The Journey of EL and Asherah

from ancient Canaan to modern times

Long ago in a land called Canaan the people there worshipped EL, God Most High, and His wife, Asherah, the Great Mother and Lady of the Sea. On earth they were said to have lived where two rivers met on the coastlands. They were happy on earth and the land EL had fashioned and Asherah had nurtured. They had many children who squabbled amongst themselves competing for EL and Asherah’s attention and benevolence.

These children behaved themselves for the most part but these were also ancient times and the law of the jungle and desert was still fresh in everyone’s mind. That is everyone but Mom and Dad, or Asherah and EL who being the highest representatives of the invisible Holy One, knew better ways of dealing with the problems of life in Creation.

EL had watched how His wild and domesticated animals behaved in their herds, flocks and packs and noticed most human beings followed much the same patterns only human beings clothed their animal behavior patterns so it seemed at first something different. But it wasn’t different at all. EL watched male wolves battle for control of the pack and saw the same thing in the way aggressive human males conducted politics and war.

EL watched but didn’t judge because that was what animal life was like without knowledge of good and evil. Tooth and claw and no mercy from the strong for the weak or meek. EL wisely understood that this animal way could not continue with humanity that He had created with Asherah of the waters for He and She wanted human beings to evolve to become one with them on earth as it is in heaven where They came from.

EL decided to educate humanity on how to overcome their animal natures so that peace and not violence ruled in human society. He told them through the mouths of seers and prophets, "Here is what pleases US. This physical world We have fashioned for the education of your souls has a fatal flaw. Physical life is dependent on death to carry on. No new life is created without the death of life somewhere else. The physical requirements for maintaining the living require the death of other living beings.

Given the true situation that death and suffering are inevitable in Creation, what can be done? EL responded and set in motion a set of guidelines for reducing unnecessary violence in the physical world. Later on He offered humanity what only a God can offer: eternal life after physical death, eternal life in heaven where the Holy One has Its spiritual and everlasting home.
EL began the spiritual education of His children in Canaan. He showed them that in order for there to be peace in the land society must be governed by the wise and compassionate just as He ruled the Divine Assembly of gods and goddesses with wisdom and compassion. An earthly king would become His son in spirit when that earthly king mirrored EL’s mercy and forgiveness and taught his subjects the truth about all things that effected human relationships with one another and with the community of life on earth.

Because EL was God Most High yet did not act like a tyrant like gods did who lacked compassion and wisdom, the Canaanites loved EL, calling Him the Compassionate One, the Merciful One, the Kindly One as well as the Father of Humanity. And the Canaanites loved His wife, Asherah, just as much devoting much prayer at shrines dedicated to Her worship. To them She was the Tree of Life on which all life was dependent.

She too held wisdom and when the time came that the memory of EL and Asherah were to be lost for many centuries after the fall of Canaan to the Hebrews, both EL and Asherah disguised Themselves and found a way into the new Hebrew religion with its own desert war god, Yahweh. EL became the generic word for "God" and some, not all, but some of EL’s compassion and wisdom was attached to Yahweh who originally was only one of the lower gods and spiritual sons of EL.

Having some of EL’s spiritual wisdom in him, Yahweh grew conceited and thought himself as the Creator and one and only God. Yahweh taught the Hebrews to bury the Canaanite memory of EL but that memory was too strong to forget and it resurfaced in the Hebrew religion as the Messianic prophesy of Immanuel, which means "EL is with us".

Asherah was attacked as a Goddess and so She went into Her Canaanite icon disguise as the Tree of Life in the Hebrew religious epic. Perhaps as a tree the Hebrews would not recognize the Great Goddess. And they didn’t, passing the Tree of Life story through the whole Hebrew epic which became part of the later Christian epic as well.

While the Hebrews would not allow Her presence as the Great Goddess they did not notice Her presence in two spiritual daughters, the Shekkinah and Sophia, both carriers of the wisdom of Asherah to the minds of human beings who listened with their hearts.

A dramatic change happened 2000 years ago when a man named Jesus was born to become a new son of EL, a son so spiritually close to EL he became known as the Son of God. Jesus resurrected the wisdom and compassion of EL buried for centuries under the worship of Yahweh. This was the fulfillment of the prophesy of the Messiah as Immanuel, that EL would return to humanity to give it the spiritual comfort of knowing "EL is with us" as the Messiah, the anointed one who carries the Spirit of Christ which continued the kindness and wisdom of EL instead of the heavy judgment and demand for absolute obedience that the war-god Yahweh could not rise above.

EL was always known as God Most High and for good reason. Only EL knew love is not love if it demands conditions. EL learned this wisdom by being married to the Great Mother for it is the unconditional love mothers have always been known for. Jesus as the good Son of God also gave the world this spiritual message of unconditional love the Holy One’s highest spiritual representatives, EL and Asherah, had shown the world in ancient Canaan.

Humanity, however, at that time, 2000 years ago, was still too immature to accept this Son of God, Jesus as he himself taught the things his heavenly Father taught him. The Hebrews had him killed for claiming himself a son of God even though their own scriptures foretold this would happen. Jesus taught us to follow him ourselves to likewise becoming faithful sons and daughters of the Holy One but the Hebrews and their masters, the Romans did not want to hear it.
Jesus was killed and later on lesser men intervened and changed the message of Jesus from EL, changed that message of compassion, wisdom and forgiveness, into a message from Yahweh, love only those who love Yahweh instead of loving all, even those who do not love you in return.
Yahweh had never learned about unconditional love because he was never married to the Great Mother, the representative of the unconditional love of the Holy One for all humanity. EL taught Jesus to respect the wisdom of women, something the followers of Yahweh could not comprehend until history of societies proved the wisdom was true: it is women who hold the keys to peace for the vast majority of violence done by human beings is done by men.

But this knowledge was not known and even when known was not accepted. EL and Asherah still had to hide Themselves because the people could not accept them as They were--the spiritual models of humanity in the fullest sense of that word while the people were still in bondage to their animal behavioral patterns where the strong and ruthless ruled as lords over the weak. Even now, 2000 years later the Meek still await the time when they will inherit the earth from the grasp of violent men.

But how did EL and Asherah disguise Themselves so well that They are with us today and have been for several hundred years? This is how: EL was imagined in ancient Canaan as an old man with long flowing hair and beard. EL dressed Himself up in the colors of Asherah, white, red and black which symbolized His connection to Her in Her three forms as virgin, mother and crone symbolizing birth, life and death. EL became the embodiment of the giving Spirit of Christ and eternal life with the Holy One, the greatest gift humankind could possibly receive. EL, the Kindly One, disguised Himself as kindly Santa Claus and the Spirit of Christmas cheer.

Asherah, still in Her disguise as the Tree of Life became the nine-candlestick Menorah for the Jews and the Paradise Tree for the Christians. You will find Her in millions of homes again celebrating Passover and the birth of Jesus who manifested his spiritual parent’s wisdom and loving-kindness. Little Nativity scenes are in millions of homes beneath Asherahs we call Menorahs and Christmas trees.

Noël, Noël. Know EL, the Heavenly Father and you might want to become one of His helping "elves"". Remember Asherah, the Tree of Life with Her baby Jesus tucked safely underneath Her fir branch skirt. The Holy One doesn’t want us to forget our heavenly parents.

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Next, the story of how Asherah’s daughter, Astarte or Ishtar, also managed to come all the way through from ancient Canaan to modern times by concealing Her worship within the Christian Easter celebration of Jesus’ spiritual resurrection from the dead.

* * *

EL, the White Bull of Heaven in Old World symbolism, becomes known as Wakan Tanka, the White Buffalo of the New World. EL was with the paleo-indians who came from Siberia as raindeer people over the connecting land bridge to North America, there to become caribou people in the north and farther south, buffalo people of the North American plains. Through the spiritual connection of the Vision of Christ Josephine with the Lakota prophesy of the Return of White Buffalo Calf Woman, the Spirit of EL a.k.a. Grandfather a.k.a. Wakan Tanka, has completed the Sacred Hoop, the Sacred Circle, uniting the Old World with the New World for the New Millennium*

AP News Update 12/23/02
In a room crowded with reporters Odin the God publicly announced his filing suit against EL for claiming to be the inspiration behind Santa Claus. Odin bases his case on two main points: 1) the resemblance he shows to Saint Nicklaus, long beard and hair and all, but that argument applies also to EL's appearance and even Father Time alias the Ancient of Days and the Grime Reaper. But then Odin brought out his winning card he said smiling a huge grimace to the press: his flying eight-legged horse which he says "obviously inspired the flying eight reindeers that pulled Santa through the air.

The logic of his argument would have had more impact, however, if he hadn't pulled out the spear he always carried and hurled it at a woman in the audience who claimed the poetry he sent her was derivative. Luckily Odin missed in his rage and was then seized by police and hauled off to jail. The turbulent scene would have quieted down after Odin's arrest except another woman identifying herself as Mrs. Santa Claus said she was filing divorce papers against Santa for two-timing her with Asherah..some people were heard muttering about the soap operas these gods get into..

* * *

David Cobb--another Texan come to exploit Humboldt County

One Texan came to Humboldt County to exploit under-harvested old growth trees in order to get rich. Another Texan came to exploit community conflict in order to obtain political office.

Mr. Cobb writes his opinions in the Times-Standard with words one has seen used over and over again in the last 20 years by enviros attacking Pacific Lumber Company's owner out of Texas. One can only wonder why one man in Texas arouses so much animosity among Lefties but I guess a Great Satan is needed to mount a religious war which is what environmental activists actions amount to--certainly environmental protection or common sense doesn't enter their social change equation as witness the continuing failure of activist actions to stop the man in Texas from doing more or less what he wanted too all along with his Humboldt County land.

If environmental protection activism were a business, it would be bankrupt by now but unfortunately, environmental protection activism is not a business but more like a religion with religion's tendency to mistake myths for facts. A business cannot succeed when it's business plan doesn't work. But enviros "succeed" even when they lose because they don't have to win the hearts and minds of the general public, only the hearts and minds of counterculture and liberals who pony up the money that keeps enviro orgs going despite lack of success. It's a win-win situation for enviro activists and their orgs. They couldn't lose even when they did lose. "Well, we lost that court case (as if enviros ever willing admitted losing court cases) because the judge was in Maxxam's pocket. Give us more money and we'll defeat them next time.." Meanwhile old growth trees continued to be cut.

Said before and will say again, if a tenth of the effort put into enviro protest against Maxxam were put into figuring out how to regain PL back into local ownership, Palco would be our community's. But heck, actually resolving environmental conflicts is not fun for serious conflict addicts, the like of which comprise the majority of activists in Humboldt County.

Why "Communities for Peace" is a farce

Ellen Taylor often writes in our local papers promoting "peace" and "communities of peace" but her idea of "peace" means Leftist "peace" because every chance she gets she pushes the Leftist social war agenda such as she just did with her recent letter in the Northcoast Journal.

In total hypocrisy, she fans social war in Humboldt County while claiming to stand for "communities 0f peace". Like her political partner, Ken Miller, she is throwing gasoline on the community conflict over the EDP's killing of Chris Burgess in hopes of making the police look bad because the police in Humboldt County invariably side against political activists when activists break the law. It is textbook Leftist ideology to link police with capitalists so police are almost always targets for Leftist ideologues as is the case with Ms. Taylor and Mr. Miller.

But involving herself in the Leftist political war here in Humboldt County that divides our community instead of uniting it, Ms. Taylor makes a mockery of "peace communities". Real peace work requires lifting off the political blinders to ethical action. You can't represent peace and engage in social war at the same time.

The Solar Rail System

Imagine the highways and freeways gone. No cars, no trucks, no exhaust pollution, no noise pollution, no dead animals lying on the sides of the road. Imagine no huge Cal-Trans budget and tax burden because the roads are gone. Imagine no more CHP tickets and no more fossil fuel cars. Imagine all the money saved if California had a state-wide mass transit system that fueled itself with electricity generated by the Sun. Imagine the thousands of acres of highway road beds turned into forests and organic farms and quiet villages where people and animals can safely cross underneath a quiet electro-magnetic monorail system where the monorail itself contains a thousands of miles long solar collecting system that catches, stores, and releases electricity from the sun supplying all the power needed to run both passenger and freight monorail trains throughout California. This is the future. This is the promise of the Solar Rail System for the 21st Century. I came up with the Solar Rail concept in 1976 and in 1980 went to a Solar Energy Fair in Ukiah or Willits to promote the notion as it was a new concept then and seems to be still new. Somebody had thought of solar powered flatcars on tracks but that's as far as it went. The solar monorail idea needs to be pursued.

Zionists remain in full control of the U.S. government

"When the news broke last week that former President Jimmy Carter is set to release a book highly critical of Israel, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi quickly issued a statement denouncing the views of her fellow Democrat. “With all due respect,” Pelosi declared in a written statement, “he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel.”

Pelosi, the San Francisco lawmaker who is poised to become speaker of the House of Representatives if the Democrats win control of Congress, spoke out after reading excerpts from an advanced draft of the book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
Officials at Jewish organizations in Washington said this week that the minority leader’s attack on Carter is in line with what they describe as a straight-A record on Israel. Still, Pelosi has struggled to convince many activists in the pro-Israel community that she is not the “San Francisco liberal” her GOP critics portray her to be. And Republicans have been arguing that their best, perhaps only, hope of hanging on to the House is to convince voters that Pelosi would be a weak wartime leader."

Day of the Dead

Posted on Eric's, sniff, popular blog, and reposted here:

Eric, you say you are an atheist. I'm posting the report below as an small example of spiritual events that happen in my life that tell me God is alive and well and is still quietly running the show, the complete shebang from top to bottom, inside out, from birth to death, from Big Bang beginning to Black Hole annihilation.
***

This is the Day of the Dead. In honor of my departed mother and my wonderful daughter who share this birthday and in quiet honor to the Creator who guided me on this day to do the fifth sanctifying ritual that created Paxcalibur, God's Gift to humanity and the most amazing sword ever seen on earth.

From the Story of Paxcalibur-

The fifth step of the Paxcalibur ritual was not a baptism per se. It was done on the Day the Dead, All Souls Day (Nov. 2nd) of this year, 2001. It was performed on Indian Island in our county, the site of one of America's largest but little known massacres of Native American peoples and of the most gruesome ones.

I asked for and received permission from the Wiyot tribe to go to their former religious ceremonial island site that was invaded in 1860 by a white settler death squad which butchered nearly 200 Wiyot women, children and old men. The able-bodied men had left before, thinking the settlers were looking for them only and wouldn't harm innocent women and children.

This massacre and the Indian War period in California during the 1860's created a Holocaust for local tribes that still reverberates to this day. Tribes were extinguished all together, tribal lands taken, tribal languages lost, artifacts taken, and survivors mixed together into artificially created new tribes destroying tribal identities.

Paxcalibur, a weapon that has never been used as such will not be baptized here but was allowed to "taste" the old blood soaked soil of Indian Island where this tragedy of warfare occurred. Pax was stuck into the old blood-soaked ground of Indian Island to form a grave marker cross while a prayer for the dead and the living was given.

This fifth Paxcalibur ritual along with the 5th baptism in the Jordan River is symbolic of the death of the 4th World and birth of the 5th World in Hopi prophesy

-from the Pax miracles list

So, altogether, over 18,000 acres of forest land and coastal land has been preserved forever at three out of the four sites the Paxcalibur ritual was performed. And there may be more as the former Director of Sanctuary Forest was so impressed by Pax's record when I told him about it he asked me to do the ritual for another disputed land site of some 3500 acres.

July 1, 2004 Update:

A big step towards the full return of Indian Island to the Wiyot people happened on June 25th of this year when the City of Eureka turned over 40 acres of the island to the Wiyot tribe.

Here is a local newsmagazine photo of happy Wiyots with Indian Island in the background. The Paxcalibur ritual was done on Indian Island Nov. 2nd, 2001.

The Wiyot people have worked hard to reclaim Indian Island and they are the ones who should receive credit for this property transference. But I don't think Old Man Above, the Wiyot concept of God the Father, has forgotten them at all.

Leave the hills alone

There can be no doubt that of all the land sub-dividers in Humboldt County Bob McKee is king and is single-handedly responsible for bringing into Humboldt County thousands of people seeking to realize their “back-to-the-land” dreams.

I would have been one of these people had I not fairly early on discovered the “other side” homesteading in Humboldt County, the side that homesteaders rarely want to talk about which is the ecological destruction to wildlife communities that accompanies rural homestead subdivision development.

Like a great many people Bob has helped in purchasing homestead land Bob gave me a terrific deal when I organized a Salmon Creek Land Trust land partnership in one of Bob's then new subdivision developments. A $1000 down held some 281 acres for we land partners to come up with the rest of money through the now well-established pattern of growing pot to pay for the land.

Only law enforcement had a different idea the next year and our Land Trust group was the target of a prototype C.A.M.P. S style large-scale bust. The pot bust and foreclosure crisis created major conflicts within our land partnership, problems so bitter and ugly that I and my family sold our shares in the land and moved off the hill.

I realized my heart wasn't in it from the beginning because my dreams of an alternative lifestyle “off the grid” and out of the commercial exploitation world revolved around creating ecologically friendly cooperative communities and individual homesteading just did not fit the bill.

Why? Because homesteading is not an ecological lifestyle. I think most of you have read my letters and op-eds over the years about homestead eco-damage that E.P.A. Studies of the So. Fork of the Eel River and Mattole rivers confirmed in 1998.

There is no question these days for people who have researched the issue that homestead subdivisions with their hundreds of miles of dirt roads servicing individual parcels are main source of over-sedimentation of Humboldt creeks and rivers. Not logging operations of a comparatively few but the daily in-and-out traffic of thousands going up and down all those homestead subdivision dirt roads are the major culprits filling up the creeks with sediment.

And then there's the over-consumption of dry season water from the hillside springs and creeks due to packing the hills with too many homesteads. With water sources taken for human usage, wildlife goes dry and species disappear. They disappear even faster with the introduction of dogs and cats.

Homesteaders do not want to think about these things because they have convinced themselves that they, and not the city and town dwellers, are models of environmental purity and wisdom. And armed with this self-righteous mindset they support what amounts to a counterculture war against mainstream Humboldt citizens, a social and economic war that has divided our community into warring camps for the last two decades.

Enter Bob McKee and his legal subdivision problems with Humboldt County. Enter now great support for Bob McKee by those he has helped buy his products--land, building materials, community parks, and water tanks, this last item paraded by Bob's company men and his customers as sure sign of Bob's commitment to environmental protection.

I'm sorry but I don't buy into making Bob into some sort of developer saint. When homesteaders do so, what they are really doing is patting themselves on the back, saying isn't it great that Bob allowed us environmentally conscious counterculture people means to get into Humboldt County to save it from eco-destruction at the hands of corporate America.

But it's not true. The homestead lifestyle means our children and their children will likely never see the wildlife species that were in the hills of Humboldt before sub-dividers came in and cut their habitat to pieces for resale at profit. For the sake of future generations the very best thing homesteaders could do is move off the hills and into village and town cluster living that doesn't impact wildlife communities which needs to be free of human activity as much as possible.

Free Speech at KMUD? Don't count on it.

KMUD Radio has two men, said to be buddies, who are allowed to control free speech on KMUD. Michael Jacinto is KMUD's programming director and along with his friend, Paul Somebody or other, the chairperson for the KMUD Board of Directors, these two men have banned Steve Lewis from having any KMUD shows.

What is their reason for such bannishment? Was my Steve Lewis Show too disruptive to air? Did I break FCC rules while on the air? Did KMUD listeners complain about my shows? No, no, and no. The very same words Paul used on me when I asked the Board if I could have another Heartlands Show or any more Steve Lewis shows on KMUD. Why not, I asked? No reasons given except Michael Jacinto chiming in to say there were "issues".

The "issues" Michael is referring to have to do with Michael's abrupt attempt to take away my and my Heartlands Project partner Sparky's free speech right to talk about Heartlands and its former relationship with the Bear River Tribal Council. Michael Jacinto had gotten a fax from then Bear River Casino Manager John McGinnis telling Michael that neither I or Sparky could talk about Bear River on our Heartlands show.

We had invited both Wayne Moon, former Bear River Vice-Chairperson and our former Bear River Tribal Council Heartlands Project supervisor to call in on our Heartlands Show from where he is now living in Reno. We invited current Bear River Chairperson Leonard Bowman to come on our show or phone in like Wayne. We wanted Bowman to explain the reasons his Tribal Council gave the $10,000 donation to Paul Gallegos campaign and why he denied Heartlands had been under the Bear River Tribe's authority for over three years. That's when Leonard seems to have put McGinnis up to the job of skuttling any probing questioning of the current Bear River administration.

Michael had KMUD cave into this gag order by Bowman/McGinnis telling us that, sure, we could have our Heartlands Show, only we couldn't mention anything about Bear River on it. An impossible restriction and Michael knew it as Sparky is a Bear River tribal member and so is Wayne Moon and why the hell can't they talk about their own tribe on KMUD? Heartlands is completely independent of Bear River and is under absolutely no obligations to the current Bear River Tribal Council.

This forced cancelation of our Heartlands Show and the banning of my shows on KMUD is a free speech issue that KMUD has just let two men decide for all KMUD listeners.
The Steve Lewis Show has always been well-received by the majority of KMUD listeners. I've gotten along fine for years with KMUD staff except for Michael Jacinto, with whom I had had previous conflicts over freedom of speech.

One of the people I've introduced to the KMUD listening community is Rose Welsh who's been on my show several times. Rose is a treasure of an investigative reporter, one on the best if not the best in Humboldt County at digging beneath the surface to get to truth about those in office running our lives. With my show cancelled, KMUD listeners are deprived of Rose's knowledge and they are deprived of news about Bear River because Sparky can't talk freely about his own tribe.

Two men are allowed to control free speech on KMUD Radio. Because I wouldn't kow-tow to Michael and Paul's power-tripping, I had my KMUD show taken away as punishment. Is this how "Redwood Community Radio" operates? Free speech is denied those who cross KMUD personel? I think it's time KMUD reviewed its programmer and its Board of Directors head for their role in denying KMUD listeners access to uncensored news about what's happening in their own community.

Real Wealth and the Communitarian Social Profit Motive of Communitarian Capitalism* (1983)

What is real wealth? It can't be material goods or ownership of property or power over others. No, these things can be bought out from under any individual or stolen or lost in any number of ways. Real wealth doesn't come from ownership of things or from power to control others. Real wealth can't be bought or sold because it isn't transferable.

Real wealth exists only in relationships between living beings. Real wealth can be measured only by oneself as a quality value of one's relationship to others. Consider: can love, genuine love as we understand it if not define it, be bought or sold? Can genuine friendship be bought or sold? Can genuine care and concern be given a purchase price? Can an unasked for, yet freely offered helping hand extended to you when your need is great be given any sort of quantitative value? No, these are quality aspects of relationships between oneself and others and exist only as such. Therefore, real wealth can only be present in quality relationship with others. Real wealth then is a completely social phenomena inseparable from one's community of friends and loved ones.

Real wealth imparts well-being because human beings are always dependent on one another for their ability to cope successfully with the problems of life. No one is an island and no one stands alone for long without losing well-being. Without threat of oppression human beings will naturally seek the well-being of real wealth relationships. This is the communitarian social profit motive at work.

The communitarian social profit motive works more or less unconsciously in all interpersonal relationships. There is no social profit in dealing with others who demonstrate antagonism towards one's conscious or unconscious goal of forming quality relationships with others because quality relationships always add to one's well-being. Political or economic or other practical benefits may tie people together but if the opportunity for forming quality relationships is not present, these practical relationships become a burden that will be discarded as soon as circumstances permit transfer to quality relationships offering opportunity to form real wealth. The communitarian social profit motive naturally seeks real wealth and is therefore, the prime motivating factor that drives everyone, each at their own pace which is set during early childhood, towards a final goal of building social capital or real wealth.

Material capitalism or material socialism are irrelevant to the ever-present reality of the communitarian social profit motive which is at work in every kind of human social structure. The survival and longevity of any social-economic system is directly proportional to each system's degree of facilitating formation of social capital or real wealth between individuals within the system. Communitarian Capitalism then is not an offshoot of either capitalism or traditional socialism but is instead a basic or root mode of social organization millennia old that reflects recognition of a universal human economy measured in terms of quality and not quantity values.

Social Justice from a Climax Social Evolution Theory perspective:

"Social Justice" can really only mean one thing as a political concept and that is equal rights for all members of society. Equal rights for all members of society can only be achieved in an egalitarian political-economic system where social power is fully democratized. Anything less is to achieve "Animal Farm's" dystopia where "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others", i.e., creating an even more abusive social system in the name of social democracy.

Social power is democratized by planetary equal distribution of basic information and communication systems, equal distribution of individual and community living and production work spaces, equalized access to raw materials and energy sources, and equal access to inter-community transportation systems. Social power is also democratized by equal treatment under law. Achieving social justice in essence means creating an egalitarian social system to replace ones ruled by various types and degrees of oligarchic control.

From the Climax Social Evolution Theory perspective this social change goal of insuring social justice by creating egalitarian social systems takes on a biological aspect and emphasis as well; to survive as a species human beings must stabilize their regional population numbers in self-sustaining bio-regional Climax Communities that harmonize human lifestyle needs with the ecology of the surrounding bio-regional.

Social stabilization requires the absence of anti-social or environmental aggression which in turn requires the absence of reasons why these anti-social behaviors have thrived in American soil. Invariably, the primary reasons for anti-social behavior are these: Inequality of distribution of goods and services produced by society, lack of social or emotional nurturance of the young, and lack of social or emotional outlets for natural aggression.

All societies produce aggressive individuals. How societies deal with aggressive individuals makes the difference between good social systems that are stable because they provide the benefits of social production to all its members without prejudices of any sort being built into the system. In other words, social and economic democracy in full for every citizen regardless of economic circumstances, ethnic heritage, educational or physical handicap, etc. Aggressive individuals must be educated as children into useful outlets for their natural aggression.

Social nurturance means insuring each member of society with the means of basic benefits of civilized life; basic nutritional food sustenance, basic housing, basic transportation, basic communications, basic education and access to world information. If a substantial number of members of a society are denied these basics by an inequitable social distribution system, then poverty and crime is the inevitable result. Poverty and crime destabilize society. Draconian repressive techniques may mask social instability for a time but long term social stabilization requires egalitarian reformation of society.

Emotional nurturance of the young is both a family and community responsibility. If the family fails to provide emotional nurturance for its members, especially the young, then the community and society will pay the price sooner or later when disturbed children and adults act out their frustrations from lack of emotional nurturance. So the community must be there for every child who's family is dysfunctional. It's a bottom line responsibility that cannot be ignored for any reason. Emotional nurturance for adults comes from loving relationships and spiritual communion.

The Spirit of Love and Compassion must be honored by the community in some form that makes these values visible and models for emulation. My Christian religious preference is, of course, the Spirit of Christ, Western Civilization's avatar of Love and Compassion. But the Buddha is also there as another model for millions East and West, and we are lucky in our times to have incredibly strong women as real life models of Love and Compassion such as Mother Teresa and Ang San Suu Kyi.

Sports is a fine way for youth, and adults for that matter, to vent aggressive attitudes and emotions. Sports, as most of us know, is also a fine substitute for war because it has Rules of the Game and the Fair Play ethic of good sportsmanship. The rules provide a safe arena for aggressive individuals to test themselves in competition in order to find their natural ranking in the hierarchy of the sport and the community at large.

In capitalist societies, real life Monopoly games are played by aggressive individuals for the benefit of only a very privileged few while their Monopoly Game cost is paid for by the many. Playing real life Monopoly games is unsportsmanlike behavior as the advantage of one player over another increases exponentially with success, i.e., the "winners" sitting on top of monopoly distribution system for products or services produced by society and needed or wanted by large segments of society, have a totally unfair economic advantage over beginners without capital. If the social system allows or promotes real life Monopoly Games with essential goods and services needed by all of society for the healthy functioning of society then the social system must be changed.

Martians!

What is this? A friend sent me this photo taken from a recent Mars fly-by I think and there appear to be "man-made" objects on the surface of the planet. What in nature causes right angled formations in the earth? The photo almost looks like one of ancient ruin digs where foundations of old buildings have been exposed. But what scale these things on Mars are, I have no idea. Whatcha think? Martians?

Reopen 9-11

Although I do not share Ellen Taylor's anti-corporate Progressive ideology, I do share her concerns about Americans knowing the truth about 9-11. There has been another massive cover-up of the facts by our government that have left many of us wondering what the hell really happened on September 11, 2001. The government's report lacks credibility. No explanation is really given why Building 7 in the WTC complex came down virtually all by itself as it wasn't hit by any planes. So too, the government's explanation of the Pentagon being hit by a 757 leaves us with wonderment on how such a big plane left such a small hole in the side of the Pentagon building where it hit. And where is the great debris, the dead bodies and body parts and luggage, etc. that always accompanies major plane crashes? And then there's the beneficiaries of the attack, Silverstein, the WTC property owner who collected billions on the disaster and was quoted as saying he ordered Building 7 "pulled", the term for controlled demolitions. My brother says there's been thermite traces found on steel beams recovered from the WTC building debris. Has our government created a phony Pearl Harbor in order to get us involved in a new world war with all Islam? There are so many unanswered questions that need to be answered before we find ourselves in a country that has lost its democratic ideals and runs now on political policies formulated by a foreign government--Israel?

New Steve Lewis Blog Site

I'm doing some fall cleaning and rearranging on my blog site, getting ready to use it as my primary communication vehicle in Humboldt County seeing how my days as a regular columnist for the Eureka Reporter may be numbered...again. I think my last two anti-Zionist columns have done me in as editor Glenn Simmons told me the E.R. took quite a bit of heat for them. In any event, my relationships with newspaper editors has always been problematic for me as I am one of those awful egotistical writers who sincerely believes he writes better than his editors and resents like crazy any messing with what I've written. Not exactly an attitude guaranteed to win the hearts and minds of people used to controlling writers under their flag but, hey, no one's paying me any salary at the Eureka Reporter so if I can't say what I want to say in the E.R. or Times-Standard, or NCJ, I can do it on my blog site. And thanks to my short tenure as a Eureka Reporter regular columnist plus all my hard-hitting op-eds and letters over the years, my name is now well known enough for Humboldt blog regulars to find me. Editors, who needs 'em now that blogs-r-us!

Roger tells it like it is

In typical unison, the Progressive voices are chiming in to criticize Roger Rodoni's criticism of John Wooley, Board of Supes help-mate for Progressive's political agenda. This time it was Bob Ornelas' turn to bash Humboldt County's most savvy Supervisor with lot's of slanderous crap leveled at Rodoni like "racism, thuggery, and sexual prejudice", oh, let's not forget, "arrogance, pomposity, and platitudes", and then add "stingy, self-righteous, neo-conservatism," and lastly, Bob's kindest remark showing his concern for Roger's health with suggesting he needs an enema. Now we all know Progressives are always the most understanding members of the community, like Richard Salzman, so it's good of Bob to point us in the right, oops, Left, direction re Mr. Rodoni. We all need model citizens in office like Paul Gallegos, you know ones without a wiff of scandal about them, like this big uproar with the Leonard Bowman-led Bear River donation to his campaign which paid off for Bowman about 5 weeks later in the amazingly reduced sentences given Bowman's son. As for Roger's very right criticism of Native American tribes joining HCAOG due to their sovereignty status as nations in themselves, Hoopa and all tribes should thank Roger for looking out for their sovereignty rights, some of which would be given up in order to join HCAOG. Anytime in the future when issues of tribal sovereignty come up in court for Hoopa or any other local tribe, the courts would look closely at any indications that Hoopa had discarded its sovereignty status in favor of joining as an equal partner in Humboldt County government. If tribes wish to keep and strengthen their tribal sovereignty status they should be very careful not to do things that work against that position such as joining HCAOG as just another community organization.