I Know I’m an Oil Slave

Oil – petroleum – an oily flammable … liquid that may vary from almost colorless to black, occurs in many places in the upper strata of the earth, is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons with small amounts of other substances and is prepared for use as gasoline … or other products by various refining processes (for the purposes of this essay, i use the word – oil – to refer to all fossil fuels, petrochemicals, and the thousands of petroleum products that run our world – plastics, asphalt, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fiber, etc.)

Slave – one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence

I know i’m an oil slave because before sunrise i roll outta bed into “100% man made material” house shoes from the global mega market down the street. I stagger across the plastic tile floor to the plastic coffeemaker on the plastic counter for my genetically modified, intensely farmed coffee packaged of course in plastic.

I know plastic waste is smothering the planet, that micro plastics are found at the poles, on mountains, throughout the oceans, killing our wild life, is in our food, water, and our blood stream.

I know i’m an oil slave because when i head out the door on the way to work i ignite an internal combustion engine that carries me on synthetic rubber across asphalt roads in machines designed to fail, become obsolete and appeal less to function and durability and more to ego inflation, fashion, and symbols of status and power. I know these qualities require a vastly inflated infrastructure than would be needed strictly for utility, that we could produce a few essential models for purpose that would require a tiny fraction of resources, create little waste, and would last essentially forever. That this applies to all our outrageously expensive consumer comforts and conveniences.

I know i’m an oil slave because i go to work to build and maintain the machines and infrastructures of our global industrial civilization, the product of capitalism. I know i need the money it provides to buy the food capitalism supplies through oil and technology. I know that fertilizer feeds the crops protected by herbicides and pesticides. That more is required each year to compensate for soil destruction and immunity to poison. I know vast amounts of oil are required to harvest, transport, process and package in plastic and paper and transport again thousands of miles to the grocery store where i grab it off the shelf. That this capitalist system we depend on to survive is destroying our habitat and threatens us with extinction.

I know the work is mandated by the plutocratic oligarchy, the bank/corporation/government structure, to directly support the exploitation and waste of resources for minor conveniences and comforts marketed as miracles for the common folk in order to amass extreme wealth and power for the rich white folks downtown. That there is little choice for me to support my family other than to be a part of the mega machine of capitalism, that it all depends on oil.

I know i’m an oil slave because i am addicted to the indoor climate controlled constellation of screens of brain entrainment and so called celebrity entertainment ‘cocoon of crap’ that is our civilization of white, christian, european and american colonization of the planet. I know the vast majority of the earth are hungry, thirsty, suffering in pain and deprivation. That they pay the price of our luxury.

I know the war machine of capitalism is built on a memetic infrastructure of an evolved monotheism, psychological slavery enhanced by scientific technique and the concept of ‘property’ established and maintained by violence. That without the foundation of violence such a structure cannot function.

I know the war machine is fueled by that cosmic energy concentrated in the ground, the sunlight stored in ancient plant life for billions of years, the blood of Mother Earth – oil

I know human beings set fire to it as a satanic sacrifice conjuring a demon, industrial civilization, from whom we demanded dominion over the earth, that our wish was granted through a technological golem, first our servant now our master, a global mass of material and mechanical flows, an explosion of monocultural biomass, a planetary amoeba – capitalism – raping and pillaging the land and seascape and filling the atmosphere with its fetid waste bringing on abrupt, irreversible, catastrophic climate change and the sixth mass extinction.

I know we are that monster. That we are all oil slaves. That its time to die

Inwardly.

Worth Dying For

Peace and Glory festooned across my brow …

over a winged skull …

the rhinestone encrusted ball cap turned backwards on my head

“What’s up with you and them skulls all the time” she sneered “what’s that representin’?”

i said ta me its the death of the self, flyin’ off ta heaven …

like  when you die, you instantly connected to the source of the universe, that’s why i say its ultimately a dead end, this unending fight to survive goin’ on within ourselves and the focus of the whole movement of civilization … war in every sphere of every level of our consciousness playin’ out in all it’s forms all out in the world …

we all gonna die anyway

ergo – if i gonna die – obviously – there is only one and constant question –

is what i doin’, right here and now, worth dyin’ for?

 

 

One of my Greatest Accomplishments

To have had it come back ’round to me, more than once, “Gary the only white boy I trust.”

Cleanin’ It Up …

Go to work every day.

Its like livin’ in the camp of the enemy – the best disguise is complete openness.

So … if my god is black and my wife is black and my children and grandchildren and neighbors are black … what might that indicate ’bout me? I may not appear so, but actually i am black.

… thirty years ago, fall 1982, age 24, i find myself at the end of the road, can’t go no further …

A black family tribe came along, dug down in the mud and picked me up, a sangha of saints i revere to this day. They picked me up and set me on my feet and i stepped onto the long glory road of urban industrial labor.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are aspects to bein’ an oil slave i LOVE. I work with the best people. Period.

And we all understand … it ain’t ’bout makin’ the company googaws of millions of dollars … which we do … its ’bout the people workin’ beside ya, up and down the line.

The Corrosive Residue of Evil

… in our institutions and our consciousness. Thats what we mired in right now.

Yes its all physical and material too – our entire fragile, artificial, disposable survival system born of slave labor and the explosive enrgy of oil, powered by the mind of man, but more deeply, with far greater expanse, is the divisions in our mind into us and them. Its self perpetuating.

Thought itself … its not the memetic particles, atoms, or molecules … or the code … much less the whole program … war … its the very impulse to think … its born of the fear of death  … the drive to survive …

Thought arises of its own accord, its own seed and root. The dimension of thought is small and narrow and can take care of itself if left alone. It wants to be left alone for optimum perfomance, the brain built that way.

All the magic formulas (prayer, meditation, science, myth and song) function in their limited spheres. And all those functions occur within a cosmic dimension we all share, here and now.

Is one way better than another? Which is the best magic formula?

The one that incinerates instantly the corrosive residue of evil … like an invisible sun.

That ain’t found in formula, code or magic.

The First Order of Business

The tagline of this blog is the 2nd ta last line of the book i wrote. In Spirit it is in sync with the principles of one and zero. When i wrote the line, i was referring specifically to prejudice.

I wrote the line sometime prior to ’96 age 38 after 12 straight years in the unskilled labor force. It took me 10 years to write my book. It seems so simple and naive now in a way. It was just me educating my own ignorance. Much library time and many books consumed along the way.

It took another 7 years to self publish. It was a tortured route that mangled the book somewhat. You see i led a cloistered life because in 2010 i still didn’t know what the internet was, even though i had spent countless hours googlin’ ONLY K and Bohm at the library. Researched K and Bohm religiously on the internet and consumed at least a hundred of their separate and combined and about them and their lives books on up to ’bout ’09, along with the religiophilosociopsychopolitico historical scientific documentation type of stuff that filled the library shelves and more than a few volumes of fiction.

But mainly, the focus of my whole life was obtain money through sellin’ my life, the hours of the day, for the family to survive the miasma of modern society. I allowed the state to direct me in exchange for permitting us to live. I been in the trenches from the gitgo.

Industrial labor, along with the vast economic machine of all the white and blue collar service industries that support it, is a world unto itself. The grandsons and granddaughters of the poor white trash sharecroppers and the black slaves and the slave masters all bunched up in the filthy, dangerous machine filled buildings worshipping production on a daily basis sacrificing themselves and their families to the god of capitalism in a social structure built on the sacrifice of generations of black people over hundreds of years, i say these children and grandcildren bear a burden imposed top down from authority and perhaps a greater burden built in our brain is the racial stereotypes that divide our consciousness.

Doin’ the labor is one thing, a mighty thing. The structural prejudice is another. Of course its not just racial prejudice, its every other kind also, but its the racial prejudice that underlies and supports all the others, race takes precedence. I know. I am a witness.

The reason i say ‘the first order of business’ is cause when we initially approach each other to come together in our struggle to survive, our relationship is gummed up by the predetermined trust factors built into our society. That is our consciousness.

When i explain to my friends the difference between white on black prejudice  as opposed to black on white, i tell ’em this. When we was young, hangin’ ’round the feed store in the totally white community of the small town south, we might over hear the old men say somethin’ like “… i ain’t got nothin’ ‘gainst (n-word). I think ever’body 0tta have one. Ha ha ha.” Thats an expression of racism without deep feelin’.

But the emotion in a black person tryin’ ta navigate the white dominant system the feelin’ is in the blood flowin’ through their vein with every heartbeat, with every breath. Its not just “driving while black” is an apparent crime, so is tryin’ to go to school while black, tryin’ to buy a home while black, tryin’ to find a job and every other transaction common to ecomomic survival. Especially difficult is tryin’ ta navigate the judicial system while black.  That is day in and day out. So quite naturally a black mind is gonna be far more conscious of an unjust burden, while the white mind is gonna derive his benefit without consideration. It takes time for white to prove worthy of the trust of black. And that don’t occur very damn often.

The reason i say the first order of business is because of ‘that which is of hightest value’. Now usually when is say ‘that which is of hightest value’ i mean our state of mind, a clean clear perception. Shifting the frame of reference to bein’ an oil slave facin’ a global emergency i gonna say yeah, a good, stable mind is a necessity, but right here and now its Women and Children first. We want to clean and clear our minds of prejudice because we want to secure the health and safety of the greatest jewel of the known universe that only comes into the world through the body of a woman.

Shifting Frames of Reference and Truth.

Ok. Yeah. So it starting now and its startin’ here, not because of … anything, but because its right. I may make a big deal outta right and wrong sometimes … but its only because i sense it is central to what is  happenin’ in the world. Or rather its just the sense, and not necessarily the “right” and “wrong”.

I gonna show here at Oil Slave how all the bullshit i talk about relates to everyday livin’ “down here” where the common man lives. I gonna show how there is an “everybody” and how everybody shares a common need. Need as in the sense of absolute necessity, like food, water and air. Clear Perception – The Obliteration of Consciousness.

Or maybe that already been done and and if ya wanted to see it you wooda done did.

Ok. What about i just talk ’bout, more from a “personal” view point ’bout what i see, keep it simple and completely open. As opposed, say to, speakin’ in an over general, abstract or “universal” type of way, what it takes to survive or get through the day down here, a confession.

I gonna draw a map taking into account the shifting frames of reference, like how even sitting quietly at home, much less out in the street, perception is limited. I mean you can’t see out the back of your head or beyond the horizon or all directions at once. And ya got at minimum the biological drives, eating and fucking, and the attendant psychological drivers (and their offspring). Thought be chasin’ its tale through our head and through our world. One minute this and the next that.

So like the blind men who can’t agree on what an elephant is, even when its at hand, we still gotta continue to live together. And still on the same planet, side by side. We’ll just jam our various riffs, all our different views, and see where they connected.

Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened in U.S.

SFGate

via Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened in U.S. – SFGate.

 

The NEXT Global Economy and Resilient Disobedience

via The NEXT Global Economy and Resilient Disobedience.

 

Beyond Meds: Alternatives to Psychiatry

A foodie Friday post.

Another way our culture is based and sustained by the abuse of our fellow human beings is documented in this film.

Until we root out all the abuses against the planet, life and humanity we will all continue to hurt.

There is more interest in food now than ever before, yet, no one is talking about the people who pick our food, the hundreds of thousands of hard working individuals to whom we are all connected through our purchases at supermarkets, farmers’ markets and restaurants.

FOOD CHAIN explores the state of labor within the agriculture sector in the US and the immoral practices that affect the lives of countless thousands of farm workers.

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