Pot growing ruined everything when the prices went sky high making successful growers far richer than anyone else in the community. Once Humboldt's superior marijuana reputation spread in the West Coast counterculture, local land prices began to jump making buying land no longer an option for those with less capital saved or earned in local work. Rising prices just priced many of us non-growing local activists out of SoHum, e.g. Jentri and myself.
Now SoHum is facing its own created reality: it has driven away the cream of the crop of activists and is now left only with “professionals” and privatized “community” organizations like the Community Credit Union where jobs seem secured for life leaving no room for local youth to move up within SoHum available jobs or the Mateel Community Center gutted by years of privatized exploitation of community cultural interests.
If SoHum wants to revitalize itself it will have to get religion one way or another as it was spiritual identification with the life of the land that originally spurred the back-to-the-land movement that initiated SoHum community as a seed for developing a better, less materialistic and more cooperative world tomorrow. SoHum didn't respect the spiritual power it was given.
11 comments:
What spiritual power was it given?
Help from the Goddess face of the Holy One of heaven and earth. Without honoring the spiritual power found within the new gardens of Goddess plants, sensimilla marijuana, without male seed, pot growers befouled the spiritual movement that went with the growing and distribution of the new Goddess-blessed plants. Our redwood groves also belong to Her and these too, enviros befouled by exploiting them for public recognition, career advancement and fame game tactics instead of quiet dedication to doing whatever it took to save the trees.
For those who's spiritual connection to the land is weak, this observation of mine won't mean a thing of course, just silly hippie-dippy new age nonsense. But for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, it will not get better here until we do respect the spiritual power our generation has been given.
That is fascinating, but I think it's too late. Your generation is dying out, and America is going to hell.
Every generation has only a very tiny percentage of people with genuinely moral, self-transcending values. These few people withstand the brutal tests of time spiritually, and the rest are sellouts and shameless whores. That's why this world is a hell, and it will only get worse -- unless there is some kind of incredible miracle.
But do Americans actually deserve to be rescued from themselves by a miracle? I don't think so.
Good that you're making your peace with God/Goddess now, Steve, because the near-term future of this world is massive death and destruction. I know that doesn't fit in with your Goddess/paradise-on-Earth wishes, but I think it's the truth. How can it be otherwise?
God's Cosmic Plan doesn't call for destruction of humanity.
According to your fellow Christians, the great flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah were part of God's plan. So there certainly is a precedent.
Do you disbelieve Revelations about the Apocalypse? That's supposed to be part of God's plan too. As with the flood, it doesn't mean the total destruction of humanity.
I am a Gnostic Christian. The New Testament is NOT our only source of information about the teachings of Jesus Christ, e.g. the Gnostic Gospels left out of the NT like the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, etc..
Revelations is greatly misunderstood by traditional Christians who have not been told the extent of Johannine animosity towards Pharaisic Judaism. While the Gospel of John lays out Jesus' negative opinions of Pharisees and the god of the Jews, Revelation continues this bashing of Judaism only does it in symbolic form, e.g the famous Mark of the Beast is John the Revelator's condemnation of the most holy prayer of Jews which is the Shema requiring the wearing of G-d's name in "frontlets" worn on the forehead and G-d's name written in signet rings of kings and priests.
The destructions of Revelation mark the End Times of traditional Pauline Christianity more than the end of the world.
Anon, why so pessimistic? Did you know that despite all the news about constant warfare going on in the world, since 1990 or 1980 statistically the world has seen a steady decline in the number of people killed in warfare worldwide than in previous decades.
I think you've let yourself grow paranoid with fear that isn't justified. I mean it seems like every generation on earth has claimed the ones following it are going to hell in a hand basket. But comparing our lives to lives lived in previous centuries, how do you not see improvement in so many areas? Nothing is perfect but we should recognize what we have and that is lives I want to live vs. living lives in say the 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th centuries.
And underneath my optimism is total faith that God knows what It's doing with humanity and Creation.
Where do you get that faith? What is it based on?
If you look honestly at the world as it is, and you do not believe in a Divine Law of Karma, then it is very clear that there is either:
1. no God at all
2. no just and benign God
3. a weak and incompetent God
Only the existence of a Law of Karma would indicate a just God who knows what It's doing with humanity and Creation. But how can we know if there's a Law of Karma? It's not something that can be proven by reason. It would take revelation or some sort of profound spiritual intuition.
If there is a Law of Karma, then it is quite reasonable to expect a very dark and violent future for humanity. And if there is no Law of Karma it is still quite reasonable to expect the same.
Because if there is no Law of Karma then there cannot possibly be any sort of real, just, benign God. And therefore the violent and insane stupidity of the human race will destroy it. Especially since we now have the technological means to massively poison and unbalance the biosphere and destroy humanity in its entirety with weapons and war and disease. And that technology is in the hands of extremely evil people who already have abused it and can be expected to keep abusing it.
So you see it's not merely pessimism to expect a bad future, but also simple realism.
"since 1990 or 1980 statistically the world has seen a steady decline in the number of people killed in warfare worldwide than in previous decades."
Which previous decades? If you're counting the decade in which WWII occured then sure, fewer people are being killed in war now, because WWII killed more people than any time in known history. But if you count decades and centuries before WWII, then clearly more people are being killed now, because there are many more people, and humanity possesses the technology to slaughter them in unprecedented numbers, with unprecedented speed.
"how do you not see improvement in so many areas?"
Who said I didn't see improvement in many areas? But one of the very areas in which there is improvement is also an area in which things are worse, namely technology. It's both a blessing and a curse.
And as far as improvement in areas such as civil rights, women's rights, slavery and so forth, the improvement is actually very superficial, based on enforced laws, not on an improved human nature.
And yet people are still held as slaves to this day, all over the world and even in this country, but it is covert. People all over the world are still violently racist and sexist. The only thing that keeps such psychosis in check here in America is the law, and the fact that people know they have to get along to a certain minimum degree if they want to enjoy the relative material prosperity we have.
But take away that prosperity, such as with a massive economic collapse, and you would instantly see massive numbers of Americans reverting to the morality of the dark ages, as they do today in many places all over the world.
Look at what American soldiers did in Vietnam. Look at what they're doing right now in Iraq. All these American boys and girls were raised in America, land of civil rights and gender rights and "civilization." And yet look how quickly and easily they revert to demonic bestiality when placed in a war environment, and encouraged in that bestiality by their officers and the whole chain of command -- and almost all the conservative, pro-military people in this nation. Look at all the "fine, upstanding" American people who praised and supported William Calley and all the other babykillers, even though they knew about brutal, sadistic carnage they committed.
Open your eyes, Steve. Look past the surface appearances of this society. Don't fall for the masks. America is not a civilized society -- if by "civilized" we mean truly moral -- and I doubt most societies in the world are. People all over the world are not fundamentally different from Americans. Only the socioeconomic and political situations are different. But humans are humans, everywhere very much the same in their inner natures.
My eyes are open but I suspect yours are half closed to the here and now. If you really think things are worse now perhaps you should research living conditions in the past centuries.
I and all our generation lived through one of the worst human nightmare scenarios, the Nuclear War scenario that if it had happened would indeed set human civilization back at the stone age level in short order. Almost 50 years of nuclear terror hanging over our heads and that's gone now--oh, yes, the threat of nuclear weapons is still real but it is no longer at the world destroying level and that my friend, is one huge threat to the human race that has gone from our lives.
Yet you do not see it as progress. You do not see how the Internet is working to foil state secrets and state sponsored propaganda that used to be able to manipulate people into going to war with one another--it takes a lot more these days to push any country into war and the wars that happen are smaller and kill far less people.
I'm an optimist. Always have been-it's my nature. And I know God isn't creating a dead end story for humanity--there'd be no point in human evolution. I'm sorry you are a pessimist. The difference between faith in a good God I think.
Yes that's exactly where the difference comes from. And I've asked you where you get that faith, my good man, but alas, no answer has been forthcoming. :-)
I suppose you'd say it came from your revelations, or a spiritual intuition. Okay, that would be fair enough, but I and others don't have your revelations or intuitions. But since we can reason we can at least share thoughts. So how does your rational mind account for the massive injustices in a world supposedly ruled by a good and just God?
I know you're doing your best to fight and counter those injustices, and you've got an admirable amount of courage and strength in so doing. And you're extremely intelligent too. So I hope you'll share with me how your intelligent mind deals with this vexing contradiction of a grossly unjust world existing in a universe ruled by a supposedly just Divinity.
"I'm sorry you are a pessimist"
I'm a realist, and realism leads to pessimism in this world.
What I said above about a Law of Karma, or the lack of one, explains how a pessimistic worldview is the only realistic one.
In addition, the threat of nuclear annihilation is not gone from our lives. If the U.S. or Israel nukes Iran it could start a nuclear war.
Many other countries have nuclear weapons, and they're all tired of America bullying the world like a genocidal mafia. Nuclear weapons could be smuggled into this country and detonated, and that would result in the U.S. nuking whatever country it blamed, or any countries it saw as the biggest potential threats, such as China and Russia. Which would result in counterstrikes.
All the major powers also have many other kinds weapons capable of killing people horribly in very large numbers, including biowarfare weapons.
In addition to that, if anything caused an economic collapse in this country or any major country it would result in total anarchy and mass starvation and disease. The economic collapse could result from major environmental catastrophes or climate changes, or from the political and social chaos that results from even a limited nuclear exchange.
The world economy is a completely interconnected and interdependent thing. Every part depends on the whole. It's like a human body. If just one part is severely injured it can result in systemic collapse and death.
"If you really think things are worse now perhaps you should research living conditions in the past centuries."
What I said was not merely that "things are worse," but that people are the same, the same as in past centuries. People are as bestial as ever, and now they possess a technology of mass destruction. I said human nature has not changed, but technology has.
Yes, the internet is a great thing. It has severely undermined the state's ability to brainwash some segments of society -- but not all of society. And even when people know what's happening, very few are willing to do anything about it. The overwhelming majority of people in this country are unwilling to do anything effective to get control of the federal government and put an end to the war crimes it is committing.
Post a Comment