A Radical Manifesto

“Your Heart is a muscle the size of your fist: Keep Loving, Keep Fighting”

When you start tuning in to what’s going on on this planet, what’s going on with us people, and at this point you’d almost have to be ignoring it not to know at least something – you become overwhelmed by the amount of damage, injustice and just plain stupidity that’s out there. Let’s just say climate change and the Iraq war are just the tip of the melting iceberg.

So where do you start? Dying polar bears or political prisoners? Mountaintop removal or the trouble in the Middle East? I think we need to start with a vision, so I’m sitting down to articulate the basics of the vision we need to save ourselves and to protect the earth.

These are just notes for a future blog, but I’ll begin with a rough outline; let me know what you think.

The problem
- Loneliness and despair from disconnection – from nature, ourselves, each other, our access to power to make political choices
- Addiction and greed to assuage that despair and distract us
- Unwillingness to face our despair or the truth of our own death or the truth of how our lifestyle affects the planet and others
- Using more than we need
- Valuing things more than people
- Judgements about people different than us, stereotypes
- Denial of the body, of the truth of this reality and our sensual sexual selves

The solution
- Connection to nature, to spirit and finally to each other
- Willingness to look our true reality in the face and work to change it
- Take responsibility for our choices and the consequences
- Diversity is our strength
- Live simply and so reduce our needs
- Don’t expect the easy life and instant gratification. Expect bliss from doing the good work.
- Recognizing our body, our life, our sensuality, our sexuality as true, beautiful and powerful
- Direct connection with the Divine
- Realize we have the power to change

Consequences: (needs work)
- American corporations are running out of people to sell to – thus globalization
- Drug war as a way to criminalize the poor, the outcasts (hippies, etc.) and others who are not using the pharmaceutical institution
- When people feel empty and wanting, we tend to buy things to fill that hole
- Also, use “romance” as a way of hoping another person will fill that need for more.

Sometime soon, I’ll actually string these ideas together into a coherent essay explaining my whole world view and give a solution to everything from global warming to the failure of organized religion to satisfy our needs. Or maybe it’ll just be a rant. But I want to articulate a vision here for all us discontented with “things as they are.”

So, does this ring true for you?