your laundry in the front yard", like a city slicker libtard would?

      The energy hog we call the dryer, gives most people an automatically bigger carbon footprint than any of the Amish.  Do you think the Amish were worried about Hurricane Florence damaging gasoline refineries? We shouldn’t be either, and now ask yourself how many pipelines do you need to supply YOUR community with gasoline. 

don't step on the eggshells

       It’s not just smoke in the air, but the entire mining and processing of fossil fuels that has compromised our ecosystems. Thousands of pipelines crisscrossing the country (that will be abandoned when we switch to safer technologies)

       Traditional wetlands for millions of years wiped out in several generations of short-sighted sycophants of capitalism. Carpetbagging trumps, looting someone else's resources.

      I see Despicables and Deplorables in line with a mountain of pork chops at the register, and this is somehow more civilized than an Amish root cellar?  That’s right, I didn’t see many fat Amish. I can also see the Amish understanding Bioregional Autonomous Zones far better than some dinner party libral could. They are about survival within their community.

      Now imagine this type of independence without the BS of religion. Talk to the hand Fascism.  Banishment (boycott)  all POS corporations as the Amish banish those that they want to remove from their life. Banish the stranglehold the oil and gas industry has on America.

      Horse and buggy isn’t the answer to your beguiling question, but real, actual energy independence is what we’ll be doing in our  autonomous communities when gasoline gets to about $4.50 a gallon, then all the alternatives will come on line. Production of slower vehicles and an infrastructure project for safer traveling will boost the economy. The frantic fracking of the last ten years was to keep the Petroleum  Plot rolling and gas sales booming. 

         It was the Obama administration that looked the other way when shale oil extraction (fracking) became the norm. Suddenly we were only buying 15% of our oil from the Middle East. Poisoned the underground for a decade or two of energy independence. Gas prices flattened below three dollars a gallon but unknown toxins were being injected into the bedrock below the soil by some nefarious fracking. 

 

 The people of New Holland and the nearby Amish community seem to do parallel play pretty well.  Amish carriages never seemed to hold up traffic and they also seemed intent to get things done that Saturday. Trucks with bales of hay going thru Main St and harvests with their gales of surplus.  

         The Amish will survive Armageddon, will you? 

The Amish knew this a long time ago. They will survive. They won't even notice an economic collapse and it seems only cockroaches are tougher than the Amish and this is my lesson on why we need to rebuild communities. 

PERFECT STORM

Perfect Storm

Staycations are fine, but I was long overdue for a real vacation.

         Hurricane Florence,  however, seemed to have a similar path in mind.  Her track was going to take her 75 miles south of where I planned to go. Just three or four days before I did.  
The first leg of the vacation was the long journey to Raleigh, en route to my destination, The Blue Ridge Parkway. 
       There were many hurdles to overcome 
trying to plan the longest vacation of my adult life. Timing and money at the very least, but my deepest worry was getting the rental car.
                     I had heard that they check your credit score first, and I didn’t have a car good enough for a long trip so, a rental was the only way this vacation was going to happen.  I was worried that all the planning I’d done would be for naught. Standing in a line at Budget RentACar, I was presuming this is where it all ended, and another staycation was in store.

         The lady in front of me went out to the parking lot to see if she liked the Jeep Patriot. “If that’s all ya got.” He then checked her credit report and motioned for her to come behind the counter. He pointed and (mumble  mumble), out the door she goes without her Jeep. 
         Here was the last hurdle, could I get a rental, with what I presumed, was a shitty credit report? Without a credit card that could pay for it at that time, on top of it all. Imma pay for it when I got back on the 9^th, and social security drops into the trough that day, ya know.

This was it. Months of planning and arranging would come crashing down, but I’m used to disappointment. As I braced myself for rejection, he was handing me the keys. “White Jeep in the third row.”

         I wasn’t looking for advice or suggestions, so I had only told the four people directly involved. Sissy and Dottie were welcoming and warm and I stayed 6 days at their houses. Shaun buddy took care of the business. My two spiritual advisors said go go go.
"The whole state is shut down” said one overly dramatic friend.

        “The Parkway is closed,” said my AAA auto service rep. Oh oh! It seemed really bad. “I 95 is still closed.” Now that seemed unbelievable because interstate highways are usually way above the land nearby and are only closed for construction and repair. All that traffic was being re-routed thru the middle of the state.

The week before, as Florence approached, the conditions were ripe for a HUGE natural disaster. Warm ocean temps and no wind shear. A cold front began to descend into the states, then went back up. 
        Florence was predicted to be as strong as Hugo, wet as Harvey. This was not going to be a glancing blow, but a direct hit like Hurricane Andrew, and a potential twenty-foot tidal surge. Then the storm would plow a slow path west and then more quickly north astride the Blue Ridge Parkway.         

My Buddy Vigo

Tabacco Museum

        I rI 

I remember Hurricane Frances and how it ground its way slowly across Florida at a leisurely 3 MPH, and tore every leaf off of every tree, and it appeared that Florence was going to do the same to northern South Carolina and southern North Carolina.

 

                        Florence headed for a heavily populated area and there are many people without vehicles who were unable to evacuate. I remember Hugo that hit South Carolina with the devastating wind. 
I was driving down to Florida Sept 26  ’89 shortly after Hugo hit on the 22nd, and the sight of hundreds of Pine Trees that were completely flattened is etched onto my memory. This was an eye-opener for me, who had never seen the impact of a large hurricane.

With images of fish flopping around on the interstate, I drove off. How long was an otherwise 11-hour drive to Raleigh going to take? At AAA,  I was shown all the road closings and only one road was open from the south to get to Raleigh. 
Everything south of there was a wreck but I made the trip in 10 hours and 52 minutes. 666 miles of white line fever, “In a quarter mile, take the next left” then right and another right. Twisting and turning like the Blue Ridge Parkway, I ended up on Rt. 1for 60 miles. Route 1 is inland  for some reason in North Carolina.

 Good news I heard in Raleigh North Carolina that day, they were going to open the Parkway. Visiting my buddy Vigo (see picture above), I left and went to Pilot Mountain for a bit then ended up at Doughton Campground for 4 days.

 The Hurricanes path over the Parkway couldn’t have been as devastating as portrayed. 

Finally, I was going back to the Mountains. 

HERSHEY GARDENS

LIBERTARIANS

           LIBERTARIANS

         

          The Blue Ridge Parkway is a marvel of engineering, construction, recreation and conservation. There is limited signage ... “overlook ahead,” or "Pine knob 3728 ft.", and no stop lights for 469 miles.

         When I got to Doughton Campground, I fell in love with site #77 and stayed for 6 days of a 16 day vacation.  The first four days, I was the only person camping in section C. Fallen trees had closed the Parkway after Hurricane Florence, and I was able to have to have a peaceful time without any other humans.

        

When I first parked there, three choppers roared by at eye level after leaving  the disaster area that was the North Carolina coast after Hurricane Florence, so I was ready to expect the unexpected. There’d been a bear in the park recently too. 

  I was able to set up and get a fire going. A chance to truly relax, I had a moment of Zen listening to the many bird calls and crickets as nightfall approached. Releasing my troubles to the breeze, I closed my eyes.

                 Boom! Boom! Boom! 
          It’s the Balrog! Beezledoom!

 I sat up startled, till I realized was just a drum circle, and it was a welcome addition to the night noise of birds or crickets.

  There was also a squeaky thumping noise that I disregarded at first.

          Later I went to the bathroom to see what they had and didn't have.  There it was again,  gears gnashing…a loud mechanical noise... Invasion from Mars?  Were Robots clambering up the side of the knob I was camping at?  I finally realized it was a pump as I was rinsing off the days dirt.

          It was an excellent bathroom.  No shower, just a water spigot about a foot above the floor, for taking a French shower or whatever cleanup you had to do. No lights in the building, but a light outside so you could see the building on a foggy night. No electricity as far as I could see and that is saving money by not having to run all that wire. I guessed that the light was battery operated. 

Then I got to wonderin' how would a Libertarian get hundreds of gallons of water to this remote bathroom every single day?  A bathroom is a sacred place when you're camping for a couple of days or more, and the answer is, they wouldn’t bother.

          They wouldn’t build a campground that every day working class could afford.  Libertarians are the kind of people who objected to a Postal Service that would deliver to every single house in this country, so people could stay in touch and important communications could happen. 
Before that, they objected to bringing electricity to rural areas, I'm sure. 
The skint bastards that squeeze a penny so hard, it makes Lincoln cry.

          Some years ago, a rich dude built a road to the top of Mount Mitchell which is down the road a piece. Bosses could afford the fee to the top and they were also the first to have automobiles back in 1927 when the road was built. In time, the state of North Carolina came in, and developed the services necessary that would allow everyone to enjoy the views from the Majestic Mt. Mitchell.
               Now I’m not a fan of big government, but I enthusiastically applaud the effort of the Democratic Socialists at that time who built a remarkable road often at heights of 3000 feet or more.  The area is nearly unspoiled, and the Blue Ridge Parkway may be the last hope for the wild things.

           Libertarians don’t think much about “the blessings of Liberty” or “the pursuit of  happiness.” We need a government to cover the basics so there is less suffering among its people, and at least food and shelter for everyone. It wouldn’t cost that much. Just have a moratorium on building new jets or tanks. Sell a couple of embassies in places where the United States doesn’t belong.    

      

           The Park Service needs to double its budget, and you know, sell a tank or something. Reduce the CIA by 25%.  What about supply and demand, GOP? We demand recreation but are supplied with war instead. WTH! A country by the frat boys, for the frat boys, and of the frat boys. 

 There are many ways to starve the beast called Oligarchy. To save America, we have to save the land along with liberty and justice for all.

 Then I got to thinking about Pilot Mountain that I had visited the day before, the first mountain I'd seen in 12 years after living in flat and green Florida. I wondered how the Libertarians would manage that park. 

The sign that says: "hikers below, do not throw rocks." Gone, it’s no fun being careful and courteous. The no alcohol in the Park directive? That's a silly Liberal rule by sissy men of today. “How do you like your steak sir,” the waiter asked. “Next to my other steak” was the reply from the macho posturing pinhead. 

Fences that prevent people from falling down the cliff would never get fixed. There’d be drinking parties  “We have to go kids, the Libertarians are here.”  They’d be shooting the crows that use the mountain for resting after gliding and hunting.  

Learn what is good government, and what is bad government.  

We can certainly reduce our military to 500 billion a year and dramatically increase mass transportation for everyone, and we can have small home villages for the homeless and  the rarely homed or the nearly homeless, and create many more recreation areas, so people can get out of their homes and out into Nature.

I can’t say enough about the Doughton Campground and how it is laid out.  I had 100 acres of mature trees and steep slopes on three sides to enjoy. I didn't need to travel for hiking. I prefer, off the trail stuff where I won't get lost and lose my bearings. For someone stuck in Florida for 12 years, even a nearby naturally flowing streamlet was enjoyed immensely by me. Remarkable preservation along the whole Parkway. Truly the ultimate forest experience for someone like me who doesn't want to hike 6 miles to get a view.

 The Blue Ridge Parkway, is what I’m thinking about when I try to imagine what a large infrastructure project would look like. 

Bloodthirsty libertarian predators ready to buy up the rest of America that isn’t nailed down. They made out with the banking crisis, and they bought many of the 10 million foreclosed homes. That's how Bill O'reilly got his 78 houses. Aside from the vulture capitalists, Libertarians are the actual super predators. Brainwashed by Milton Friedman and others at the Chicago School of Oligarchy.

  -the end-

 

FAMILY

         FAMILY

                      How we practice being with God.

     There‘s a strain of eastern philosophy that says we keep spiritually evolving after our earthly material life is over, till eventually, we reach such a high level of enlightenment, we become part of gods love. We give up our 

selves to be part of god, 
or something.

   Another crazier religion says the big bang was when god exploded into trillions and gazillions of pieces,   and all these pieces of god are trying to bring itself back together again.

     I like to say, ‘we all learn to love all eventually’, meaning, that if there

 is an afterlife, the only thing that makes sense is that when your reincarnations are done and you have experienced everything the universe has to offer, you give it all up and leave your consciousness and become part of the Goddess or God.  I like “the force” from Star Wars the best. 

    Family is the closest orbit we have. It goes beyond the struggle of good and evil and asks the question, is it survival of the fittest? Do we struggle within the family unit? Is it your family versus the rest of the world?Should we all use each other, and whoever is the strongest gets the best, and the weak get

the rest? 

       Not always physical fights, because in families there are 

mental and intellectual and emotional battles that are won or lost continually.

     But when we love each other and co-operate the best goes to most people, our collective pursuit of happiness if you will. Masonic principles embedded in our American Constitution, whether you like it or not.

        Christian families (yes I’m going there), have traditionally used 

wives as chattel and children as employees. Sitting around in 1686 

making

cCandles on Saturday night as Father read the Bible. I couldn’t think of anything more dreary or dreadful. Indoctrination and brainwashing and sometimes just cultural  conditioning, you know, “if you’re happy and you know it, it’s a sin.”

        Islamics are the same way allah allah allah all day long, I mean,

 come on? None of that nonsense is real enough to have and hold in our daily lives. However, being within a loving family is hopefully where a lot of your time is spent. That’s reality. But if you got your wife under a  blanket and would toss your children to the wolves if the Iman asked you to, well where is the dignity in that? 

Hand over your man card dude.  It’s the 21^st century, not the 11^th.

        Everywhere is misery in America. Children are being taken care of carelessly while the parent tries to find enough work to pay for everything. The budget cuts are taking away the summer recreation program. Tension 

is everywhere.

  

       Super duh here, minimum wage is way too low, but we’ll grapple 

with that on another day. My god, the agony I have spent listening to peoples sad spirits when they state that they know they can never make enough to relax in this life.

          Not a survival wage, a tribal wage, a wage that realizes that dollar earned, goes to others in our communities.  It goes 8 different places in a month around town in a locally based economy. When that dollar is eaten alive by predatory capitalism in the form of a destroyed resource, or a late fee from an international banking corporation, it is lost forever. Stolen.

    

Progressives have been around a long time and here is the theme of the current Progressive Party, “We of The American Progressive Party seek government accountability, an end to wars of aggression, a vibrant economy, including living wage jobs, sustainable environments, social justice and constitutional rights for all.”   I would like to add from my own box of sayings, “encode liberty, embed equality, ostracize criminality and vanquish cruelty.”  \

The only way to create abundance is to take something and make it bigger. A seed from a cherry becomes a cherry tree, producing 

60 thousand cherries in its lifetime. It gets sawn down and ‘ol Uncle Mike makes a couple of chairs from it. Nice cherry wood. Ummmm cherry, go good right next to the stairwell. “I’d rather he made a chest of drawers though, its what I really needed.” Families aren’t perfect but it’s a wonderful place to learn about love.

        So there we have the basis of the “family” farm. Grow what you 

need with a couple cash crops to buy what you can’t make. Look at the 

butterfly backwash from one goddam little seed! Heirloom seeds are part of our American family heritage and that goes back thousands of years with the First People. There was always corn seed saved in case of drought or 

crop failure.

        This is where my battle with Bayer begins, having bought up the flailing Monsanto and poised to poison small communities forever. This new Oligarchic Octopus will have a BIG advertising budget and the advertising budget will convince everyone that Bayer is looking out for 

our best interests. This frankencorporation, you betcha, loves you very much.

        Capitalism is anti-family and I can explain more if you like, but I wanted to discuss family and give you examples of how heartless monopolies make life far more difficult than it needs to be. Let's look in on the lives of the hard-working poor. The industrious lower middle class. The question is, is the individual more important or the family? What does individual freedom mean? Does it supersede family authority? Fourth of July on its way with it’s fetishistic flag waving and “American values”, but America was stolen by authoritarian freaks shortly after WW2.    

Seriously ill white men like Hoover, Anslinger Dulles and 

Mccarthy put us on a right wing authoritarian trajectory. They                          advertise you into compliance. Milk does a body good we were told 

as kids and a million commercials of milk being poured into a 

cereal bowl assure our compliance. Manufactured demand as 

    Noam Chomsky says.

        Those in Wisconsin and Vermont who were raised with raw milk 

and raw cheese knew what they were getting. They waved to the cows as they drove to work or very likely milked the cows themselves. Everyone had skin in the game with a family farm, and they knew what they were getting.  

           I remember in the mid 60’s when we drove through Rocky Hill,

 the next town over, and my dad would point out when we drove by

 Valley Crest Farms, “Look, kids, that’s where we get our milk.”  And 

we would

yell out “HI COWS!” But then the big dairies bought the little dairies 

which got bought by Etcmegacorp.  Nearly every local product is now 

made by low wage grunts managed by faceless corporate entities 

beholden to the community of stockholders. The heart of the country 

was transplanted into Big Brother.

Sure farmers could be dumb as fuck and cruel to beat the band, but

 I never said the concept of family has been perfected. What HAS happened is that 3 million people work for walmart insteadof on the farm, and have been so kowtowed by management that many are in a chronic state of chaos as bills pile up, doctor visits are not affordable and the car is totaled and whose gonna watch the kids Friday? Yet the Walmart family has somehow accumulated over a hundred billion dollars due in large part to the industriousness of the American worker. Immigrants looking for a good

 life. Walmart is anti-family no matter how many bible guides they stock, or flags they sell.

 Bootlick America has been brainwashed into thinking unions are 

bad, but unions are what brought us out of third world working conditions, creating, as you know, the biggest middle class the world has ever known. Which is what we want, right? No rich with far more than

 they need and no poor wanting for more than subsistence. Not a living wage, a thriving wage. A tribal wage and a return to the mom and pop system of yesteryear.

Strong individuals create strong families who seek consensus not conflict.  The Bill of Rights is there to back you up. Strong families unite

to create dynamic communities.  Where there’s life, there’s love. When we love each other, we help each other. With family, we become part of something bigger and when we die we become part of something bigger than that.

                                    Comadre.

I’ve been using compadre as an alternative to dude and hey man 

and guys and missy sissy and maw. It wasn’t until today I realized 

that your woman friends and acquaintances are comadres not compadres.  Can't help doing it after being conditioned by American culture. Our whole lives has been a continual growth cycle shedding (we thought) embedded racism and sexism. 

 To me, the Ms. Designation that came along in the 70's gave an alternative to women taking a mans name, such a chattely thing, like the dude owns you or something. Patriarchy is being dismantled whether you realize it or not, but the 

problem is that Capitalism just keeps on a-rollin’, worse than ever.

We’ll read about a dramatic increase in women representatives in November and you’ll hear “just grab ‘em by the mid-terms” as the repudiation of the GOP’s agenda that includes, “rape is gods will” and 

“just grab em by the short hairs if you’re famous,”  finally arrives. 

 Bitter and lifeless is their epithet.

“Love is all we can take with us and we all love all eventually.” 

There is more to us than our brains. That radio is a hunk of metal 

and plastic but picks up and receives messages for many miles. The human brain is vastly more intricate so that’s why I lean towards a slight hope that we do live in spirit. Unless you’re an evil Republican, then God will personally vaporize your soul so your ornery journey ends.

 Those that can love have a radio beacon to 

others that love, and it doesn’t matter if your flesh prison is human 

or hippopotamus, if you can love, you can become immortal. Be part of the family of god.

DE-PROGRAM 2018 REFORM PLATFORM