In the USA there is free speech — with a three hour time limit.

The policewoman in this video is operating as a robot — she is regurgitating things she has been told to say by other people, but does not believe in.

She is repeating things that make ‘logical’ sense according to a set of ‘logic’/'rules’ that have been defined by other people.

But she is not speaking from her heart and feelings or her lived experience as a human being. If she did that she would speak and act differently.

This difference is the key to Occupy.

In the last fifty years we have eaten more than 90% of the big fish in the oceans:

And instead we have turned the entire Pacific Ocean (the Pacific Ocean!) into a Floating Garage Patch!!:

As Charles Moore says, “We had to be taught to renounce the powerful conservation ethic we had developed during the Great Depression and World War II.”

Advertising companies taught us.

When we discover that what we were taught no longer serves us, it is not only possible, in fact we have an obligation to unlearn what have been taught and to find better ways of getting what we want and need.

The opening statement of this video is, “When the European first came here (Columbus) we could drink out of any river. If the Europeans had lived the Indian way when they came we’d still be drinking all the water.” An interesting perspective.

I don’t particularly like the music that goes with this track. And I don’t particularly want to live in a teepee.

But I do think that our rivers and our oceans are more polluted than I would like them to be. So maybe there is something in the Indian way of thinking and being that we can learn from.

This article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times says what I have been thinking for a while: the Earth is full.

As the WWF has been saying for some time now, we are using resources faster than the Earth can replenish them: not ‘slightly’ more, but a full 50% more than the Earth is able to renew them. We are using 50% more than the Earth can regenerate each year (and that is reducing the amount that it can generate next year). We are spending 50% more than our income, and our income forecast is going down.

Population is heading up, and available resources are heading down.

The conclusion of at least one environment minister is that “the short sightedness and greed of mankind – especially in the rich developed world – is so great that in a hundred years this planet will be uninhabitable for billions of people.”

Others are optimistic, as am I.

Think back through your own country’s history and you will come up with examples where people faced impossible odds, and through ingenuity and determination they worked together to overcome the obstacles they faced.

Our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and our great-great-great-great-great grandparents did not go through everything they went through just so that we could say “It’s not happening” or “There’s nothing we can do.”

The Earth is full. We need a new way forward.

My first reaction to watching this video is, “That’s a really weird thing to do!”

And then, “Why?”

What in my culture and life has taught me that it is weird to say something nice?

And what would my world be like if behaviour like this was just ‘normal’ ?

This poem is read, passionately, by Eve Ensler in the last couple of minutes of the video on the previous post.

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE

I love being a girl.
I can feel what you’re feeling
as you’re feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend’s really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won’t call back.
It’s a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it’s unbearable when I lose.

I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don’t you dare say all negative that it’s a
teenage thing
or it’s only only because I’m a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It’s like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it’s still in my body.

I know when the coconut’s about to fall.
I know that we’ve pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn’t coming back.
That no one’s prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.

This is not extreme.
It’s a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don’t tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It’s how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don’t tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.

I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing’s been diluted.
Nothing’s leaked out.
I can take you back.

I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.

Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist, is the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. In conjunction with I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE, V-Day has developed a targeted pilot program, V-Girls, to engage young women in our “empowerment philanthropy” model, providing them with a platform to amplify their voices.

Copied from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/i-am-an-emotional-creatur_b_468801.html

Two viewpoints saying the same thing in different ways have come to me on Facebook today.

One is a fictional story about a ‘minister’ who becomes detached from any form of relationship with his wife, his daughter, and ultimately himself — because he learns that to any question from his superiors there are two answers. One is the true answer, and the other is the required answer — the one that will bring him advancement.

“The Death of His Excellency, The Ex-Minister” is here.

The second is a TED talk by ‘Vagina Monologues’ author Eve Ensler. She says roughly the same thing, in a different way: that the problem with our world is that we have all been taught to detach ourselves from our inner girl. From the ability to empathise.

Eve Ensler’s talk “Embrace your inner girl” is here, below:

(Also at: http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html )

OK, perhaps they are not saying exactly the same thing. One (story) says we have lost our ability to speak our truth — a disconnection from Self — which is matched by a disconnection from the females in his life. The other (talk) is saying we have lost our ability to connect with our inner feminine.

But surely that is saying the same thing? Losing the connection with that part of ourselves that is able to speak our truth, and choosing instead to submit (through fear/coercion) to an external authority that is perceived as ‘superior’

Following on from the previous post, ”all the major threats facing us today are problems entirely of our own making and since we made the problems we can also solve the problems.”

As Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem by using the same thinking that created that problem.”

So, as a world in overshoot heads for crisis piled upon crisis, we need to find new ways of thinking.

Any new thinking is bound to seem strange at first, simply because it is different from how we have come to see the world in the past.

This video, I believe, describes part of the new mix:

Note: The above frame has been set to skip the introduction. You can play it by dragging the circle back to the beginning of the clip.