Today, the coalition of progressive, social justice, labor and environmental organizations known as “99% Spring” posted a two-hour online training to prepare Americans for nonviolent direct action in any one of the arenas that individuals want to support in order to promote justice and opportunity in America.  This tool is available to all individuals and can be completed in less than two hours.  It need not be completed all at once.

The training can be accessed at:  http://training.the99spring.com/training/99spring/

According to the training,   “You’ll tell the story of how you’ve been impacted by the 1% economy, learn how we got here, and get the tools you need to plan an action in your own community this spring.”

15 Statements to Help Assess Your Comfort with Greed

Our society is becoming more deeply aware, thanks in part to the Occupy Wall Street movement, of the immense shift in values that has occurred over the past few decades.  America has transformed from a country being embarrassed about its private drive to “keep up with the Joneses” into a nation that flat out worships wealth.  Income growth and income disparity increasingly favor only the wealthy and it seems like everyone “wants to be a millionaire.”

But the tide may be turning.  McMansions and Hummers are becoming, to many, symbols of grotesque excess and narcissism rather than high social status.  Our relationship to greed and money deserve continued close scrutiny.  Your responses to the following statements can be a starting point for some serious deliberation about what you want our country to look like in the future.

Do you agree with the following statements?:
1.  People with motivation and a plan to become millionaires deserve success more than those who mainly just want to live a good life.

2.  It is logical for the wealthy to earn 1,000 times what an average worker earns, even when that disparity drives down wages so that average workers cannot afford to live in a middle class neighborhood and send their children to college.

3.  People are essentially rational, making choices based on their own long-term self interests.

4.  The conservative “free market” ideology is built upon a true understanding of how markets work, and not a scam put together by the ambitious to justify their greed.

5.  Poor people are generally lazy and/or stupid and don’t deserve the good things in life.

6.  I can spend tens of thousands on elective cosmetic surgery without feeling ashamed of how narcissistic that is.

7.  God wants everyone to be filthy stinking rich.

8.  It is fine to make large profits from wars.

9.  There is nothing wrong with lying, cheating and stealing as long as you don’t get caught.

10.  I deserve all the money I can possibly get, and don’t care if others don’t have the basic necessities of life.

11.  People who are wealthy deserve a dominant voice in running this country because they know how to manage people and make money.

12.  Life is all about competition; dog eat dog, and survival of the fittest.

13.  The American Dream is the 1% and not the “middle class”.

14.  What’s good for the wealthy is good for America.

15.  We need to take care of our individual needs.  The earth will be just fine.

Interpreting your score – The number of statements you agreed with:

13-15=Certifiable Greedy Bastard.  Thanks for taking this test, Donald Trump!

10-12=Not Yet Ready for Immense Wealth.  Read some Ayn Rand for more inspiration!

8-9=Greedy Wannabee.  Get with the program and don’t worry so much about being kind or fair to people.  They need to stay out of your way.

5-7=Cheap Imitation.  Consider a career in sales, racketeering or marketing.

3-4=Business Failure.  You are far away from being good at business.  Work harder or you will continue to fail miserably.  What’s the point of being nice?

0-2=Agent of Change.  Just be patient.  The meek will inherit the earth, although the greedy bastards always leave a horrible mess to clean up!

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to spread and grow, we are seeing a generational shift of leadership to those of you in your 20’s and 30’s.  I think it is time for a new conversation between the young people of today and their parents, the baby boom generation.  We need to talk about how the legacy of the “Greatest Generation” the aging generation of World War II, has led our nation to the sorry state of affairs we are experiencing today.

Ever since journalist Tom Brokaw canonized the generation of those who fought in World War II as our Greatest Generation, appropriate tributes have come in for this noble generation of elders for their sacrifices and accomplishments.  The veterans who fought in World War II have been honored and praised as their numbers diminish, and deservedly so.   However, in our efforts to respect our elders, there may be a tendency to idealize this generation with reverence, which I believe was reflected in the recent Washington Post editorial by Thomas Day, a young man discussing his disillusionment and decrying the current lack of leadership in the baby boom generation.

It is natural for a new generation to typecast and blame their parents’ generation for the challenges they, our nation and our world, face.  That’s what my generation did to its emotionally absent, conformist, pro-big corporation and government generation of fathers and its frustrated, not-yet-full-citizen generation of mothers.  While this is not the time for blame, or pitting one person or group against another, it seems that there are intergenerational issues that need to be discussed and clarified if we are to move forward together as a nation.

At this time, I believe that those in their 20’s and 30’s today should hear baby boom perspectives on the history of this past century.  Let’s look in greater detail at the generations of your grandparents and great grandparents.  It would be a mistake to focus only on the “greatest generation” and use them as a yardstick for all others.

The “greatest generation” emerged from the depths of the Great Depression and the austerity of World War II.  After assimilation into the authoritarian bureaucracy of wartime, they rode the greatest wave of economic growth and prosperity the world had ever seen.  They rode post-war waves of real estate prices and stock market prices soaring up and up and up. Most of them had already significantly cashed out of the housing market by the time the real estate bubble burst in 2008, still far ahead of the game.

As they began to age, the “greatest generation” was ensured that they would not have to endure the severe poverty in old age that many of their parents had experienced.  They were, indeed, protected by their parents’ generation’s creation of a social safety net:  the GI Bill, Social Security, collective bargaining rights, workers’ compensation, fair labor standards, government regulation of financial institutions, and disability benefits.  The “greatest generation” did not win those entitlements during the war.  Their parent’s generation had won them in the 1920’s-1940’s.

The “greatest generation” prospered throughout the long period of post-World War II growth and prosperity.  However, they did so without questioning the destruction of our environment and the creation of a global American empire by special interests who promoted wars throughout the world, including Korea, Viet Nam, the Persian Gulf and Iraq.  They did not heed General Eisenhower’s stern warning about the growing danger presented by the Military-Industrial Complex.  The silent majority exposed their children’s generation to self-destructive wars based upon their knee-jerk conditioning to follow orders – at times wrapping themselves in the flag, claiming patriotism, and ridiculing the anti-war movement, nodding with approval as “dirty, lazy hippies” and “subversive” civil right protestors were beaten.

The “greatest generation’s” ‘silent majority’ worked and voted against the environmental movement and failed to support the rights of minorities and women, also seriously neglecting our Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.  They supported and fueled the rise of fundamentalism in America.  By the 1980’s, the “Greatest Generation” supported President Reagan’s lowering of our nation’s tax rates on wealthy individuals and corporations and the dismantling of the financial regulations separating the banks from the stock market, a crucial safety measure installed after the Great Depression.

They wanted us to ‘buy American,’ but empowered corporations and multinationals to eliminate restrictions against monopolies, generally opening the doors to short-term corporate profits furthering the out-sourcing of millions of American jobs overseas.  They bought the whole “free market mania” of Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan and lined up to invest their money in a “can’t fail” stock market seeded with our mushrooming consolidations and monopolies that would make their parents’ generation spin in their graves.

The “greatest generation” has been adamant about minimizing the nation’s social safety net, education, help for immigrants and the poor, and the arts, for those who would follow them, because “we” could no longer afford such luxuries.  They voted for George W. Bush and later disproportionately joined the Tea Party, claiming that the country was “broke” because taxes were still too high – so that they could keep their record low tax rates.  The “greatest generation,” many of whom risked their lives to fight fascism, had become convinced that the true evils in the world were liberals, socialists and humanists, not fascism and corporate greed.

Today, those over 65 hold far more wealth than their children’s or grandchildren’s generations, according to the Pew Research Center. Not only were they the “greatest generation” in following orders and winning the war effort, but they were great at acclimating to bureaucracy and furthering the interests of the burgeoning corporate dinosaurs that dominate our nation.  Yes, there are many great things about the generation of World War II.  However they are also a generation that was bestowed with many gifts, some of which they squandered for the sake of corporate profits to keep the stock market flying high, tax breaks for the wealthy and relentless protection of their own entitlements, while eroding the safety net for everyone else.

The baby boom generation struggled to assert the values that are being re-discovered today by Occupy Wall Street.  Ask us about the 1960’s.  Ask us about our struggles in bringing Eastern philosophy, cultural diversity, environmental values, civil rights, gender equality and corporate responsibility into American culture.  Ask our Viet Nam Veterans about how this nation abandoned them, and about their quest for justice and healing.  As the boomer generation about the Viet Nam draft and how the draft was ended because the baby boom generation would not allow its children to be conscripted into unjust, profit-driven wars, as we were.

Ask, please, before you assume that we failed to live up to the “greatest generation.”  Talk to us.  We’re ready to see you step up and lead, but learn your lessons well, and don’t idealize anyone’s generation, including your own.  We’re all a mixed bag, easily corrupted by power and privilege, just trying to find our way in a changing and complex world, barely aware that we share this wondrous but finite planet with people of many different cultures and with countless other species.

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Earon S. Davis is a writer, blogger, college professor and professional Bodyworker.  He has three children ages 25-30 and is a former lawyer and environmental health activist, stay-at-home-Dad and consultant.  Earon is working on a project called “Divine Primates:  Hope for Our Stressed-Out Species” http://divineprimates.com and can also be found at http://linkedin.com/in/earon

Ideologies are systems of rationalization, abstractions removed from real life.  One could assert that democracy could never work, or that feudalism would always work, that fascism was evil or good.  Libertarianism could be the fuel of anarchy.  Liberalism could be more evil than Socialism.  Communism could be more thoughtful than conservatism.  Ideology, therefore, is prejudice about what can work and what can’t.  It is based upon belief and self-selected bits of experience.

What if we all dropped our ideologies and re-founded the United States of America.  Just take all of our notions about what couldn’t possibly work – what is evil – and put them aside in favor of experimenting – just as the founders of America did?  New ideas can’t really work – until they somehow do.  The notion of a federation of autonomous states had not been considered by the new world colonies.  It had, however, been tried, quite successfully, by American Indians, who formed a federation in the Northeastern States – that was noticed and studied by Benjamin Franklin.  An audacious idea, by looking at the real world around him, Franklin saw that it could work, which gave him the courage to ask others to try it.

Could America work without a Federal Reserve Bank?  Could America work with severe restrictions on the rights of corporations and multinationals?  Could America work with different local cultures, some that allowed guns and others that prohibited them?  Across the world, there are groups of people who specialize in hunting and military defense, and others who specialize in the arts, or diplomacy.  Some groups specialize in spiritual and religious practices.  Some groups are political and others are not.  Yet, they can all get along.  The don’t have to become homogenized.

Could America work if each region had its own characteristics and there were variations allowed so that there was no one national standard for local governance?  Could we have regions that are dominated by religion and others that are dominated by intellectualism?  Of course, there do need to be some basic standards, but I wonder where the line needs to be drawn.  Perhaps we should vote with our feet more often, moving to regions that meet our needs rather than trying to change those that don’t.  Isn’t that how San Francisco and New York became refuges for gay people, why big cities became refuges for minorities, why smaller town have become sanctuaries for guns and fundamentalism?

This whole idea of the melting pot, which was taught and idealized in the 1950’s and 1960’s has by now been definitively disproven.  Humans actually need cultural diversity but it doesn’t need to create inequality and discrimination.  Back in the day, the States were laboratories for political and cultural experimentation.  Yes, States are rather easily corrupted, and often squash diversity in much the same way as the Federal government is accused of.

But there are other ways to arrange and share power in a country.  Regional differences may be more important than States, with regions having autonomy that States currently can not fathom.  Agricultural regions are different from Mega-Cities.  Resort communities are different from University towns.  Experimentation is going on all over.  We just don’t notice it – because we are used to looking through the lens of ideology – seeing things in black and white – rather than in the multiple hues of diverse human culture.

Let’s try to gently move away from ideology – each of us.  Perhaps we cannot envision reorganizing the political structure of our nation, breaking it down regionally into bottom-up congressional districts and regions making up States – rather than having State and Federal governments homogenizing local areas top-down.  But I think that we can refocus our politics on home rule districts eventually, with taxes being collected by these districts, and allocations trickling up to the State and then Federal governments.

Could Liberals sign on to this change in perspective?  Are they truly insisting on having a huge, top-down Federal government running everything?  Perhaps that was the case at one time, but it has encouraged the current culture war that ultimately threatens to destroy this nation.  Could conservatives sign on to this change in perspective?  Are they truly insisting on having a Federal government small enough that it can be drowned in a bath tub?  Perhaps the growth of the Federal government has yielded important benefits we want to keep – and promoting a culture war is akin to the secessionism that nearly destroyed our nation in the 1860’s.

Perhaps we’re all tired of corrupt State governments battling with a corrupt Federal government, while corporations run amok and small businesses suffer.  Can we downsize the Federal government without downsizing corporations so they can no longer dominate both State and Federal governments?  Perhaps it is time for a new American Constitutional Convention – to gather the best of all of our diverse peoples and talk about our problems and how we might be able to address them in a way that builds unity and understanding.  Perhaps this is impossible, but it is long overdue, and we all know that the United States of America was always impossible – until it happened.

Common Ground Between Conservatives and Liberals.  Can You Feel it Growing?

by Earon Davis

Too often, Liberals are so concerned with freedom for those conspicuously being abused by society that we forget to protect our own rights from erosion by corporate controlled government.  Corporations are all about efficiency – and in a large way, personal freedom and business or government efficiency are inversely proportional.  Business efficiency squeezes the life out of us – unless we can push back – which Unions had been good at, before they were weakened by conservatives, who are so aligned with corporations that they, too forget to protect our own rights.

The middle ground between liberals and conservatives may well be recognition that we get along well in society until we are pressed to hard, forced to give up too much freedom, told that our dreams just don’t count – and that as hard as we work, it just isn’t enough to earn a decent living.  Corporations and governments team together to herd us into tall buildings and factories and expect us to be efficient.  But, deep down, we are animals – not so unlike our cousins the chimpanzees, who are truly loving and cute – until they just get pissed off and bite off someone’s face, or pull out someone’s arms.

We are primates, not machines.  We can work on assembly lines or on computers all day, but we need to be rewarded with less stressed lives and improved lives for our children, a strong future for our nation.  That’s not what’s happening today.  We’ve got a whole lot of seething rage deep within us, whether it is right-wing anger at the government or left-wing anger at corporations – both of which blend together neatly if we dare let go of our ideological brainwashing long enough.

Liberals often draw the line in symbolic areas, like racial, sexual or gender equality and alcohol.  Conservatives often draw the line in symbolic areas like guns, religion and State’s rights – and alcohol.  It is so unfortunate that these sides are fighting with each other rather than fighting together to limit intrusions of government and corporations into our lives.  One of my conservative friends told me that they really were concerned more about their rights as citizens – not about the rights of State government.  One of my liberal friends told me that they don’t care if people in small towns and rural areas walk around with guns.  We don’t really have a beef with each other – unless we’re all being victimized and stressed-out by Republicans and Democrats who are working for corporations and not people.

I think that’s what OccupyWallStreet is showing us.  We have a common enemy.  The military-industrial-complex, the medical-industrial complex, and all of the tentacles by which government and industry have been so entwined that they carry on with a life of their own – seeking efficiencies and growth for their bottom line at the expense of human freedom, health, liberty and community.

America’s founders did well when they separate government and religion.  We will do even better when we separate government from corporations and honor the real people, the noble human primates, who are what America is all about – we the people.  Don’t tread on me.  When corporate and government memes enter the greedy little brains of the elite corporate and government bureaucrats and control freaks charged with taming humans and making us more efficient – we need to stand up together and slap these pseudo-humans back into reality.

Come on, dudes, you aren’t any better than anyone else.  You really don’t have the answers.  You’re just greedy baboons with attitude problems.  You’re just playing king of the hill, hoarding bananas from the rest of us.  Stop it.  We’re on to you.  And you’re getting us all really pissed off.

There is no Tea Party.  It is a diffuse movement without leaders.  It is generally very socially conservative, and it has galvanized anger at government as its theme.  Of course, there is plenty to be upset about, especially since government has been corrupted by those who are running the Tea Party.  So the Tea Party is funded and managed by fat-cat elites and they don’t have the same interests as Joe six-pack.

They want to dismantle our government to generate more profits for them, not to give you more opportunities to pursue the American Dream, not to give you more freedom, nor to offer those freedoms to our future generations.  So, they’ll let you have all the guns you want, all the televangelist churches you want, all the freedom you want to blame illegal immigrants, blacks, jews and gays for everything that is wrong.

In exchange, they’ll take away government programs that provide a safety net to all of us, rich and poor alike.  So, no more social security, medicare, medicaid, public schools, etc.  And, don’t expect to have a job – unless you want to move to China or India.  They won’t give you minimum wage, Joe.  There won’t be a minimum wage.

You’ll be one helluva angry mess when you realize that you’ve given away your heritage as an American, and the American Dream just to express your frustration and to be able to carry a concealed gun and have criminals executed.  You’ll be able to talk about the good old days, just a bit, when you go to work in your nice little corporate cubicle or assembly work station, happy to have your $4 an hour job, with your corporate employer aware of every keystroke on your computer, every word you whisper from your work station.  No freedom of speech at work, Joe!  Nobody to protect your health, your environment, your rights, Joe!  And there is no Tea Party to turn to for help, or to get back your freedom, Joe.  Remember, there is no Tea Party.

Yesterday, according to numerous news sources, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, John Boehner, told America that “job creators in America are on strike.”  In Labor terms, that might be called a “lockout” rather than a “strike.”  This is startling language to be used by the leader of the Republicans in Congress – and someone in the presidential line of succession.

Boehner seems to be confirming that this is not a simple market aberration or an actual economic decision on the part of America’s wealthy and wealthy corporations.  Instead, according to portfolio.com, “Businesses aren’t hiring or expanding because they see “a triple threat” of excessive regulation, a tax code that discourages investment, and “a spending binge” that has led to a federal debt crisis, Boehner said.”

I’m not sure whether this is an explanation of what has randomly occurred purely due to economic factors or a plan of extortion by the privileged elites or of an insurrection in which the wealthy and wealthy corporations are intentionally withholding investment in our economy because they want to force a dismantling of  the American systems of financial and economic regulation that keep our nation safe – essentially rendering America a tax-free zone for the economic elites to run amok – and erasing President Obama’s re-election chances as well as those of Congressional Democrats.  I’m not alleging that this insurrection is yet violent, but it is looking more like extremists are trying to avoid the “mistake” made by Henry Ford during the depression when he decided not to use his huge army to take over the depression-weakened American government – but allowed FDR to save our economy with programs that right-wing extremists still desperately seek to dismantle (e.g., Social Security).

I’d like a Congressional investigation to look into whether the reasons for this “strike” of business is economic or political.  To be sure, this is an incredibly difficult task.  But the question must be asked.  Is this simple economics or is it the triumphant return of the John Birch Society?  Is it economics or an elite “going Galt.”  This latter reference is to the hero of Ayn Rand’s in “Atlas Shrugged,” who, confronted with regulations and taxes, decided to stop participating in the economy and just sit and wait until the system collapsed.  In our economy today, we need capital to create jobs.  Are the wealthy and wealthy corporations just wimps sitting on their money – or have they “gone Galt?”

There have been epochs in history during which many political and cultural revolutions (and “revivals”) have occurred.  The rioting in Great Britain may be showing us what can happen when a potential revolt caused by the realization that working people are being screwed by corporate-driven public policies is not nurtured as a social movement and instead turns to rioting and is aborted before it had a chance to find a democratic voice.

Many revolts result in the demonizing of those who act, and often give impetus to even more repressive governments.    I’ll need a historian to help us with this.  We don’t think much about those – the ones that failed.   Is this what happened in Britian?  Was social unrest brought to a boil too soon?   Are we all in the midst of a massive human phenomenon similar to stampeding cattle?  A planet full of people milling about with a deep (but ill-defined) sense of dis-ease, being overstimulated by sights and sounds (like video games and computers ) until we just need to fight – flee – to change – to tear down.  Rationality wears so thin that it doesn’t even serve as window-dressing; civility evaporates and we line up behind slick, ignorant, sociopathic people as our leaders.

In the US, if you tell people their social security retirement is a lie, that government is the source of all evil (when they already know that corporations are controlling every aspect of their lives) that our global economy is leaving us to compete with workers from China and India, and that global environment degradation led by corporate greed is going to destroy our civilization, wouldn’t one expect people to be pushed over to the irrational side – and to mindless violence and looting?  Or, perhaps, we can get past the T Party rage and see how it is misdirected and counterproductive.

The saddest commentary, though, goes beyond the fact that massive fear and depression building a sense of hopelessness are being precipitated/funded by industrial and financial elites (with a drum-beat driven by corporate media like Fox”News”), who have covered themselves by hedging and selling America short and stashing their profits overseas, so they can bail out and leave at their leisure. I am left with the disquieting concern that perhaps this is exactly what the powerful elites want – because it will give them complete and utter control over the resources of the world, which includes its people.

Who said that maniacal world conquest was for governments?   Is it becoming the perceived destiny of multinational corporations to herald a return to feudalism as they emerge as War Lords in a government-neutered, privatized, market-driven world?  We need to keep the peace among those who are being victimized – by giving them hope and a voice through our democratic institutions, just as has been done by the valiant coalition of politicians, citizens and organized labor in Wisconsin.

So, this is the revolution that is going on, precipitated by either the ignorance, greed and insensitivity – or the intent of some of our ruling elites (I’m definitely excluding Warren Buffet from that list.  There are many principled, decent wealthy people in America!)  There is a reaction brewing, especially in Europe, where people seem to know they are being used and abused by the corporatocracy.  In the US, we have the Rebuild the American Dream movement, but it is just beginning.  Will there be time and leadership for a true political movement to develop, to identify those who are causing our most serious problems – or merely the disorganized stampeding of angry people that plays into the hands of those instigating discontent?  Many T Party candidates are hoping to stimulate fear and mistrust – that’s their ticket to election victory – and the ticket to losing our country.  I hope that you will stand up against the forces of ignorance and greed by working to Rebuild the American Dream.

Earon Davis is a journalist and advocate for a sustainable future, with degrees in law and public health.

by Earon S. Davis, JD, MPH