Thinking of a slogan for a bumper sticker years ago, I thought of "Stop Bitching Start A Revolution". Yes, I admit it was my idea! So Stop Bitching...........has had quite a journey. On bumper stickers, t-shirts, peoples' doorways, pirated in India, Japan, Italy, Germany, Sweden and who knows where else. Censured in Israel, bandied about the Mideast by young students studying here in the States and in Europe, appeared at a anti-war rally when the U.S. still had them in spite of the Bush crack-downs, appearing on a young woman holding up the globe, her black and white Stop Bitching shirt for all to see, celebrities wearing it to events, FBI and Secret Service guys, bankers, cops, etc. wearing the shirt under their shirt and tie or other uniforms. It's been around and still is. Start A Revolution, I meant each person start your own revolution in your consciousness in your conscience, become a rebel against a system that is killing just about everything and certainly all of us.
My first experience with revolution.................. Arguments between my father and my uncle about the revolution in Russia, listening while they argued; one a communist, the other a socialist, arguing about violence or non-violence to achieve revolution, the communist for violent overthrow, the socialist for working with the system to change it.
My second experience with revolution ...........the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the 50's. Living in Greenwich Village in New York City, place of my birth, knowing lots of guys and some women going off to Cuba to fight with the rebels in the hills to get Batista out of Cuba. Idealists with long hair and guitars. I was so enamored with other young people, against all odds, going up against the dictator and when they won I and my friends were overjoyed. Good triumphed over Evil, even went up with adoring crowds to catch a glimpse of the revolutionaries staying at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Night of celebration, dancing and singing, etc. Thrilled and happy with it all and then one day reading in the New York Times that the revolutionaries had lined up the ruling people in prison, lining them up and executing them! Shock, disappointment, crying many days.......didn't read another newspaper for years and years and refused to follow anything political though I had been trained from a early age to pay attention to what was going on in the world.
Now....revolution everywhere in the Mideast...........myself, as so many others, watching the Egyptian young people, cheered by their resolve and dedication, determined to win against all odds and they did....It had spread to them from Tunisia and now it's raging violently in Libya, and severely suppressed in Bahrain and Syria. And now, I'm realizing what did anyone win? There is no change, nothing has happened, old hatreds still flaring, there is still no work for young people anywhere on the globe including our country, why not, why hasn't anything happened, why will nothing happen? Because everything is a closed system of high finance games and competition, because the basic philosophic building block, the foundation of society has not changed. Because it is still the rich and poor and the poor are growing in number as the rich grow in assets, resources that truly belong to everyone, air, water, earth. All of it owned it seems by a few. There is such acceptance of 'business as usual' that slums are now being glorified as part of the future of great cities. It all begins to look like a horrible science fiction movie. A movie of chaos and pain.
I just received my latest copy of Architectural Record about the life of a great American City...New York. And the growth of parks and beautiful buildings and better places to work, where there used to be horrible airless factories. Everywhere the creation of beauty and more ease and it looks beautiful to me. Of course I don't see pictures of the dirty air, nor close-ups of many of the millions of harried citizens of the city and I'm not looking for that in this magazine. Then I read that the mayor is doing all this to New York to make it economically competitive in the international market.
If we had a guiding philosophy governing us that rewards goodness and intelligence and creativity and cooperation and made sure survival was there for everyone, the same people who create this beauty would do so for everyone without worrying about the international finance economy, the same international financial structure that is causing so much pain for so many people on our lovely planet or what's left of it. I also just heard that the president of my country, the USA, has dropped the legislation to help save our air quality that causes so much death and sickness to so many children, killing their lungs and the hearts of the older ones. I heard a woman from the American Lung Association saying that his action was outrageous! And she's right, but our rulers have decided that those rules trying to protect us cost too much and won't help the economy.
The economy had better be about the survival of us all and we need to revolutionize the way we think about governments and the ever-present rich and poor. Isn't it time for a real change, a real revolution that starts at the very foundation of what we know and begins to change that basic philosophy to one of cooperaton, the health and welfare of everyone? We seem to go on century after century accepting 'what is', changing one exploitive civilization with another, over and over and over again. Isn't it time to stop and let our consciences and consciousnesses run the way we live our lives and govern ourselves?
This is the way to live well and keep our resources intact for the use of everyone. It lies in our philosophy and what we expect from life and we need to examine that and follow our highest intelligence and deepest spiritual and intellectual awarensss. We can do it starting now, we have the tools, we have the technology, we have to change our philosophy, which simply means to live by what we believe in. Not a philosophy that hangs out on a bookshelf somewhere or once a week or five times a day, but a philosophy of love, kindness, responsibility to each other and perhaps even love, here and now in our present configuration. I don't expect to see this happen within my own lifetime, but would want it for my descendants and those of the people I know and love.
Wouldn't you love to know that people are not going to bed hungry, that people are not afraid for their lives, that there is plenty of pure water, air and land to share with one another? Why do we have to accept what is just because it's always been? Begin to explore those questions and you will know what the answers are and we can begin to change it all around us now. Do you still think the planet will support billions and billions of us? We need to all change the direction we are going for a different one. A philosophy we can believe in and live by. Stayed tuned if you can.............
"Let us now finally accept and take our place as precious parts and parcel of Cosmic Creativity and acccept the expanding power and product of our minds as natural and as benevolent and as wondrous as all of Nature. Then applying the power and product of mind into the Evolutionary Force will be understood as the Holy act of Creavolution....then we are truly divine....then we are free....then We are part of the God Force and take our rightful place as Custodians of this Earth, this solar system, this galaxy. this Universe." Wulf Zendik
