As a child of the 1950s and ‘60s I cannot help but see flashes of Vietnam in Empire’s latest – hopefully its final – military expedition(s). Social media platforms and television propaganda maintain a persistent numbness. Institutional and individual indifference breeds a hunger for bread and circuses, football, Disneyland, talk shows and star-spangled “influencers,” who excrete toxic slime from every crack and crevice. The system now occupies every square inch of terrain. Bureaucrats, bored out of their minds, nevertheless read the latest memo from Washington directing street operations programmed to steer the “hive mind” hither and yon, round and round, to a place called nowhere.
It’s hard aimless work averting eyeballs — already robbed of their gaze — day in, day out, away from the wretched, inhumane global slave quarters and killing zones where pillage of the last untrammeled forests, grasslands, and scenic vistas produce commodities and emerging, synthetic “Green” markets needed to keep the insatiable machines, financial schemes and meaningless political simulations from totally melting down. Down this road is one logical end: suicide.
Continue reading “Resolution for 2023: Decolonize, de-imperialize, and restore sovereignty”
As a care provider for high-functioning disabled people, I workwith clients in their homes and am mostly unsupervised. One of my clients, concerned about ordinary sniffles, went to a convenience clinic for a covid test and received a “positive” result. My immediate supervisor texted me saying I needed to get tested too. I texted back a polite no. An hour later, the next-in-command texted me with the same message: I “needed” to get tested. My response was even more polite. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to do that.” At the time, I was at the client’s house, so I asked the supervisor if I needed to leave. I was prepared to get fired. He didn’t respond, but twenty minutes later, my immediate supervisor texted me on an unrelated matter, as if nothing had happened.
Piece of Mindful 