If I could twinkle my nose and make it so, 2012 would be the year when humanity wakes up and becomes more humane. The war industry would come to a grinding halt, the rich would give to the poor, corporations would release their death grip on our economy and personal greed would evaporate like a bad dream.

The predictions being bandied about with family and friends are mixed between optimism, pessimism and political speculation. We discussed the danger of manifesting bad juju by casting dire predictions, but I decided to include both the positive and the negative as a matter of record.

2012  Predictions

Increased violence surrounding the Occupy Movement
The people will prevail and succeed in changing the balance of power
The United States will go to war with Iran
Things in Syria will get even messier before getting better
The world will not end when the Mayan calendar runs out, but rather there will be a new beginning
Barak Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate

2012 Resolutions

On a personal level, I have resolutions, my personal wish list for self-improvement. It’s been a few years since I pulled off a formal list but this year I feel inspired. Here’s what I’ve been chewing on:

Attitude
Find the joy, lose the beleaguered attitude
Generously give approval and support

Communication
Listen to what others are saying without thinking about what I want to say next
Think about what information others may need or want to know and make a point of informing them
Don’t share caustic and potentially offensive opinions

Health
More eating to live, less living to eat
Alleviate stress with activity rather than food
Drink more water
Drop five pounds by May 1st by simply avoiding snacks, sweets and second helpings

Time Management
Get there on time
Set a departure time that more than allows for last minute delays
Stop thinking I have time for just one more thing
Schedule time in my day for having fun

So there you have it. A mélange of hopes, fears, dreams and resolve to kick off a new beginning for 2012!

Until we stop over-spending and under-earning the debt ceiling will increase.  Money is going to have to be shuffled around.  But I can’t believe the talk about using Social Security money to make ends meet.

On Friday, Dennis Kucinich had this to say to the House of Representatives:

The huffing and puffing over the debt crisis is reminiscent of Washington’s tumult over the Wall Street bailout:

Panic the public with claims that the sky is falling! Then start to drop things from the sky: in this case, threats that Social Security checks will not be set out.

We must avoid default, but Social Security didn’t cause the debt crisis. Social Security had nothing to do with the debt crisis. Withholding Social Security checks or cutting Social Security benefits would represent a default to the American people and an abandonment of the principles of economic justice that created Social Security.

The White House wants a ‘Big Deal.’ A $4 trillion debt deal. But that deal must not come from cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

Millions of senior citizens, who in their lifetime built this country, who fought for this country, who depend on these Social Security checks as an economic lifeline want to see if their concerns are a big deal to us.

I realize I’m wading in unfamiliar waters here.  I don’t know too much about our federal budget or our political process.  But I’m going to trust that Dennis Kucinich knows what he’s talking about.  His words resonate with that I’ve been reading.  I think we need to bring our outsourced jobs back to America, slow down our runaway consumerism and deflate the military budget.

I vote to bring our troops home to grow food.  I want to see legislation rein in the for-profit corporations hiding behind corporate personhood.  And I think we need laws requiring manufacturers pay the real price for the natural resources they use to make junk we don’t need.

Our culture is all topsy turvy, our values are skewed in favor of individual freedom at the cost of the greater good.  As James Howard Kunstler puts it:

Americans historically have a low regard for the public realm, and this is a very unfortunate thing, because the public realm is the physical manifestation of the common good. And when you degrade the public realm, as we have, then you degrade the common good. This is what lies behind a whole range of social problems, from crime to municipal bankruptcy. Our disregard for the public realm has especially impaired our ability to think about public life, or civic life, let alone civic art. We built a nation of scary places and became a nation of scary people.

In my mind, it really is simple.  We prioritize our spending based on quality of life, keeping in mind the common good.  We as a country, have a choice.  We can continue the same short sighted spiral into bankruptcy or we can begin making mature choices for a civilized and sustainable future.

This morning I read the following statement in the New York Times:

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday of a “huge financial calamity” if President Obama and the Republicans cannot agree on a budget deal that allows the federal debt ceiling to be increased. – Tensions Escalate as Stakes Grow in Fiscal Clash

Unbelievable!  Apparently our financial system is so totally broken and we consumers (er, I mean citizens) are so totally accepting of this that Bernanke can basically threaten collapse if we try to turn this sinking ship around.  And no one is taking him away in a straight jacket! Or handcuffs.

As proof of how crazy things have gotten, I am awash in credit card offers so that I can slide ever deeper into debt along with the Federal Government.  My email spam filters are doing a pretty good job of filtering out crap but I am battling snail mail spam tooth and nail with little to no progress.

I send a letter to direct marketing every couple of months in an attempt to remove our names and address from marketing lists but the junk mail keeps on appearing in our mail box.  This used to work.  Just a few years ago, the new junk mail was addressed to new forms of our names and address and I was able to routinely fend them off with a new letter.  Not so these days.  Despite my letters, I continue to receive mail to the very same addresses.

Our good friend Shaun on Maui taught us a great trick.  Whenever he got a postage free return envelope in his junk mail, he took some of his trash, inserted it into the envelope and mailed it. I’m pretty sure this little trick helped him win the Zero Waste Challenge.

Last month, I took some unwanted advertising coupons to the post office window and asked if there was any way to stop this monthly wad of odd sized junk and they said, “No, we’re required to put that in your box.”  You probably get the same kind of thing, a loose insert with lots of different sized coupons, envelopes and offers from local and not so local advertisers.  It’s so easy to get real mail shuffled in with this pile that I have to look through the whole mess just in case, before I take it to the recycling bin.

My latest battle is with slatefromchase.com.  We’re receiving three to six pieces of mail from these bozos each week!  I picked up three envelopes on Monday and decided to do something.  So I called the toll-free number they include under “You can choose to stop receiving “prescreened” offers from this and other companies by calling 1-888-567-8688.

Not surprisingly I reached a fully automated line which did not respond to my repeated attempts to reach a human being by pushing “0”.  I hung in there, stating and spelling my name and address, listening to the computer repeat what I’d said until they asked for my social security number.

“No!” I said into the phone to which the computer replied, “We did not understand your answer, please state your social security number.” I couldn’t help myself.  I answered again, “No, I will not give you my social security number!”  The computer repeated itself and I hung up.

This morning, I googled “chase slate scam” and a few other choice word combinations to see if these bastards have been reported to the Better Business Bureau and/or the Federal Trade Commission.  And to find an address for them so that I can report them because, of course the mail itself does not come with any form of return address.

While I didn’t find an address nor any hint or mention of a scam, I did find the online version of the automated opt out line I called on Monday.  With high hopes, I filled out the online form, skipping the (not required) social security, birthday and phone number fields and opted out of financial offers like the crap I’ve been getting from Chase.

On the one hand, I’m kicking myself to daring to hope and on the other I’m looking forward to the day I stop getting credit card offers in my mail.  In the meantime, I’m stuffing garbage into their return envelopes and mailing them back. It’s futile, I know but it makes me smile nevertheless.

In 2004, the presidential race involved two white guys who went to the same privileged university. Some of us thought we had a choice even if it looked like a choice between bad and worst. Voters were led to believe that Bush and Kerry stood on fundamentally different platforms when in fact, they were both committed to supporting the best interests of the rich.

To me, it looked like a clear choice between vanilla and vanilla. Bob and I knew that whichever guy got to sit in the oval office, things weren’t going to change much. We voted for Ralph Nader and left the country to prevent our tax dollars from going to war.

In 2008, the voting public was led to believe that this time their choice would matter. For the first time in American history, a black man was running for president. And a well-spoken man he was, wooing liberals with promises of change and hope they could believe in. A groundswell of euphoric support ensued and Barak Obama took office.

Two years later, that change has not happened. The new administration left Guantanamo untouched and sent another 30,000 troops to Afhanistan. Under Obama’s watch, the FDA has approved genetically modified salmon, sugar beets and alfalfa. With HR 3200, the 50 million citizens without health insurance were handed to the for profit health insurance companies on a silver platter after the public option was removed. And he signed a Patriot Act extension with no reforms.

At this point in the political evolution of the United States of America, the country is run by the money makers, the CEO’s of corporations. Politicians, especially those at the top, are not much more than figureheads. It’s a two party system in which both parties support the 10% who control 80% of the wealth in this country.

Many of us thought a vote for Obama would be a vote for change. Come to find out it was really just a vote for chocolate over vanilla, breeding a whole new generation of disenfranchised voters.

Freedom isn’t free, as they say and here, so close to Camp Lejuene, the 246-square-mile U.S. military training facility, I’m unable to forget it.  The training facility was named after the Commanding General of the 2d Army Division in World War I, Major General John A. Lejeune (luh-JERN.)  The 11,000 acre tract with 11 miles of shoreline is perfect for supporting multiple types of maneuvers.  And support they do, with a population on base of 170,000.

Bob and I drove past troops in full camo gear working around their tiny tents in the sweltering North Carolina heat along the stretch of I-24 known as Freedom Way.  My heart cried out in protest at the sight.  I felt like I was looking into a hopper of human flesh.  I wanted to get out of the car and do something but there was nothing we could do and so we kept on driving towards the beach for a few days alone at the shore.

Minutes later we arrived on beautiful Emerald Isle.  We settled in our comfy room and shared a beer.  We walked down the beach to the pier and back and frolicked in the surf until we were salt-saturated and worn out from riding the waves.  Then we sat in our little blue beach chairs and drank in the wonderful sounds and smells and felt the breeze take turns on our skin with the sun, the shade and the little droplets of rain.

Later, we showered and made love and got dressed in our clean clothes and drove to a nice restaurant where we had dinner with friends.  I thought about the camo’ed kids in their hot little tents and wondered what they were going to eat for dinner.

I love everything about my life but I don’t think for one minute I owe it to the MICC (Military Industrial Congressional Complex.)  Our armed forces are not sending young people to war to keep me safe and free but rather to feed a firmly established industry which voraciously devours taxes, life and limb to protect their own interests.

In fact, ever since 1941, when the MICC came into existence it has been feeding itself and gaining power.  Not so coincidentally, construction was approved for Camp Lejune in April 1941.

Bob and I are not alone in our belief that we are being had by the MICC.  Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute and editor of Independent Review wrote:

During that period [between mid-1940 and late 1941] Congress appropriated $36 billion for the War Department alone — more than the army and navy combined had spent during World War I. With congressional authorization, the War and Navy departments switched from using mainly sealed-bid contracts to mainly negotiated contracts, often providing that the contractor be paid his full costs, however much they might be, plus a fixed fee. Contracts could be changed to accommodate changes in the contractor’s circumstances or poor management in performing the work. In these and other ways, military contracting was rendered less risky and more rewarding. As Secretary of War Henry Stimson said at the time, “If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalistic country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won’t work.”

Businessmen worked, to be sure, and they made money — far more than anyone had dreamed of making during the Depression. Much of the more than $300 billion the government spent for war goods and services ended up in the pockets of the contractors and their employees. According to a contemporary study, rates of return on net worth ranged from twenty-two percent for the largest companies to forty-nine percent for the smaller firms — extraordinary profits given that the contractors bore little or no risk.

From “World War II and the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex”
by Robert Higgs” May 1995

Higgs is also as outraged as Bob and I are about the present day carnage being wrought at the hands of the war industry.

The common thread [in my 2005 book, “Resurgence of the Warfare State”] is my outrage against the U.S. government’s exploitation of the 9/11 attacks to launch the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq and to occupy these countries thereafter. I cover the period from September 2001 to December 2004, devoting much of my commentary to exposing the scare tactics, illogic, lies, distortions, and other propaganda the Bush administration used to sell the Iraq war to the public and Congress.

From “Robert Higgs: Free-Market Thinking & the Impact of the Internet” – May 2, 2010

And we also agree with Higgs that we are not buying freedom with our bloated $500 billion defense budget and trillion dollar wars.

In fact, Bob and I were so upset at the turn of events during this period of time that we left the country in December of 2004 to avoid supporting the war with our taxes.  When people find out we lived on Maui for four years and left they are incredulous.  “Why did you leave Maui?” they all ask and if we know them well enough, we tell them why.

So, no – I don’t for one minute think the young men and women I see down here by Camp Lejune are keeping me free and safe.  I see their lives being wasted just like our taxes – resources that could be put to good use growing food, building community, providing public education and making healthcare available to everyone.

But even if it were true that my lifestyle depended on continued war, I would happily give up my American lifestyle in exchange for peace – in a heartbeat!

“Guantánamo” was the name I chose for the 250 square foot garden I created in front of our house at Oilseed Community where we spent the first two years after moving to North Carolina in 2007. There were three underlying reasons for the choice.

The first was due to my profound disappointment in my country’s choice to incarcerate and torture human beings without due process of law. I understood that some of the inmates at the prison in Cuba were criminals, but that does not demand a rescinding of legal and human rights – concepts previously supported by the United States of America.

The second reason was  due to the name my friend Lyle chose for his garden some years back. Lyle’s garden is named “Cuba”, a name chosen by the inspiration he gained by learning about how the island nation of Cuba responded to the abrupt ending of their petroleum addiction after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Cuba reacted to the loss of its Soviet supply line by instituting land reform, and encouraging farmers and agronomists to retool Cuban agricultural production to methods that did not require petroleum inputs, for fuel, fertilizers, or pesticides. This amazing story can be learned though a documentary produced by The Community Solution  entitled “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”

In North Carolina, if you want to take more food off your garden than the deer do, you need to fence your garden in, giving it the look of a place more suited toward the incarceration of edibles than the nurturing of them. Lyle’s garden, surrounded by it’s eight-foot high fence, provided him and his family a space to produce their own food, without the need for fossil fuel inputs. My first exposure to gardens with tall fences was at Lyles’ when he provided Camille and me a room for a couple of nights on an exploratory visit we made to the area in April 2007. Needless to say, I was captivated by the concept.

The third reason for my name selection was due to the influence of a master kumu hula, Hokulani Holt-Padilla, who I had the pleasure of working with back in 2000- 2001 while working with the Kaho’olawe Island Reserve Commission. One of the many pieces of wisdom I gained from Hoku was that place names are important. She helped me understand that place names are part of what defines the spirit of a place, and its people.

Guantánamo was the name originally bestowed upon the southeastern area of the island by its original human inhabitants, the Taino. Columbus landed at the bay in 1494, promptly changed the name to Puerto Grande, and started the systematic decimation of the indigenous population.

When I told one of my Oilseed neighbors that I was considering naming  the garden Guantánamo, their response was “Oh, don’t say that word!” For them, you see, that word represented the unjust incarceration and torture of human beings, and was something not very pleasant.

So there you have it. My little fortified garden was, from that point forward, known as Guantánamo. I wanted people (at least a few) to associate the name with a place of life, beauty, and sustenance rather than a collection of incarcerated and tortured humans. I was hopeful that our new president would stand by his campaign promise to close down the “detention camp” at Guantánamo Bay in his first few months in office. Since he didn’t, I did, with Lyle’s help. We moved the containers, with food growing in them to their new home next to my new garden, christened “The Sunken Gardens of Moncure”, since it is housed in an abandoned swimming pool.

That story will need to be told, in its own space in its own time, and will likely be titled “A Moveable Feast.”

Our neighbor’s yards are abloom with daffodils  and the mocking birds start yodeling at dawn.  Bob is starting tomatoes and peppers under lights in the back bedroom and has planted carrots and peas in the garden, with onions and potatoes going in next week. I’m having a high time pruning back the pampas grass and washing windows.  Our CSA boxes are overflowing with arugula, carrots, turnips, spinach, chard and lettuce.

Ironically, yesterday was also the seventh anniversary of the day the United States invaded Iraq.

During the past seven years our country has spent about $700 billion dollars in Iraq destroying infrastructure and killing people.  In addition to wounding hundreds of thousands of people, we name among the dead over 4,000 American soldiers, 9,000 Iraqi soldiers and an estimated 100,000 civilians.  And that’s just in Iraq.

Nearly 100,000 American troops remain on the ground in Iraq, with another 68,000 in Afghanistan.  And President Obama is sending another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan this spring in hopes of winning the war there.  A war that has raged for over 8 years, killed over 7,000, wounded more than 11,000 and cost $740, billion.  A war that is logistically un-winnable.

At least one person in Congress is actively pushing to put an end to these wars.  Congressman Dennis Kucinch believes we need to replace the Department of War with a Department of Peace.  Kucinch recently pointed out that according to our Constitution, Congress, not the president, should be deciding when we go to war and when we stop.  He is at the front of an effort to encourage Congress to vote on whether to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.  He also points out that squandering tax dollars on the war in Afghanistan is something we cannot afford to do.

Afghanistan Debate Begins in U.S. House Early This Afternoon – March 10, 2010

“And it should also be of interest to people that we can’t afford this war. When you consider the fact that you have 47 million Americans who don’t have any health care, they don’t have it because they can’t afford the premiums. You have 15 million Americans out of work. You have another 10 million Americans, at least, who could be losing their homes this year due to foreclosure. You would think that we have other priorities. You would think that it would be time for us to focus on things here at home.” – Dennis Kucinich

With so many reasons for us to bring our soldiers home, it seems like a no-brainer.  That is, until we consider the real reason why we’ve continually been at war since 1945.

After World War II, it was decided that we needed to create an industry dedicated to manufacturing armaments and machines for defense and the Military Industrial Complex was born.

In his farewell speech to the nation, January 17, 1961, president Eisenhower described the transformation and cautioned the American public that abuse of the new system was a possibility.  In other words, we might simply keep ourselves at war in order to keep the industry alive.

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.”

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.” – Dwight D Eisenhower

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

What Eisenhower warned could happen came to pass.  The U.S. now has a complex which keeps our defense budget in the hundreds of billions compared to other countries with budgets in the billions or at most, fifty billion.  In fact, if you look at the defense budgets of all other countries and sort them by amount, it takes the top twenty countries budgets to add up ours.

The military-industrial complex, on an annual basis, accounts for 47% of the world’s total arms expenditures.  We not only fuel our own wars, we provision the rest of the world for wars and conflicts of their own.

It’s been a long winter of destruction indeed, and many of us are itching to see it end.  I’d like to see the makers of swords get busy making plowshares.  I’m ready for spring and I’m ready for peace.

What President Obama proposed today is nothing more than outright sustained murder for profit. Seven more years of destruction to bankrupt the common man and profit the war industry!

Out of respect for my many friends who campaigned long and hard to get someone they could believe in into office, I had remained silent. I didn’t write about the failure of our new hope to reinstate habeas corpus. I said nothing about his decision to keep Guantanamo open. I pulled my punches. I told myself to “wait and see.”

I said nothing because I shared some of their hope. Hope that someone strong and smart cared enough to start making things right again. Hope that there was a chance for a President to steer us in the right direction.

But no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in. And our government is run by the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, the health care industry, the banking and real estate industries and Wall Street.

Now I have waited long enough and seen enough. My lips are unsealed. I draw the line at premeditated murder, at outright bloodshed. This I can no longer support with silence.

I will now openly say that this administration is the continuation of the Bush agenda in every way. From Clean Coal to Health Insurance for All, we are being lied to and stolen from. Once again. Still. Forever.

“Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts.” Patrick Henry, 1775 – from his speech, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.

It was a news story that helped me realize I was feeling hopeful. Especially this bit about farm reform:

How about repealing the $307 billion farm bill and slashing subsidies — especially the for-no-apparent-reason “direct payments” we send to commodity farmers in good times and bad. Farm lobbyists will squeal, but 60% of U.S. farmers receive no subsidies. Instead, Obama can increase conservation subsidies for farmers who adopt green practices.

Likewise, the recommendations for small steps toward peace, diplomacy, health care, and public works made sense. We’ll just have to bide our time and see what happens. Meanwhile, I’m not letting the grass grow beneath my feet. I’m busy every day, working within our community, supporting our small local farms and doing my best to stay healthy.