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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Friday, December 16, 2016

Make Marijuana Great Again



We’ve arrive in the little town of Trinidad – a place of my former life I would have loved to come and look for unique old treasures to buy and haul back to my business in the Bay – but a place I would have been prepared to deal with lots of bigoted, narrow-minded white folks and maybe not ever viewing a single person of color.

I doubt the town has changed much except the addition of legalized marijuana plus a little organic food co-op. There’s a ‘blighted’ red, white and blue tRump sign that proclaims “Make Marijuana Great Again” – so the town has a sense of humor – and a closed sign of the plate glass window of the co-op admonishing the lazy town’s people for not volunteering therefore not having an open place to buy organic veggies and homemade kombucha.

After our brief tour of the town including traversing streets paved in red brick, where we received a couple of friendly smiles and one scowling middle aged white male in a huge white pickup, we headed to the ‘welcome center’ for a quick bathroom stop and are heartily greeted by the bespeckled white-santa look-alike behind the desk.

You can count on sparkling clean bathrooms at welcome centers, as they are the advertising and promoting vortex of the area they’re in, as well as extremely polite old retired white folks – no lack of volunteers here – behind the counter. And this was no exception.

The old man pumped us for information about where we were headed, not seeming to care where we came from – and I’m more interested in telling him where we came from.

His response is to point out the water fountain which he claims is 90% pure and doesn’t elaborate when I ask him several times what is the other 10%???

He wants to guide us to places we can visit, if only we’ll tell him which direction we’re headed. There’s another much younger man sitting across the spacious room, in front of a large flat-screened tv watching something. He chimes in to (mis)inform us Denver is 387 miles away. He is skinny and tall, bundled in drab clothes hanging limply but not quite reaching his wrists, one dark brown eye straying to the right while the other regards us curiously.

The white man leans in and lowers his voice to tell us conspiratorially he allows homeless (people) to gather in the warmth of the welcome center often. I feel a surge of anger, knowing how hard pre-tRump life is for this young brown man, and I snap at this old white man, the statistic who elected tRump, it’s gonna become a lot more difficult when tRump takes over.

The old man immediately but just as conspiratorially – this time glancing in the other direction towards the front doors that remain unpeopled – expresses his disdain for tRump and then accusingly says 54 percent of women voted for him. I quickly and firmly correct his statement “white women” you mean, not Black or brown womyn.

And I point out that even more old white men than old white women voted for him. We share marvel tinged with longing that someone has not eliminated this despicable threat to all life on our planet.

White people ‘established’ – as in colonized – this town 104 years ago and our host, being 82 and born and raised here, must have been prodigy of the earliest colonizers. I don’t ask about the Native people who I’m sure lived here thousands of years before his ancestors – other than names of streets or businesses and the young homeless man, there is no evidence of such people.

We must get on the windy roads while the sun is still brightly illuminating and warming our way and we are cautioned about ‘gusts’ up to 50 miles per hour…oh to be in the south!


Oceti Sakowin needs YOU!!

We so reluctantly and sadly pulled ourselves away from Standing Rock yesterday, loaded down with a very heavy heart and lots of donations to take to other reservations which we've been reminded also survive in the same conditions as Oceti Sakowin (whose name now has been changed from the council of the seven nations to the council of the people)

Yet we are also filled to overflowing in ways we never anticipated - for we are dedicated to continuing to define and create new human beings with real lives and real purposes as we fiercely work to topple and trample all aspects of our fuckin empire - insidiously inside us and all around us.

From the Oceti page - to all our arctic-able allies!!! Or those who can answer the questions below! YOUR BODIES are SOOOOO needed NOW!

We do need help, skilled help, dedicated help.

Coming here now is about more than our individual experience, it’s about pulling together so we can Stand Strong.

Oceti Sakowin Camp needs community members prepared for arctic conditions. We need people with the fortitude to dedicate a significant portion of each day to the survival of the community. Please bring all-wheel-drive or 4-wheel-drive vehicles.

Areas we need help most are the in the kitchens, compostable toilet maintenance—an essential foundation to healthy communities, and people able to transport donations to camp from surrounding communities. Some administrative help would be great.

We invite cooperative community members who are willing to work with the people who have been on the ground for some time. We welcome experienced builders who can help us with reenforcing existing structures. We welcome skilled medics and natural healers who work collaboratively to take care of our Water Protectors. We welcome team-players who have the desire to help others and who can plug into areas of camp where they are most needed.

First, if you are considering coming to camp, ask yourself:

Have you ever done hard labor of any sort in -30 degree weather?

Do you know how to put chains on tires?

Do you see your time in Oceti mostly spent in a small dwelling with people you know?

~ or

In community meetings, and actively contributing your time to work on a volunteer basis?

Go to www.ocetisakowincamps.org for all the latest & correct info!!!