Hippyland

Old Hippy Soul Revival

I am probably an old hippy (just turned 60) and lived like one often. If living on the road and traveling from place to place, in the forest or the beach, sleeping outdoors and visiting the rainbow gathering counts. Yet I do not count myself as just a Hippie. Still, there was a great opening of the cosmic door (probably in 1965 (sound of music and the 60’s/70’s music is the bomb still) and in that time the spirit flowed in strongly, brought Eck and the religion of light and sound or ancient science of soul travel and other books (Kerouac, acid-test, etc) as we uncovered the reasons for progress which included communes, psychedelics, folk rock and roll, and other new idealism thought and attitudes, among the best being love, peace, honest sex, and happiness all are ‘pretty darn good things“.

I wonder how many realize this and why they would not realize the society actually creates hippies, not the other way around. Society needs that balance and realism of the Hippie naturalist, artist, and independent or ‘communist’ to see itself and find growth. A good bit of our computer advance comes from people who were seeded in the 60’s. The homeless children in the desert who live outside society because of the economic imbalance and free-slave mentality (who would think we live in homes really owned by banks, ergo the state- and are no better than a former slave - If you don‘t think so, try not paying the mortgage - out you will be)

I say thank you Old Hippy, and please If Only I could remember my name, answer me this - Are we not all Hippies? That is, living off the land! Being in communal space! Hearing the music! Knowing the spirit! Who can say they are not, and are we not all hippies?

How about putting some of the music on your site too? Cool. Oh that word is so abused now, like the hippie. Soul! Now, that’s better.

Establishment of Haight-Ashbury Museum of Psychedelic Art and History

By EDW Lynch on February 7, 2012

The Haight-Ashbury Museum of Psychedelic Art and History is a proposed permanent museum that will focus on psychedelic art and Haight-Ashbury’s role in the psychedelia movement of the 1960s (video). Museum supporters are raising funds for the project on IndieGoGo.

The Haight-Ashbury movement left an undeniable impact upon the world and the reverberations of the psychedelic sixties are still being felt today. Strangely there is no museum dedicated to keeping the history alive and relevant for the millions of visitors who come to San Francisco searching for inspiration and authenticity.

A non-profit community supported museum will permanently cement San Francisco as the home of psychedelia. Our intention is for the museum to become an attraction in and of itself that will educate and inspire visitors for generations to come to reinvent the world according to how they want to live.

http://psychedelichippiemusic.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/news-establishment-of-haight-ashbury.html

Hopi Prophecy WWIII

I would be grossly remiss if I failed to bring you the traditional (hereafter simply Hopi) Hopi message that the world would transform radically by the end of the Hopi/Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012. I visited the Hopi in 1998-1999 in Flagstaff, AZ. Though they never talked about their prophesy with me, I was confronted with their book at the first onset, Hotevilla by Mails/Evehema. In this book the spiritually advanced traditional Hopi prophesy WWIII on page 35 in a glyph on a 1000 year old pictograph on a rock on the reservation. For details on this please Google Hopi Prophesy Rock. See <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srYoI3LOzCY> The Hopi accurately prophesied WWI and II before they occurred and boldly told the US President at that time (I think it was Taft) and were ignored. It is wise not to ignore the Hopi. Their prophesies usually come true.

The point of the book, and the point that was so clear when I was in Flagstaff, is that Western "civilization" has created a real mess of native Hopi life. The BIA, Peabody Coal and the churches have done irreparable harm to the traditional, ceremonial way of life of the traditional Hopi. Now the Hopi are the nation's spiritual elders... when their ceremonial life is damaged, so goes the nation. They are afraid for themselves and for us.

The subtitle of Hotevilla is 'microcosm of the world' and what they seem to mean by that is that every community in the Global South has or will experience this kind of maltreatment from the US military-industrial complex. War, wage slavery, environmental racism (climate change, mining tailings, pesti/herbicides, factory river/air pollution, illegal dumping, etc), relocation of native people, crippling debt via the IMF/World Bank, US support of (military) dictatorships have all been felt by the Global South. This is our hallmark in the developing world. All because we can get away with it. This is all in a quest for profit. You see, profit is like a spell cast over people, because in essence, it causes slavery. With profit, you get something, for nothing. If everyone were a wage earner, we would all gain more based on skill alone. Essentially, we would all be financially equal. What the Hopi are exposing, what they are declaring in that the emperor wears no clothes, is that we can avoid WWIII through reason. We can recognize the dangers to humanity and the environment that business and the military and churches cause, and make changes for a good world, and not go through WWIII.

The Hopi allude to the interesting point that there is one thing we haven't thought of... the Chinese. We have an odd behavior with them. We are shtuping them with wage slavery on one hand, and borrowing money we don't plan on paying back with the other. To add fuel to the fire, the Chinese are schooled Marxists. They are very familiar with the machinations of neo-fascist capitalism. And they have an army much larger than ours. They are hacking into our military, medical and engineering secrets. Plus, oil, water and mineral resources are being scrambled for by hegemonies worldwide. Add to that the global debt crisis. On top of it all, they have some of our nuclear weapons secrets.

The Hopi say that on Purification Day a 'red army' will cover the Earth like red ants. This is thought to mean that at a certain turning point Russia, China and their allies (perhaps Latin American) will rout the US and her allies and conquer the world, WWIII. Whether this prophesy is a deterrent to help us get our act together or if this is simply the bitter truth, I do not know. I suspect the former, knowing the Hopi, but don't rule out the latter, knowing the Republican Party and American business. In any event, we seem to be in real trouble here. As time continues and it seems more and more obvious that we will go to war with China et al, be prepared. Don't go to war. Negotiate. Have talks and negotiate. We are all living on one small planet, and it is time that we work together, brother with brother. Common fellowship is inevitable anyway, do it before we all perish. If you wait until the last minute and focus on fighting a war with the Chinese and Russians, I suspect it will end in thermonuclear war. The time to act is now, to relieve the burdens of those that need our help the most in the developing world, of those we have hurt the most. That is what will save us, and humanity, in my opinion and experience.

I picture to myself what friends and family would say to me after the Chinese invaded, asking why I didn't do more to cry out, since I knew. I have been very vocal about this, and I recognize that a prophesy is difficult to be sure about. However, you can look at the facts. The developing world is slave to a relative few in this country and Europe, and powerful in Asia. America is in a funny position with China. The environment is very, very tired. 1.2 billion people globally are on the edge of starvation every day. Clearly, we are at a tipping point, and we have been for some time. Perhaps China is ready to cut the strings of the puppet master.

It is an interesting thing to note that in spite of all of these facts the Mayans, cousin to the Hopi, insist that we will transition to world peace at the end of the calendar without world war. Perhaps the Occupy the World miracle and other movements of sustainability on a personal level around the world are supporting the Mayan prophesy. I suspect that is possible, but we have some hurdles to jump, and time is running out. It is time to stand strong for peace and justice, the world over. It should be noted that the Hopi are a holy people, they are the nation's spiritual elders, and the last thing they want is to see WWIII. They have been protesting nuclear weapons and WWIII since WWII, and have been to the UN (the house of mica) four times to make this protest official.

I have paranoid schizophrenia (medicated), and I want to share that fact since this is a weighty topic with lots of responsibility...

It is my opinion that 'work' is at the heart of this problem. Here is a four point program for our future, a mustard seed of wisdom:

1. Let's begin a program of socialism for 2.5 months of the year or 2 days per week for anyone who wants to volunteer for it (and thus benefit from it in food, housing benefits, transportation, medicine, education, etc) to keep the trains running on time. This socialist program can embrace participatory economics, anarchist wisdom, native wisdom and socialist wisdom in economics, and even free market wisdom in business. The idea is to create an efficient, livable, effective, wise and environmentally friendly global workplace for taking care of our global needs. Our socialist program needs to set the laws for energy and transportation, such as high speed rail and renewable energy. Global needs need to set the precedent before wants.
2. Gear colleges, universities and trade schools to help us unlock the real dreams of our hearts for the rest of our work time, while guiding us through counselors and native elders how to be of service to humanity via our dreams, in harmony with nature. It doesn't matter what we do, as long as we love what we do, it is a service to others, and it is in harmony with nature. Native people will have this opportunity to continue their native life unabated if they choose.
3. Let's develop a worldly zeitgeist regarding population control. Our planet is finite, and we need to limit the number of families we allow to live here... the Earth can only take so much!
4. Understanding of the chakra system should be taught by ancient cultures and traditions such as Tibetans, Hopi, Hebrew and Hindu. The reason for this is that the chakras (through meditation, Reiki, Chi, Qi Gong, yoga, Wicca, etc) unlock the inner voice, allowing you to understand right from wrong from the spirit within. We all have chakras, they are simply the nerve bundles and glands along our spine and in the palms and soles of our feet. Opening these chakras to the Spirit can be taught to anyone. One easy beginning lesson for this is called the Tai Chi energy ball. Simply take a deep breath, relax, and gently bring your palms together to within two inches from one another. The polarity between your palms is the energy of your chakras. (please don't open your chakras too quickly as it can cause mental and/or physical illness.. it takes a long time for your neurons to soften for the movement of energy. Take 6-12 months with a meditation teacher to open up your chakras). Also, love for one another and self is integral to any healthy society.

One day, when all people have an understanding of their chakras, we will no longer need law. We will all know what to do, and we will live in paradise.

In short, you know you are politically successful when we, the people of the world, are celebrating and we are in balance with nature.

I have some political questions to sum up, I would love a response:

Do US corporations benefit from 2 billion people living in severe poverty in the world? If so, why? Who is fighting against this, and how can we help change this? What is the CIA, DIA and NSA doing that is undermining the political freedoms of political groups of the developing world and why? How can we change that? Why is America addicted to war? What is the psychological Nazi-like American fever for war, and how can that be changed to peace? Why are "Christians" so pro-death; ie pro war, pro death penalty, meat eating, anti gun control, anti environmental, etc. ? Why do white people in America often denigrate people of different cultures and colors around the world, to the point that they don't care about wage slavery conditions in China and other developing world places that we benefit from in the market? How can this change? Why isn't this talked about in the news, or why aren't books written about wage slavery? Why don't we care about the environment in the Global South, which we affect by global warming? Why are corporations so locked in to avoid using renewable resources, and how can we look at profitable markets for solar, wind, geothermal and high speed rail? Why are we so clearly racist that we don't care about 4.5 billion people, in so many ways?

May all love and peace be with you.

Seth Leonard

Here is some reference material to back up my claims:

All of the Hopi information can be found in Hotevilla: Hopi Shrine of the Covenant : Microcosm of the World by Thomas E. Mails and Dan Evehema, and by Googling Hopi Prophesy Rock to match page 35, the Hopi prophesy rock. See also Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins US war on the developing world has been documented in the papers for over a hundred years. It is interesting to note that the Hopi prophesied WWI and II before they occurred, and reported this to the then President. For this, they were imprisoned. There is a book called Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II--Updated Through 2003 by William Blum that describes constant war by the US since WWII toward the developing world.

Wage slavery in the Global South is very, very hard to prove, but it is likely prevalent. There is a good book on it called Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace by Ngai Pun. See also The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-And How We Can Make It Better by Annie Leonard See United Students Against Sweatshops: http://usas.org/

For environmental racism, see Global Witness website: http://www.globalwitness.org/ For relocation of native people, see Survival Interational: http://www.survivalinternational.org/ IMF and World Bank cause poverty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrynBzUpyag US support of dictatorships (and many, many other oppressive issues): http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/

Here is some info on the PLA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army Their army is 3 million strong. The fact that the Chinese have been hacking into our professional computers has been in the news for over 10 years. http://cyberarms.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/chinese-hackers-spear-phishing-for-us-military-secrets/ and http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread350381/pg1 There is a book that illustrates China's obtaining our nuclear secrets, Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China by David Wise.

Peak Oil, Peak Water:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_water

Debt to China and others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Gobal Poverty:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/pove-s02.shtml

http://www.globalissues.org

Stokely Charmichael's Revolutionary Speech at Oakland Auditorium (1968)

STOKELY CARMICHAEL, American Revolutionary

This is a complete transcript of Stokely Carmichael's speech at the Oakland Auditorium February 17, 1968. The occasion was a benefit birthday party for Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Newton is awaiting trial on charges of killing a white Oakland policeman. The speech as it appears in cold print lacks both the rhetorical devices and the genuine emotion of the speech as delivered-which was magnificent. This is one of the greatest speeches in American history.

Listen to this speech here: Pacifica Radio Archive BB 1708

Now then, tonight we have to talk about several things. We're here to celebrate brother Huey P. Newton's birthday. We're not here to celebrate it as Huey Newton the individual, but as Huey Newton parcel of black people wherever we are on the world today...today. And so, in talking about brother Huey Newton tonight, we have to talk about the struggle of black people, not only in the United States, but in the world today, and how he becomes part...how we move on so that our people will survive America.

Therefore, we are not talking about politics tonight, we're not talking about economics tonight; we are talking about the survival of a race of people--that is all that is at stake. We are talking about the survival of black people--nothing else...nothing else...nothing else. And you must understand that. Now why is it necessary for us to talk about the survival of our people? Many of us feel...many of our generation feel that they're getting ready to commit genocide against us. Now, many people say that's a horrible thing to say about anybody. But if it is a horrible thing to say, then we should do as brother Malcolm [Malcolm X] says: we should examine history. The birth of this nation was conceived in the genocide of the red man......genocide of the red man...of the red man. In order for this country to come about, the honky had to completely exterminate the red man, and HE DID IT! And he did it! He did it! And he did it where he does not even feel sorry, but he romanticizes it by putting it on television with cowboy and indians...cowboy and indians.

Then the question we must ask ourselves is, if he's capable of doing it to the red man, can he also do it to us? Let us examine history some more. People says it is a horrible thing to say that white people would really think about committing genocide against black people. Let us check our history out. [tape skip] ...that we built this country--nobody else. I'll explain that to you. When this country started, economically it was an agricultural country. The cash crop on the world market was cotton. WE PICKED THE COTTON! WE PICKED THE COTTON! We did! So it is we who built this country. It is we who have fought in the wars of this country. This country is becoming more and more technological, so that the need for black people is fastly disappearing. When the need for black people disappears, so will we, and he will consciously wipe up out. He will consciously wipe up out. Let us check World War II. He will not do it unto his own. Notice who he dropped an atomic bomb on: some helpless yellow people in Hiroshima. Some helpless yellow people in Hiroshima......in Hiroshima. If you do not think he's capable of committing genocide against us, check out what he's doing to our brothers in Vietnam! Check out what he's doing in Vietnam! We have to understand that we're talking about our survival and nothing else. Whether or not this beautiful race of people is going to survive on the earth, that's what we're talking about--nothing else ...nothing else. If you do not think he's capable of wiping us out, check out the white race: wherever they have gone, they have rule, conquered, murdered, and plagued. Whether they are the majority or the minority, they always rule!......they always rule! Always rule! And check out the pattern in which they move. And check out the pattern in which they move. They came to this country. They didn't know a damn [thing][tape skip]...The Red Man showed them how to adapt to this country: he showed them how to grow corn; he showed them how to hunt, and when the Indians finished showing it, he wiped them out! He wiped them out. He wiped them out. He was not satisfied. He went to South America. The Aztec Indians said, "This is our silver. This is our copper. These are our metals. These are statues. We built them for the beauty of our people." After the Indians showed it to him, he took it and he wiped them out! He wiped them out. He went to Africa. Our ancestors said, "Dig, this is our way of life. We beat drums. We enjoy ourselves. We have gold. We make diamonds and stuff for our women." He took the gold, he made us slaves, and today he RUNS Africa! Africa! He went to Asia. The Chinese showed him everything they had. They showed him gunpowder. They said, "We use this for fireworks on our anniversaries, on our days of festivities." He took it, he made it a gun, and he conquered China.

We are talking about a certain type of superiority complex that exists in the White Man wherever he is. And that's what we have to understand today. So that everything goes out the window, we talk about survival. That's all. They can cut all that junk about poverty program, education, housing, welfare...we talking about survival, and, brothers and sisters, WE gonna survive America! WE gonna survive America! WE gonna survive America!

Now then, we have to understand what is going on, not only in this country, but the world, especially in Africa. Because we are an African people, nothing else. We have ALWAYS been an African people. We have ALWAYS maintained our own value system, and I will prove that to you. As much as he has tried, our people have resisted for 413 years in this wilderness, and they resisted for this generation to carry out what must be done. We cannot fail our ancestors ...cannot fail our ancestors...cannot fail our ancestors. We resisted in every way you can point to. Take the English language. There are cats who come here from Italy, from Germany, from Poland, from France. In two generations they speak English perfectly. We have NEVER spoken English correctly! Never have we spoken English correctly. Never! Never! Never! And that is because our people consciously resisted a language that did not belong to us--never did, never will. Anyhow they try to run it down our throats, we ain't going to have it! We ain't going to have it! You must understand that as a level of resistance. Anybody can speak that simple honky's language correctly. Anybody can do it. We have not done it because we have resisted...resisted.

Check out our way of life. No matter how hard he's tried, we still maintain a communal way of life in our communities. We do not send old people to old peoples' homes; that's junk! That's junk! That's junk! That's junk! We do not call children illegitimate in our community. We take care of any child in our community... any child in our community. It is a level of resistance that we must begin to look for among our people. Pick up that thread and do what has to be done so that our people will survive. Three things. First and foremost: he has been able to make us hate each other. He has transplanted that hate and the love for each other for a love of his country...his country. We must begin to develop number one--and this is the most important thing we can do as a people--we must first develop and undying love for our people...our people. ...our people...our people. We must develop and undying love as is personified in brother Huey P. Newton. Undying love for our people......undying love. If we do not do that, we will be wiped out. We must develop and undying love for our people. Our slogan will become, "First our people, then, and only then me and you as individuals." Our people first...our people first. Following from that came secondly the slogan, "Every Negro is a potential black man; we will not alienate them!" ......we will not alienate them! ...we will not alienate them!

Understand the concept of "Negro" and the concept of "Black Man." We came to this country as black men and as Africans. It took us 400 years to become Negros. Understand that. That means that the concept of a black man is one who recognizes his cultural, his historical, and the roots of his great ancestors who were the greatest warriors on the face of this earth. Africans! Africans! Africans! Many of our people's mind have been white washed. If a Negro comes up to you and you turn your back on him, he's got to run to the honky. We're going to take time and patience with our people because they're OURS!...they're OURS! All of the Uncle Toms, we're going to sit down and we're going to talk. And when they slap, we're going to bow. And when they slap we're going to bow. And we're going to try to bring them home. And if they don't come home we're going to [tape skip] that's all...that's all...that's all.

We have to recognize who our major enemy is. The major enemy is not your brother, flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood. The major enemy is the honky and his institutions of racism. THAT's the major enemy! THAT is the major enemy! And whenever anybody prepares for revolutionary warfare, you concentrate on the major enemy. We're not strong enough to fight each other and also fight him. We WILL not fight each other today! We WILL not fight each other. There will BE no fights in the black community among black people. There will just be people who will be offed. There will be no fights, there will be no disruptions. We are going to be united!

Thirdly, and most importantly, we must understand that for black people, the question of community is not a question of geography, it is a question of color. It is a question of color. If you live in Watts, if you live in Harlem, Southside Chicago, Detroit, West Philadelphia, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama. Wherever you go, the first place you go is to your people--not the land, to your people. For us the question of community is a question of color and our people, not geography! Not land! Not land! Not land! Not geography! That is to say that we break down the concept that black people living inside the United States are black Americans. That's nonesense! We got brothers in Africa. We got brothers in Cuba. We got brothers in Brazil. We got brothers in Latin America. We got brothers all over the world! All over the world! All over the world! And once we begin to understand that the concept of community is simply one of our people, it don't make a difference where we are. We are with our people and, therefore, we are home... ...therefore, we are home.

Now then, in speaking of survival it is necessary to understand the moves of one['s] enemies. The United States works on what call the "three M's": The missionaries, the money, and the Marines. That is precisely the way it has moved all over the world. It is the way it moves against us. They have sent the missionaries in; we sent them out. They have sent the money in with the poverty program. The Vietnamese and the Koreans are pulling the money out. The next thing comes the Marines...comes the marines. And if we're talking seriously, we get prepared [tape skip][to fight?] ...the marines. Now if some black people do not think that the white man is going to wipe us out completely, then it won't be no harm being prepared just in case he decides to do it..just in case he decides to do it. So there'll be no harm in us preparing ourselves for the marines. Now there's a lot of tactics we can learn. The VC [Viet Cong] are showing us the best way to get it done...best way to get it done. And don't be afraid to say it, tell em', "Yeah, you want the Vietnamese to defeat them, cause they wrong from the jump." Don't get up there and play games with them. You ever see them on TV?: "Well, actually, we were wrong going into Vietnam, but we can't get out unless we save face." To save [tape skip] honky's face, millions of Vietnamese got to die. That's a lot of junk. If you're wrong, say you're wrong and GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

We have to then go down the programs that they run through our throats and see how they relate to us. The first one is the vote. They got a new thing now: "Black Power is the vote." The vote in this country is, has been, and always will be irrelevant to the lives of black people! That is a fact. We survived in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, South Carolinia, North Carolinia, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. without the vote...without the vote. Last two years ago when Julian Bond was elected by black people in Georgia, they took him out to sea. There was no representation; the black people in Georgia are suviving today. They took Adam Clayton Powell out of office for a year and a half. Black people in Harlem are still surviving. That should teach you, the vote ain't nothin' but a honky's trick......nothin' but a honky's trick. If we talk about the vote today, we talk about it as one thing: an organizing tool to bring our people together...nothing else! ......nothing else...nothing else. It becomes a vehicle for organization; it cannot be anything else. To believe the vote is going to save you is to believe the way brother Adam Clayton Powell did. He's in Bimini now. That's what we have to understand.

The second thing they ram down our throat is this poverty program. And you have to understand the poverty program. It is designed to, number one, split the black community, and, number two, split the black family. There's no doubt about it splitting the black community. We know all of the people who started fighting over crumbs, 'cause that's all the poverty program is, the crumbs. If you leave the crumbs alone and organize, we could take the whole loaf, 'cause it belongs to us...belongs to us . But what happens is that the poverty program sends a couple of hundred thousand dollars into the community, and groups start setting up to fight over that money; so, automatically you've got splits in the community. Watts is the best example that we have today. It was the first one to get the poverty program after the rebellion, and today it is the most divided black community in the country... in the country. Second thing we have to recognize is what the poverty program does. In any race of people, the most instinctively revolutionary people is the youth. Because the youth is always willing to fight, in anybody's race...in anybody's race. And the poverty program is geared right at our youth. Right at our youth, to stop them from fighting. That's all the poverty program is: stop the rebellions--not take care of black people--stop the rebellions. How is it that you felt if you were a father and your son who you're supposed to be providing for comes home with ninety dollars a week, and you still unemployed. What is the poverty program doing to our fathers? What is it doing to our fathers? If they were concerned about the black community, if they believed the garbage they run down about the black family, they would give the jobs to our fathers, the breadwinners of the family, so we could have some respect for them......we could have some respect for them. But it is precisely because the poverty program is aimed at quelling our youth, that they do that. And all of the people who administer the poverty program won't even put their childrens in those programs that are supposed to be so good for us.

Let us move on to education. And we must talk very clearly about this concept of education. Franz Fanon says very clearly, "Education is nothing but the re-establishment and re-enforcement of values and institutions of a given society." All the brother's saying is that whatever this society says is right, when you go to school they going to tell you it's right, and you've got to run it on down. If you run it on down, you get an "A". If I say to you Columbus discovered American in 1492, if I was your teacher [and] you said, "No, Columbus didn't discover America in 1492, there were Indians here," I tell you you flunked the course. So education doesn't mean what they say it means. So now we must use education for our people and we must understand our communities. In our communities there are dope addicts; there are pimps; there are prostitutes; there [are] hustlers; there are teachers; there are maids; there are porters; there are preachers; there are gangsters. If I go to high school, I want to learn how to be a good maid, a good porter, a good hustler, a good pimp, a good prostitute, a good preacher, a good teacher, or a good porter. And education is supposed to prepare you to live in your community. That's what our community is like. If the educational system cannot do that, it must teach us HOW to change our community...how to change our community. It must do one or the other. The schools that we send our children to do not do one or the other. They do neither; they do something absolutely opposite. And when our youth, who are more intelligent than all those honkeys on those boards, drop out of that school cause they recognize it's not going to help them, then we turn around and yell at them, dividing our community again...dividing our community again. We have to understand that unless WE control the education system, where it begins to teach us how to change our community, where we live like human beings, no need to send anybody to school--that's just a natural fact. We have no alternative but to fight, whether we like it or not. On every level in this country, black people GOT to fight! Got to fight! Got to fight!

Now then let us move down and talk...[tape skip] concept. We have in our community black people, the masses and the bourgeoisie. That's about the level of breakdown. The bourgeoisie is very very minute inside our community. We have to bring them home. We have to bring them home for many reasons. We have to bring them home because they have technical skills which must be put for the benefit of their people, not for the benefit of this country, which is against their people. We've GOT to bring them home! We've got to bring them home. One of the ways of bringing our people home is by using patience, love, brotherhood, and unity, not force...not force. Love, patience, brotherhood, and unity. We try and we try and we try. If they become a treat, we off them. But we must begin to understand that in a concept of forming inside our community, a united front...a black united front, which engulfs every sector, every facet and every person inside our community working for the benefit of black people......working for the benefit of black people. And that is for each other's survival.

A lot of people in the bourgeoisie tell me they don't like Rap Brown when he says, "I'm going to burn the country down." But every time Rap Brown says, "I'm going to burn the country down," They get a poverty program......they get a poverty program. A lot of people say to me, "We don't like the Black Panthers for Self Defense walking around with guns." I tell you now, if the honkys in San Francisco take off the fighters who happen to represent the Black Panthers for Self Defense--ain't no body in this community prepared to fight right now--everybody gets offed, everybody gets offed

We need each other, we have to have each other for our survival. We got to have each other, from the revolutionaries to the conservatives - a black united front is what we're about, a black united front is what we're about. Now there's some people may not understand Brother Rap when he talks about whom we ally with. He says we have to ally with Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and the dispossessed people of the earth. He did not mention poor whites. We must understand that. I will not deny that poor whites in this country are oppressed. But there are two types of oppression. One is exploitation, the other is colonization. And we have to understand the difference between both of them. Exploitation is when you exploit somebody of your own race. Colonization is when you exploit somebody of a different race. We are colonized, they are exploited. They are exploited.

Now let us explain how the process of exploitation and colonization works. If I am black and I am exploiting you who are also black, we have the same values, the same culture, the same language, the same society, the same institutions, so I do not have to destroy those institutions for you. But if you are of another race, if you have a different culture, different language, different values, I have to destroy all of those who make you bow to me. And that is the difference between poor black and poor white. Poor whites have their culture, have their values, have their institutions, ours have been completely destroyed, completely destroyed, completely destroyed.

So when you talk about alliances you recognize you form alliances with people who are trying to rebuild their culture, trying to rebuild their history, trying to rebuild their dignity, people who are fighting for their humanity. Poor white people are not fighting for their humanity, they're fighting for more money. There are a lot of poor white people in this country, you ain't seen none of them rebel yet, have you? Why is it that black people are rebelling? Do you think it's because it's just poor jobs? Don't believe that junk the honky is running down. It's not poor jobs - it's a question of a people finding their culture, their nature and fighting for their humanity, for their humanity, for their humanity, for their humanity.

We have been so colonized that we are ashamed to say we hate, and that is the best example of a person who's colonized. You sit in your house, a honky walks in your house, beats you up, rapes your wife, beats up your child, and you don't have the humanity to say, "I hate you." You don't have it. That is how dehumanized we are. We are so dehumanized we cannot say "Yes, we hate you for what you have done to us." Can't say it, can't say it. And we are afraid to think beyond that point. Who do you think has more hatred pent up in them, white people for black people or black people for white people? White people for black people, obviously the hatred has been more. What have we done to them for them to build up this hatred? Absolutely nothing. Yet we don't even want to have the chance to hate them for what they've done to us. And if hate should be justified, we have the best justification of all for hating the honkies. We have it for hating the honkies, we have it, we have it. But we have been so dehumanized, we're like a dog which the master can throw out the house, which the master can spit on, and whenever he calls, the dog comes running back. We are human beings and we have emotions. We're fighting for our humanity, we're fighting for our humanity, and in regaining our humanity we recognize all the emotions that are in us. If you have love, you've got to have hate. You don't have one-sided emotions, that's a lot of junk. You always have two sides - hot, cold, white, black - everything goes - love, hate. 'Cause if you don't have hate, you cannot differentiate love, you cannot do it, you cannot do it.

Now then that brings us to the point of this thing about communism and socialism. Let's get to that, once and for all. Communism is not an ideology suited for black people, period. Period. Socialism is not an ideology fitted for black people, period. Period. And I will tell you why. And it must become crystal clear in our minds. Now we don't say that because the honkies call us communist, we don't care what they call us, it don't make a difference, don't make a difference. The ideologies of communism and socialism speak to class structure. They speak to people who oppress people from the top down to the bottom. We are not just facing exploitation. We are facing something much more important, because we are the victims of racism. Communism nor socialism does not speak to the problem of racism. And racism, for black people in this country, is far more important than exploitation. 'Cause no matter how much money you make in the black community, when you go into the white world you are still a nigger, you are still a nigger, you are still a nigger.

So that for us, the question of racism becomes uppermost in our minds. It becomes uppermost in our minds. How do we destroy those institutions that seek to keep us dehumanized? That is all we're talking about. On the question of exploitation, it comes second.

Now for white people who are communists, the question of communism comes first, because they're exploited by their other people. If you were exploited by other black people, then it would be a question of how we divide the profits. It is not that for us, it is not that for us. It is a question of how we regain our humanity and begin to live as a people - and we do not do that, because of the effects of racism in this country. We must therefore consciously strive for an ideology which deals with racism first, and if we do that we recognize the necessity of hooking up with the nine hundred million black people in the world today. That's what we recognize.

And if we recognize that, then it means that our political situation must become international. It cannot be national, it cannot be national, it must be international, must be international. It must be international because if we knew anything, we would recognize that the honkies don't just exploit us, they exploit the whole Third World - Asia, Africa, Latin America. They take advantage of Europe, but they don't colonize Europe, they colonize Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Understand that.

If we begin to understand that, then the problems America is heading for become uppermost in our minds. The first one they're heading for is the conflict in the Middle East. We must declare on whose side we stand. We can be for no one but the Arabs. There can be no doubt in our minds, no doubt in our minds, no doubt in our minds. We can be for no one but the Arabs because Israel belonged to the Arabs in 1917. The British gave it to a group of Zionists who went to Israel, ran the Palestinian Arabs out with terrorist groups, organized the state and did not get anywhere until Hitler came along and they swelled the state in 1948. That country belonged to the Palestinians. Not only that, they're moving to take over Egypt. Egypt is our motherland - it's in Africa.

We do not understand the concept of love. Here are a group of Zionists who come anywhere they want to and organize love and feeling for a place called Israel, which was created in 1948, where their youth are willing to go and fight for Israel. Egypt belongs to us four thousand years ago and we sit here supporting the Zionists. We got to be for the Arabs, period. Period.

That means that we also move with the rest of the Third World and understand exactly what is going on. It is no coincidence that the honky who stole a heart out of our brother and put it into another devil, was brought here on nationwide TV. Now for those of the older generation who say I may be harsh because I said the devil, let me give you a biblical quotation. It says, "Beware that the devil will come telling you that he can give you back life after death." If that's not what they doin', I don't know what is.

We have to understand that just today the United States voted for South Africa to come into the Olympics, and black people here are debating whether black athletes should be part of the Olympics. That is not a debate. The question is final. There can be no black athletes with any dignity participating in that white nonsense, that white nonsense, can't be no dignity, can't be no soul.

Now then we have to understand more and more as our people talk about survival. It means that when we talk about survival we organize politically, we organize consciously - that's what they call education, we call it black consciousness, 'cause that speaks to us, education speaks to them - we organize economically, and we organize militarily. Because if we don't do that, if you don't have a gun in your hand they can snatch the ballot from you. But if you got a gun, it's either them or us.

And the preparation of that fight on all struggles must become conscious among our people. We are ahead of the Jews, we know what they getting ready to do. They tell us every day in their Esquire magazines, they tell us on their televisions, they tell us with their 15,000 soldiers they're putting in the cities, they tell us with their tanks, they tell us with their Stoner guns, they tell us. We got to wake up and tell them we are going to get you back. Wipe out of your mind the questions of minority, wipe out of your mind the questions of technology, technology never decides a war. It is the will of a people that decides a war. It is the will of a people, the will of a people.

Wipe out of your mind the fact that we do not have guns. The Vietnamese didn't have it when they started, now they got American guns, American tanks, American everything, everything, everything, everything. If they come to get us they got to bring some to get some. We gonna take it - and the gun, and the gun, and the gun. And unless we raise our minds to the level of consciousness where we have an undying love for our people, where we're willing to shed our blood like Huey Newton did for our people, we will not survive, we will not survive.

Now there are many people who know that. All of the brothers sitting on the stage, all of the brothers around here, we all know that when something goes down, we are the first ones offed. There's no question in any of our minds. Only thing gonna stop us today is a bullet, and we spittin' 'em back, and we spittin' 'em back. But the question is not whether or not we can move, but how this entire black community moves for survival in a world that's clearly heading for a color clash. That is what we must ask ourselves, that is the only question. We can only do that by organizing our people and orienting them towards an African ideology which speaks to our blackness - nothing else.

It's not a question of right or left, it's a question of black. You dig where we coming from? We coming from a black thing, from a black thing, that's where we coming from. Because we can begin to pick up the threads of resistance that our ancestors laid down for us. And unless we begin to understand our people as a people, we will not do that, because they will split us and divide us. That means consciously we have to begin to organize our people! Organize our people! Organize our people! Organize our people! Organize our people! Nothing else! Organize our people, our people! We have no time for them; all our sweat, all our blood, even our life must go to our people, nothing else.

We have to understand this consciously. Our youth must be organized with a revolutionary perspectus. A revolutionary perspectus says that we're fighting a war of liberation. In order to fight a war of liberation, you need an ideology of nationalism. We do not have this country. The nationalism can be nothing but black nationalism. It is insane to think of anything else. Black nationalism has to begin to be our ideology. While blackness is necessary it is not sufficient, so we must move on, we move on then to consciously organize in our communities. And we recognize today while we're organizing: we do not have the money to feed our people, so there's no use to say "organize, we can get you a job." We can't get 'em, they control em, that is a fact. That isn't a reason for you to. sit down, it is only more the reason for you to fight, to think that you can't give your people a job. That's more of an inspiration to fight so you can give them a job rather than to sit down and say the honkies got us on every end. They are not God, they are not God. We are a beautiful race of people, we can do anything we want to do, all we got to do is get lip, get up, get up and do it, get up and do it, get up and do it, get up and do it.

Now then we have to discuss very cold the question of rebellions, It is a fact that they're prepared to meet rebellions anywhere in the cities. Now what's gonna happen if one of our brothers get offed? What happens if they go ahead and off Huey Newton? We must develop tactics where we do the maximum damage to them with minor damage to us. And when we move into that arena, that means that this black community must be organized. So if Huey Newton goes, and ten honky cops goes, won't a black man in this community get up and open his mouth, 'cause if he does, he goes too, he goes too, he goes too, he goes too. That means that in organizing for the maximum damage against them and minor damage against us, we must be consciously aware of the fact that there will be people in our community who are going around doing just that. In our community we seen nothing, we hear nothing, we know nothing. We see nothing, we hear nothing, we, knew nothing.

Now the question of agents is becoming a question where it's making us paranoid. we cannot become paranoid because what they can do is make you so afraid you won't move. So we're not gonna do that. We're gonna plan what we're gonna do. Little groups are gonna plan theirs, big groups are gonna plan theirs. If an agent is found, there is no question, he is gonna be offed in such a manner that any other black man who dares talk to the honky will have three thoughts before he even talks to a white man about reporting in our community.

Our people have demonstrated a willingness to fight. Our people have demonstrated the courage of our ancestors - to face tanks, guns, police dogs with bricks and bottles, that is a courageous act! We must understand that. And since our people have demonstrated a willingness to fight, the question is how can we organize that fight so we become the winners. So we become the winners. If a major rebellion were to break out, our people mayor may not become the losers, but if a small group was doing maximum damage, we remain on top. We remain on top. That is what we must understand, consciously understand it. It is not a question of what they might do, it is a question of how and when they're going to do it, that is all that's in their minds, That is all. For us the question is not going to Vietnam anymore, the question is how we can protect our brothers who do not go to Vietnam from going to jail. That's the only question we have to face in our community today. So that when one brother says "Hell, no," there's enough people in that community around him that if they dare come in, they gonna face maximum damage in their community.

We are talking about survival. We are talking about a people whose entire culture .. whose entire history, whose entire way of life have been destroyed. We're talking about a people who have produced in this year a generation of warriors who are going to restore to our people the humanity and the love that we have for each other. That's what we're talking about today, that's what we're talking about today. We are talking about becoming the executioners of our executioners. For example, you should give a lot of money to that defense fund, because while some of that money gonna go for that court thing, the rest of the money's gonna go for the executioners. So that if they execute Huey, the final execution rests in our hands, our hands, in our hands.

It is simply a question of a people. They control everything. They make us fight, they make us steal; they judge us, they put us in prison, they parole us, they send us out, they pick us up again - where in God's name do we exercise any sense of dignity in this country? Where? Where? Where? Where? What in God's name do we control, except the church, whose ideology is based to be compatible with the system which is against us? Where in God's name do we exercise any control as a people whose ancestors were the proudest people that walked the face of this earth? Where? Where?

Where, do I ask you, where? Everywhere he's gone he controls our people; in South Africa he steals the gold from our people, in the West Indies he steals the materials from our people, in South America where he's scattered our people, he's raping us blind, in America he rapes us, in Nova Scotia [sic] he rapes us. Where in God's name are we gonna find a piece of earth that belongs to us so we can restore our humanity? Where are we gonna find it unless this generation begins to organize to fight for it? To fight for it, to fight for it. Where?

And if this generation begins to fight, there can be no disruptive elements in our community. There can be none - we will tolerate none. There will be no disruptions . Anyone who fights for their people, we put our life on the line for them. Huey Newton fought for our people. Whether or not Huey Newton becomes free depends upon black people, nobody else, nobody else. Other people may help, but the final decision of brother Huey depends upon us. He didn't lay down his life for other people, he laid it down for us. For us. And if he did that, we must be willing to do the same, not only for him but for the generation that's going to follow us.

Consciously we must understand we're about organizing every element in our community. That work must begin. People must be willing to give money to an organizer who is willing to spend 24 hours a day organizing. He cannot organize from the poverty program because they tell him what to do. But if black people are giving him the money, he can do anything for the benefit of black their people. We have to run all the exploiters people, of black people. That means that people have to consciously give money for out of our community, by any means necessary, by any means necessary.

You ask yourself, if you were white, why would you want to be a cop in a black ghetto today when you know they looking for you? Why, if you weren't sick in the mind and felt you were so superior that you had the right to rule, why would you want a lousy five thousand dollar a year job when you white and you can make it in this society, why would you want the job as a cop if you weren't sick, tell me? Would you want to be in their community if they were ready to off you, for four thousand, five thousand, six thousand dollars a year? We have to understand the politics of those honkies in our community. They are there to patrol and to control. That is all. We are going to do the patrolling, we are going to do the controlling. We are building a concept of peoplehood. We do not care about honkies; but if hi. building that concept of peoplehood, the honkies get in our wav, they got to go. There is no question about it, there is no question about it. We are not concerned with their way of life, we are concerned with our people. We want to give our people the dignity and the humanity that we know as our people, and if they get in our way, they gonna be offed. They gonna be offed. We're not concerned with their system. Let them have it. We want our wav of life, and we're gonna get it. We're gonna get it or nobody's gonna have any peace on this earth. No peace on this earth.

Now then finally before I sit down, let me say two things. I want to read a statement that brother Huey P. Newton wrote yesterday when I saw him in jail. You have to understand the statement. He says: "As the racist police escalate the war in our communities against black people, we reserve the right to self-defense and maximum retaliation."

All of the things we spoke about tonight centered around brother Huey P. Newton because all of the things we spoke about tonight exemplify what he was trying to do. Now we have to understand something. There is no need for us to go to jail today for what we say. They did that to brother Malcolm X, they just offed him for what he was saying. We have to progress as a race. Brother Huey mayor may not have wiped out that honky, but at least it shows a progression, at least we're not getting offed for what we say, we're trying to get offed for what we do. Understand this concept: when they offed brother Malcolm, we did nothing; if they off brother Huey, we got to retaliate, we got to retaliate, we got to retaliate, we got to retaliate l Do you think that any other race of people will let them off somebody, and the rest of them sit there? Where in God's name would you find a race of people like that?

We have lost in the last five years some of our best leaders - Lumumba, Malcolm X, they offed brother Kwame Nkrumah, and we do nothing, we do nothing, we do nothing. While they offing our leaders, they take our youth and send them to Vietnam, send them to Korea. We are slowly getting wiped out. We must retaliate, we must fight for our humanity. It is our humanity that is at stake. It is not a question of dollars and cents. We gonna survive, because we have survived what they couldn't survive - that's natural-born fact. We have survived. We survived through slavery, we survived through their jive reconstruction, we survived through World War I, we survived through the Depression, we survived through World War II, we survived after World War II when they threw us out of the jobs in the North, we survived their Korean War, we gonna survive, we gonna survive, ain't no doubt about that in my mind, no doubt at all.

Our problem is to develop an undying love for our people, an undying love for our people. We must be willing to give our talents, our sweat, our blood, even our life for our people. Nothing else! Not this country - our people!

We must develop the concept that every Negro is a potential black man. You do not alienate your potential allies. Let's bring our people home. Let's bring our people home.

We must understand the concept that for us the question of community is not geography, it is , question of us - black people - wherever we are, SO we have to consciously become a part of the nine hundred million black people that are separated over this world. We were separated by them. We are blood of the same blood and flesh of the same flesh. We do not know who is our sister, who is our brother, or where we came from. They took us from Africa and they put thousands of miles of water between us, but they forgot - blood is thicker than water. We coming together, we coming together. Blood is thicker than water, blood is thicker than water.

We are an African people with an African ideology, we are wandering in the United States, we are going to build a concept of peoplehood in this country or there will be no country. Or there will be no country.

As I end, brothers and sister, brother Huey Newton belongs to us. He is flesh of our flesh, he is blood of our blood. He may be Mrs. Newton's baby, he's our brother. He's our brother. We do not have to talk about what we're going to do if we're consciously preparing and consciously willing to back those who prepare. All we say: brother Huey will be set free - or else.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Posted on September 30, 2011 by NYCGA
THIS DOCUMENT WAS ACCEPTED BY THE NYC GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Unionize The Workers of the World!

Workers of the world, unite!

The corporate masters intend that eventually Americans need only be paid what a worker in a sweatshop in China is paid.

To them there is no difference where it is made, only what is paid. Profit is primary.

But what if instead of destroying the "American way of life", reducing pay and benefits to workers, America insists that all workers, no matter where, are paid equivalent wages and benefits as Americans, including the right to unionize.

To enforce this, no products can be sold in America if the wages and benefits of the workers are less than those in America. All such imports refused.

In addition to enforce equal wages globally, dozens of world-wide unions fight for equal wages for equal work, or they take over the factories/businesses and turn them into collectives.

The recent uprisings in the Middle East are political and economic in origin. Unions are the ONLY THING that can provide the protections the workers require in this predatory capitalist world.

And if the unions are so big, they would have ultimate political clout on a global scale. They could amass resources to counter any government, corporation or economic entity.

Then truly, power would be in the hands of the people.

But the unions themselves must be 100% democratic, not mafia money pots.

A Barefoot Rhapsody

A BAREFOOT RHAPSODY
by Jon The Barefoot Pilgrim

Dedicated to all female barefooters who can identify with it.

It's a hot summer afternoon in Oxford, the temperature has reached 91 degrees which makes it the hottest day of the year so far. You emerge in the distance from the far side of Radcliffe Square cutting a unique figure which instantly catches my attention. You're a petite student girl of around 21 years old, slowly meandering beneath the eminent domes and spires. You stand about 5' 3" in height with a wild mane of auburn hair and a white flower placed in it. Around your neck hangs a loose garland of daisies recently picked in the university parks. In one hand you are carrying a brown course book.

First I notice your full length milkmaid dress. It is pale green in colour with the ruffled hemline sweeping along the ground half a pace behind each footstep in petticoat like waves. As you walk it undulates in a rhythmic dance interspersed by tautness in places as your ankles demand forward motion of it. Now as you approach closer I continue to observe you in an idle study. On the pale flesh beneath your collarbone is a striking, dark brown henna tattoo in the form of a pentagram, a symbol of nature spirituality. You cut a beautiful figure, yet radically different to the other girls around town. Obviously you are no follower of the fashions at present popular among young women, one might even call your look slightly eccentric. Personally, I applaud you for choosing to be different from the crowd which demonstrates intelligence over mindlessness. Beauty and intelligence are your watchwords. You appear completely relaxed, your gentle walking movements being almost set to slow music. This graceful manner contrasts starkly to that of the other people dashing around busily pursuing their affairs.

I look to your feet and assume you must be wearing thin flip-flops or Indian cowhide sandals probably obscured by the large ruffle as it sways along, My attention is now more focused. Closer yet, I still can't see any footwear, where is it? Now I'm really curious. A sudden realisation jolts trough my brain, “She's BAREFOOT!” Of course! This is why your body language was so different when I saw you across the other side of the square. It makes you someone special in my book; a rare and beautiful creature who dares to defy conformist humbug in order to express your own spirit. In your eyes fashionable flip-flops and absurd platforms are to be eschewed as both dangerous and unnecessary. After all what is a sandal but a sole and a few straps to hold it on? Why bother with overpriced fig leaves to placate convention when one can experience the far greater pleasure of having bare soles in direct contact with ground. It also doesn't cost anything either which makes it the world's cheapest, yet most elegant fashion accessory. It makes SO much sense!

As you pass slowly in front of me, one small, happily bare, foot emerges from under the dancing ruffle to reveal nearly its full length. I sit fascinated, admiring its ascetic beauty, its smallness and appallingly dirty condition. A large blotch of dark grime has been ingrained on its upper part by the constant wiping action of the dust-laden hem sweeping over it. The toes, though slightly short, are perfectly formed, free from nail polish and a little splayed as is natural from years of freedom. The black street dust has risen up between the big toe and the next one fanning out above the area where they join. All of the toes in general have been given a liberal coating of the ubiquitous black powder. When you step forward, they splay out on the paving slab, lifting from it very softly as if giving it a tiny kiss.

My gaze turns upwards to your face. It is attractive though not in an artificial way. The cheekbones are high and well defined but any hint of severity is dissolved by a kind mouth and eyes which smile. One might describe your face as pretty in an earthy, real kind of attractiveness. Your expression is so far away. Are you pondering future exams or indulging thoughts of sweet romance? Or are you enjoying this moment, spreading those dusty toes as you step gently on the sun-warmed slabs? Your hair is a wild mountain of chaotic, auburn locks cascading to your waist in a torrent of untamed beauty; handiwork uniquely crafted by mother Nature's own genius to perfectly compliment your barefoot lifestyle. Often in its unruliness, it partly falls over your face obscuring one eye and is quickly brushed clear by a sweep of your fingers. The white flower nestles on the upper right side of your head to symbolise your love of nature. The bloom is a rose, which though made of trimmed cloth appears totally authentic in every respect.

The tiered cotton dress is of the early 1970's , yet rendered timeless by the swish of its own undulations syncopating with those of your female curves. Its your favourite dress, purchased as a lucky find in a charity shop some years ago. You chose it because it's sensuous, made of the lightest Indian cotton, yet in no way lewd or tasteless. Now it's showing signs of wear with threadbare parts around the hem and the stitching coming apart in places. In some ways though this only serves to add to its charm. Its such a special dress that you lovingly repair it and have vowed to wear it until it falls to bits. The true essence of your uncommon beauty is the alchemy of all these things; your hair, smile, magic dress and body language all woven into living poetry by the catalyst of your barefootedness.

Now you are ahead of me the lilt of your dresses lower ruffle reveals two small, very black soles ingrained with the graphite-like summer dust. As if to pick up on my thoughts you pause and raise one foot behind you to check its colour. The folds of soiled Indian cotton fall away to reveal a truly filthy foot. You look at its sole over your shoulder and giggle to yourself in amusement and satisfaction. Your heart beats faster, the combination of bare feet and hot sunshine becoming ever more intoxicating as you walk along. Mmmmm, the pavements heat feels so blessedly delicious that you're transported entirely beyond the cares of this world into a heady place of rapture. Your being inwardly revels in the sheer bliss of caressing creation with each filthy sole gently placed on the hot ground. A caress which is reciprocated as the sun's heat is conducted upwards from the pavement, back through those same soles saturating your body with its energy. A feeling of great gratitude flows though you for this interplay of the spiritual and the sensual. Waves of relief and tranquillity lap over your mind, you are filled with gladness simply to be the person you are at this moment in time. You close your eyes and look upwards to the sun feeling its life-giving radiance beat upon your face. The moments pure joy is overwhelming and spontaneously you twirl round twice in celebration giving thanks to the universe for its abundance. The dresses fullness billows out to its full extent, tourists stare in wonderment but you are oblivious to their existence.Laughing you enter the huge iron gate of All Soul's College. An enormous ornate sundial dominates the North wall of the quadrangle throwing its shadow across arcane numerals. I take a final, farewell look at you beautiful, barefoot student. You're now walking over the cool flagstones of an ancient cloister chatting animatedly to a female college acquaintance.

Soon those summer feet are hidden from view by a low wall yet as always your body continues to undulate with the same lilting poetry. It's clear to all who have eyes to see that you are a true barefooter and I wish you much luck in my heart. I asked a college porter if he knew your name and he said it was ASTRID.

Jon The Barefoot Pilgrim barefootmystic@hotmail.com

Margo St. James Streaked the Bay to Breakers Run (1965)

IN THE ‘BAY TO BREAKERS’ I MAKE THE RECORD BOOK BUT MARGO ST. JAMES ‘STREAKS’ TO ESTABLISHING AN INSTITUTION

From North Beach Leathers – Tailors to the Stars by Bill Morgan

   Besides Carol, the other grand dame of North Beach in those days was Margo St. James. She liked to think of herself as more of a ‘working girl’ than a topless dancer but no one will ever forget how she packed the Condor on ‘Amateur Topless Night’ dressed up as a Nun. Yeah, and with the North Beach Catholic landmark, St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, a stone’s throw away, she purposely thumbed her nose to those ‘Papal hypocrites’ as she called them. She later walked her talk and went on to establish ‘The Hookers’ Ball’ (whose legacy is the present day popular annual ‘Erotic, Exotic Ball’) and the prostitute protection organization, COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics). Her class on ‘Women’s Sensuality’ (what women want sexually) at my Marina Greens Running Club, some years later, was standing room only, as Margo explained graphically the art of making love, highlighting female sexual sensations. With remembrances of Sausalito’s ‘Madam Mayor’ Sally Stanford in the 40’s, Margo narrowly missed out being elected City Supervisor by a handful of votes - a real loss for San Francisco because she would have been joining champion neighborhood feminist, supervisor Sue Bierman.

   The memory for me that stands out by far of Margo goes back to May 16, 1965. Let’s travel back to that beautiful sunny Spring day: I remember I was way out in front, running like the wind through Golden Gate Park. I could smell victory intertwined with the fragrance of the Eucalyptus and Monterey Cypress trees that line JFK Drive. This was the seventy-fifth running of the Bay to Breakers, the biggest footrace in the world. Jeff Fishback, the Olympic steeplechaser and the guy who edged me out of the winner’s circle the previous year, was out of sight - this time behind me. I was about to wear the laurel wreath of victory.

You see, running was my thing, long before North Beach Leathers. In fact, running begot leather. As I previously explained, that year after winning the National title I ran in the World Championships in Brazil. Loving Rio, I returned as a buyer for Cost Plus and the leather for the first NBL jacket came from there.

   But back to the Race: Jeff’s course record was history if I could maintain my blistering 4:45 per mile pace. It was at the Buffalo Field that I was taken aback. In front of me was another runner. In the mixture of confusion and fatigue I faltered with the thought of having to sprint to the finish line with this mysterious runner. I peered through my sweat stained sunglasses and noticed a shapely butt that looked familiar. Even more shocking was the fact that it was buck naked. I soon realized this nude runner was my friend and occasional lover, Margo St. James, playing one of her merry pranks. I had been to a party at Margo’s cool apartment on Telegraph Hill a few days earlier and she had hinted of a surprise for the Bay to Breakers. I hadn’t expected anything like this. Margo (one of the first fitness buffs) and I would occasionally workout together. She would pick me up at Cost Plus and we would go over to nearby Galileo High School, climb the locked gate and run on the grass field. After the workout Margo would drag me under the spectator stands for some extra curricular activities.

   In this Bay to Breakers she had taken a big head start and at the Polo Fields, stripped down for the finish. Once I realized who she was, I relaxed and pulled up to Margo just before the course reaches the Pacific Ocean and the final turn down the Great Highway. “A blowjob if you break the record”, the wisecracking, crass, grand dame yelled out. I slapped her on her shapely tight tush as I sped by her, now in a full sprint to the finish. I ended up breaking Fishback’s time by forty seconds and established a record that would stand for eight years - something I will always cherish.

   My feat, however, pales in comparison to Margo’s introducing to the Race a zany flavor that would continue to grow as the years went by until today when 100,000 persons participate, the big attraction is the weird outfits and especially the nude runners.

   Needless to say, Bob de Celle and the other race officials were highly upset, but Margo slipped away into the bushes of Golden Gate Park, chuckling to herself I am sure. I never did collect the ‘trophy’ she promised me for breaking the course record.

   In introducing a little zaniness to an otherwise serious endeavor, Margo made her mark on the whole fitness phenomenon that came out of the sixties. A case could be made that this movement of ‘Health and Well Being’ really started with the Bay to Breakers. Yes, President Kennedy, in seeing the horrible physical condition and lack of exercise of most Americans, both young and old, made an impassioned speech, urging the populace to exercise; however, it took a footrace in San Francisco and a band of fitness nuts like Margo, Pax Beale, Elaine Peterson, Walt Stack, and Jack Leydig, just to name a few, to launch the movement. Also, the motivational articles of newspaper writer Walt Daley inspired out of shape couch potatoes to get out on the trail and train for next year’s race. His sagas of people like blind Harry Cordellos running the eight miles across San Francisco or ninety five year old Dr. Paul Spangler jumping in the Ocean after sprinting the last mile couldn’t help but inspire the populace to heed JFK’s plea.

   A further case could be made that the fitness/health movement that came out of San Francisco in the sixties was really born out of the 60’s Cultural Revolution which took place in the City by the Bay - one of the good and beautiful elements of which I spoke about. Along with free thinking, tolerance, creative expression, etc. there was the embracement of the concept of developing one’s mind and body. This was evidenced by the acceptance of Eastern health oriented ways and philosophies such as Yoga, Acupuncture, Zen, Meditation and Tai Chi. Many of my hippie friends got into running and actually it was they who carried on the zaniness that merry prankster Margo St. James started in the 1965 Race. No one, not even Jerry Garcia or Timothy Leary, was more hip than Margo.

About the author: Bill Morgan founded North Beach Leathers during San Francisco’s 1967 ‘Summer of Love’. He is the author of “North Beach Leathers –Tailors to the Stars” which documents his trials, tribulations and joys of turning the American populace on to premier leather fashions as well as NBL’s renowned interactions with the world’s celebrities.

School is Bad for Children (1969)

SCHOOL IS BAD FOR CHILDREN (1969)

BY JOHN HOLT

Almost every child, on the first day he sets foot in a school building, is smarter, more curious, less afraid of what he doesn't know, better at finding and figuring things out, more confident, resourceful, persistent and independent than he will ever be again in his schooling-or, unless he is very unusual and very lucky, for the rest of his life. Already, by paying close attention to and interacting with the world and people around him, and without any school-type formal instruction, he has done a task far more difficult, complicated and abstract than anything he will be asked to do in school, or than any of his teachers has done for years. He has solved the mystery of language. He has discovered it--babies don't even know that language exists-and he has found out how it works and learned to use it. He has done it by exploring, by experimenting, by developing his own model of the grammar of language, by trying it out and seeing whether it works, by gradually changing it and refining it until it does work. And while he has been doing this, he has been learning other things as well, including many of the "concepts" that the schools think only they can teach him, and many that are more complicated than the ones they do try to teach him.

In he comes, this curious, patient, deter- mined, energetic, skillful learner. We sit him down at a desk, and what do we teach him? Many things. First, that learning is separate from living. "You come to school to learn," we tell him, as if the child hadn't been learning before, as if living were out there and learning were in here, and there were no connection between the two. Secondly, that he cannot be trusted to learn and is no good at it. Everything we teach about reading, a task far simpler than many that the child has already mastered, says to him, "If we don't make you read, you won't, and if you don't do it exactly the way we tell you, you can't." In short, he comes to feel that learning is a passive process, something that someone else does to you, instead of something you do for yourself.

In a great many other ways he learns that he is worthless, untrustworthy, fit only to take other people's orders, a blank sheet for other people to write on. Oh, we make a lot of nice noises in school about respect for the child and individual differences, and the like. But our acts, as opposed to our talk, say to the child, "Your experience, your concerns, your curiosities, your needs, what you know, what you want, what you wonder about, what you hope for, what you fear, what you like and dislike, what you are good at or not so good at-all this is of not the slightest importance, it counts for nothing. What counts here, and the only thing that counts, is what we know, what we think is important, what we want you to do, think and be." The child soon learns not to ask questions-the teacher isn't there to satisfy his curiosity. Having learned to hide his curiosity, he later learns to be ashamed of it. Given no chance to find out who he is-and to develop that person, whoever it is-he soon comes to accept the adults' evaluation of him.

He learns many other things. He learns that to be wrong, uncertain, confused, is a crime. Right Answers are what the school wants, and he learns countless strategies for prying these answers out of the teacher, for conning her into thinking he knows what he doesn't know. He learns to dodge, bluff, fake, cheat. He learns to be lazy. Before he came to school, he would work for hours on end, on his own, with no thought of reward, at the business of making sense of the world and gaining competence in it. In school he learns, like every buck private, how to goldbrick, how not to work when the sergeant isn't looking, how to know when he is looking, how to make him think you are working even when he is looking. He learns that in real life you don't do any- thing unless you are bribed, bullied or conned into doing it, that nothing is worth doing for its own sake, or that if it is, you can't do it in school. He learns to be bored, to work with a small part of his mind, to escape from the reality around him into daydreams and fantasies-but not like the fantasies of his preschool years, in which he played a very active part.

The child comes to school curious about other people, particularly other children, and the school teaches him to be indifferent. The most interesting thing in the classroom-often the only interesting thing in it-is the other children, but he has to act as if these other children, all about him, only a few feet away, are not really there. He cannot interact with them, talk with them, smile at them. In many schools he can't talk to other children in the halls between classes; in more than a few, and some of these in stylish suburbs, he can't even talk to them at lunch. Splendid training for a world in which, when you're not studying the other person to figure out how to do him in, you pay no attention to him.

In fact, he learns how to live without paying attention to anything going on around him. You might say that school is a long lesson in how to turn yourself off, which may be one reason why so many young people, seeking the awareness of the world and responsiveness to it they had when they were little, think they can only find it in drugs. Aside from being boring, the school is almost always ugly, cold, inhuman-even the most stylish, glass-windowed, $20-a-square-foot schools.

And so, in this dull and ugly place, where nobody ever says anything very truthful, where everybody is playing a kind of role, as in a charade, where the teachers are no more free to respond honestly to the students than the students are free to respond to the teachers or each other, where the air practically vibrates with suspicion and anxiety, the child learns to live in a daze, saving his energies for those small parts of his life that are too trivial for the adults to bother with, and thus remain his. It is a rare child who can come through his schooling with much left of his curios- ity, his independence or his sense of his own dignity, competence and worth.

So much for criticism. What do we need to do? Many things. Some are easy-we can do them right away. Some are hard, and may take some time. Take a hard one first. We should abolish compulsory school attendance. At the very least we should modify it, perhaps by giving children every year a large number of authorized absences. Our compulsory school-attendance laws once served a humane and useful purpose. They protected children's right to some schooling, against those adults who would otherwise have denied it to them in order to exploit their labor, in farm, store, mine or factory. Today the laws help nobody, not the schools, not the teachers, not the children.

To keep kids in school who would rather not be there costs the schools an enormous amount of time and trouble-to say nothing of what it costs to repair the damage that these angry and resentful prisoners do every time they get a chance. Every teacher knows that any kid in class who, for whatever reason, would rather not be there not only doesn't learn anything himself but makes it a great deal tougher for anyone else. As for protecting the children from exploitation, the chief and indeed only exploiters of children these days are the schools. Kids caught in the college rush more often than not work 70 hours or more a week, most of it on paper busywork. For kids who aren't going to college, school is just a useless time waster, preventing them from earning some money or doing some useful work, or even doing some true learning.

Objections. "If kids didn't have to go to school, they'd all be out in the streets." No. they wouldn't. In the first place, even if schools stayed just the way they are, children would spend at least some time there because that's where they'd be likely to find friends; it's a natural meeting place for children. In the second place, schools wouldn't stay the way they are, they'd get better, because we would have to start making them what they ought to be right now-places where children would want to be. In the third place, those children who did not want to go to school could find, particularly if we stirred up our brains and gave them a little help, other things to do - the things many children now do during their summers and holidays.

There's something easier we could do. We need to get kids out of the school buildings, give them a chance to learn about the world at first hand. It is a very recent idea, and a crazy one, that the way to teach our young people about the world they live in is to take them out of it and shut them up in brick boxes. Fortunately, educators are beginning to realize this. In Philadelphia and Portland, Oreg., to pick only two places I happen to have heard about, plans are being drawn up for public schools that won't have any school buildings at all, that will take the students out into the city and help them to use it and its people as a learning resource. In other words, students, perhaps in groups, perhaps independently, will go to libraries, museums, exhibits, courtrooms, legislatures, radio and TV stations, meetings, businesses and laboratories to learn about their world and society at first hand. A small private school in Washington is already doing this. It makes sense. We need more of it.

As we help children get out into the world, to do their learning there, we can get more of the world into the schools. Aside from their parents, most children never have any close contact with any adults except people whose sole business is children. No wonder they have no idea what adult life or work is like. We need to bring a lot more people who are not full-time teachers into the schools, and into contact with the children. In New York City, under the Teachers and Writers Collaborative, real writers, working writers-novelists, poets, playwrights-come into the schools, read their work, and talk to the children about the problems of their craft. The children eat it up. In another school I know of, a practicing attorney from a nearby city comes in every month or so and talks to several classes about the law. Not the law as it is in books but as he sees it and en, counters it in his cases, his problems, his work. And the children love it. It is real, grown-up, true, not My Weekly Reader, not "social studies," not lies and baloney.

Something easier yet. Let children work together, help each other, learn from each other and each other's mistakes. We now know, from the experience of many schools, both rich- suburban and poor-city, that children are often the best teachers of other children. What is more important, we know that when a fifth- or sixth-grader who has been having trouble with reading starts helping a first-grader, his own reading sharply improves. A number of schools are beginning to use what some call Paired Learning. This means that you let children form partnerships with other children, do their work, even including their tests, together, and share whatever marks or results this work gets-just like grownups in the real world. It seems to work.

Let the children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time-if corrected too much, he will stop talking. He compares, a thou- sand times a day, the difference be- tween language as he uses it and as those around him use it. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people's. In the same way, kids learning to do all the other things they learn without adult teachers-to walk, run, climb, whistle, ride a bike, skate, play games, jump rope--compare their own performance with what more skilled people do, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to detect his mistakes, let alone correct them. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him. or correct it unless he was made to. Soon he becomes dependent on the expert. We should let him do it himself. Let him figure out, with the help of other children if he wants it, what this word says, what is the answer to that problem, whether this is a good way of saying or doing this or that. It right answers are involved, as in some math or science, give him the answer book, let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such donkey work? Our job should be to help the kid when he tells us that he can't find a way to get the right answer.

Let's get rid of all this nonsense of grades, exams, marks. We don't know now, and we never will know, how to measure what another person knows or understands. We certainly can't find out by asking him questions, All we find out is what he doesn't know - which is what most tests are for, anyway. Throw it all out, and let the child learn what every educated person must someday learn, how to measure his own understanding, how to know what he knows or does not know.

We could also abolish the fixed, required curriculum. People remember only what is interesting and useful to them, what helps them make sense of the world, or helps them get along in it. All else they quickly forget, if they ever learn it at all. The idea of a "body of knowledge," to be picked up in school and used for the rest of one's life, is nonsense in a world as complicated and rapidly changing as ours. Anyway, the most important questions and problems of our time are not in the curriculum, not even in the hot- shot universities, let alone the schools.

Children want, more than they want anything else, and even after veers of miseducation, to make sense of the world, themselves, other human beings. Let them get at this job, with our heir if they ask for it, in the way that makes most sense to them.

Source: Saturday Evening Post 2/8/69

Student Dress Codes? (1969)

Unrest in the Southwest

Source: Plain Brown Watermelon, Bellaire High School Newspaper, Oct. 1969, Vol 1, #1

Things are bubbling out there in the southwest area high schools. Here's a brief, and admittedly incomplete rundown on a few incidents which occurred during he last two weeks.

At Bellaire a student council sponsored referendum was presented to the student body on hair and dress regulations. The question was, who should have the right to make those decisions: the administration, the student council, or the individual? The result of the referendum (representing only about two-thirds of the enrollment since some teachers refused to hand out the ballots) was as fallows: 1,520 for the individual, 750 for the student council, 450 for the administration. In response, Bellaire Principal Harlan Andrews declared the referendum null and void, ,saying that it had not been authorized by him. Only a week before Andrews had been urging students to channel their grievances through the student council.

Leafletting has occurred at almost all southwest high schools. The most frequent point of dissent is the hair and dress code, but as little ground is gained in this fight the range of issues invariably broadens. At Spring Woods a test case is being prepared to challenge the constitutionality of grooming restrictions.

Though there have been numerous expulsions and suspensions, the only reported arrest took place before school in the cafeteria at Madison High School. Madison students had requested help from Bellaire in preparing and distributing leaflets, and on Wednesday of last week two Bellaire students, a boy and a girl were busted for leafletting at Madison. The girl was later released as a juvenile, but the boy, Harrell Graham, was charged with trespassing and loitering. His trial is set for 11a.m. October 16 at Corporation Court, 61 Reisner Street. Bellaire's Watermelon Committee is encouraging as many people as possible to attend the trial in a show of support for Harrell. Contact Space City News for the room number.

And at Sharpstown “Phlashlyte,” the independent newspaper that caused all the uproar last year, reappeared on campus.

All of which proves, friends, that the times indeed are a'changing.