GOING DOWN

The stories are making me cry. I read a series of stories published by The Huffington Post. The system has failed. Most of us don't really care that the big banks are in trouble or being bailed out. My friends are in agreement that the car companies should go down and start over. Let a new organization with a heart for the survival of the world run transportation. Stop it! Just STOP IT!!!

What the rescue plan should be about is how to survive while we figure out how to go on. Do we just double up and live with each other while houses are abandoned and become scrape offs? Maybe all companies that hold loans should be allowed to go down and the loans should all be forgiven. From there we could start again. Or even offer say, $50,000.00 of loan forgiveness for each adult American and then let those who have no house or car buy what they can with the $50,000.00.
That is probably way too far out of the box, but come on. Just pretending that things will go back to the way they were is much more far fetched.

Sick to Death of Politics

Sick & Homeless

If you've already voted
studied the twisted
deceiving language
of amendments and propositions
trying to trick gentle
people into voting for
something they are against
tired of the tired phrases

did you know that squeaking
by with minimum payments
losing sleep in the crunch some
filthy wealthy robber barons
have designed to take the
little that's left us by manufacturing
what we call money but that no
longer stands for anything
but greed we need change
all right Obama, change you've
never dreamed of maybe change
almost none of us have dreamed of

well Martin had a dream and they
killed him as soon as he started
talking about economic justice
far from the comfortable rhetoric
of white liberals who love
counting their coup
walking over the dead bodies
of the sick and unemployed
my question is not do we need
change, but why have we not
taken to the streets in rage
dumped the suits out of their
gilded cages and taken our sick
and homeless selves into our own arms?

The Alchemy of Abundance

For the last few days, I have been doing some guided meditations with Rick Jarow called The Alchemy of Abundance. I don't know what it is about them, but my second sight and connection to the Universe has been greatly enhanced. What I like most about the experience is that it is guided but not instructed or dictated. There is some genuine Alchemy going on in this work. Dream master Jeremy Taylor
says that Alchemy is the art of making gold out of feces. That is surely a leap. He says that saying it was being made from base metal made it more acceptable, but the reality was more base!

There is a lot of "baseness" going on in our world today. Lot's of raw material for gold I guess. At any rate, I recommend checking it out. It seems to be doing some transformation of what is base in me. Sweet dreams. JJ

Annette Covatta Turns 80

If you don't know Annette, you are poorer for it. There is a wealth to her life that enriches those around her. I went to Google just to see what would come up and there was a richness to the references there too. After 5 pages I was still getting amazing stories of her work in Music, drama, as a leader in her order, and as a superb teacher of enlightenment through her workshops that open and heal. She is a Catholic nun with a twist. She embraces deep spirituality in the many forms that she finds from Hindu wisdom of India where she visited, to mystics of her own faith such as Hildegard of Bingen and contemporary Matthew Fox, a priest who was dismissed from his Dominican Order in 1992 for his major work in Creations Spirituality.

For me, though, it is her warm, loving but very real presence here and now that makes me feel whole and embraced just being near her. If we have a saint among us, it is Annette and yet she is so much more than a canonized relic, she is a vibrant, gifted living reflection of the divine here with us. Don't get me wrong, Annette does not carry some garb of sacred aloofness. She is just Annette, with her humanity intact. Sister, we love you.

Financial Permaculture

Two aspects of the growing alternative culture in the world that I love are alternative economy and Permaculture. I rarely just copy a long piece from another blog, but recently I have discovered Catherine Fitts of solari.com and she is an amazing woman with deep experience in the system who had put herself on the line to create alternatives. Here is her amazing post on Financial Permaculture.

Financial Permaculture

Catherine and Daily Musings,

July 12, 2008 at 8:07 pm

If we look at a community as a financial ecosystem with financial sustainability as one of our goals in achieving overall sustainability, one of the questions we should ask as we reduce waste is “who gets the benefit of that waste reduction?”

In classic market language, if we improve efficiency, whose expenses go down or time is saved or risk is reduced and whose equity increases as a result? In every community, we have financial capital - whether investment dollars or philanthropic dollars - leaving the community for investment elsewhere or for investment in large enterprises that use it to come and buy up our communities.

Who and what will attract that capital back locally and do so in a manner that ensures the successful safety and performance on those dollars? And if it comes back to be invested locally, who gets what as a result? The more we can make our waste reduction attractive to existing local capital, the easier it will be to sequence progressively more waste reduction. The more we can make our local purchases interested in supporting the enterprises funded with our local capital, the easier it will be to generate the performance we need to affirm our local capital and to retain and attract the human capital that could make this all go.

So one measure of the success of a community-wide permaculture development should be an improvement in local investment performance as a result of progressive shifts in a portion of locally controlled and managed capital out of investment in large corporations (such as the financial stocks where they have been losing a great deal of money) back into the local investment system.

Creating this positive loop of attracting local investment capital and eventually regional investment capital is critical to the overall development. The usual alternative is to use government funding and some foundation and philanthropic grant making. These sources depend on borrowing (or capital gains which may be sourced from companies dependent on government contracts, purchases and subsidies which are dependent on borrowing) which is dependent on military force to sustain. Such funding brings those energetics and central controls to bear on a local development.

Sustainability calls for financial sustainability that is not dependent on centrally engineered funds but rather generates from tangible, value-added flows grounded in peaceful, free economies.

If you have time, check out her many free articles about what is really going on in our financial and governmental cultures. Happy reading. Just one more thing. If you want to watch a wonderful video about our connection to all of creation go to http://newparadigmdigest.com/
You may want to turn the hooky music off, but it's an amazing story. Jude

Time for Retreat

I don't even like the word, but find myself here silent and away from all my family and friends listening to who Rumi call The Friend. It's been a while since I left the sound of the world and
took a trip inside. Not going to write too much, just want to stay in touch, repeat that the beauty of the earth is deeply abundant right now. Tiny tomatoes, zucchini threaten their abundance that has people locking their cars in our small town. Lettuce, spinach, huge blue potato plants put out blue blossoms and who knows what will show it's stuff soon from the corn which has begun to tassel and the beans putting out flowers. I am grateful. That is mostly what I know this gorgeous day in July.
JJ

Guns and Roses

It turns out, guns are for Killing Yourself!
Now that's truth in advertising, which of course would kill the gun business instead of the gun buyers. According to Salon.com: "Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." One of my youngest son's best friends shot himself with a gun. What a horror that he had the gun available during a time when he was so young and in a deep depression.



Now for the good news. Humm, well let's see. The garden is growing by leaps and bounds. Tiny new re-plantings are coming up and there are blossoms on the jalapenos. We are swamped with beautiful greens of all sorts, and the cilantro has already created a batch of salsa. Say nothing of those amazing garlic spates from which we created the most amazing pesto. Got some rhubarb at this week's farmer's market and plan on making some strawberry rhubarb custard pie, something I haven't had for years.

More good news is that my novel is breaking through again enough that I think it will be finished by the end of the summer at least. I'm thrilled and anxious to get it out into the world and start on my next project.

Love in time of globally warmed summer. JJ

Gift Economy and Global Warming

It's amazing how fast the summer flies. Spent yesterday on a long steep mountain hike, only my second of the season. It's such refreshment to the soul and to relationship. We had so much snow this winter, everything is abundant right now. Babies of all sorts, wild flowers, insects all really born of the rushing creeks and rivers that feed and wash us away. A record four people have died in the river that runs through town and countless others have been rescued.

Relationship is the essence of life and we humans often forget our small place in the whole world and then even smaller place in a gorgeous Universe. Which brings me back to my constant harping on the Gift Economy and Permaculture. I read a great blogger http://simonreeves.blogspot.com/
on Gift Economy and relationships.

I've been struggling lately with my relationship to a community I returned to. Many of my attempts at giving gifts of time, energy, events, etc. have been ignored or rejected. After a year of that, I came to the conclusion that I should stop giving. Maybe I'm just in the process of learning something new. It's really new not to have what I'm offering the community, see: www.neighborhooduniversecity.com
not be received. In permaculture fashion, I have been watching the earth, my garden, etc. and one thing I'm observing is that during stressful times, e.g. global warming, etc. plants produce in great abundance. There are hundreds of small elm trees growing as tiny seedlings in my garden.
So, maybe instead of doing less, I'll do more.

That's all for today. Thanks for you comments. Love to hear from you.
JJ

Musings on Gift, Permaculture, Work

I just read an enlightening article on Gift Economy from a woman in France. Her take on the whole idea is fresh and helpful. Check it out by clicking below and then put in Gift Economy.
http://www.wisemandarine.com/ Opps, Mandarine wrote that she is a he. My bad.

A poet friend of mine and her husband bought and live at an orchard in western Colorado. She speaks of the struggle to get the crop that society requires. From a freeze of blossoms that did not stop the fruit, their apricots are now deemed seconds. I sent her this poem in response.

Naming Ceremony For

Survivors

i rename those miraculous

persistent wonders i call

them love bundles or

sweet dreams or

mama's delight

maybe wine makers

or apricot of my eye

or cherry's cherry

a chance to listen

to these other voices

of our world, listen

as in permaculture

as in let's make a

date and go out

under the stars and

talk all night as in

Meister Eckart's

conclusion that we

are all birthers of god.

Even in the fruit we eat, there is judgement, a requirement for a perfection that is an illusion and a missing of the real beauty of life. A gift economy could change all that. Gratitude, giving and receiving might take some of that out of the equation.

Sweet gift giving to you this gorgeous Sunday.
JJ

More on the "Gift Economy"

Wow, did I find a great treasure related to the "Gift Economy" today. There is a magazine devoted to it and one that functions within it! Click to find an amazing story, one that really personifies what it means. I'm really blown away. Hope you check it out!
Click on A Man Impossible to Classify. What an amazing story. http://conversations.org/pics/none/laurie.jpg
JJ

Revolution a Long-Term Already Happening Phenomnon

Rebecca Solnit, writing for Orion magazine did a great article on the fact that we are already in a revolution entitled, "Revolutions per Minute, Radical transformation is all around us." Going back to the 60's when many of us were just waiting for the revolutionary event, she takes us through many of the changes by showing how nonplussed we are by many things today that in the 60's would have excited and startled us. Examples are gays out in the open, women in politics, awareness of global warming, the environment and our food system. It's worth a read, but no matter how hard I tried I could not get the link to work here. Try going to Orion Magazine and go to the article on June 14th. It's the best I can offer.

Wikipedia defines revolution as:A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, "a turnaround") is a significant change that usually takes place in a long period of time. In light of this definition, we might take heart. Things are not the same as they were twenty years ago. Movie making is getting into the hands of regular people. Farmer's Markets are back in vogue. Hybrid cars are becoming common. Yes, there is a lot that needs changing, but I THINK if I really honestly look back without rose colored glasses, there are things to cheer and places to look for hope.

That's not to look away from the mess we are in, but to say that we are capable of change and actually things are moving at a fairly fast pace sometimes in a better direction. Other countries are showing improvements that very few U.S. citizens even dream of. Some ways of our European neighbors, which have much older cultures than any of our save our indigenous ones, are much more advanced. Health care, prison reform, drug treatment, environmental care, child care, and good work are some areas where we already have great examples of better proven ways close by. South America is leading us toward more rights for a greater number of people and away from the domination of Multi-national corporations. Even the fact that we have an eloquent African American man running for president is a sign improvement.

I say, let's not give up on REVOLUTION, but let's also not expect it to happen over night. Our culture is impatient and expects instant coffee, which tastes terrible if you are accustomed to slow brewed, carefully grown and roasted luscious cups of coffee. I'm all for fairly traded, carefully tended REVOLUTION. JJ

Gore Vidal and Denis--Start the Revolution

Click on today's title to see a great article by Gore Vidal. He just doesn't stop. When others in their 80's are slow and mostly moving on, he's in there bringing us clear, revolutionary messages of direction and even hope. Dennis Kucinich brought impeachment proceedings against George Bush which have been sent to committee for a slow death by the wonderful Democratic Congress who we elected to take us back to sanity.

My garden is suffering from huge contrasts in cold and hot. Daytime 80's night time freezes! The wind which is always a little over the top in the spring here in the rocky mountains has been way over the top this year. Some days it just makes me want to holler. It reminds me of what is going on in the world these days. Ups and downs, hots and colds, lies and sudden hope like Permaculture, Pangea Day, even Obama getting past the gate keepers so far.

Today I'm going to stay as true to my real self as I know how. That's my take on what might save us, all of us being as totally our true selves as we possibly can. I think that's what Gore and Dennis are up to. Till tomorrow. JJ

Habeous Corpus Returns to the U.S. Now We Need Peace.

Good news! Only 5 to 4, but at least the Supreme Court voted that the "enemy combatants" have right to have access to America's courts. At least that is something. Some of us who have been directly involved with the "justice" system in this country don't breathe easy at the thought of being put into it's hands. Still after 6 years for some prisoners, there is at least hope of getting a day in court.

Now, if we could just get Multi-National Corporations out of our government, we might have a chance to become a worthy country. Our culture is based on genocide, ecocide and nuclear arms.
Many humans now believe we are beyond war, but those in power are too fearful of loosing ill gained wealth and power to imagine a world of peace. Economics play the dominant role in the pursuit of peace.

How can we re-distribute the world's resources to provide a more or less equal earth? Got any ideas? Small beginnings often bring about ultimate change. Peace with economic justice. JJ

PERMACULTURE 101

Permaculture:

There are many definitions for Permaculture because there are so many applications. For an audios definition and more exploration go to: http://www.urbanpermacultureguild.org/

A wonderful 52 minute Permaculture film can be viewed at http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-6370279933612522952

It’s a way of farming, gardening, and living. Basically I understand it as using observation of nature to understand the best way of doing just about anything. It is famous for not wasting, for everything being interconnected, which is what is understood by carefully studying things like forest culture, etc.

Many see it as one of the only possible solutions for our planet. Unfortunately, Bill Mollisen, one of the founders who travels all over the world promoting Permacuture, sees the U.S. as one of the only nations where conversion to Permaculture does not appear to be a posibilty because of our entrenched food systems and economic system.

There are a number of people, both Urban and Rural who are working hard to prove him wrong. I hope to throw my hat into that ring. How about you?

Peace with a future. JJ

We're in This Together

It's Monday morning and the news isn't good. Gas is over $4.00 a gallon. We have stolen Iraq's money and they want us out. Who knows what's really going on because the media has been bought out by big business.

In light of all that I just want to say, "Thanks for the Universe, the beauty, the wonder of community. For me that includes all of nature, all of creation and includes humans even though my family is in conflict, my nation is injust, and my heart is hungry for more kindness."

Short thought for today. Keep walking, it's good for the pocket book and the soul.

JJ

Ways We Can Save Money

Three major contributors to the economic depression in the U.S. are, THE WARS, Gasoline Prices, and FOOD SYSTEMS and Pricing. Some ideas that we are all probably doing are:
1. Driving more gently and slowly. Edmunds says not driving aggressively can save up to 37 % and slowing down up to 19%. That's a whopping 56% possible! That's a bunch. It's also great for our beloved earth so.... Adding bicycle riding and walking when possible could make us healthy as well.

2. STOP the WARS. I'm not sure what more to do, but at least almost 80% of us want it over.

3. FOOD. Buy locally, grow our own, trade, barter, local currency. Use real food, not manufactured plastic expensive junk!

Something I never thought of however, is that as a nation, we can save money by treating instead of jailing drug addicts! This is the result of a major conventional type study, not a bunch of pot smoking activists! I copied parts of the article below.

"American taxpayers would save more than $46 billion if drug addicts now in prison were instead treated, according to a study released Friday at a national convention of drug court professionals. Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a former U.S. drug czar, and actress Melanie Griffith joined experts in calling on lawmakers to increase funding for such courts. "This is not a war on drugs," McCaffrey said. "This is a problem for our families in America. In order to turn drugs around in this country, we're going to have to treat those 1.5 million people who are addicted.". . .

The study from the Urban Institute in Washington found that about 3 percent of arrested addicts are referred to a drug court, which offers supervised treatment to nonviolent offenders whose records are expunged if they complete the program. "Most addicts need something more than being warehoused," said Judge Charles Simmons Jr., a drug court judge in Greenville, S.C. "Drug courts are putting families back together, and they are decreasing crime at a tremendous savings to taxpayers."

Housing an inmate in prison can cost up to $40,000 a year while drug court treatment costs up to $3,500 per offender a year, Simmons said. McCaffrey said 15 years of research has yielded definitive proof that drug courts significantly reduce crime by as much as 35 percent. He said legislators and the public may get behind the system once they understand its cost savings."

And how about energy from sand. Click it to check it out below. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10514381

Interesting Related Blogs

Here is an interesting blog with some great poetry and poet's connections out of Aspen Colorado.
Kim is a poet who has her hand on the pulse of life. Check it out.
http://www.heartofeverything.blogspot.com/

Also check out the comment by Stephanie, a member of the Youth Engagement and Action Team at Plan USA. She says, "our team runs several programs working with U.S. youth who are interested in global issues. One of our programs is the Global Connections School Linking Program. Through this program classrooms in the U.S. are connected with schools in a Plan program country. Through the exchange of artwork and media students on b oth sides of the globe learn what life is like for a student in another country.

As members of YUGA, the youth run campaigns in their schools and communities raising awareness about issues like Child Exploitation (including child soldiers, child labor and child trafficking), Climate Change, HIV and AIDS, and Global Poverty. Link is on Post below.

Another amazing poet, teacher, speaker, lover of life, Rosemerry Trommer can be reached and read at

www.wordwoman.

And last, but definitely not least check out writer Susan Tweit's blog athttp://communityoftheland.blogspot.com/. Beautiful writing well worth reading.

Happy reading and connections.

Home with Family in Maine

Sorry for the week of relative silence. I deeply appreciate hearing from you and exploring your blogs and websites. It helps me understand and remember how many gorgeous people populate this world. I spent the week in Maine, land of my ancestors, where I celebrated my sister’s 60^th birthday and spent some good time with my parents who are in their 80’s. They are still independent in their own home, but for me, it was a deeper facing of the fact that they will go on their final journey in the near future.

My favorite brother-in-law and I talked into the night about what happened in his family when his father and then his mother died, quite recently. Families who already have conflicts, a lot of us I think, will really suffer when the parents die. I’m looking for wisdom on what steps to take to help the process. I am the oldest child in my family. I guess I should step up and take the matriarchal position of counselor, helper, instigator of what needs to happen.

Any insights, suggestions, places of guidance? There are great rifts and wounds in my family. Maybe we will heal through all that is coming up. Who knows, but it may be like having a baby to save a bad marriage. It rarely works.

Senate Votes with This Insane Administration

$165 Billion with no strings attached for two wars which the American people want no part of.
Now we might as well give up on the Senate as well as the administration. Tell your Senator you're sick of not being heard. Go to www.fcnl.org

Find your senators and tell them how you feel. I sent messages to both of my senators, one Democrat and one Republican who both voted in favor!! There is still a little hope for the House vote. You might want to check out the green party presidential candidate. She sounds pretty amazing. :http://www.runcynthiarun.org/

A Plan...Here's Something We Can Do..Watch Video Ezra

The Article I wrote earlier today has me searching for ways to help. I had the privilege of attending one of the global simultaneous showings of gorgeous films on Pangea Day, May 10th. You can view the film Ezra about child soldiers by clicking on the title to this article. There you will also find a link to Plan USA, a wonderful organization working with kids in distress around the world. I'm looking into all of the options they offer.

One of the ways is to get youth in your own community involved in helping other kids. In a way that is working from both angles. It's hard to stay vulnerable to the idea of killing people in war if you are connected to them in some way.http://www.planusa.org
Instead of military recruiters in our schools we can have programs that give meaning to our children's lives. Please post any other ideas find.

Putting 2&2 Together For Children Caught in War What Kind of Monster Have We Become

This country, The U.S.A. is at the top of the abuse of Children related to WAR. According to a recent ACLU report, "The United States is failing to protect its own youth from abusive military recruitment, and is simultaneously failing to protect the youth of other countries who have already been forcibly involved in armed conflict," said Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The United States should take immediate action to bring its policies and practices on military recruitment and treatment of former child soldiers in line with internationally accepted standards."

Another report from Human Rights Watch, has as its headline:

US: Respect Rights of Child Detainees in Iraq
Children in US Custody Held Without Due Process

This report includes the following information about U.S. treatment and detention of children.

On May 22, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will meet in Geneva to review US compliance with the Optional Protocol on children in armed conflict, which the US ratified in 2002. The treaty bans the recruitment and use of persons under 18 in hostilities by any party to a conflict, and requires states to provide all appropriate assistance for the physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of such children under their jurisdiction or control.

Since 2003, the US has detained some 2,400 children in Iraq, including children as young as 10. Detention rates rose drastically in 2007 to an average of 100 new children a month from 25 a month in 2006.

"The vast majority of children detained in Iraq languish for months in US military custody. The US should provide these children with immediate access to lawyers and an independent judicial review of their detention," said Clarisa Bencomo, Middle East children’s researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Democracy Now, comments on the report. "The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the Bush administration of holding the youths in violation of international standards. The US has joined Somalia as the only states to refuse to ratify the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. Around 2,500 youths have been jailed in US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo since 2002."


There is an overwhelming link between the military's recruitment policies and it's treatment of children in detention. There is a huge problem that demands a revolution in thinking from the top down. Is there hope for change?

Another article on Common Dreams stated that Congress had invited Murat Kurnaz, an ex-Guantanamo prisoner to testify via satellite. Only about 6 members showed up.The first to speak after Kurnaz was finished was ranking member on the committee, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who expressed doubts about the testimony and recalled that the United States was “at war” and needed to protect itself even at the price of making some errors. This comment brings me so much shame after causing 5 years of suffering to an innocent man. What kind of monsters have we become?

Troops/Earthquakes /Cyclones & Revolution

I'm always amazed that we can continue send soldiers to a tiny country to kill people in a war that almost no one supports, while outrageous human and earth disasters go almost unattended. The money, the human effort, all thrown down an enormous black hole that causes wounds so deep we will need unknown medicine to heal them.

Spies are being created by the thousands while children may die in the thousands because a few cruel men refuse to allow them to be helped, and the monster Bush keeps the aid at bay by continuing to aggravate the military monsters of Burma.

We don't want any of this any more. The ordinary people of the world are fed up. We are tired of lives that have no meaning. We are up to our necks in horror paid for from our labor. We are over destroying the earth that sustains us. We are ready for goodness, kindness, hope, peace, and some for all, not most of it for a few.

We want revolution in our thoughts, what we allow, what we buy, and how we live. Got any ideas? Let's use this amazing wealth of creativity born in us for our own lives and the lives of each other and our children, not to increase the wealth of a few obscenely wealthy few who think they own the world.

The Sound of Life

I'm starting a new "Writing for Life," class in a few days, so am preparing. Sound is my first thought. Kids love the sound of language, whether their own invented speech or whatever native language their community speaks. We have rhythm like music when we write or speak or maybe we can't hear ourselves, so we loose our the sense of the sound of our words.

I'm taking some of my more recent writing and reading it out loud to myself, loudly! Which reminds me of how we have taken to being so silent in our current American culture. We do not hear ourselves yell or sing or just speak truth. During Nazi occupation of many parts of Europe, silence was required for survival. There was a saying about that time that was taken by the gay community as this part of our population tried to exist. Death was sometimes the consequence of "coming out." The saying was, "Silence is Death."

If we are to maintain life, we must not be silent. We need to gather with each other and speak hope into what looks like a hopeless void. We need to give our language in poetry, in articles, in books, in song, in conversation, in speeches, in protests in the street. We need to go together to the meetings of our government and speak, hear the sound of our own bodies, give our sound as a gift to the greater community that is dying from our silences.

Speak to friends, speak to power, but for god's sake and ours, SPEAK!

More on The Gift Economy

Just wanted to give you a little more on the subject of a Gift Economy. I'm just beginning an experiment to see how the concept works in real life. Seva Cafe in India has been doing a version of it for a while. I'm researching not only online, but in my daily life to see what happens. Stepping out in a way that is new even to me. Stay tuned.

On Linux.com, Jem Matzab writes about the gift economy in his article, The Gift Economy and Free Software. He states that, "AGift Economy is a social system in which status is given by how much one shares or gives to one's community, as opposed to an "exchange economy" where status is given to those who own or control the most stuff. Capitalism was founded on the premise that money would encourage people to be more productive; the key here is encouraging people to be more productive, not the means by which it is achieved. A productive society is also prosperous."Gifford Pinchot says in his article, The Gift Economy, "In the potlatches of the Chinook, Nootka, and other Pacific Northwest peoples, chiefs vied to give the most blankets and other valuables. More generally, in hunter-gatherer societies the hunter's status was not determined by how much of the kill he ate, but rather by what he brought back for others."In his brilliant book The Gift: The Erotic Life of Property, Lewis Hyde points to two types of economies. In a commodity (or exchange) economy, status is accorded to those who have the most. In a gift economy, status is accorded to those who give the most to others.Lest we think that the principles of a gift economy will only work for simple, primitive or small enterprises, Hyde points out that the community of scientists follows the rules of a gift economy. The scientists with highest status are not those who possesses the most knowledge; they are the ones who have contributed the most to their fields. A scientist of great knowledge, but only minor contributions is almost pitied - his or her career is seen as a waste of talent."

And from a more feminist perspective," Exchange creates and requires scarcity. If everyone were giving to everyone else, there would be no need to exchange. The market needs scarcity to maintain the level of prices. In fact when there is an abundance of products scarcity is often created on purpose. An example of this is the plowing under of 'overabundant' crops (which may happen even when people are standing by who are hungry). On a larger scale scarcity is created 1. by the channeling of wealth into the hands of the few who then have power over the many; 2. by spending on armaments and monuments which have no nurturing value but only serve for destruction and display of power; and 3. by privatizing or depleting the environment so that the gifts of nature are unavailable to the many. The exchange paradigm is a belief system which validates this kind of behavior. Individuals who espouse it are functional to the economic system of which they are a part. Exchange is adversarial, each person tries to give less and get more, an attitude which creates antagonism and distance among the players. Gift giving creates and requires abundance. In fact, in scarcity gift giving is difficult and even self sacrificial while in abundance it is satisfying and even delightful." by Genevieve Vaughan

Gift Economy/Food Riots/and Gardens

It's time for us to do something. I just came from watering our plot in our community garden. There are food riots in many countries and the UN says that 33 countries are on the verge of total disruption of their governments because of food prices and shortages. There are many reasons for this, but here are a few sited now even on conventional news media.

1. Global warming is disrupting production.
2. Prices are soaring because of manipulation of agriculture by the U.S. the World Trade organization and other wealthy powerful governments.
3. Bio fuels are taking over farm land as well as causing the destruction of rain forest land to produce bio fuel crops.
4. The cost of fuel is soaring and distribution of food across thousands of miles also raises the price of food.

What we need is to revamp the whole basis of world wide economies. It is no humane to have people starving while some have millions of times more money than they can spend in a lifetime.

Another issue that feeds into economies is the slavery of labor. Even in countries where equality and democracy are high held ideas, as the U.S. was purported to be at some point in our past, when we enter the workplace, democracy and equality go out the window. Very few people are doing what they were born to do nor can they even figure out what that would be. Even in very wealthy countries people spend their lives doing what they think will bring them wealth or at least a livleihood instead of what gives their lives purpose and meaning.

Gift economies are circular. They involved a giving based system where the point is to give what each person has to give to the community and through a circle the giver has his or her needs met.