In The Art of War, author Sun Tsu said, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Looking at our modern day society, especially here in the “land of the free”, we are in many regards, unfortunately divided.

Our televisions run wild with people voting each other off islands, trying to defeat, outsmart, or out-duel each other. We get a jolt from it, no doubt. Competition and winners and losers are cherished American values that get instilled from a very young age.

Generally the worst fucking ideas and belief systems get transmitted to us on the information-superhighway of the internet, television and tabloid magazines. What we seek out is another story, but even still these influences hit us all.

The people running shit, the people selling us shit, the property developers, oligarchs, mega-corporations, media conglomerates, talking heads, professional propagandists, and corporate political machine want to see us divided and distracted.

They want to see us divided by race, class, sex, gender, sexuality, favorite sports team, etc. and want to see us at each other’s throats. They don’t want us paying attention to what they are doing.

They know that if We the People wake up to our power and our rights, and organize together and stand together, their rule over us would end.

When we recognize each as brothers and sisters across all borders and divisions in society, we will stand united towards justice and for each other and for the future of humanity and our planet.

I believe that white supremacy and patriarchal rule are two of the prime instruments implemented by those in power to keep these power structures and systems of extreme inequality in place. In order to unite as one people, we have to dismantle these institutions and their impacts in our own being.

“It’s time to take action, no distractions anymore!” – Maya Burns

I just had lunch with a friend who said (roughly) that we are all oppressed beings in our society.

As a white man, I wouldn’t say I’m oppressed because I acknowledge that I benefit from white supremacy and male supremacy…but I do see us all as prisoners in the modern world and our culture of disconnection, dis-ease, destruction, and hegemonic rule.

Our inalienable human rights to food, water, shelter are now held over our heads as commodities.

The roles we are forced to play in modern day society just to have some fucking time for ourselves, for love, family, our hobbies and our gardens, philosophy, reading, and creative expression are generally sorry, depressing excuses for the human experience.

We are each expected to work 40 or more hours per week from the time we are young adults until we are old and grey just to sustain the life of ourselves and our family members. If we’re lucky and live the American Dream, we’ll get to retire and relax in old age, once we’ve worked our way through the years of youthful vitality. If we’re lucky…

We are being kept from our natural way of living as human beings by the dream we have created for ourselves in civilization. The way we live in the modern world breeds destruction of our planet and that which gives life.

Never have I been happier than while getting my hands in the soil, planting seeds for the future in the garden and in music or writing, reaping the harvest and tasting the fruits of my labor, and having time and space to be creative, sharing joy with other humans, and resting. Modern civilization does not afford us much time for such things and doesn’t make it easy to engage with our deeper purposes in life and to understand our power as human beings.

We live on a planet that can produce astronomical abundance for all of it’s creatures and provide for our needs as the human race. Yet directed by our insane thought-leaders and political-leaders of society (perhaps dating back to the birth of agriculture and “civilization”), we continue to destroy the abundant natural world so we may try our hand at playing the role of G-d on Earth.

The garden has it all, and it’s waiting for us to return…

Special visibility-boost to three movements that are HAPPENING NOW in the world. I bet if we equally highlighted actions that seek to heal our world and our relationships with each other, we would find ourselves more hopeful for a better future and more interconnected for the struggles that are taking place to fight for human rights and the sovereignty and life of all beings on this planet:

ZAD (“Zone To Defend”) Occupations in France

The Rojava Revolution

Indigenous-Led Camp Cloud trying to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Black Lives Matter Sacramento and the fight for Justice for Stephon Clark