By: Grainne Rhuad

There is a thing keeping everyone’s lungs and lips locked; It is called fear and it’s seeing a great renaissance. –The Dresden Dolls, Sing

Fear, it’s one of most living beings’ great motivators.  It arouses the senses telling us to pay attention, something may be coming, and we may need to act.

There is nothing wrong with fear, base fear in and of itself.  However most living things address whatever is causing them fear.  When the rabbit escapes the fox, it ceases to be afraid.  When it dies, its compatriots do not live in fear of ever leaving the warren.  Fear and its usefulness have come to its culmination and passed.

Human beings however are different.  We like fear, or we seem to.  We gather around campfires and tell stories of Unseelie things like Balor and the Sluagh, we watch movies to elicit fear responses and a great good deal of us get our fear fix from the nightly news, streaming into our homes, our consciousness, our being without even our notice most of the time.

Unlike the rabbit that allows fear to pass, we bathe in it.  We sit about talking about dreadful things, working each other up.  Interestingly enough, more talk occurs about ‘being’ afraid than ‘doing’ anything with those fears.

When we fear things I think that we wish for them … every fear hides a wish.-David Mamet, Edmond

It often seems that we make fear our pastime.  Do we secretly wish for the things we fear to come about?  Would the actuality of our fears be as terrible as we imagine?  Or would they in fact alleviate our suffering?  Is it possible that even with the most terrifying of our fears realized that we would have the relief of never again having that fear?

Some people say yes.  There are countless behavioral interventions for those perpetually in fear that expose them to those very same fears.  Beyond that, in interviews with survivors of war, torture and abuse the people who come out the other side very often live fearless lives; they have made it to the other side of what was terrifying them.

Other people however say no.  There is evidence that people witnessing their fears, as in say a car accident or death of a loved one will fold up into themselves even further, taking that occasion as proof that every doubt they have whether reasonable or unreasonable is going to happen.

Of course the latter is correct.  Everything we fear will happen, sometime to someone.  But, should we let it destabilize us?  The rational amongst us say “no of course not.”

And yet, we destabilize ourselves every day.  Purposefully, by constantly watching, talking about and thinking about everything that is wrong in the world.  By putting such a great amount of energy into the fears of the day, we are to a great extent missing the things that would normally balance out such fears.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.-Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful

Is fear in fact a passion?  Sometimes it seems so.  There are a good many people who make it their business to seek out and find things that are fear inducing in order to share them with the world.  You see this on news-like shows.  In comedy, on the internet with your friend postings.  The effect is the same:  “Here is something you should be afraid of.”  Almost never with a suggested solution.  This lack of solution runs counter to the very biological function of fear.  Fear is supposed to kick in to jumpstart our bodies into responding.  But, when we are exposed to fears that are seemingly insurmountable, with no discussion further than, “Yes that is fucking crazy and I am afraid.”  All of the fear is backed up with no action in sight to help us realign ourselves.  This creates in us an exacerbated state of stress.  How on earth can we combat all these things?

What is typically seen are people following up discussions like these with comments like, “Time to throw in the towel.” And, “Time to run away.”  This also instills fear into people.  How on earth are they going to manage that?

This brings us to the next bit.

Fear is the enemy of logic.

Frank Sinatra said it in The Way You Wear Your Hat but he’s not the only one.  When we are reacting in a fear based moment, we are making decisions based on preservation, but not logic.  We are not taking time to think things through and make a real and concerted difference.

The big question is why are we not spending more time dispelling fear?  Why are we not instead empowering each other?

It’s easy to blame all of our fear mongering on recent events like 9/11 and the resultant color coded terror scales we suffered through, which thankfully have been retired for now; as well as the constant ticker tape news updates which seems unlikely to go away.  However, it would be unfair to lay all of this at this particular door.

Since the advent of WWI people in the States and Europe have been afraid.  Initially this fear found outlet in an emerging art source: DADA, which on the surface non-sensical was indeed trying to make sense of the extreme shock and fear dealt out by a new type of war.

Humans being humans however; did not stick with the “let’s do something with our feelings,” route, and instead decided almost across the board to beef up on ammunition and war machines, further illustrating when people are afraid it’s easy to make them more afraid and control them.

We still are seeing the effects of this today.  Our fear caused the most recent war in Iraq. Saddam  Hussein obviously had no nuclear weapons.  There was absolutely no evidence of it, and yet our fear of him wielding it was enough for us to universally put a stamp of approval on an invasion.  We almost did the same in North Korea.  Who knows, we may still do so, we have spy submarines off the coast listening in fear to them right now.

If we were thinking with our logical minds we would wait and work with others.  A prime example is the situation in the West Bank.  Logic dictates that no matter how we feel about the “Holy Land”, people were there before the state of Israel was created and no plan was made for any of them.  Thus, logically we are all to blame for the ugly state of affairs and poor treatment of Palestinians.

But we don’t see it that way, because we are afraid.  Afraid of pissing of Israel whose pockets are helpful to us; afraid of the unrest recombining will cause; afraid of Asiatic dark people; and most of all afraid of admitting the world made a huge kerffufleing mistake.

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.-Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

The character Don Quixote may have been mad, but he was imbued with the madness of a saint.  He quite succinctly pointed out that our fears very often have us seeing problems that are not there.  This is true of things great and small.  We have very often discussed at Subversify our irrational fear of Russia during the Cold War.  We currently have an irrational fear of Mexico and Mexicans whether they are citizens or not.  We fear drugs; we fear not having drugs at the very same time.  We fear a police state and we fear not being protected.

But, one thing Don Quixote also illustrated is that throwing off that fear, while it may have you tipping at windmills you think are dragons, gives you a liberation that allows you to live happily, fully and without regret and longing.  Isn’t that what we all really want?

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.-Frank Herbert, Dune

By Jane Stillwater

http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2012/01/e-cannibus-unum-has-medical-marijuana.html

I’ve just about tried everything there is to make my sore knees and right ankle feel better — physical therapy, acupuncture, SynVisc (nasty stuff), chiropractic, Advil, hydrotherapy, Tiger Balm, xi gong, steam baths, reiki, Filipino psychic surgery, hypnotherapy, Zam-Zam water, deep-tissue massage, yoga,..  You name it and I’ve tried it.  But nothing has worked — until now.

Now I’ve discovered “DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream,” which is made from shea butter, palm oil, vegetable wax and cannabis.  That’s right, you read that right.  I am currently rubbing marijuana onto my knees.

And, yes, it’s legal.  And, yes, it works.

“But where did you get this stuff?” you might ask.  “While standing on a corner in West Oakland?  After skipping across the border to Tijuana?  By following hippies around up on Telegraph?  In the evidence room at the DEA?  Where?”

I got it at my friendly local marijuana dispensary http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/.  And what a trip that was too, with all kinds of types — from arthritic old ladies and dying cancer patients to young men and women who looked like they’ve never been sick a day in their life — standing in a really long line and waiting their turn in front of a huge display counter featuring everything from manufactured doobies and sativa buds to infused chocolates and ointments like the kind that I got.

But, hey, DocGreen’s soothing therapeutic ointment worked.

Plus it also made me sort of happy — a big surprise there.  Not that I was stoned or zonked or nothing, and there was definitely no slow-motion-type incapacitation or uncontrollable munchies like I’ve heard that you get from eating dope brownies or smoking a spliff.  And there was none of that sudden Bob Marley “one-love” positive-vib stuff either.  I still have all the same worries and troubles that I used to have before — that corporatists are still destroying our country and my tooth still hurts and I’m still overdrawn at the bank — but now I’m just a little bit less on edge about all that and a little bit more able to cope.

PS:  I figured that since just a little bit of DocGreen’s healing therapeutic moisturizer helped my soreness and also my frame of mind, then perhaps I should try a bit more.  So I rubbed some of the ointment onto my sore neck as well.  Wrong thing to do.  An immediate headache resulted, and then I started worrying again all over — but this time more fiercely.  Oh rats.  I just knew it was too good to be true.  Looks like I’d better go back to trying holy water and saunas.

But then I listened to Layna Berman on KPFA and she said that many people end up getting addicted to various substances by trying to “take the edge off” their lives.  Hey, I wanna take the edge off!  But according to Berman, no, that’s not a good idea,   Apparently having worries is a good thing — because they force you to act, to try out different things that might end all those worries.  Perhaps like joining OWS in order to end the corporatists’ sleazy reign of terror in Washington?  Oh, okay.

Berman also stated that by using outside means of cheering oneself up, then our body loses its own ability to cheer itself up.

PPS:  Then I listened to a video on “Full Disclosure” that talked about how California is being taken over by Mexican drug lords — even including taking over the legal medical marijuana trade.  Yikes!

According to a recent “Full Disclosure” report, “Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers.  Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.”  http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php

Double yikes!  Now I’m in danger of becoming a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel!  Just because I’ve got bad knees.

PPPS:  If marijuana is illegal, shouldn’t they make all those other artificial feel-good substances illegal too?  Like cigarettes and booze?  Wouldn’t it be nice if you had to have a doctor’s prescription before you could set foot into a liquor store?

PPPPS:  Someone else just recommended that I just simply stick to eating mushrooms.  According to a recent TED video on the subject, mushrooms are the last best hope for this planet and we can even use them instead of fossil fuel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY  Yeah, but can mushrooms make my ankle and knees (and brain) feel any better?

PPPPS:  Then I went up to that dispensary on Telegraph Avenue at http://berkeleypatientscare.com/ and got a chocolate infusion to eat.  Forget that!  One small bite almost the size of a baby’s fingernail and I was absolutely frozen in place for the next TWELVE WHOLE HOURS.  I couldn’t even get to my computer to call for help on FaceBook!

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This article is Part One of an ongoing series regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using medical marijuana. And if anyone wants to try DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream, please let me know and I’ll give you the 411.

******

From Yoko, regarding an update on the food and radiation problem still haunting Japan:
Kayoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at Pecha Kucha next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco.  We will be speaking on our experiences during our trip to Japan last October, in regards to food and radiation.  Please find all the info here:
http://www.umamimart.com/2012/01/umamimart-pecha-kucha-124-sf/

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From Full Disclosure: The Dark Side of legalizing pot:  Is California headed for corruption much worse than in Chicago in the days of Al Capone and prohibition?  Watch this video assessment by Mexican Mafia and Gang Specialist Sgt. Richard Valdemar, who retired after more than three decades with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.   He describes how the Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers.  Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.  Valdemar cites a recent example of the desperation of “medical marijuana” dealers in the U. S. who cannot turn to the police to save themselves from the Mexican Drug Cartels now taking over operations in California.  http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php

By: Karla Fetrow

For a gentle summer and an incredible autumn dawdling nearly a full month longer than usual, Alaska is having a voracious winter.  Beginning with a powerful storm that churned the Chukchi Sea with hurricane force winds and freezing weather, it seems the personality that encompasses Alaskan climate has been snarling, “no more Mr. Nice Guy”.

The storm surges were as high as five to seven hundred feet on some of the Western Arctic coastline, driving temperatures down to below zero from Barrow to the Cook Inlet.  The cold snap lasted nearly an entire month, with colder than normal temperatures recorded throughout the state.   The town of Nome was faced with another dire hardship.  The vicious storm had made it impossible to bring in the last barge of fuel oil and gasoline for its residents.  A snap freeze a few days following the storm had seized the Chukchi Sea  prematurely, closing the shipping lanes, and the last scheduled shipments were unable to  force their way through the ice.

The distributors in the town estimated that they had enough fuel to make it through March and possibly April, but the sea would not be navigable again until May.  Without the additional fuel, they would have to ration their consumption by limiting their vehicular use and lowering the heating temperature for their houses. If the winter was good, with its traditional temperatures of five degrees to minus three, they would be fairly uncomfortable, but not desperate.  However, there was one thing the locals all knew; never predict Alaskan weather.  There needed to be a way to bring more fuel to the town in case the weather didn’t remain traditional.

Another barge company, Delta Western, had slated a September delivery of the 1.6 million gallons of fuel, then rescheduled for a couple of arrivals in October, according to Nome port commissioners, when the Alaska coast was ice-free all the way to Kaktovik on the Beaufort Sea.  However, the November 8th storm halted their journey and they had to turn back.

There seemed few options for the town of 3,500 inhabitants who yearly hosted the finishing line of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race.  Nearby communities were already feeling the pinch of the early cold snap, and their own fuel supplies were beginning to dwindle.  To fly in a million gallons of gas and fuel would be risky and expensive.  It was estimated that to deliver the gas by air, the price, which was already nearly seven dollars a gallon, would soar over nine dollars a gallon.  No American company felt they had the ship that could make the delivery.  When Russia offered to deliver to Nome, with their tanker, Renda, the Native Corporation, Sitnasuak, was ready to accept.

From the very beginning, the Renda was burdened with obstacles.  The Renda had to receive waivers from four different countries to pass through their waters, including a special waiver of the Jones Act that requires all goods transported by ship between US ports be carried in US flag ships.

The 370 foot ice class tanker left Russia in mid-December and picked up more than 1 million gallons of diesel fuel in South Korea. When a plan to pick up gasoline in Japan didn’t work out, the ship received a waiver of federal law allowing the foreign vessel to dock in Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, where it picked up 300,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline.

In the meantime, Alaska’s weather was anything but traditional.  December began a series of  storms that broke snow fall records on the western coast from Nome to Cordova.  The Anchorage Bowl accumulated five feet in a matter of days, while parts of the Kenai Peninsula closed down their roads while they cleared them.  Avalanches covered the Turnagain Arm, stranding Girdwood for a week.  Further south, Valdez, the great snow fairy land of Alaska, was buried under nine feet.

Cordova took the main brunt.  After receiving more than fifteen feet of snow, it gave up on trying to measure the continuing snow fall.  It had arrived at a moment of intense crisis.   The towns people were desperately trying to dig their way out and remove the heavy accumulation from the roofs of their homes and public buildings while gales roared across, sweeping more snow into their paths.  All able bodied people were working, but they ran out of shovels.  Additional snow moving equipment was flown in and the fight continued, but at times, it seemed like a losing battle.  Roofs caved in.  Boats keeled over, damaged or crushed by the snow storm.  Many of the residents were forced to seek emergency shelter.

Nome’s hope for a traditional winter was shattered by early January.  The heavy blizzards that dumped record snow falls in Cordova and Valdez also broke their snow fall records when three back-to-back storms dumped 17.5 inches of snow on the town and surrounding area, making it the wettest December in 60 years.

The December precipitation was followed by plunging January temperatures, once again throwing the entire state into the grips of sub-zero temperatures.  Nome’s coldest day, on January 3rd. with -37F tied the record for cold weather that had not been broken since 1917.  Nome was shivering now, and the success of the Renda, which had at first seemed just a wise precaution, became crucially important for the Arctic town that would not see another opening in the ice until May.

In the meantime, the Renda was battling with its own difficulties.  On January 6th. the tanker that had navigated around four countries and had been told it was too puny to dock in Japan, had to turn around in the Bering Sea because of a faulty valve.  The local residents held their breath as the Renda docked in the Aleutian Islands.  The Coast Guard had only one functioning ice breaker to help the heavy tanker plow through ice that was two feet deep in some places.  There were three hundred miles left to go, on the most brutal expedition yet undertaken in the twenty first century.  Would they make it, or would they be iced in, forced to abandon their project until spring?  The Renda announced it would continue its journey.

The Renda plowed ahead, with the Coast Guard Cutter, Healy, just in front of it, slicing a path through the ice the tanker could follow.  Their efforts could be called nothing short of heroic.  There were times when the ice was so thick, and the weather so cold, the ice immediately began re-forming as soon as the Healy cut through it.  The unyielding ice billowed and swelled in the sub-zero temperatures, crushing against the Russian tanker, sometimes pushing it from its path so that it would have to re-navigate its direction.  At times, the Healy and the struggling tanker were able to crawl at just a few miles a day, its progress so slow, a person walking over the frozen sea would have overtaken it.

On January 14th. the Renda was, finally, just a few miles from Nome and looking for a “parking spot” in the uncooperative ice.  The days of excruciatingly slow journey wasn’t understood very well by the pondering public, but the native population, so familiar with the Arctic Sea, understood the difficulties involved.  They even have names for the different types of ice conditions.  Said Mayor Edward Itta in a correspondence with Captain Carter Wilson as reported by the Alaska Dispatch:

‘Siku iluaqsilaaga‘ – means the ice is not cooperating.

‘Siku tatiruq‘ – the ice is very tight; not loosening (sometimes because the ice has formed or piled on itself in such a way that it becomes interlocked).

‘Siku nuutqanaruq‘ – the ice is stopped; not moving.

‘Saqviatchuq‘ – no current.

‘Iikalginnaruq siku‘- the ice is stopped because it is grounded (by ice ridges that are deep enough to be stopped by grounding on shoals or shallower water).

‘Siku nutqanaruq saqvaq suammigluni naga iluitgluni’- the ice is not moving because the current is too weak or from the wrong direction to move the ice.

‘Annugim aqmatinnitka‘ – the wind or lack thereof or blowing from the wrong direction is not favorable to opening the ice, etc..

The captain jokingly asked if there was a term for when the ice was being nice.  Nice or not, the Renda found a place to port in the treacherous ice rubble of the Northern Sea with the guidance of the local community.  The final step was underway; transporting the fuel to the coastal town. The difficulties were not over yet.  It was now a matter of transferring the fuel without spilling it.  The organizers for the transfer had already anticipated this, and had prepared a system whereby a hose would be attached between the tanker and the dock.

This procedure involved a number of precautions.  First, the tanker needed to sit in its spot, so the ice could form rigidly around it.  This would preventing tilting or rocking that could result in a fuel spillage.  Environmental Protection laws required they could only work in daylight hours.  In January, Nome has just five hours of daylight per day.

On January 17th., the fuel was finally running through the two parallel, seven hundred foot hoses.  Senator Lisa Murkowski, along with a number of other state representatives, flew into Nome to celebrate the successful mission and congratulate each other on it.  The truth, however, is that the State of Alaska had very little to do with the Renda’s journey apart from clearing the paperwork obstacles and providing an ice breaker.   The entire two month labor of will and determination had been planned, financed and organized by the Sitnasuk Native Corporation.

The journey of the Renda was incredible, a modern day illustration of the little engine that could.  It brought out the best in human qualities; inner strength, bravery in the face of adversity, cooperation, integrity, diligence and unflagging commitment.  It had done something that had never been done before; cut through the unforgiving, unyielding ice of the Arctic Sea to bring over a million gallons of fuel to a far northern coastal town.

It also, subtly, raised the question of human behavior.  When the tanker first began its journey, many of the citizens in the warmer, more comfortable climates, with a solid grid work of road connections and plenty of fuel, criticized its efforts as an unnecessary burden on the tax payers.  The tax payers had not paid for it, and if they had, another question raises to the surface.  Nome, along with Kotzebue, is the lifeline for the Arctic villages that often struggle through the winter with repeated fuel shortages and an economic base that does not always allow them to pay their energy costs in full.  It is rich in history as one of the earliest gold rush towns, a rush that opened the door to settlement and statehood.  Most importantly, it is part of the network of towns and villages that comprise the State of Alaska as a whole.  Thirty five hundred citizens or twelve thousand citizens; each town and village deserves the umbrella protection of winter survival.

While Russia continues to be looked upon with distrust by Western media, it has proven once again to Alaska it can be a good neighbor.  It made a promise and it delivered, despite the obstacles placed in its path, despite the criticism of its slow progress.  It put aside any political differences it might have to be of assistance without asking how long it would take, or how great the difficulties it might anticipate.  The State of Alaska warns that it’s not over until the Coast Guard cutter has safely returned to port and the tanker has been dispatched to Russia, but for many joyful Alaskans, it is over.  The impossible task had been made the possible.  Fuel was running through their pipes.  They could look forward to another fine Iditarod, with a warm welcoming committee instead of shivering fans and cold shelters.  They could ride out the next three months of Alaska’s decidedly non traditional winter, without worrying about losing their fuel before spring thaw.  The only thing left to do was heartily thank Russia for being a neighbor, a friend.

http://www.nomenugget.net/

http://www.adn.com/2012/01/09/2253848/thickening-ice-raises-worries.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/update-renda-final-position

By: Grainne Rhuad

“Being poor is a state of mind, not a condition.” HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson explaining to Congress why he refused to discuss housing the poor. May 21,2004.  It is deeply troubling when our secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) doesn’t want to address housing the poor.  That is, the job description of HUD and its secretary.

A term has been coined for the homeless amongst us: “The Invisible Population” The homeless are invisible only if your eyes are shut.  Even then we should be increasingly aware of those living in poverty and on the streets as America approaches third world status in its treatment of homeless people.

As long as there have been communities there have been people excluded from them.  Some by choice, others due to not following social mores. Some of these outsiders whether they were lepers, criminals or fanatics had no shelter and could be considered homeless.

“Homelessness” is defined in the United States Code, Chapter 119, Subchapter I, §11302, “General definition of homeless individual”:

The term “homeless” or “homeless individual or homeless person” includes:

1. An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and

2. An individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is —

A. A supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill)

B. An institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or

C. A public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

Now as ever, most people would prefer to not see the homeless on their doorstep.  It makes one feel like they are living in less than desirable circumstances; which they are.  Also for a lot of people it shows a picture that is a little too close to home.

But have the types of people who are currently homeless changed in the last few years?  The answer is yes and no.  Recent statistics show the following:

• 32% were homeless persons in families.
• 68% were homeless individuals.
• 64% of homeless adults were male.
• 62% of the homeless were a minority.
• 43% had a disability.
• 40% of all these individuals were between 31 and 50 years old.

In addition Estimates of subpopulations of the homeless based on the nationwide single-night January 2008 PIT count show:

• About 15% were veterans.
• Almost 13% were recent victims of domestic violence.
• Nearly 26% were persons with severe mental illness.
• 37% were persons with chronic substance abuse issues.
• 2% were unaccompanied youth under age 18.
• 4% were persons with HIV/AIDS.

The chronically homeless are another subpopulation. The federal definition of chronically homeless used by HUD states that a chronically homeless person is either an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more or an unaccompanied individual with a disabling condition who has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.

To be considered chronically homeless, a person must have been on the streets or in emergency shelter (i.e., not in transitional or permanent housing).

There are other subcategories of homeless people that are important to look at.  It’s a lot easier to see the homeless in our cities and urban areas.  However rural homelessness is on the rise as well. The most distinguishing factor of rural homelessness is access to services. Unlike in urban areas, many rural homeless assistance systems lack the infrastructure to provide quick, comprehensive care to those experiencing homelessness. The reason for higher rates of rural homelessness is rural areas tend to have higher rates of poverty, only compounding the risk of becoming and staying homeless in those areas. It’s a basic formula:  Less people=less representation x less money.

Homeless By the numbers:

• There are 643,067 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States.
• Of that number, 238,110 are people in families, and
• 404,957 are individuals.
• 17 percent of the homeless population is considered “chronically homeless,” and
• 12 percent of the homeless populations are veterans.

These numbers come from point-in-time counts, which are conducted, community by community, on a single night in January every other year. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities to submit this data every other year in order to qualify for federal homeless assistance funds. Many communities conduct counts more regularly.

“The homeless don’t need our help. They just want everything for free.” -Ronald Reagan

A broad and insulting statement coming from the man who while Governor of California closed almost all of the Mental Health facilities housing the gravely mentally ill without providing a plan for where they would go.  Ronald Reagan is directly responsible for raising the amount of the gravely mentally ill homeless people on the streets in California.

Mental illness is the third largest cause for single homeless people. “According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are severely mentally ill (National Institute of Mental Health, 2009). “[Source: http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf]

An inability to work a regular schedule due to mental illness combined with lack of services and instability of medication makes it extremely difficult for the Mentally ill to find and keep housing. Because we have chosen to not provide institutionalized housing or communal housing for the mentally ill, we are seeing exactly what should be expected.  People on the streets.

But it is a self perpetuating cycle.  Because people have unaddressed problems they will most likely always be homeless.  Their chronically untreated conditions do not allow them to get better.  They make no money and what money they get panhandling goes straight to self medication in the form of drugs and alcohol.  This, because they will never be able to afford appropriate treatment.

Another reason people become homeless is due abuses.  Currently in the U.S. 1.6 to 1.7 million of those who are homeless have at some time in their lives been abused. [Source: http://nccp.org/]  Young people run away from dire situations only to find themselves in another dire state.  While they may have escaped the abuse of home or foster care, another 28% end up suffering abuse while homeless, especially youth, women and GLBT individuals.  Whether that abuse is rape, beatings or the way society looks at them it matters not.  Their internal self ends up further traumatized and they very often do not feel like they deserve any better.

There are the very poor people on the streets.  Very often these people have family in tow.  Once you have gotten to the place wherein you are homeless it is very hard to overcome that.  The ability to look for viable employment is almost an insurmountable task.  The lack of access to clothing, grooming and even paper and computer to use for resumes keeps people on the streets.

It is worth pointing out that there are a small percentage of people who actually want to be homeless.  There are several reasons for this, some of which have been listed above.  However there is the very small amount of people who are actually dangerous even sociopathic.  It is easier to fly under the radar and commit crimes that your sociopathic compulsions demand while homeless.

Analysis by the “Opening Doors Coalition”- a federally funded project;  shows some of the top reasons why people are homeless in America include foreclosures, poverty, less secure jobs, declining availability of public assistance, addiction disorders, and mental illnesses.

The sheltered homeless population is estimated to be 42 percent Black, 38 percent White, 20 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Native American and 2 percent Asian. These interesting statistics point to how we live our lives culturally.  Just glancing at the numbers and employing basic historic knowledge we can see that those who value family responsibility and have a long history of multi-generational living end up being at less risk for homelessness.

A major factor in homelessness in the U.S. is the lack of affordable housing. Many things contribute to this and this is not just a result of the housing market dive.  It was a factor beforehand as well.

Most of us have a picture in our mind of homeless or near-homeless people and families living in cheap motels.  People often wonder why someone would chose hotel living over say renting a house.  It’s a valid question.  Currently the cheapest of motel rooms cost around $42 a night. (Including taxes).  That equals about $1260.00 for the month which seems like enough to rent a house or apartment in most areas.  However, a lot of owners will not rent to someone who has a bankruptcy or a history of missing payments; not to mention a criminal record or conversely no credit record at all. The risk is not worth it to them, even if it helps homeless families reestablish themselves.

Also, renting a home requires deposits very often at a higher amount than the rent itself.  It can be hard enough to come up with the money to pay for your rent but for far too many people it is impossible to come up with rent and deposit money.

The housing market crash does however contribute to lack of affordable housing in a different way.  During the housing boom many people invested in rental properties hoping to make a killing off their investments.  When things took a dive, the rents went up.  Owners had to find a way to make their mortgage payments on these houses or lose them.  They also were and are unable to sell them because they are upside down in their loans.  As a result very often, rents were raised in order to meet the mortgage liability of the owners.

Add to that the fact that single family home owners are continuing to lose their homes. Recently top White House advisers questioned the need for a blanket stoppage of all home foreclosures, even as pressure grows on the Obama administration to do something about mounting evidence that banks have used inaccurate documents to evict homeowners.

There are of course many countries in which homelessness doesn’t even enter into their lexicon.  There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. The countries themselves are so poor and/or war torn that dealing with people without shelter is the least of their worries.  When there is no national stability for anyone, it’s hard to be concerned about the people without roofs over their heads.
2. Some countries care for their own.  By providing housing for extended family and including everyone in the community both socially and with work, homelessness ceases to be a problem.  This is something we and other “developed” nations have gotten away from.  It seems that as we acquire more in terms of tangible goods, the less we want to share.  You will rarely anymore see generations living together in homes in the U.S.  Here especially we want to have reminders of familial duty as well as age and handicap out of our view.  We seem over concerned with how we present ourselves to the public and sometimes having Nan tottering about is a stress inducing picture for the upwardly mobile set.
3. Many other cultures view homelessness differently.  It is not always a given that those without their own homes; either rented or owned are homeless.  It may in fact be a choice.  In the U.S.  This choice would still be counted as homelessness, not so in other places.  Also those living for extended periods of time with family or friends would not automatically be labeled homeless.

For the purpose of illustration let’s take a look at some of the home states of our staff:

In 2008, Alaska ranked tenth among the 50 states in concentration of homeless people, with 0.24 percent of the total state estimated to be homeless. Oregon was number one with 0.54 percent, and California was fourth ranked with 0.43 percent.

Homelessness in the U.S. is concentrated in urban areas. But from September 2007 to September 2008, the number of homeless nationally in suburban and rural areas rose from 23 percent of the homeless population to 32 percent.

In my home county in Northern California, we now have at least 1,772 people who are homeless. As a point of reference, that’s close to the stated population of Biggs, California- a medium farming community also in Northern California

Houston is the fourth largest city in the U.S. and possesses the third highest homeless population in the nation. Approximately 15,000 homeless individuals in Houston live in abandoned buildings, on cardboard makeshift beds, under freeways, and in shelters throughout the city.

“An underpaid worker that cannot afford housing is an industrial slave.” [P.22 American Homeless Land Model]

“On Homeless Empowerment”: “There seems to be an attitude that homeless people are homeless only because they were too stupid to keep their homes and are therefore not very competent at thinking for themselves, and that they therefore need the guidance of more intelligent, “enlightened” people to help them back onto the path to a “normal” life. To any person with an I.Q. of more than 50 who is homeless because of the worsening economic conditions in the country this attitude is, to say the least, extremely insulting. What is lacking here, or maybe only partially formed, is the concept of homeless empowerment: that we should have the power to control our own lives, to use our intelligence to find out own creative solutions to our predicament, and that we are entitled to keep our dignity in the process; that we have the same constitutional rights as every other citizen, and that the very last thing we need is to be treated like criminals or idiots while we are struggling to survive.” -Bridget Reilly

“Why keep the poor weak, then punish them for being weak, and glorify ourselves by handing them charity that they would not need if they were treated justly from the beginning?” [P.24 American Homeless Land Model]

We can work within our communities to combat homelessness and the resultant problems.  In fact this is the most effective way to address this issue.  It does little good to work with National programs as they are bigger and bulkier in their administration, thus a lot of the money gets eaten up therein.

Within your communities vote for measures that provide housing whether temporary or long-term.  For example, my city used to have a housing task force wherein case managers from several different agencies from Hospital Workers to Child Protective services met monthly to present, discuss and approve city funding for apartments.  Criteria to be met included support systems and ability to keep housing once individuals or families were placed in it.  It was a good program which provided housing for around 100 families a year.  The constituents of the city voted out of this program because they didn’t want to pay the extra taxes.  As a result the funding was lost.  This is entirely the fault of the voters.  City managers were in favor of it, agencies working with people in the area were in favor of it and rental owners as well as property management agencies were in favor of it.  Replacing this program was an increase to parks and recreation and public art.

It’s not that either of those things are bad.  However, what good are murals when people are sleeping in their cars and on sidewalks.

In London an orgainization called Centripoint has hosted a very sucessful fundraiser for a number of years now. During its annual event during which participants, called “Sleepers,” give up the comfort of their beds for one night and spend the time outside on the streets. The event allows people to experience a flavor of the daily plight of homeless young adults throughout Britain, albeit with food, security and a roof, amenities the homeless do not have. In addition to a cold, uncomfortable night, Sleepers must raise 500 pounds (a little over $800) that goes to the center.  In its inaugural event five years ago, Sleep Out raised about $65,000; last year it raised about $145,000.

There’s another area in your community in which you can be effective.  Feeding people.  The homeless amongst us obviously have no kitchen access or money.  Providing food is crucial.  Voting in favor of laws that protect food servers like ‘Food Not Bombs’ is also crucial.  Nationwide in the past year, food assistance programs have confronted numerous challenges. The increased cost of food and fuel has made it difficult for food banks to expand or even maintain their normal supply of food. Meanwhile, the economic downturn and rising unemployment have increased the demand for food assistance while decreasing the number of donations from individual donors.

Increased efficiencies among large grocery chains and food suppliers have resulted in less excess supply and thus decreased donations to food banks.  The sharp increase in the price of food means that an increase in funding is necessary just to  maintain supply at previous levels. Over the last year, the price of food increased 6.2 percent, the largest increase in nearly 20 years. The cost of key staples increased even more dramatically – for example the cost of cereals increased 12.3 percent and the cost of fruits and vegetables increased 10.3 percent.  Los Angeles, Boston and Portland reported that increases in the price of food have lead to a decrease in the quantity of food they are able to purchase. Transporting food from large suppliers to those in need also became more expensive because of a significant increase in the price of gasoline.  In Phoenix, where the cost of fuel and trucking expenses has increased by as much as 72 percent, the total amount of food distributed decreased by 13 percent even though the level of funding increased by 30%” [source:U.S. Mayors.org]

Keep in mind however there will always be those who don’t consider themselves homeless even though they technically have no established residence.  It is neither necessary nor helpful to make somebody else conform to your ideal of how a live should be led.

“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.” –Frederico Garcia Lorca

And let’s leave off with this: A very telling quote which illustrates why those who both have family money and connections.  It is, I think the reason that people are not willing to help their fellow human beings:

“At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that “people are poor because they are lazy.” He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to “free market competition.” To him, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was “socialism.” [Source: Poor=Lazy President Bush and the Gilded Age By Yoshi Tsurumi March 1, 2004 excerpt from article:]

Further Reading:

http://www.homeless.org.au/statistics/

http://www.shelter.org.uk/

http://eohw.horus.be/files/freshstart/European%20Journal%20of%20Homelessness/Volume%20Two/article-2.pdf

http://www.chicoshelter.org/about-homelessness/node/41\

http://www.chicoshelter.org/files/2011_FINAL_Butte_CoC_Homeless_Census__Survey_Report%20web.pdf

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning/homeless

http://www.usich.gov/usich_resources/fact_sheets/

http://www.endhomelessness.org/content/article/detail/2797

http://usmayors.org/pressreleases/documents/hungerhomelessnessreport_121208.pdf

By: Grainne Rhuad

This country from the start was built on slave labor.  Before we began importing slaves we literally sold ourselves into slavery to get here. This process as most school children know is called Indenture. 

The way it works is you agree to labor for a set number of years and someone with means buys your contracts and agrees to do things like pay off your debt or pay passage for you on a ship or oversee you for your prison time; something of that sort.   

Very often indenture would run longer than the original agreed upon time.  Usually this was due to clauses in the contracts.  Things like failing to bring in a good enough harvest.  Getting pregnant, married, running off, not making enough in trade if you are a craftsman, breaking something, pissing off the owner of your contract. 

For things like these you would be penalized with extra time working for your contract owner, at their discretion. For example they may determine their broken butter churn was worth six more months.  You didn’t have a lot of say as an indentured servant.

Indentured servitude is nothing new.  It has been around as long as civilization has.  Egyptians, Romans, Brits and Gauls all made use of it.  Children were handed over to pay household debt or a Man would conscript with an Army to keep his family in food and become a citizen. 

The history classes you had in school and which children and young adults still receive tell you that this practice was done away with…oh about the time that we started practicing “real slavery” in earnest.  That is to say slavery, with no chance of paying off a debt in which people were treated as cattle.

Today’s indenture is of a more insidious sort.  There are in fact many ways in which we indenture our lives, through credit cards, business, and auto and home loans.  But what is really taking a toll on Americans young and middle aged is Student Loans. 

Currently one in every five government loans that entered repayment in 1995 has gone into default. The default rate is higher for loans made to students from two-year colleges, and up to 40 percent, for those who attended for-profit institutions.

1995 is generation X, these are the people who  are now reaching their 40’s and probably figured they would have paid off, if not all at least a good chunk of their student loans by now.  And yet they’re still struggling under the weight of their education.  

I remember when I signed up for my student loans.  It was in 1994 and it was my last year of college.  I had been able to do all the rest with grants and work study.  Part of the process at the time had been a ‘class’ which was really a group talking to about the dangers of loans, how important it was to keep records and make payments to your loans.  Also, should one run into trouble, do not wait on it.  It was in short a lesson in responsible lending. 

Nowadays at college campuses across the country this no longer happens. Loans applications are taken electronically and the “advice” about how to determine if you need a loan is not given to you by a living breathing human, but rather a statement which you are supposed to read and sign off on.  I know I don’t even want to admit to how many electronic agreements I have signed off on without reading in full.  Stupid I know but we all do it and are at risk of becoming Human Centipads.

In addition to that, private loans are even easier to get.  All that is necessary is registration in a higher learning institution OF ANY KIND and a bank acct.  Usually your own bank will be happy to enslave you.

What’s not so easy to get anymore are Scholarships, Grants and money from your parents.  The money from your parents’ one seems obvious.  They are broke and can’t pay their own student loans.  But did you know that if your parents make over $47,000.00 Gross and they went to college you do not meet any of the criteria for Federal Grants?  Furthermore if you happen to be working and supporting yourself you still cannot use your own information to apply for grants until you are either 24 years of age or married. 

Kind of makes it seem like the Federal Government doesn’t want to support any of your education doesn’t it?  It certainly seems that way to thousands of students every year who were told by their college graduate parents that college is the passport to the middle class.  Too bad they didn’t know it was a onetime passport per family and by getting their own degree their progeny would be unable to afford school without indenturing themselves to the machine.

There are currently two main sources for federal student loans — the Federal Family Educational Loan Program, or FFELP, which is being phased out, and the Federal Direct Student Loan Program, or FDSLP. The FFELP has about $390 billion in total loans outstanding –$77 billion in Stafford loans, $81 billion in unsubsidized Stafford loans, and $211 billion in consolidation loans. Then there are the loans to parents.  Yes, the same ones who can’t afford to pay off their own loans. These PLUS loans add up to $21 billion.

The FDSLP is up to $220 billion in loans outstanding at this point — $58 billion in Stafford, $59 billion in unsubsidized Stafford, $20 billion in PLUS, and $83 billion in consolidation loans.

Add the two together, and you get to $610 billion.  This is just federal loans. These numbers don’t include private-sector student loans at all, and already they’re above the $550 billion that the Fed claimed was the total of all student loans outstanding in the country.

Here are some more scary facts about the cost of higher education:

1. Since 1978, the cost of college tuition in the U.S. has gone up by over 900 percent.
2. In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.
3. Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor’s degree within four years.
4. Approximately 14 percent of all students that graduate with student loan debt end up defaulting within 3 years of making their first student loan payment.

 “Thirty years ago, college was a wise, modest investment,” says Fabio Rojas, a professor of sociology at Indiana University. He studies the politics of higher education. “Now, it’s a lifetime lock-in, an albatross you can’t escape”- Huffington Post.

Many proponents of personal freedom in recent years have pointed out that it might be time to stop buying into the route of higher education.  In this way at least our up and coming generation can avoid this finance driven slavery.  Education, they point out is available for all, all one needs to do is seek it out. 

This is absolutely true. 

And yet our society for some reason is not ready to let go of its glorified hall pass; that little piece of paper called a degree. The thing that really shows the world, you are a good worker, can make plans and complete them; and most importantly follow rules.

Those in positions to hire employees are going to be looking for these things above experience.  As most hiring agents will tell you experience is imminently harder to verify than a college degree which is easily searchable.  Many positions that will pay well enough to pay off those huge student loans will not even look at applications that don’t include a copy of a degree or further training certificate of some sort.

Here’s some more numbers on that:

1. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.
2. Over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.
3. Approximately 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
4. In the U.S. approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.
5. One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don’t even require college degrees.
6. In the U.S. 24.5 percent of all retail salespersons have a college degree.
7. Once they get out into the “real world”, 70% of college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the “real world” while they were still in school.

The point being that things in our economy and culture have changed to the point that we can actually begin to demonstrate an ability to exist in the “real world” with or without degrees.  Most jobs that are readily available do not require degrees, so why indenture yourself for a lottery chance at middle class when you can be absolutely free of servitude at a slightly lower class?  You may even bring home more money than your middle class neighbor due to the ridiculous amount of taxes the middle class is required to pay.  

In addition you won’t be subject to the adding on of time to your indentured servitude which still happens with student loans.  Want to get married and have a baby, you get six months, and then you have to go back to work or start paying again.  If not, your loan continues to grow, thus your indentured time lengthens.  The same applies if for some reason you lose your job, or don’t make enough money.  You are owned entirely, either by the federal government or a bank or both. 

In this time, the insidiousness of indenture through higher education should be something we are all willing to fight against.  Do those of us who have been to college really want our youth absolutely enslaved and controllable for the facade of academia?  Or would we rather see future generations of bright people able to make decisions based on their talents, drive and dreams without fear of not being able to meet the contract of student loans?   

http://mycuentame.org/2012/01/03/community-college-budget-cuts-drive-students-to-for-profit-schools/

http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/harvardexam.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/04/12/us/12college_graphic.html?ref=education

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/edu.html

Obama’s Immigration Reform

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama commented about the lack of presidential leadership on immigration reform in 2006.  At the speech to the League of Latin American Citizens, he promised this crucial block of voters whom he would need to fight against Sen. John McCain, in the November elections that he would do better. At that time he said:“When 12 million people live in hiding in this country and hundreds of thousands of people cross our borders illegally each year; when companies hire undocumented workers instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; and a nursing mother is torn away from her baby by an immigration raid, that is a problem that all of us — black, white, and brown — must solve as one nation.”

His actions following that speech proved he was using rhetoric to gain the Latino vote.  Obama has done nothing to follow up on the words given in that speech and many Latinos are reconsidering their vote in 2012 because of he didn’t keep his promise.

Latinos Denounce Obama in 2012

In 2011, many Latino Leaders are denouncing support for Obama in the 2012 presidential race because of the way he has avoided this politically hot-button issue.

He has slid away from his rhetoric of “It’s why I reached across the aisle in the Senate to fight for comprehensive immigration reform.”These days, he is leaning as far away from immigration reform as he can to avoid offending the Republican mindset — people who have been on a steady agenda of dividing Latino families through deportations.  And through doing this, he inadvertantly helped a new divisive effort to pass laws against immigrants and their U.S. citizen family members.

States passing anti-immigrant legislation
Several states are now passing anti-immigrant legislation that has resulted in a wave of immigrants fleeing these states.  The overall effect of this legislation is that those states are losing much needed revenue as immigrants flee and this furthers the decline of our economy.

Alabama’s H.B. 56, signed into law on June 9, 2011, is the nation’s harshest anti-immigrant law.

• It makes it a crime to be without status.
• It requires law enforcement to check the papers of anyone they suspect of being undocumented
• It mandates that public schools check the legal status of their students
• It abrogates any contract made with an undocumented immigrant
• It makes it a felony for undocumented immigrants to contract with a government entity including for such basic services like as having water connected to your house

The result of this law is that crops now rot as most of the migrant workers who normally work these fields have moved to other states to find work. Hundreds of millions in tax and farm revenue have left with them.

Arizona’s SB1070, signed into law in April of 2010, unleashed immediate protests and reignited the over immigration reform nationally.

The provisions of this law that spurned the anger were:

• Became a misdemeanor for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying required documents.
• Required state law enforcement officers to attempt to determine an individual’s immigration status
• Banned state or local officials from restricting enforcement of federal immigration laws
• Cracked down on those sheltering, hiring and transporting illegal aliens

This led to  HB 2162 passed in 2011 amending the wording of SB1070 that Janet Brewer had signed.  It was passed because SB 1070  ensured that racial profiling would result from enforcement.  HB 2162 amended the bill and left it up to the discretion of the officer to determine if questioning regarding legal status was justified.  There were several amendments that made this racist legislation more palatable and slid the issue of immigration into fascism with the stroke of a pen.

Currently, about 20 other US states are working on similar legislation and the trend is towards an unfriendly nation towards immigrants.  So much so, that now LEGAL immigrants have become the focus and target as “job takers” and a group in California has taken out ads against legal immigrants.

Latinos were key to Democratic victories in 2008.  We have the power to swing crucial states in 2010.  Obama’s unsuccessful attempts to prevent the state legislation has not motivated many Latinos to support his next term.  These laws are in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution, and Obama could have supported opposition to these laws based on that alone.

As a friend of mine once said, “I wonder what he’s going to tell them in 2012…”

By: Jane Stillwater

In honor of Kim Jung-Il’s passing Jane Stillwater regails us with stories of her visti to North Korea in 2008.

Because NK’s Dear Leader just passed away, I dug out some of my old photos of Pyongyang

The city was a nice place to visit and North Koreans DO want to live there — because the alternative of living in the countryside is rather nasty.

There were wide avenues and almost no cars. People walked and used public transportation a lot. No huge gaseous cloud of CO2 here.

Kim Jong Il was sick even back then — and he is my age. Life is short, start doing good deeds ASAP before you end up like Kim — dead. That seems to be the moral of this tale.

North Korea from the air is a very green and lovely country — like Ireland or something. Our plane flew in over miles and miles of verdant farmland — with the fields surrounded by what looked like electrified fences. But I didn’t see any cattle.

At the airport, much to my surprise, everything there looked totally NORMAL. You coulda been in any mid-sized airport anywhere in the world. “What were you expecting? That North Koreans were going to have horns and tails?” Yeah. And I guess I was also expecting the airport to look like the Stone Age or something. Sure, it wasn’t as fancy as the Beijing airport — but it was NORMAL. Airline counters, computers, restaurants, souvenir shops and customs agents. No bunkers, tents or grass huts. And no little green men.

Then we got on a bus just like the bus that took us to the airport in Shenyang — just like the bus that takes people to the airport in San Francisco. The DPRK appears to be westernized, up-to-date, modern and NORMAL. Get over it, Jane.

I guess that the U.S. media’s effort to turn North Koreans into “The Other” has worked, even on me. But why am I so surprised that North Koreans are just normal people like the rest of us? I found out in Israel/Palestine that not all Palestinians were mad bombers and in Afghanistan I discovered the Afghans were the nicest people on earth. And even in Iraq and Zimbabwe I found lots of new friends.

“You notice that all the buildings appear to be built relatively recently?” someone asked. Yes. And they all look alike too. “That’s because most of the buildings here were flattened by the Americans back in the 1950s. The entire city was destroyed.” There are no really old buildings here.

And I had somehow thought that everyone here would be wearing native dress. Not true either. Everyone is wearing western-style clothes. Not many cars. And it’s a warm evening and everyone is out walking.

“There’s a revolving restaurant on top of our hotel,” said our guide. “And as you can see, there are many tourist buses in the parking lot — so remember your bus number.” Buses for tourists? The DPRK is a tourist destination? Does nobody besides me think that is weird? And the hotel was even more strange — a 46-story four-star hotel set up to accommodate thousands of tourists. And all this in a country that is supposed to be poverty-stricken. No signs of poverty so far.

“I want to go to the big 60th anniversary celebration,” I argued over dinner.

“I want to go to the DMZ!” pouted one man in our group. Apparently we can do both.

This is it. We’re actually driving around the DPRK in a tour bus. So far, the entire city seems to be composed of Soviet-style housing blocks, Soviet-style massive monuments and Soviet-style office blocks.

“Today we are going to go to a Buddhist temple and climb a mountain,” said our guide, as we drove through the streets of Pyongyang. Everyone who lives here seems to be walking everywhere. There are very few cars. “But we do have a subway. It’s the deepest one in the world — 120 meters deep.” All the people we drive by look relatively happy, look like they could be walking down the street in one of San Francisco’s Asian communities. I still can’t get over how normal it all looks here — in a country that has been totally cut off from the world for the last 60 years. I wonder where they get their clothes. Wal-Mart or JC Penney, it looks like.

We drive 160 km — about two hours — to Mount Myohyang. It is one of the country’s five famous mountains. It is 800 meters high. So far I love the DPRK! The only things I haven’t liked so far were the mosquitoes that flew into my room last night — how do mosquitoes fly up to the 26th floor? — And the wake-up call loudspeaker at 6 am that seemed to be designed to wake up the entire city.

The streets are very wide here. Tree-lined avenues, greenery, parks and Lots of high-rises and open spaces. Did I mention that the capital city has three million residents? But it’s not congested. Why not? There’s hardly any cars.

This place is so GREEN.

I’ve decided that my basic attitude toward the DPRK is that, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The North Korean leaders appear to not like Bush and Cheney. Hey! I don’t like Bush and Cheney too!

“Our rainy season is in July and August. We also grow corn, rice and beans.” Soy beans. “Potatoes, cabbages and radishes.”

The countryside is lush. Poplars and birches line the roads — giving the countryside an almost French flavor. Not that I’ve ever actually been to the French countryside. “23 million people live in the DPRK.”

“Some areas are covered with snow in the winter.” One guy in our group is a skier. “Yes, we have a sky resort.” I’m not interested at all. I went skiing once when I was in seventh grade, discovered that snow was cold and never went back.

“The universities, factories, farms, etc all are run by the government.” Sounds like China 30 years ago. And just look at China now.

According to the Lonely Planet guide, 30% of the DPRK’s budget goes to the military. In America, however, it is 54% — and rising.

Did I mention that the freeway to the mountain is bordered with flowers? Marigolds, cosmos, daisies, black-eyed-susans, poppies, columbines. Gladiolas. Lovely.

More corn fields. And rice fields, a lush green highlighted by white cranes. I bet they don’t have to deal with Monsanto shoving genetically-modified seeds down their throats here.

On one level, I am well aware that the DPRK is pretty much a dictatorship but on another level, I like that everything seems so — organized. And un-complex. I wouldn’t mind living here, out in the country, for the rest of my life. It’s so peaceful — as long as I didn’t have to get my hands dirty a lot. And I would definitely miss having DSL.

We’ve been driving for an hour through some of the most bucolic countryside ever. And on a four-lane freeway — two lanes each way; we have yet to see another car. Works for me. Imagine a whole country that pretty much runs successfully without cars. Heck. That’s the wave of the future. North Korea appears to be doing fine without cars. So now we know that it’s do-able.

In America, we are being choked to death by cars.

I think that the DPRK has something very important to teach Americans. But who would have thought it would be that?

In North Korea, the average citizen’s basic identity doesn’t come from what kind of car he or she drives. Sure, it would be nice to have a car, but without owning a car, their basic sense of who they are is still secure.

“80% of the territory in the DPRK is mountainous area,” said our guide.

Apparently last year the DPRK suffered from major flooding and there was much damage to the crops. International aid organizations sent food and all tourist groups were cancelled for a few weeks. Apparently canceling the tourist groups had a big impact because there is a growing tourist business here in the summertime, especially involving Australians and Europeans. But Americans? Not so much. “It’s harder to get in here if you are an American.” Tell me about it. It took me six whole months to get a visa. Yet another country added to the list of those who have been antagonized by Cheney and Bush.

“No, you are wrong, Jane,” said someone in our group. “It’s a list of countries that have been antagonized by every president since World War II ended and American industrialists took over America.” Well, let’s not argue about that. We’d have to go back to Teddy Roosevelt and beyond if that were the case.

Then we arrived at the mountain — only it was a series of mountains. “Next we will go to the International Exhibition Hall.” It had lots of marble walls and bronze doors. “Here are exhibited the gifts received by our Great Leader Kim Il Sung — sent from the leaders of countries all over the world.” It was like a giant antique store. There were lots of vases and sculptures and paintings and clocks. Ceremonial swords. A chandelier from Kuwait. A miniature crystal train set from Russia. A rhinoceros horn from Zimbabwe. Fascinating.

The next room contained photos of all the wildlife received by the Great Leader, sort of a photographic zoo. Giraffes. Zebras. Monkeys. Lots of peacocks. Then there was a gallery of plant photos, another roomful of vases, silverware, paintings, statues, scrolls, lacquer ware, mirrors and — oh look! There’s a piano.

Then there was the Southeast Asian room. Buddhas from Cambodia, stuff from Vietnam. Balinese puppets, batik from Indonesia.

More rooms, more gifts. North Korean school children, my tour group and me all tried to take this all in. “It would take all day and all night to see it all,” said our guide — so we hurried along. “This exhibition hall was built in 1978.” Then there was another large room, holding what turned out to be “souvenirs”. Now we were just hurrying through room after room. OMG! There’s a whole train! One coach was from Joe Stalin and one coach was from Chairman Mao. Next? A roomful of European gifts. Beer steins, pewter flatware, Greek statues, Viking boats, knick-knacks. Ah, the African room. Then the Latin American room. And a silver plate from Billy Graham. Go figure.

“Then this is the last room, containing a statue of our Great Leader,” a wax figure dressed in real clothes. Very life-like.

The second exhibit hall was all constructed of marble too and contained gifts given by various heads of state to Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader.

Afterwards we went up to the observation deck on the roof of the hall and some high school boys offered me their chair. Boy I really have reached little-old-lady status.

Next stop: A 400-year-old Buddhist temple. They had some big-ass old statues of various bodhisattvas. 20 feet tall. Carrying swords and trampling demons. Then a bunch of gilt Buddhist statues, etc. And a very holy-looking monk who I was totally honored to meet. Highlight of the trip — so far.

Then I was forced to deal with a squat toilet.

Tomorrow we are going to a world-famous circus. Hey, this is supposed to be some hard-scrabble nation that’s been demonized as being totally evil — not the latest hot tourist destination!

“Let’s cut short our visit to the Buddhist temple and go hike up the mountain,” someone suggested and then everyone got all excited except me. Will I get a wheelchair on the mountain too?

Sure, the country folk here have a hard life. But all around them lays the beauty of nature. But there are other countries in the world where people live in even prettier places — like in the DRC — yet they have no education, no healthcare and no physical or economic security. Plus in the DRC, women there face the horror of rape every single day of their lives.

And there are even more than several places in the USA where this is all true too — no education, no security, no healthcare. Plus the voting machines don’t even work.

The only real danger I’ve faced in the DPRK so far has been from mosquitoes.

But in all honesty, I can’t really say if the people in the countryside get free healthcare like the people in Pyongyang do. But I’m assuming that they get education because one of the school groups we met at the Great Leader’s Exhibit Hall were obviously children raised in the country. They all had farmers’ tans.

Even though the trail up the mountainside wasn’t very primitive — it was paved with asphalt — I had to stop half-way up and fall by the wayside and contemplate some rocks for about an hour while the rest of the group persevered on up to a magnificent waterfall of epic proportions. How do I know? They all showed me their photos of it.

Then there was also a weekend camping event for children up on the mountainside and the kids were all happy and smiley-faced and cute. The future of a country is always pointed out through its children and these ones looked like they had a bright future. Good.

On the long bus ride back to the city, we only saw one checkpoint while nearing the capital and it was mainly just a table and chair, manned by one person. This is a hecka big difference from, say, the checkpoint outside of Ramallah in Palestine. THAT checkpoint is totally out of control — ten football fields wide and taking all day to get through.

Back in Pyongyang, it was after dark. Night in the capital city is weird. Imagine Washington DC with no cars and not streetlights — but lots of trees and parks and people strolling around. The low levels of energy use in this country never cease to amaze me. This is definitely no Las Vegas. They simply do not pig out.

At dinner, we had fun telling each other ghost stories about all the rumors, innuendos and hot gossip we’d ever heard about current and past leaders of the DPRK. “The Lonely Planet said that the life of a political prisoner here was ‘hell on earth’.” Is this still true? Or have things mellowed out? Sometimes as things get better economically, the old, harsh ways relax — as new generations who have experienced happy childhoods grow up. Too bad that the opposite seems to be happening in the U.S.

“And remember the famines? I heard that a million people died of starvation.” I’d heard that too — that things got so bad in one province that they just sealed it off one winter and came back in the spring to see if anyone had survived.

Then there are the stories about how the past president had been dead for five years before anyone in the DPRK was told, or that the current president was dead and some actor had taken his place — like the stories they tell about Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein. Then there are the kinky stories. You gotta love kinky stories. Which brought up the stories about George Bush and that former male prostitute who spent 20 nights in the White House — and don’t even get me started on Sarah Palin stories!

Aha! The Lonely Planet has set us straight. “Surprisingly, the presidency rested with [the dead president even after his death was announced officially], making him the world’s only dead head of state.” So, He WAS dead while still president. But everyone here also knew he was dead too.

Apparently, according to several other tourists I’ve talked to – there are tons of tourists here! – The 1995 floods and resulting famines WERE extreme and extremely large numbers of people did die. “Stories of stunted children with swollen bellies fighting over grains of rice in the mud are famous all over the world.” What a fascinating and complex place this is! And today we are going to see even more of it.

“I am SO not a morning person,” I profusely apologized to my wonderful roommate. I thought I had given her the room key and that she had gone off for a walk and left me locked out, so I waited outside our door and inwardly stormed and raged at the injustice of it all. Crap. I had to pee!

“But, Jane,” she reminded me, “you have the key.” And I did. In my pocket. I’m just all burned out. This has been a hectic seven days. I’m losing it. I seriously considered spending the day hiding under the bed today but I’d better not. I’d just hate myself when I got back to Berkeley – that I didn’t take the tour of the capital city and ride on the world’s deepest subway.

I read some more from the Lonely Planet guide. “Trying to get a sense of day-to-day life is a challenge indeed. It’s difficult to overstate the ramifications of half a century of Stalinism – and it is no overstatement to say that this is the most closed and secretive nation on earth. Facts meld with rumor about the real situation in the country….” But you gotta admit that the rumors and gossip here are first class!

Then we ran into a tour group of Canadian corporate executives that had come here for a tennis and golf vacation!

According to the Lonely Planet, up to three million people died of starvation during the 1990s floods. That’s almost one in seven North Koreans. That’s sad. And apparently this place has a three-caste system, based on political attitudes. If you are hostile to the government, you might end up in a labor camp. That’s almost like when Bush fired all those U.S. attorneys in America who didn’t support the neo-can regime.

“The ‘neutrals’ have little or nothing and generally live the hard lives of farmers out in the countryside but they are not persecuted. While the ‘loyalist’ enjoy many more material things.” They get to live in the capital city, have access to education, don‘t have to perform strenuous physical labor for the most part, and are not in any danger of starving. And at the top, according to the Lonely Planet, there is also a fourth caste. “The Kim dynasty and its vast array of courtiers, security guards, staff and other flunkies are rumored to enjoy great wealth and luxury.”

But what is the real truth here? Guess what? I’m definitely not going to find out in only four nights and five days.

It’s now Monday morning in North Korea’s capital city and people are walking and biking to work. Get over it, America. Don’t be so snobbish. You’re next. I bet you anything that, if it keeps going the way our economy and environmental limitations are now heading, in ten years America will be like this too – less cars, less electricity, more rationing, more militarization and more Stalinism. We may even pass the DPRK on our way down – or it may pass us on its way up.

Next stop? The birthplace of the country’s first president, Kim Il Sung. “I have heard that if you drink water from this well three times,” another tourist told me after we got there, “you may become rich and the president of the country. But if you drink it four times? You may get loose bowels.” Apparently this is a well-known joke in the DPRK.

“Next we are going to visit the Pyongyang subway system, completed in 1973. It runs on over 35 kilometers of track and has 17 stations.”  A sign on the subway wall read, “If the Americans invade our country, we will defeat them.” Too late. We’ve already invaded! The tourist invasion.

The escalator down to the subway platform went so deep that my ears popped. Twice. And we were given free rein to take photos. Yaay! Now I can show the folks back home how well-dressed everyone here is.

I’m still fascinated by the clothes here. The shoes are stylish and some of the ladies are almost chic in a Wal-Mart sort of way. Where do these clothes come from? Are they made here? Made abroad? Who designs them? Do they put out a DPRK Vogue?

“The clothes are made here.” I’m impressed. They don’t dress as fresh-off-the-boat here as one would think. The women don’t, that is. With regard to the men, they are like men in most of the rest of the world – they don’t pay that much attention. Geeks and nerds. You’d think you were at M.I.T or something except I didn’t see any pocket-protectors.

One member of our tour group said that the U.S. has frozen the DPRK’s assets outside of the country and they are not even allowed to buy food from the outside world with it. That’s cold — especially since I just read in the Lonely Planet that as many as 15 million people may have starved to death in the 1990s. That’s totally cold. 15 million dead of starvation? I could make a bad joke here about how at least the North Koreans were respectful enough not to resort to cannibalism because if they had, not that many people would have starved. Sorry. That’s not funny at all. There is NOTHING funny about 15 million people starving to death.

We then stopped at a HUGE monument “to the workers”. It was very Stalinist but a hecka photo op. Next comes the DPRK war museum. I almost got in a fight with my guide about that. “The Lonely Planet says that North Korea started the war.”

“No! No! No!” the guide practically screamed. “The Americans started it!” We are about to find out who is right. After all, Bush swears up and down that Saddam Hussein is responsible for the Iraq “war” disaster. And even Hitler blamed the Poles for his Blitzkrieg. Show me the proof.

Apparently, right after World War II the U. S. military moved in and seized the area south of the DPRK from the Japanese, killing 478,000 North Koreans in the process. I’ve never heard that before. This is interesting, to hear the view of the North Koreans. And the Americans continued to threaten a full invasion of all of the DPRK.

The war went on from 1950 to 1953. According to our guide, these were grisly times, as General Walker ordered as many people in North Korea as possible killed by American troops. They were bombed, slaughtered, dropped down mine shafts, buried alive, whatever. The DPRK’s capital was leveled. And even women and children fought back.

Americans used chemical bombs. Napalm. An article from the New York Times said, “The use of napalm far exceeds its use in World War II…. The U.S. Army’s chemical corps shipped more than 17,000,000 pounds of napalm to the far east.” Five times the amount of napalm used in World War II. They also dropped bombs containing poisonous insects – and fleas. Fleas?

There were photos of an all-woman anti-aircraft hunting team and we saw many of the planes that they had shot down, perhaps 20 or 30. That made me sad — that so many Americans had to die in that useless senseless war. And it also brought home to me that North Korea was a country that had continually experienced war devastation at a level that Americans can only try to imagine.

And then the circus started. Tightrope walkers. Balancing acts. Those guys are crazy. Then they had cute little jump-roping bears and a lady who did a triple on the flying trapeze. We all clapped and clapped and clapped.

Then as our bus drove through the city, I couldn’t help but think as I watched people walk by, “These are the lucky ones – and they know it.” Lucky to be here in the capital city and not out in the countryside or off in some gulag. I forget a lot about how lucky I myself am – to be living in Berkeley, in a place of my own, and not in Iraq or the Congo or something. I forget because I rarely think about the horrors of Iraq or the Congo. But perhaps the people of the capital here know about the alleged 15 million people who starved to death just miles away from them. And, if so, I imagine that they truly appreciate how lucky they are.

I gotta learn to be more appreciative. But should I be appreciative that I don’t live here? Not necessarily. The residents of Pyongyang seem to live a pretty good life. Except for having no internet of course.

Then we went to visit a middle school. Good grief! At an assembly they were holding, two girls were playing accordions. And they were good too. The DPRK’s got talent! And some other musical groups also came onto the stage of the multi-purpose room. And they were good too. And they were having fun. Even I was having fun.

Then the students came off the stage, took our hands and taught us how to folk dance. And I have the pictures to prove it. Then we visited a classroom. About 30 kids per class. And I have the pictures to prove that too. Three girls and I practiced our English together. Our visit to the circus had been nice – but this was more meaningful.

“Now we are going to drive to the Arch of Triumph,” said our guide,” and then we will have dinner at the revolving restaurant back at the hotel.” Is it bedtime yet? I’m worn out.

“Today is our national holiday,” said our guide. “It is the DPRK’s equivalent of the American Fourth of July. And also your trip to the DMZ has been cancelled.” What! No DMZ? That’s not fair!

Apparently there are tensions in the DMZ today. Rats. I wanna see tensions.

“Today we will be traveling to a visit a dam,” said our guide after I had gotten back on the bus. “It will be an hour and 15 minute drive from here. The dam was built in the 1980s, to prevent the rivers from flooding. It cost 40 billion U.S. dollars to build.”

“Does it generate electricity?”

“No. We use coal-powered generators.”

“Do they have coal here in the DPRK?”

“Yes. Lots of coal. And lots of other metals too – such as gold, silver and iron.” So that’s what those people I saw squatting in the river on our road trip to the mountains were doing – panning for gold. I saw a one-ounce Chinese panda gold coin for sale at the hotel but it cost 1006 Euros. That’s twice as much as gold costs in America. “I just bought a gold coin at the hotel gift shop for 40 Euros,” I overheard someone say. Dream on. If that was real gold, we could buy it all up and be rich rich rich! I’m sorry but I don’t have that kind of money karma. If I did, I’d be down by the river panning for gold too.

Then we drove into Nampo on the way to the dam and landed right in the middle of that city’s huge September 9 celebration. The whole place had a festive atmosphere and the streets were filled with lines of uniformed school children and women in “cupcake” dresses – that’s the name that one of our group gave to the DPRK’s female national dress.

The main plaza of Nampo was filled with over a thousand people. Only DPRK nationals were allowed to attend the capital city’s September 9 celebration – maybe because the country’s president would be there – and so our tour group hadn’t been able to secure tickets. But here in Nampo, we tourists were able to attend — if only unofficially, as our bus drove past the plaza.
Cupcake dresses, school children and flowers were everywhere.
Perhaps this city was also bombed and fought over during the DCRP-American war because so far I’ve only seen Soviet-style buildings and monuments here.

On our right are ships and Islands. On our left are many mountains framing the shore – and some large ships. That means that there must be a drawbridge or something here so that the ships can get through to the bay. Also there are some truly jankety fishing boats here – rusted hulls, ancient engines.

We talked with one German guy at breakfast back at our hotel this morning who said that he got his visa within five days of applying for it in Germany. I guess it’s just hard for us Americans to get visas.

In a video at the dam we saw, there had been a scene with the DPRK’s president and Jimmy Carter. “Carter made a deal to take the DPRK off the U.S. short list in exchange for giving up the quest for nuclear weapons,” said a tour group member. “And then Bush came along and screwed up the deal. Now, eight years later, Bush is trying to negotiate the same deal that Carter had made back in the 1990s.”

“Was this before or after 9-11?” I asked.

“Before.” Well. That explains it. Bush’s backers were probably looking for a war even back then so that they could go on with the business of making weapons like they had in the good old days of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. Ah, how the Bushies seemed to long for the good old days of Vietnam!

I bet that Bush thought he could get something going with North Korea — and perhaps even China if he was lucky. But then 9-11 happened and Bush got his wars without having to declare war on the poor DPRK.

Which leads me to believe that maybe the North Koreans might have been right after all and that Americans had also provoked the DPRK into war back in the 1950s as well. Just like Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident to start the Vietnam War, Reagan lied about Granada to start a war there and Bush lied about Iraq. There’s a pattern here.

“The main meal in the DPRK is lunch,” said our guide. So we sat down and ate nine courses. The restaurant also served rice vodka and rice beer. They served us kimchee, mussels, breaded veal, salad greens, pot stickers, marinated pork, stir-fried pork, red bean cakes, clear noodles with egg, beef with chard, breaded potatoes, cucumbers and rice. “Does anyone want those extra pot stickers?” I asked. No? Feed a cold, starve a fever. I just ate 14 pot stickers.

Then suddenly there we were — at the famous American spy ship that was captured by the DPRK navy in 1968. 83 U.S. sailors were taken prisoner, including eight officers. “The boat was a civilian research vessel,” stated President Johnson, but evidence to the contrary was found on the ship — evidence indicating that it was a military ship, spying on North Korea.

An American crewman aboard the Pueblo had stated that the ship had been ordered to sail closer to the DPRK, apparently into its actual territorial waters — and had done this 17 times before. “The statement of President Johnson had proved to be a lie,” said a video that we saw onboard. Johnson then tried to cover his tracks by accusing the DPRK of aggression, trying to shift the responsibility to the DPRK. The U.S. threatened out-and-out war on the DPRK.

North Korea then tried negotiations, seeking an apology — and if they didn’t get one, then the crew would be put to death. The crew members pleaded for their lives and eventually Johnson backed down and eleven months after the vessel’s capture, Johnson finally apologized. Even Johnson admitted that it was the only such apology in American history. And the U.S. promised never to do it again. Then the video showed the sailors crossing over some bridge to a pro-American country.

“The DPRK will never back down against unwarranted aggression!” said the video. But apparently the U.S. is still doing the same thing because a data-collecting American torpedo was discovered off the coast of the DPRK in 2004.

The document read, “[The United States]…shoulders full responsibility and solemnly apologies for the grave acts of espionage…and gives firm assurance that no U.S. ships will intrude again in future into the territorial waters….”

“The BBC just reported that the president of the DPRK might be dead,” said one tour group member. We get the BBC in our hotel rooms. “No one has seen him since August. But if he were dead, then who would replace him?”

“He does have a son but the son apparently disgraced himself a few years ago when he was caught sneaking into the Japanese Disneyland and with a forged passport.” Sounds like a man of good judgment to me.

“The BBC also said there was a huge military parade today.” Oh, you mean the one right beneath our hotel window? The one that consisted of about 200 olive-drab-painted trucks? Apparently the trucks were going to be used to carry participants to the mass games tonight — not a parade.

On our way to the mass games, the highlight of our trip, we got stuck in traffic. Traffic? You go without seeing a car for hours at a time and now suddenly there’s traffic and we are going to miss the mass games? “Are we close enough to walk?” someone asked our guide.

“It’s not a traffic jam,” our guide replied. “It’s a military parade.” Oh. Not just the personnel carriers that went past our hotel this morning? And the BBC was right?

“The mass games are like a cross between the Radio City Rockettes, the American Ballet Theater, the Super Bowl, a Busby Berkley movie, a circus, a flower show and a Maoist production of ‘The East is Red‘.” That pretty much sums it up. Wow.

Last night at the hotel, something happened that I am still trying to sort out the meaning of. The BBC had announced that the DPRK’s president didn’t appear at the September 9 celebration, hasn’t been seen since last August and might be seriously ill or even dead. And apparently someone in our tour group told a North Korean that she had met in our hotel lobby about this, and the North Korean was totally horrified. Apparently North Koreans love their current president very much and this statement that he might be in poor health shocked this person to the core.

“It’s like some stranger coming up to you and informing you out of the blue that your father was seriously ill — your father, who you dearly love.” It was really unsettling to the North Korean back at the hotel. I felt really bad for her. North Koreans feel very strongly about their current president.

Now that I think about it, I feel very strongly about the man who is currently occupying America’s White House. And if someone had just told me that George Bush was seriously ill, I too would have been devastated — that now he might not be able to serve time in jail.

After touring the monuments and experiencing an intense hour or two of people-watching, we all went to the airport to fly back to Shenyang. There were lots of tears at the departure gates. We all loved our guides.

So. I spent five days in the DPRK and what have I learned? Not much. One would have to be Superman and have X-ray vision to know everything about the DPRK after just five days. It is a very complicated country. But I do know that I will miss the friends that I made there very much.

Okay. No more getting maudlin. Time to focus on Shenyang. “Want to go for another massage?” asked a member of our group. Me? Turn down a cheap two-hour massage? Like that’s ever going to happen. But for the most part, the big neon-lit word that is flashing across my brain right now is “Internet Café!” I’ll have five whole days of e-mails to sort through — over 200 a day.
Back at the hotel in the DPRK, I talked with a guy who knew more about North Korea than I did — which isn’t very hard to do even after I just spent five whole days in that country.

“40% of the citizens of the DPRK are malnourished,” he said, “and the reason for that is that they are unskilled agriculturally.” Still and all, 40% malnourishment is way up from 40% death by starvation — assuming that the rumors of 15 million having starved to death in the 1990s are true. The official DPRK government figure is three million deaths, so it would probably be at least double that. But in any case, that’s a whole lot of dead people.

Last night at the banquet, I got an earful of hot gossip. “One of our tour group had a secret camera and was caught taking pictures of soldiers.” someone said. We had been asked to refrain from taking photos from the bus when we had first arrived in the DPRK, and to not take any photos of soldiers.

“This guy was seen holding this tiny camera down low and when they checked his memory card, he had about 50 photos taken from the bus and 15 of them were of soldiers and bridges. I think that he was a CIA plant,” said one group member.

The guy was stupid to do that — or impolite at the best. He deliberately broke a clearly-spelled-out rule. What had he been thinking? He could have gone to jail as a spy. But was he actually CIA? We may never know.

“I don’t think that he was,” said another group member. “I think he was just an over-enthusiastic tourist. Plus if he actually HAD been CIA, he would never have been caught.” The DPRK authorities simply gave him a lecture and asked him to delete his memory card.

And speaking of censorship, another group member announced that Sarah Palin had just published a list of 95 books she wanted banned in the United States — and two of them were by an author in our group! That’s hot gossip. But when I checked it out on the internet later, it said that, “Palin did indeed ask the librarian of her town if she would be willing to ban books and when the librarian said no, Palin worked to get her fired. But no specific list of books was mentioned.” I want to get MY books banned by Sarah Palin. Maybe that would kick-start my sales.

We also talked about the health of the president of the DPRK. “Yahoo News says he had a ‘circulatory problem’ in his brain and was operated on.” A stroke. How in the world do they find out stuff like that?

“Every time there’s a holiday in the DPRK,” someone else said, “American media trots out the same old story that the president is dying, ill or already dead.” Speculating on DPRK politics is endlessly fun. Speculating on ANYTHING in the DPRK is endlessly fun.

“Death of a Nation”: The Future of Occupy

by Mitchell Warren

“What is the future of occupy?”

“What will happen with the Occupy protest in 2012?”

“What are the occupy protests about?”

On March 3, 1991, Rodney Glen King was brutally beaten by members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) with apparently no provocation.  Thanks to fast thinking and filming by a man named George Holliday, the video was broadcast not only to the entire United States but also to news agencies all over the world.  The response from the public was vociferous.

The incident, followed by the acquittal of the assaulting LAPD officers, caused a public uproar and started a small war between the black community and Los Angeles police officers, culminating in a series of riots that spread even beyond California.  The dissenting voice of the people (and a minority at that) was heard loud and clear, and it wasn’t long before two of the four police officers were jailed for civil rights violations.  Justice had been served…all it took was a Mookie-esque explosion of violence to incite change.

An Occupy War in Progress

Now at the dawn of 2012, a year already associated with great devastation, the Occupy Protest movement is reaching its peak.  Over the past several months, we have seen multiple occurrences of Rodney King-caliber assaults happening at the hands of police officials even in the United States, a supposedly Democratic nation that rises to the aid of countries run by oppressive, corrupt governments.  We have seen peaceful protesters jailed, despite the fact that protesting is a universally agreed upon constitutional right.  TruthQuake News has compiled a series of videos documenting the assault of police officials on Occupy protesters, which include the likes of pregnant women, college students, and an 84-year-old woman, Dorli Rainey, with industrial-strength pepper spray.

Protesters are not the only ones being attacked by police officials.  The Huffington Post reported that journalists covering the event were also beaten and arrested by police officials, including RT television network reporter Lucy Kafanov, who was attacked for attempting to film the protests.  “It does not seem police are making a distinction between press and protesters,” she later commented.  DNAInfo editor Julie Shapiro stated that she was “grabbed and shoved across the street” by NYPD officials for “[taking] a picture.”  Even right wing media publications who typically vilify the protesters have faced abuse from police officials, as ThinkProgress shares.  The Daily Caller’s Michelle Fields faced abuse from the NYPD and then help from an unexpected source: protesters, who offered their assistance.

These are acts of aggression, the likes of which stirred up a minority group 20 years ago to take decisive action, but which today is dividing the masses.  As 2012 approaches, public opinion is mixed on the morality and the practicality of Occupy protests.

The Reaction to Occupy Everything

The Wall Street Journal (“Populist Movements Rooted in Same Soil”; The Wall Street Journal By Gerald F. Seib, November 15, 2011) conducted national polls in the months of October and November, and discovered that approval ratings were from 22% to 59%, especially among person ages 50 to 64.  The polls also found that strong support came from individuals in an income class of $50,000 to $70,000 a year (middle class Americans).  Time Magazine found that 54% of Americans approved of the protests, while 23% had a negative impression. Meanwhile, Quinnipiac University found that two thirds of New York City voters supported the movement and almost three-fourths of these voters understood the demands of the protesters.

Occupiers Speak Out

“Right now many major ‘informative medias’ are continuously trying to slander the movement and provide false knowledge, but through spoken-word and the many live-stream teams around the nation, people will gain the truth and the movement will only grow stronger. As Occupy is a movement of spreading truth, don’t expect it to have a set long-term goal of ‘changing our government,’ but instead to provide the base of knowledge that is needed for others to take that ultimate step.”

-Darren, College of the Atlantic

 ”There has never been such a unifying spirit and location. People from all different backgrounds are coming together to share their experiences and knowledge. That’s why Occupy is working so successfully outside of the system. People don’t trust the system, but they are starting to trust each other. America was and should be driven For the People, by the People.”

-Kara

“Put simply, we must become the change we seek by exemplifying viable alternatives to the status quo. This applies to economic, political, theological, military, educational, technological, etc. aspects of the culture we have been born to. In other words, it is up to us to make ourselves happen in accord with our yearning for justice and equality consistent with our individual diversity.”

-Steve

“Warriors armed with empathy.”

-Ron 

“I have been an active occupier since Day 1 in Liberty Plaza, I see the future of the Occupy Movement as one that sets up autonomous assemblies in communities across the nation.  Thousands of solidarity groups have formed spontaneously in small communities worldwide already, they are focusing on local issues and ways to support the broader movement for the 99%.  I hope to one day set up community centers for ‘the people’s liberation’ that function as Occupy centers, in a way similar to what the Black Panther Party had organized in ghettos across America.”  

- Benjamin 

Politicians in Washington, the targeted audience for Occupy protesters, have given a largely negative reaction to movement, from Newt Gingrich’s “Take a bath and get a job,” snark to Obama’s shrugging off the idea to investigate corruption in Wall Street by replying, “One of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehman’s and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole sub-prime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn’t necessarily illegal; it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless.”

However, the lack of action coming from Washington, indeed the eerie silence of politicians, is very telling.  The protesters succinctly replied for the Obama administration with a written message that was handed out to the press.

“Mr. President, over 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested while bankers continue to destroy the American economy.  You must stop the assault on our 1st Amendment rights.  Your silence sends a message that police brutality is acceptable. Banks got bailed out.  We got sold out.”

Occupy and Class Warfare

Politicians, as individuals, have varied in their reaction.  Ron Paul expressed sympathy with the 99%, stating that the 1% has “been ripping us off,” while Republican candidate frontrunner Mitt Romney stated that Occupy is “dangerous…class warfare,” and Vice President Joe Biden said bluntly, “The middle class has been screwed.”

“Class warfare”, a new thought pioneered by arguably the smartest member of the Republican Party.  Is Occupy actually a matter of class warfare or is it a feud between the people and the state?  Was Romney’s remark a distractionary method or is it a foreboding prophecy of things to come?

Harold Gray, political commentator of the Stranger Advice radio show, states that class warfare is a defensive maneuver by the government.  “It’s in the interest of the ruling elite at the head of the system, to keep us divided and fighting amongst each other.  The idea of class war or police violence would benefit the State immensely.  This is a Cointelpro tactic that is used to create false revolution, the result being in no change and apathy.  Now grass root movements that are deemed a threat by government are co-opted and discredited.  It’s easier to destroy a movement by becoming it, than to assassinate the leaders.”

The American Occupy movement motto, “We are the 99%” is in reference to the fact that approximately 1% of the population is wealthy, in comparison to the 99% who is paying for the mistakes of a minority class.  According to The Wall Street Journal Blog, in order to be counted as the 1%, a household must make over $506,000.  This class is a minority indeed compared to both the poor and middle class.  Logically speaking, this leaves only corporation heads, politicians, and A-list entertainers, among a few others, as the 1% who control our lives.

This raises the question, is Occupy truly the beginning of class warfare, in that Occupy protesters are primarily angry at the 1%, and are merely asking the government to punish them for their wealthy status (which assumedly results from corruption)?  Ironically, many of the 1% celebrities have joined the cause of Occupy and endorsed the protests, including among others Roseanne Barr, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon who actually attended the demonstration), Mark Ruffalo, David Crosby and Graham Nash and Kanye West.  Even of the demonized CEOs and very wealthy citizens of the U.S. have joined the protest, including Leah Hunt-Hendrix, who said, “We should acknowledge our privilege and claim the responsibilities that come with it,” and Farhad Ebrahimi who has been participating in the protests wearing a shirt reading, “Tax me. I’m good for it.”  Artist and producer Russell Simmons attaches a moral obligation to join the cause saying, “You give what you get. I want to do what I can to relieve suffering and improve the quality of other’s lives.”

This out showing of support, while inspiring to Occupy marchers, does make one question the paradoxical imagery of a wealthy person protesting the actions of him/herself.  At what point are the motivations of protesters questioned?  This question is not merely in reference to B-list celebrities and journalists who want publicity from the event, but also to all protesters who are asking for a change.  Indeed, the question should be, “Are you ready for change?”  Are the American people ready for the drastic changes for which Occupy is asking?

What is Occupy About?  10 Occupy Demands

The media has been accused of distorting and obscuring the demands of Occupy protesters in an attempt to demoralize the effort and turn mass public opinion against the protesters.  Nevertheless, Occupy protesters make every effort to share their goals, and their “demands” with the mainstream media.  They are as follows:

1. Wall Street’s practices caused the Great Recession of 2008 (through risky lending practices of mortgage-backed securities) and so guilty parties should be punished.
2. Protesters want more jobs and higher-paying jobs.
3. Protesters want bank reform legislation.
4. Protesters want a reduction of corporation-influences on politics.
5. Protesters want an equal distribution of the income.
6. Protesters want to stop police brutality.
7. Protesters want Congress to draft laws against Congress passing legislation that affects corporations that they themselves invest in.
8. Protesters want to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which was designed to control speculation.
9.  Protesters want to hold Washington accountable for forestalling financial collapse by providing bailouts to banks, corporations and brokerage firms, at the expense of the average working person.
10.  Protesters want the 1% to bail them out, as they are experiencing wealth (on average, $11.4 million per 1% worker) while the rest of the country faces poverty.

Russian Convoy in Georgia

By Karla Fetrow

The Appeal to Responsibility

Three months into the Occupy movement, and the mainstream media still view this collaboration of global citizens a protest basically aimed at the banks and economic disparity.  Finances are certainly a driving force.  The man who is adequately clothed, fed, sheltered and has a good job is far less likely to voice adamant discontent, regardless of political affiliations, than the man who has suddenly lost his life savings through bank foreclosure or a terminal disease.  The countries that still have some of their economic stability will be less likely to erupt in violent demonstration than the countries that have found themselves completely bankrupt.  Taken strictly from the angle of financial responsibility, it would seem a movement to force individual governments to close tax loopholes for the wealthy, to stimulate the job market, and pass measures of fair wages to keep up with the costs of inflated living expenses.

What the Occupiers are saying is far different than changing the favoritism of government policies, far more out-reaching than individual demographic well-being.  They want a sense of responsibility to return to the corporate industry that has destabilized the global economy, endangered the world’s environment and conducted invasive wars.  They want the Corporate manifest to quit harming the global citizens.

Emergence of the New Economy

Economically, the Western World is in grave danger.  While businesses in Europe and the United States stagger under their economic debt, China is out bargain hunting.  A recent acquisition was the purchase of a well known Italian fashion brand, Cerruti, by luxury clothing retailer owned by the Hong Kong-based trading group Li & Fung.

“The interest of China is to invest in Italy and European countries in general. I suppose it’s a good opportunity to catch,” says Tiberio Graziani, analyst from the “Eurasia, Rivista di Studi Geopolitici” quarterly magazine.

It’s not just China cashing in on the faltering economies of Europe.  Three other giants stand beside it as newly developing economies; Russia, India and Brazil.  The acronym for these countries; BRIC;  has come into widespread use as a symbol of the shift in global economic power away from the developed G7 economies towards the developing world. It is estimated that BRIC economies will overtake G7 economies by 2027.

The potential of these rising powers is not lost on the analysts for Goldman Sachs.  An article in a May 2010 publication of Goldman Sachs Investment Research stated, “Our baseline projections envisage the BRICs, as an aggregate, overtaking the US by 2018. In terms of size, Brazil’s economy will be larger than Italy’s by 2020; India and Russia will individually be larger than Spain, Canada or Italy.

In the coming decade, the more striking story will be the rise of the new BRICs middle class.  In the last decade alone, the number of people with incomes greater than $6,000 and less than $30,000 has grown by hundreds of millions, and this number is set to rise even further in the next 10 years. These trends imply an acceleration in demand potential that will affect the types of products the BRICs import—the import share of low value added goods is likely to fall and imports of high value added goods, such as cars, office equipment and technology, will rise.

Building Another Cold War

More disturbing than the economic bankruptcy of the Western World is the apparent inability of its elective officials to accept it.  Instead of struggling for a solution that would recreate a self-sustaining work force, consequently an ability to contend in the global medium of exchange, the tactic has been to bully its way through, and build a massive military complex with the aid of NATO.

It was a very frustrating day for President Barrack Obama when he attended the APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit held in Honolulu late November.  His hope was to lobby for what he called a growing concern in Iran’s development as a nuclear armed nation.  According to the Huffington Post, “The United States’ vast worries about Iran grew starker with a report this week by the U.N. atomic agency that asserted in the strongest terms yet Iran is conducting secret work with the sole intent of developing nuclear arms. The U.S. claims a nuclear-armed Iran could set off an arms race among rival states and directly threaten Israel.”

Obama has an Uncomfortable Moment with Medvedev

Russia and China, both countries with strong veto powers within the U.N. were clearly not impressed.  In fact, they perceived Obama’s stand more as one of intrusion into a global monetary system that is slowly shifting to the Chinese Yuan as the leading currency.

CEO of Country Risk Solutions Daniel Wagner is quoted in Russian Times as saying  that each passing APEC forum and other events on the global stage clearly show that China is really in the driver’s seat in many respects.

BRIC representatives shake hands

“This is coming at an awkward times for the U.S., because it is clearly a declining power at the same time it is having trouble adjusting to what that means,” he told RT. “At the same time China is having a bit of a challenge adjusting to what it means to be a truly global player. And it had in the past not really lived up to some of the expectations of some other of the world powers and it is finding its own footing in that regard.”

Nor has Latin America been very impressed with US performance.  Thirty-three Latin American leaders have come together and formed a new regional bloc, pledging closer economic and political ties. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) pointedly excludes the US and Canada.

On the second day of a summit in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, all Latin American leaders, both right and left, officially signed into effect the formation of the CELAC bloc. The foundation of the bloc has been praised as the realization of the two-centuries-old idea of Latin American “independence” envisioned by Simon Bolivar.

Analysts view CELAC as an alternative to the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) and as an attempt by Latin American countries to reduce US influence in the region.

“As the years go by, CELAC is going to leave behind the old and worn-out OAS,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said at the inauguration of the bloc on Friday.

“It’s the death sentence for the Monroe Doctrine,”  Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega said.

Fifty-four percent of US taxes go to the military budget and its perceived war on terror. Three billion of this $965 billion budget goes to military housing, nine billion to NASA, nine billion to International security, and $35 billion to homeland security.  Operation and maintenance gets the largest cut at $241 billion, and procurement at $143 billion.  The United States may go down as an economic failure, but it will go down kicking and snapping its jaws.

The Arms Race is on

Which brings us back around to the question of responsibility.  For decades, the United States has wielded its power as an economically stable nation, protecting the interests of capital gain.  The capitalistic ideal has morphed into a corporate ideal and the corporations have sold us out.  Their interests will not be in helping the Western World get back on its feet, but in following the money.  What it leaves us with is a military complex just itching to wage war.

Before the flag wavers of patriotic loyalty leap to their feet, let’s consider the global scenario we are facing.  What started as peaceful negotiations with Russia for a missile defense plan that would protect both Eastern and Western Europe has deteriorated into a squabble over Russia’s inability to participate.

According to an article by Andreas Umland, Russia’s failure to become  more closely involved with the Eastern Partnership initiative is largely its own fault. The EU and some of its most important member countries, such as Germany, France and Italy, are strongly interested in substantially deepening and widening European cooperation with Russia. If Russia is ready to become “more European” with regard to both its internal and foreign policies, the entire West would be most happy to upgrade Russian-Western cooperation (if necessary, against Central-Eastern European resistance). For that, however, Russia will need to put more efforts into becoming part of the community of Western values in its domestic affairs, especially as regards genuine political pluralism and substantive rule of law. Currently, Russia is faking a multiparty system, and has again installed a de facto one-party state. Vladimir Putin’s “dictatorship of the law,” announced earlier, has so far remained unimplemented, or at least has not become reality in the way it was once hoped.”

However, Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, sees things differently.  According to him, NATO has rejected every defense proposal offered by Russia.  Permanent Representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Radio Russia, “Washington has said “no” to the Russian idea of a common missile defense network.   More telling as to the true purpose of the project, perhaps, the US also refused to give legally binding guarantees that the system would not be aimed at Russia’s strategic nuclear defenses under any circumstances.”

While Western Europe debates the legitimacy of a non-NATO member having a say in a missile defense plan along Eastern Europe’s borders, Russia has taken things in its own hands.  Announcing that it would no longer wait to join the European missile defense system, but rather take defensive and offensive initiatives to protect its citizens and preserve its sovereignty, Medvedev outlined his own measures to counter-act NATO’s my way or the highway military strategy.

One of its steps has been to launch a military partnership with its Cold War ally, Cuba.  Russian contractors have agreed to supply production equipment for manufacturing 7.62-mm rifle rounds, Kommersant daily reports. Cuban arms plant called Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara will also receive a license and technology for recycling used ammo.

The daily cites its sources as saying that Havana officials decided to purchase the equipment after visiting a similar production line in Venezuela. The insider did not reveal any details on the financial terms of the future deal, but said it was close to being sealed.

The BRIC nations; Russia, China, India and Brazil; the countries rising to the forefront as the new economy; have basically told the United States and the Western world to butt out of their affairs.  The Western countries are not only torn apart economically, but simmer with civil upheaval.  Certainly, the easiest solution is to quell discontent, to pour money into the military budget and focus the Western World on eminent war.  Is it the responsible thing to do?

Here is the moment of great decision; possibly the moment that will divide brother against brother, family against neighbor.  Will we strap on a defense budget that with certainty will lead us into a war we can’t win, into the complete destruction of our society, or will we find peaceful resolution to the problems we face?  In the interest of Homeland Security, we have erected a fence against neighbors who could have been potential allies in our struggle to regain sovereign footing.  In the interest of a European defense system that would protect Western and Eastern Europe, we have set the stage for a new  weapons build up between the West and the Eastern Nations.  In the interest of promoting a false democracy at work, independent civil rights movements have been invaded with unwanted military actions, protestors have been beaten and jailed, free press has been vilified, innocent citizens simply exercising their rights have been abused, ostracized and criminalized.

The corporations, who are people by law, are not going to take responsibility for their actions, because by all other definition, they are not people.  They have no conscience to appeal to, no single entity to be held accountable for credit card scams, real estate foreclosures, pharmaceutical malpractice, environmental pollution.  There is nobody standing up and saying, “the buck stops here.”  The governments that shield corporate interests through a militant show of power, are not going to take responsibility for the wasted use of our resources, inciting civil discord or sending our youth to war and returning them in body bags.  It’s up to the people; each and every one of us, to realize our only chance of freedom lies within ourselves.  Our only chance of rising up out of our economic ruin is through each other.  Our only chance of peace is to open the doors between the East and the West, develop communications, forget for once, it’s important to be a winner and learn what it takes to become a world citizen.

http://rt.com/news/china-investment-europe-debt-431/

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/brics/brics-decade.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/obama-hawaii-apec-economy-trade-asia_n_1089891.html
http://rt.com/news/latin-america-celac-bloc-975/

http://rt.com/news/us-china-yuan-tension-229/

http://en.rian.ru/valdai_op/20110610/164548767.html

http://rt.com/politics/us-russia-missile-defense-rogozin-nato-817/