January 2, 2008 @ 6:08am

Good Morning Life and a good life it is. I'm a bit energized this morning, I twisted my hair yesterday and by the next morning it starts to look like I want. I just came from hanging out in the mirror and I must confess, I look a little licious, so i feel fabulicious and I'm totaliciouslly ready to face the world. Today's affirmation from Science of Mind website (www.scienceofmind.com) is Today I remember that I am a powerful child of God. I am able to co-create a vital, vibrant, and satisfying life any time I make the choice to go within and seek Spirit.
This affirmation is so in synch with what I'm feeling this morning. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to watch TV, this is rare because the only television in my home is in my son's dungeon, I mean room and it's rare for me to go in there let alone hang out long enough to watch TV but he went to stay at relatives, I cleaned the room to to a level that made it tolerable for me to be in there for a long period of time. On TV, I had the chance to watch snippets from the Miami Book Fair (www.miamibookfair.com) where I enjoyed a talk between Tavis Smiley and Cornel West but the best part for me was the talk from Naomi Klein (www.naomikleion.com) and her book call the Shock Doctrine and Jeremy Scahill who wrote the book Blackwater. West and Smiley were definitely inspirational and fed my soul culturally but Klein and Scahill put the fire under my feet. When these two talked about the economic situation in conjunction with the para-military for profit companies, I was ready to start a revolution.
I reserved a copy of both of their books and have read excerpts on the web. Klein confirmed for me my deepest suspicion and that is, the bailout was just a way for Bush cronies to rip off the government before he leaves office. I've been saying that capitalism is no good and every since the so-called recession of the eighties, I felt as if i was witnessing the takeover of the federal government by unregulated, money hungry, heartless and manipulative profiteering corporations. And it's impact was most felt on two occassions for me. One when I worked for the Human Rights Campaign in the late 90's until 2000 when Bush stole the election. During this tenure, my recollection about the Clinton administration is that He never passed on piece of legislation that was progressive or radical. In fact, when he began to back paddle from the universal healthcare idea, I felt that this country was in deep trouble but I quieted my frenzy and blamed it on a Republican house and senate majority.
But then with the stolen election fresh in mind, the tragedy of 911 felt like capitalist ploy to exploit, I didn't know what but what I know now is that in the name of US self defense, 911 was an act to rip off the federal government and these last few weeks of bailouts is just another federal bank robbery.
My challenge as an activist who wants radical progressive change is this, I'll be honest I have a small amount of hope in people. I get the feeling that technology has a grip on the minds of people who are obsess with blacberries, Tivo, iPhones, DS, PSP, mp3 players, cable tv and reality shows. This electronic consumption makes me feel as if I live amidst a bunch of zombies and I keep trying to snap my fingers, clap my hands and shake fellow citizens from the spell but it's pervasive and ingrained. So how do activist motivate citizens to take back their power, to get back out in the streets and demand that their money be used to sustain them as oppose to giving welfare to corporations that sent their jobs to other countries and sucked all the revenue out of their communities when given tax breaks, how do I wake the sleeping giant?
More than anything the bigger question is how do I shift my point of view and become open to the possibility of change, to the possibility of people taking to the street because as long as I'm pessimistic about the whole thing, I can't use my mind to figure out a strategy.
This morning I feel on fire and I'm deeply concerned about Blackwater, a for profit war company acting as military presence for the US without appropriate safegaurds and regulations regarding their behavior. I'm more afraid of this corporation and others eventually turning their backs on the US or against the US. Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing something wrong with this picture, please tell me so. I had heard about security people arriving in New Orleans during the Katrina storm but before the national guard arrived, I chalked it off to state action by the governor but to learn from Scahill that these people arrive in New Orleans just before the storm ended (not after) without anyone asking them to was disconcerting. Yet, the act by Blackwater felt calculated and in all honesty, it was a far more progressive act than anything by the federal government. I think I might write Michael Moore and see if we can make a film about all of this.
As I pull away from the affirmation, it is clear that I'm really reflecting in my own way on today's affirmation which states that I can create the life I want by going inside and pulling strength and wisdom from the inner spirit, the holy spirit that is inside of me. Now more than ever I want a wonderful life, now more than ever I'm recognizing the need to go inside and determine what it is that I can be doing to empower myself and engage fellow citizens in the mentality and actions that bring about radical, progressive social change. American citizens don't deserve the recession we're in, we are simply the victims of the Bush elite who have decided that money is more important than people, money is more important than the planet and money is more important that constitutional principles. I can't live with that, I refuse to live with that and so I go inside, I commune with the holy spirit, I request in my deepest sincerity to be used to bring about change, to assist every American to demand what is rightfully theirs. There is no time like the present.
My children are grown and none of them have chosen to create off-spring yet but I owe it to my grand, great-grand, great-great-grand children and so on, I owe it to them to create a better world, one better than the one I was born into. Of course this feels like a huge debt but it feels lighter than any financial debt. I owe it to myself to honor the part of me that wants to save the world, lofty goal but innate and heartfelt. I know that I don't have the answer but I can take small steps, I can be a voice for those who are too consumed with electronic gadgets or those who don't know to have a voice. My deepest prayer for 2009 is to be used as a vessel, that God will use me to create a harmony for the planet, to remind humanity of their divinity and create radical change. There is no reason why every person on this planet can't eat, there is more than enough to go around, there is no reason why equitable distribution of wealth can't happen, there is too much money to go around, I wish we'd get away from money and return to the time of bartering and shared resources. It's funny that were going green which is really a fancy way of saying, we need to return to our agricultural roots, a time when we were less civilized but the truth is, we were more civilized when we grew our own food, when we respected the trees and knew what grass was. We were more civilized when we sat at the kitchen table eating a meal as a family. We were more civilized when we awoke to the sound of a rooster. I used to go down south in the summer and my favorite part of that time was the sound of the rooster in the morning, it felt more comforting than my mickey mouse alarm clock that bellowed some high-pitched voice that irritated my ears. What I'm saying is that when I walk down the street and witness people being afraid of one another that doesn't feel like civilized living. When I enter an establishment and I'm judged, treated and boxed into some category based on how I look, I'm sorry folks but this doesn't feel like civilized living. I want to live civilized. I want to know where my food comes from as oppose to saying Trader Joe's, Kroger or Zingerman's (no disrespect for all these fine establishments). I want to talk to people about Blackwater, the truth about the corporate rip-off of our government and how we can't expect President-Elect Obama to save us. What I really want to say to everyone out there in the world is that single personality leadership is dead, it doesn't work but collective action, people working together, people empowering themselves to demand what is rightfully theirs is the path to liberation. And I don't know about anyone else but I want complete and utter liberation for myself and for my sister because we are all matter, the planet earth.
I am perfect, I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME deeply.