Not against the flag

Not “against the flag;”

Against injustice against our equally created fellow man.  Against injustice to citizens: of this country and the world.

Not disrespect;

Disappointment and grief

over generations of oppression, 

educational, economic, and social, 

of the vulnerable, the huddled masses, the vanquished, the ex slaves,

through the empowerment of the lighter skinned and fairer haired; made the vanguard of the established power for a crumb.

Sadness

And unresolved grief over a young woman killed in a jail over a traffic ticket,

Or a twelve-year-old kid killed by a scared man with a badge and gun over a toy weapon.  A boy killed over candy.

Unresolved grief and loss over choke holds; unresolved bodies riddled with bullets from cowardly franchise enforcement taught that they must put others down like the animals they have been made into by oppressive policy and law. 

 Inter-generational despair from churches bombed, men lynched, hate crimes unresolved, hate groups, and animal factory slums where the manufactured animals are vilified even further as frauds and cheats and mentally inferior after their education is denied them; their inalienable right to pursue happiness equally, symbolized by a flag, as elusive as the wind that makes it wave.

Not against the flag.

But against pretend virtue

That turn law enforcement officials into law oppressionists;

Statesmen into demagogues;

and turn innocent children into orphans of mothers and father jobs for a dollar with

No day care money, all becoming beasts unrecognizable in slums of noise, violence, temp agencies, corner stores with “forties”, prostitutes, pay day loans, and cops who would just as soon shoot them as stand for the law which created them.  It is the same thing.

Not against the flag;

But against the evolution from self-evident truths, the spirit of the foundation, to national self-hatred, the neurosis of guilt.   Evidenced

by hyper sensitivity to dialogue on this taboo subject and shames the masses to self-censorship in a toxic co-dependent ritual.

 Not against the flag, 

but against divisive manipulation by powerful forces in media and legislature and their corporate benefactors;

and their brutal death squads armed to the teeth,  cynically called peace officers that the powers say we need because its not safe out there.

And it isn’t.  

For the animal factory of oppressive social, economic, and racial culture is efficient; and passed on casually with almost each word and deed, generation upon generation.

Not against the flag

But a bent knee asking humbly for redress of decades of humiliation and second-class citizenry.

A prayer.

A bent knee

For the flag. 

For the dream.

A service for a dream still believed in; a dream worth fighting for.

An tribute to the dream the stars and stripes represents, eloquent in the Declaration.

And a resolve to not settle for any sham or pretense that our people want or believe in anything less.

Incremental Change

Progress is a milestone in a process, not the beginning.

Only when measuring results is slow progress an acceptable outcome; and even then, not acceptable when swifter change is indicated and necessary.

"Action" is required, if and when we want change that we can measure in progress.  We measure whether progress slow or swift only after acting.

And even before action and measuring, “desire” and “belief” must be present.   

Desire and Belief. What variable variables.

Belief is a riddle so simple, so personal, so complicated, and so empowering that it is both feared and coveted.  We all have belief systems; yet many like to say they believe in nothing. 

Belief is more valuable than precious metals because without belief, or "faith" if you will, change is impossible.

Belief is alive and changeable.

 Powerful forces and those that aspire to power can do nothing without inspiring belief in others. Belief endures many ages, many struggles, many things...to me, belief is the catalyst of change, good or bad.

And Desire is the sometimes guilty muse of belief.  And the sometimes spark of imagination...

When our desires come from a good place we are proud to discuss them.  When  our desires come from a place of fear manifest as selfishness, self centeredness, narcissism, superiority, etc.,  we fiercely defend them I think, having  been persuaded by others or having talked ourselves into “believing” we have the right to have all that we desire despite what that desire does to others.

Desire from a dark place resists scrutiny.  Desire from the light is eternal imagination made real.

Desire, belief, action: these are the predeterminants of progress. Human beings hold desires and beliefs about themselves and others deep within their hearts.  And what is in the heart is protected and defended.   Thus action to change and progress is often slow and ineffective.  Like action on healthcare reform.

That's when we settle for the "incremental". 

But if we review what we really want as people, we may be able to come from a better place of desire.  Thus our beliefs about ourselves and others could change for the positive, which would change our actions and outcomes, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.  Here even incremental change is acceptable so long as we thoroughly understand what we want and can proudly express it.

But progress and change are not inevitable things that just happen because we’re so nice and good.  These things require the work of self-reflection and even national reflection if you are talking about national issues, to determine where we’re coming from and where we want to get to.  

Amazing, heartbreaking humans

People generally are a wonderful phenomenon.  Our ability to “consider” stuff is amazing!

What's tough is that oft times we choose to not consider our vulnerabilities:  We're extremely vulnerable to fear and its many incarnations.  We're vulnerable to greed; and to what some might call the “deadly sins”.  But when we hear talk like "sins" we stop our considerations because of our learned prejudice to anything that reminds us of “religion.”  Generally. 

In my estimation we are “good enough” to be here; we are not an accident, and even if we are some accident of evolution the matrix of life has seen fit to allow us to have a space here for a while.  And, importantly we have plenty of room and potential for growth:  do we want to grow in sustainability for posterity; or do we want to burn bright and burn out?

If it's sustainability and long term survival in this place that we want, I think we need to live among ourselves and in our bio-psycho-social environments better.  Again if that is our desire. 

Our  landscape is far more than just nature!    

And "Life" is not so concerned with how cleverly we justify our philosophies of nihilism, competition, winner take all, laissez faire economic systems, corruptions, war, etc.  Nor about how we justify being altruistic and benevolent with one another.  But concerned with what we do.   With that which is sustainable in the life system, or what must give way in the life system to other sustainable forms of life.  Humans have the unique ability to consider this and make changes to their modus operandi as they/we invent new ways to live with or against each other and the life system on this planet.  In this respect, living up to our full potential as humans can become akin to "human actualization" on the hierarchy of needs pyramid:  Self actualization could be considered human actualization when we tune in to collective sustainability in the system.

If this is true and the life system is fair in only considering what is sustainable and what is not in the system;  And if humans have the ability to consider their sustainability in the systems they inhabit both natural and human made (ecological, social, biological, psychological, economic, political and what have you systems) as a species; then as a species we are short sighted when we don’t consider that our vulnerabilities to greed, corruption, and even fear will always be purged inevitably by their natural instability.

Humans/we have the unique ability to consider these things and choose our path; That’s all. 

And we are saddened collectively when in our heart of hearts we maintain systems and philosophies that we know are not sustainable, such as greed infused capitalistic competition, imperialism, consumptionism, ethnocentrism. 

People are not “stupid.” 
We are amazing in our perceptions and ability to consider these things!

And it breaks many hearts when we use our amazingness to manipulate each other:   some people who are good at navigating the man-made systems we put in place manipulate the fears and vulnerabilities inherent in all of us.  This is just an historical fact.   These masters of the human systems manipulate emotions and fears to which we are vulnerable for the short-sighted gain of a few, is opposed to helping the many master our vulnerabilities, and therefore striving to build real sustainability on this planet with each other in nature.

These masters of the human systems are often courageous and bold; and at the same time victims of the same unchecked vulnerabilities that like a sickness poison ourselves and our man-made systems, causing the larger life system to inevitably seek to purge itself of the sickness.

And we all so easily manifest symptoms of the sickness called fear:  manipulation; corruption; greed.   Not from the life system itself.  But by that part of human nature that, ruled by fear and its incarnations of greed and corruption, compels many to satisfy their basic and human needs for food, safety, belonging, esteem, and validation at the expense of others as opposed considering that only when the needs of all are met sustainably in one area can we move through them in sustainable ways to the next.

We watch this pageant play itself out over and over again.  We learn about it in history books.  We witness it in our generations.  And in our sadness as we watch each other suffer from these human vulnerabilities to fear and its symptoms of emotional manipulation, greed, corruption, etc., we call each other “stupid” for getting sick or being vulnerable to the sickness, forgetting that we all have the same vulnerability to fear and manifest the symptoms of the sickness at any given time, whither rich or poor, and from whichever region of the planet we are from.   

Only when we strive to meet the needs of the many, in the environment, are we working toward the sustainability of all.

Out of many, one...

   One definition for "Racism" is prejudice + power.

Many can be prejudiced, which we must guard against.

But not everyone in society has the power to make their collective prejudice institutionalized oppression.

Racism.

Anglo superiority.

Prejudice.

All ugly things.

    Yet, worse is the kind of ignorance that disregards the issue of racism by flipping the script with claims of reverse racism or accusing the oppressed of the oppression.

Not that being oppressed cleanses any soul or makes the person somehow sainted and perfect.  It does not.

Find the courage to deal with the issue at hand. Or, guilty of perpetuating the ugliness by denial of it.

I believe we can celebrate the accomplishments of many ethnicities and cultures in the US without making Anglo culture and tradition superior to others.

And we can help raise the bar to a new US cultural identity never seen in history that celebrates the empowering of the many people living up to their fullest potentials; learning and taking the best from each ethnicity and culture we encounter without conformity to an Anglo ideal

(Anglo conformity is a well-researched phenomenon of "melting pot" theory that promoted conformity and helped other cultures and ethnicity be seen as deficient. An easy case in point is English rock bands became millionaires remaking music indigenous to the USA (blues)... no offense to the Beatles, Led Zep and the Stones, et al; I grew up listening to them as well as The Spinners, Kool and the Gang, and some great jazz)...

To me, the US has historically suffered with Anglo envy which does not live up to the spirit of the many cultures that make up our society. Anglo's have brought excellent things to the table to be sure; but we can be generous and inclusive to become an even greater civilization and culture, instead of envying and attempting to recreate European hierarchies in America. We have yet to step into our true American identity....

WE yet have that potential in the US, even to this day.