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....dissent...is it patriotic?

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism..
Howard Zinn

A few weeks ago I got this invitation from Peace Fresno..

DON’T MISS THIS DEMONSTRATION ON SATURDAY, APRIL 16!  We will never end the wars and create justice at home as long as we allow big corporations to set America’s political agenda.  Join the nationwide movement to stand against corporate power by demanding that corporations pay their share of the tax burden.  Come for as long as you can – even a half hour of your time will make a statement.
Saturday, April 16
10 a.m. - Noon
“WE PAID OUR TAXES,WHAT ABOUT YOU?” demonstration in front of Bank of America at 590 E Shaw (across from Fashion Fair).
  America is not broke – the problem is not scarcity.  The problem is unregulated greed.  For more information http://www.usuncut.org/actions/190



Since my daughter and I were going to be in Fresno to see Wicked we decided to make some signs and join in the demonstration....
When we arrived at the appointed corner she said, "I only want to stay for a 1/2 to 45 minutes Mom." 
 An hour and 1/2 later we were still there.


We felt good standing on that corner with like minded people demonstrating against corporate greed.



It is obscene that 83 of America’s 100 richest corporations, including Bank of America, pay 
NO income tax...zero
But they benefit from the taxes we pay...
they use roads, railways, and airports to distribute their goods...
they count on police and firemen to protect their facilities...
they count on public schools to educate their workforce..
Their greed has caused the great recession.  Their greed and the cost of fighting 3 wars.



We got a lot of thumbs up from passerbys...we got flipped off too...
and told to, "Go home!"...I thought that one was particularly strange....
Why would anyone think America isn't our home?


1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS.

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. 

3) General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States over the past five years and, thanks to clever use of loopholes, paid no taxes.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. 


5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year, received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.
7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction. 

10) Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits over the past five years, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/03/ten_giant_us_companies_avoidin.html




The Bear and I traveled to Klamath Falls, OR over Easter weekend.  
There was very little traffic and we were approached by a woman at a rest area asking for gas money....
Everywhere we went people were talking about the economy...how hard it has become to make ends meet, even working full time...
the cost of everything is rising.
People are getting frightened by the talk of food prices rising 30%.
I know there is the theory that if we give corporations tax breaks there will be more growth, more jobs, more abundance for all.
But I'm not seeing it....are you?



"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem." 




....blood moon


we need a god who bleeds now
a god whose wounds are not
some small male vengeance
some pitiful concession to humility
a desert swept with drying marrow in honor of the lord

we need a god who bleeds
spreads her lunar vulva and showers us in shades of scarlet

thick and warm
like the breath of her
our Mother is tearing to let us in
this place breaks open like our Mothers bleeding

the planet is heaving 
mourning our ignorance
the moon tugs the seas
to hold her....
embrace the swelling hills
I am not wounded I am bleeding to life

we need a god who bleeds now
whose wounds are not the end of anything..

..Ntozake Shange

....we the people

in the house with the tortoise chair
she will give birth to the pearl
to the beautiful feather

in the house of the goddess who sits on the tortoise
she will give birth to the necklace of pearls
to the beautiful feathers we are
there she sits on the tortoise 
swelling to give us birth

on your way on your way
child be on your way to me here
you whom I made new
come here child...come  be pearl
be beautiful feather...
Aztec prayer



It's really been a long time since I've posted anything here...time flys
I have thought of many things to blog about...
things that would engage me and you.  
  But they seem unimportant considering the crazy, fear inducing things that are going on all over the world...

snowy view out my studio window with the 300 year old Grandmother oak receiving a dusting of snow

The list is endless...
unemployment, joblessness, homelessness, foreclosures, loss of medical care, 
food and gas prices soaring....
I don't know how it is where you are, but here schools are struggling and higher education is being priced right out of the reach of many....the dumbing down of America.

The National Debt...omg
Wars, occupations and genocide, even revolutions.  The cost of war puts us all in jeopardy...and military families forced to apply for food stamps...in America....rather we agree or disagree with war, that's just wrong...food stamps.


and it is all being paid for with the tax dollars of those
 not wealthy enough to avoid them.
Corporations granted the same rights as individuals? 
There is class warfare...
How are you doing?

Japan, The Gulf, Haiti..

Vat meat and cows that give human milk, yikes!...yet even with all the tinkering of the foods we eat millions of children go hungry every day... 
and not just over there somewhere, but right here in the USA.
500 Million dollars cut from WIC...the safety net for hungry kids..

Our civil rights are being eroded and there is a news blackout of the things that matter...do you know how many of our military were wounded or killed yesterday?  
But we are all made aware of Charlie Sheen and his antics...do you really care?
....What is going on?

even with all this I do hang on to hope...people are gathering..
making their voices heard...there is a low rumbling...
maybe it is the sound of reality sinking in....no one is coming to our rescue....

 amazingly even with the all the negative there is  still  much to be joyful about..I know I am blessed... I still light my candles, turn up the music and dance every night..there is still something magical about letting the rhythm of the music take me over and I catch myself smiling as the primal beat moves me from here to there....tensions released.
and there is you...you make me smile too.



And my Muse comes when the sun shines...I think she winters elsewhere..Arizona maybe?
We've been working...this Spirit is on the wall right now..
she seems to hold the energy of Hildegard of Bingen.  Hildegard was an early feminist...
she lived in the 12th century.... she was a abbess of a Benedictine abbey...she was a preacher, a doctor, scientist, an artist and author, poet and composer who chafed under the restraints imposed on women by the culture of her time.  
You may be familiar with her visions, her Illuminations, that she began painting when she was 47.

Cultivating the Cosmic Tree..

Spirit Up!

inspired by Maggi Belle



Reflection is at Timberline Gallery...

Reflection...
the pods, the fish, the feathers, represent the planet..the sterling piece asks that we reflect on our role as caretakers...

and there is this......that nothing is ever solved, or created, by standing still.

Movement is the process of the Universe. So move. Do something. Anything. But do not stand still. Do not remain"on the horns of a dilemma."  Do not fence sit.

 Put your foot down on one side or the other, swing the opposite leg over and start walking. You'll know before you take ten steps if you're going in the right direction. Not to decide is to decide. Try to not make choices by default....Neale Donald Walsh 





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