http://www.afterpartyusa.org/

 

6. WE’RE DOING THIS

We are on the margins now.

But we move the margins to the center.

We run for school boards and city councils and mayorships. We take over local governments with believers in these principles. We change the government from within.

We protest and we stand behind protesters. We join with unions and workers fighting to unionize. A few of us have the courage to throw our bodies against the grinding corporate machinery. The rest of us offer our humble support and solidarity.

We form worker-owned cooperatives and fight for worker ownership of existing businesses.

We want alternative currencies based on sharing.

Most importantly, we serve each other.

We feed those who are hungry.

We educate those who wish to learn.

We care for the sick.

We house those whose houses have been taken away.

We are lucky.

We have arrived at just the right moment.

Every struggle in the past led to this one.

This is not ironic.

This is serious.

This is our country.

This is our planet.

This is our moment.

Another world is possible.

We are making it.

 

Rule 1: You will receive a body. Whether you love it or hate it, it’s yours for life, so accept it. What counts is what’s inside.

Rule Two: You will be presented with lessons. life is a constant learning experience, and every day provides opportunities for you to learn more.

Rule Three: There are no mistakes, only lessons. compassion is the remedy for harsh judgment – of ourselves and others.

Rule Four: The lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons repeat until learned. what ppl call problems and challenges, irritations and frustrations, are just more lessons

Rule Five: Learning does not end. While you are alive there are always lessons to be learned. be humble enough to always acknowledge your own weaknesses, and be flexible enough to adapt from what you’re used to b.

Rule Six: “There” is no better than “here”. be grateful for and enjoy what you have, and where you are on your journey.

Rule Seven: Others are only mirrors of you. you love or hate something about another person according to what love or hate about yourself. sorry, not sorry. be tolerant; accept others as they are, and strive for clarity of self-awareness; strive to truly understand

Rule Eight: What you make of your life is up to you. you have all the tools and resources you need. what you do with them is up to you. take responsibility for yourself. stop bitching.

Rule Nine: Your answers lie inside of you. trust your instincts and your innermost feelings. listen to feelings as well as sounds. look, listen, and trust.

Rule Ten: You will forget all this at birth. see my Love Is All blog post about this one.

these aren’t commandments. or really rules. it just works for me to know these as universal truths.

when you refuse to support others it’s a sign that you’re not adequately attending to your own needs. you lackin bruh, and it shows. support others, and by doing so you support yourself.

commit to the process of constant learning and change

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s an article from 2013 regarding minimum wage, you might find interesting. Seems that places with higher minimum wage salaries have more unemployment, and places with little to no minimum wage at all, have more ppl employed. Oh.

Peep this article first: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27459178

Then this one: http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/14/smallbusiness/minimum-wage-washington-jobs/index.html

_____________________________

Minimum Wage Madness

By Thomas Sowell – September 17, 2013

Political crusades for raising the minimum wage are back again. Advocates of minimum wage laws often give themselves credit for being more “compassionate” towards “the poor.” But they seldom bother to check what are the actual consequences of such laws.

One of the simplest and most fundamental economic principles is that people tend to buy more when the price is lower and less when the price is higher. Yet advocates of minimum wage laws seem to think that the government can raise the price of labor without reducing the amount of labor that will be hired.

When you turn from economic principles to hard facts, the case against minimum wage laws is even stronger.

Countries with minimum wage laws almost invariably have higher rates of unemployment than countries without minimum wage laws.

Most nations today have minimum wage laws, but they have not always had them. Unemployment rates have been very much lower in places and times when there were no minimum wage laws.

Switzerland is one of the few modern nations without a minimum wage law. In 2003, “The Economist” magazine reported: “Switzerland’s unemployment neared a five-year high of 3.9 percent in February.” In February of this year, Switzerland’s unemployment rate was 3.1 percent. A recent issue of “The Economist” showed Switzerland’s unemployment rate as 2.1 percent.

Most Americans today have never seen unemployment rates that low. However, there was a time when there was no federal minimum wage law in the United States. The last time was during the Coolidge administration, when the annual unemployment rate got as low as 1.8 percent. When Hong Kong was a British colony, it had no minimum wage law. In 1991 its unemployment rate was under 2 percent.

As for being “compassionate” toward “the poor,” this assumes that there is some enduring class of Americans who are poor in some meaningful sense, and that there is something compassionate about reducing their chances of getting a job.

Most Americans living below the government-set poverty line have a washer and/or a dryer, as well as a computer. More than 80 percent have air conditioning. More than 80 percent also have both a landline and a cell phone. Nearly all have television and a refrigerator. Most Americans living below the official poverty line also own a motor vehicle and have more living space than the average European — not Europeans in poverty, the average European.

Why then are they called “poor”? Because government bureaucrats create the official definition of poverty, and they do so in ways that provide a political rationale for the welfare state — and, not incidentally, for the bureaucrats’ own jobs.

Most people in the lower income brackets are not an enduring class. Most working people in the bottom 20 percent in income at a given time do not stay there over time. More of them end up in the top 20 percent than remain behind in the bottom 20 percent.

There is nothing mysterious about the fact that most people start off in entry level jobs that pay much less than they will earn after they get some work experience. But, when minimum wage levels are set without regard to their initial productivity, young people are disproportionately unemployed — priced out of jobs.

In European welfare states where minimum wages, and mandated job benefits to be paid for by employers, are more generous than in the United States, unemployment rates for younger workers are often 20 percent or higher, even when there is no recession.

Unemployed young people lose not only the pay they could have earned but, at least equally important, the work experience that would enable them to earn higher rates of pay later on.

Minorities, like young people, can also be priced out of jobs. In the United States, the last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate — 1930 — was also the last year when there was no federal minimum wage law. Inflation in the 1940s raised the pay of even unskilled workers above the minimum wage set in 1938. Economically, it was the same as if there were no minimum wage law by the late 1940s.

In 1948 the unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4 percent. This was a fraction of what it would become in even the most prosperous years from 1958 on, as the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation.

Some “compassion” for “the poor”!

 

in Syria on March 2011, 15 schoolchildren were arrested & reportedly tortured for writing anti-government graffiti on a wall.

protests were peaceful to begin with, calling for the kids’ release, democracy and greater freedom for people in the country.

the Syrian government responded on March 18, 2011 when the army opened fire on protesters, killing 4 people.

then on March 19, 2011…the army shot at mourners at the victims’ funerals, killing another person.

once security forces opened fire on peaceful demonstrations, people demanded that the President, Bashar al-Assad, resign.

and here we are three years later. war still raging.

costs $30 million a week so far just to have our ships “parked” by Syria.

Wes Clark – America’s Foreign Policy “Coup” / the 6:23 mark. WATCH THIS! from 2001. #Syria http://t.co/BSGcWiJHPx

 

I had no idea how hard being a parent would be. I admit that.

I, of course, didn’t think it was going to be easy, but I didn’t imagine it would be this physically hard. I love my daughter more than words can express, don’t get me wrong. I just didn’t know my back, and overall body, would be in so much pain between the constant carrying, cradling, rocking, etc., and the sleep deprivation and/or irregular sleep pattern that I’ve been thrown into. We’ve just begun the attempt at sleep training, to help Ocean learn how to sleep through the night. She’s getting better at the longer sleeps, but some nights we regress entirely and I’m left in a “zombie-like” mode, all day.

I have found solace in my two usual loves, philosophy and science. I have a new found addiction to “Ted Talks” so every day on my drive into work, my lunchbreaks, and drive back home, I listen to between 3-5 “Ted Talks” a day. It’s opening my mind up to new concepts, as well as to old concepts I’m already familiar with, which is where I’m getting whatever energy I can muster up to fuel myself on a daily basis, in addition to literal food fuel and the love of my family. That’s what science does for me.

Philosophy helps me in those moments when I’m holding my baby at 4:17AM in pitch black darkness trying to rock her back to sleep, so I can get some rest before having to be up at 7:30AM to get ready to go to work. I think about epistemology, ethics & metaphysics in order to calm myself down, and see the bigger picture. I think about what’s true about the world, in order for me to be standing in my bedroom in the middle of the night rocking my newborn daughter. It’s calming.

I believe there exists within the time/space fabric of the constellation Lyra what can be called….a white hole. This white hole is kinda like a prism. When you pass a beam of light through a prism, you get a spectrum of light fragmented into seven visible color frequencies. Try it. You’ll see.

When a portion of “the Whole”, or Universal Consciousness, passed through the white hole, consciousness was fragmented into seven vibratory frequencies. Each fragment became conscious. Frequencies were only previously experienced as being part of the Whole.

When this portion of the Whole passed through the prism (white hole), it manifested as seven aware frequencies. Consciousness also fragmented, and the fragments moved “away” from each like the “Big Bang” theory says. This is the expansion/inflation explained by dark energy The illusion began that each fragment was alone.

Now, the Whole understood that the purpose of this experience was to learn to reintegrate itself from a point of separation. As individual souls or in groups the fragments sought out the universe that was just created. This whole “part of the Whole passing through a prism” experience not only created a consciousness fragmentation, but it also created the stars, planets, gases, and molecules that make up the physical reality we can see all around us. However, physical reality represents only a few of the energy frequencies that emerged from the fragmentation, not all them shits.

Science says matter is densified energy vibrating at a specific rate. Every aspect of the universe is made up of energy. You’re condensed energy. Everything that you see as physical matter is just energy, because everything is made of atoms, which contain tiny lil filaments, called strings by quantum mechanics and by these lil strings inside atoms vibrating, energy is there.

Our technology hasn’t fully figured out how to measure certain portions of “reality”. If technology possessed this ability, I bet that an infinite number of gateways into time, space and dimension would be seen. The seven frequency levels that popped out of the white hole are as follows:

From this point forward, the term “density” will be used in reference to these frequency levels.

FIRST DENSITY:

Awareness as a point; Physical matter.
This frequency level is the most basic. It provides the matter and energy for the creation of atoms and molecules. The basic life forms of mineral and water, for example, are all operating from first-density frequency. Humans possess this frequency within themselves as well. It makes up the basic genetic codes.

SECOND DENSITY:

Awareness as a line; Biological matter; Development of group or species identity. The consciousness expressed by second-density vibration does not possess self-awareness (or ego). Most species within the plant and animal kingdoms exist here; however, their placement in density depends upon many additional factors, including the presence or absence of ego.

THIRD DENSITY:

Volumetric awareness; Ego; Loss of group identity and a development of individual identity; Ability to remember past and think about the future while still retaining present awareness.This is the density where human beings emerge. this is where we are. It’s a vibration that creates the illusion of separation which fucks with us, and poses a challenge towards awakening. Presently humanity is going through a transition period into fourth-density reality which can account for the many rapid changes the human race is undergoing. See the protests? Systems crumbling? Revolutions? This is the frequency that expresses the most separation from the Whole. It’s from here that many lessons about integration are learned. This is the most intense of all levels in its cultivation of growth within the Self.

Cetaceans (dolphins and whales) presently exist simultaneously in third and fourth densities and are transitioning out of third along with humanity. Told you before that I believe they’re aliens dropped off here from the Sirius system. Word to Dogon. The consciousness of primates exists in third density as well.

FOURTH DENSITY:

Containment of volumetric awareness; Super-consciousness; Reintegration of group identity without the loss of ego identity; As vibration increases, perception of past, present, and future become more fluid along with the ability to interface with multidimensional and multidensity realities; Negatively oriented consciousness becomes more difficult to maintain.

Presently on Earth, fourth-density reality is overlapping the third. In humanity’s case, this can account for the increased desire for unity, peace, and unconditional love as opposed to the illusion of separation that characterizes third density. The vibratory rate of one’s reality is stepped up, and therefore one may be faced with personal issues in a much more rapid and intense way.

This is the frequency of responsibility. This is the frequency when one begins to remember the encoding of Free Will. Empathy plays a big part in this density. This is the last frequency where physical bodies are the vehicles for the expression of consciousness. Hence many civilizations choose to spend long periods of time within this density. This is where carbon based beings can jump to light bodies. Where astral light becomes the property your soul travels in. We won’t look like this no more bruh.

FIFTH DENSITY:

Awareness of “I” as a group identity; Not bound by linear time. In this density, sentient consciousness begins to awaken to its heritage. This is the density of wisdom. As one awakens the wisdom within, they very often want to share it with those who are still focused in the lower densities.This is where my mind be at a lot of the times, which explains my twitterfeed.

Many from this realm choose to become guides for others. A fifth-density being merges with its family of consciousness (“oversoul” or “higher self,” if you will) and begins to remember. I talk about this on Twitter, too, when I talk about channeling and knowing shit I never studied or researched before. Convos with my higher Self b.

SIXTH DENSITY:

Awareness as the dimension itself.
This is what all those websites and people be calling ”Christ Consciousness” or “Nirvana” because it displays a frequency level equal to that of the Christ or Buddha. From this frequency a total remembrance occurs, and one begins taking responsibility for the Whole rather than the Self. This is where you don’t fuck with Service To Self anymore and fuck with Service To Others, like a further extension of empathy in the 4th density. The process of progressing the Self and progressing the Whole become one and the same. Separation slipping away bro.

SEVENTH DENSITY:

Awareness as a true multidimensional experience; Group-matrix identity (Social Memory Complex). This is the frequency of total Oneness or integration. Those who vibrate to this frequency are merged in identity and become a mass-conscious whole. They magnetize those in other frequencies and provide the current for the natural flow toward integration. Like, when I let go during meditation and can’t feel my limbs anymore, and feel like I’m part of of everything around me. I be trying to get everybody here so we can reintegrate like the Whole wants, and see what the next level is, but I need everyone here. I can’t see the next level alone.

Once the seventh density beings reach critical mass, they will progress back through the white hole (it’ll probably be a black-hole exit point by then) and reach the next octave, where another adventure awaits.

When a portion of the Whole fragmented through the white hole (the Prism of Lyra), each consciousness retained awareness on all density levels. Like, 3rd density beings still possess awareness of being in the 1st and 2nd density levels, in their cellular memory, but mostly everybody forgot. From most highly focused density levels.

The microcosm always reflects the macrocosm. You can see that shit in how atomic structures mirrors the structure of a solar system. It’s the same with the fragmentation of portions of the Whole into individual beings, or soul groups. When a soul incarnates into a physical body, it can be likened to a mini-passage through “the Prism of Lyra”.

The process of soul fragmentation when a soul incarnates physically is like Freud’s id, ego, and superego theories. As a fetus, the soul demonstrates a first-density consciousness. At that point, one is aware of itself as intricately connected to the environment, until the fetus gets older and experiences autonomy. Look up what a lyre was. Then correlate it to the Lyra constellation. It’s where the song called “soul”, was first played, hence the name.

There are many sites on the net giving tips on how to lucid dream, but I’ll recap the basics here: First you must be able to recall your dreams. If you think you don’t dream, you’re just not remembering it. So keep a journal or tape recorder by your bed, and as soon as you wake from a dream, no matter how tired you are, write down keywords or phrases describing your dream. Keep this up for a couple days or weeks and you’ll start remembering your dreams more easily.

Once you can recall your dreams, you must work on reminding yourself while dreaming to ask yourself if you are dreaming. The only thing that usually survives the transition from waking to dreaming is your lower self, that ingrained with habit. So if you can build a habit of asking yourself throughout the day if you’re dreaming or not, then during dream state you’ll have a habit of asking yourself as well.

Other than habit, you can watch for common dream signs, meaning elements in your dreams that often appear in your dreams but not so much in waking reality. This may be anything, like a person, an animal, color, element, etc… Analyze your dreams or your dream journal for common dream signs. Then throughout the day, when you encounter such a sign in reality, ask yourself if you are dreaming. Keep this up until it’s automatic, and soon you’ll do it in dreams.

In addition to this, while going to sleep you can will yourself to become lucid later on, just like you would on an ordinary day where you can will yourself to remember to keep an appointment. All these techniques take time to work, but usually no more than two weeks. Doing reality checks throughout the day seems easy, but after a couple days it’s easy to slack. Don’t allow this to happen, just keep it up and think of the rewards.

After asking yourself if you’re dreaming, you must do a reality check. No matter how real things look, it might all be a dream unless you check things with certain tests. The best test is to look down at your hands and watch them. Count your fingers, make sure they have the right number of joints, make sure they look normal.

Watch them, and if the change shape or have anything odd about them, then you’re dreaming of course. Another thing to do is read something in a dream, look away, and read it again. If it changes or the characters look funny, then you’re dreaming. Be sure to read something long, because once I read a two word phrase, looked away, looked back and read the same thing, and concluded I wasn’t dreaming even though I was.

Once realizing that you’re dreaming, you’ll probably get hysterical with the freedom, which will just as soon end your dream. Staying calm is not easy, but take a breath calmly and start walking around, looking at things. If your dream starts to fade, use the spin technique. Just spin around with your arms out three times, and tell yourself with each spin that when you stop spinning, you’ll be in a dream. You’ll actually feel yourself spin and sometimes get the sensation of dizziness. Stop spinning after three times and look around. You’ll think you’re awake in all likelihood, but do a reality check to prove to yourself that you’re not. Then enjoy your lucid dream.

In a lucid dream, you have control of characters and the environment, as well as control over the laws of physics in the dreams. If you ever encounter a situation where neither the world nor the characters respond to your attempts to change it, then you’re probably out of your body and in an astral world. Be respectful of the people. If you don’t want to engage in their interactions, then just leave.

It is possible to enter a lucid dream directly from waking. Usually this entails lying down, relaxing, and allowing the body to fall asleep while the mind stays awake. Difficulties include falling asleep along with the body, or the body staying awake with the mind. Decoupling the two is tricky but possible.

To enter normal sleep we begin by letting our thoughts wander until they turn into daydreams that either dissolve into oblivion along with our self-awareness and volition or else spontaneously evolve into hypnagogic imagery (short vivid hallucinations) that eventually cohere into a full-blown three dimensional dreamscape. Which case it is depends on how far we are into sleep. Early on, sleep consists of delta brainwave activity and no REM (rapid eye movement) indicating consciousness is off elsewhere.

Most likely the soul is running its astral errands while the body does its repairs. Later in the cycle after these tasks are out of the way, or when taking a nap, the delta stage is replaced by immediate onset of hypnagogic and REM activity after mental relaxation. But these are passive dreams since lack of lucidity in them implies impaired volition.

Why are dreams so much more vivid than conscious visualization? Because the images are being projected by the subconscious, not the conscious mind.

Why do we lose self-awareness when we go to sleep? Because as we let our thoughts wander, the subconscious starts to direct our consciously projected images while our conscious mind takes on a more passive and self-obliterating role. It does not take long for the subconscious to take over the role of projector as well, and that is when mere mental images become virtual realities.

The trade-off is that we have already abandoned ourselves by the time the dream projection kicks in.

We can understand the various states of internal imagery as being the result of either the conscious subconscious either directing or projecting these images:

active dreaming – conscious directs while subconscious projects.
passive dreaming – subconscious directs and projects.
daydreaming – subconscious directs while conscious projects.
visualizing – conscious directs and projects.

Inducing lucid dreams from a waking state therefore requires that the conscious mind retain its self-awareness and volition while the subconscious is given free reign to begin projecting the dreamscape. One such method involves watching the phosphene images behind closed eyelids.

These are the glowing blobs of static noise patterns that always fill our vision but are more easily noticed in the dark. Contrary to passive dreaming, this keeps one’s visual faculties active and focused on real sense impressions instead of turning within and getting lose in consciously projected daydreams or visualizations.

You will notice that in dreams your “eyes” are focused on an environment existing “outside” you, seemingly as real as anything you might see with your physical eyes while awake. Staring out into the field of phosphenes involves an identically externalized point of focus, so one component of the dream experience is already established.

It therefore does not take long for hypnagogic images to start up, although these can startle one back into full consciousness. With repeated exposure they become less startling.

The next issue is becoming so quickly absorbed in the phosphenes and hypnagogic images that one loses self-awareness before the subconscious is ready to begin projecting.

To counter this a second technique may be employed:
quickly opening and shutting your eyes every two or three breaths.

This allows enough real sense data to come in, and is so intentionally controlled, that the mind has better chances of staying alert.

And yet since this involves mere movement of the eyelids, the rest of the body is not prevented from doing its thing to fall asleep. One can keep this up until the hypnagogic state kicks in, then continue watching those and the phosphenes.

Very soon the body falls asleep by entering sleep paralysis, which feels like a sudden sinking, melting, tingling feeling. The subconscious is then at the verge of fully projecting the dreamscape, and one has only to retain enough self-awareness throughout the onset of sleep paralysis to allow the final consciously directed nudge to kick off a dream.

For instance, after catching your body falling asleep, you can visualize and intend to roll out of bed. It is the intent combined with visualization that puts the subconscious fully online, and a dream begins.

Then you can do reality checks (flipping a light switch, looking for inconsistencies) or astral checks (seeing your body still in bed with correct clothes on) and lucidly go from there.

Take note that because this technique requires immediate access to REM sleep, it must be done after already having slept five or six hours, or during the day when napping. Some induction techniques start off with visualization, whereby the conscious mind directs and projects mental imagery until the subconscious takes over the role of projection.

The above technique does not use visualization until the final nudge, thereby allowing the subconscious to start projecting more easily because it does not have to wrestle that role away from the conscious.

Visualization is not necessary until the final stage when the body is asleep, otherwise it might interfere with the subconscious stepping into its role as projector.

Why is active dreaming important?

Because it allows access to the dreaming faculty at will and is therefore more reliable and replicable than other methods involving autosuggestion, dream signs, periodic reality checks, and so on. However it is also more difficult to implement due to having to be conscious the moment the body falls asleep. But like any activity that requires finesse, whether hitting a golf ball or parallel parking, it can be trained with practice.

When the body has entered its melted tingly state, it is possible to anchor this using some tongue position, breathing pattern, eye movement, visualized sequence of symbols, or command phrase. When the anchor is repeatedly associated with this state, later the anchor can be invoked to cause the body to reflexively enter the state, dramatically shortening the induction procedure. But creating the association takes much repetition.

If the dream state is induced with the eyes open, then visual perceptions are no longer filtered or interpreted by the normal waking linear mind. Some data streams include energy patterns that normally escape our perception, such as etheric critters, thought-forms, machinery, or intelligent beings positioned around us.

What we see while in this state, or at least the visual image of it, is not actually outside of us but rather projected onto our field of vision from within by the subconscious. The subconscious projector overlays upon the visual field an interpretation of the incoming data stream. It is like an internal HUD (heads up display).

Science attributes these to hypnopompic hallucinations, but I doubt these images always have to be delusions.

You may have noticed that dreams communicate to us messages from the subconscious via symbolic images, plays on words, and allegorical themes. But really the subconscious is just a portal to intelligences outside our linear conscious minds, one of these being the higher self. The dream projection, which employs the visual sense mostly, is therefore an indirect communicator allowing information flow across the conscious/subconscious gap.

It is possible to do away with the visual aspect entirely and allow direct communion between yourself and the higher self, or at least between your consciousness and the true essence of things rather than their visually interpreted representation.

With eyes open, rather than seeing interpretations of the data stream one could after sufficient levels of development see the data directly – this would be equivalent to seeing the “code of the matrix” so to speak.

Exploring inner space can therefore be quite productive, and it is the most rewarding and immediately evident superior alternative to technological substitutes that threaten to disconnect us from our conscious abilities. In terms of detail and effects, lucid dreams far surpass any available video gaming system.

Of course it is easier to hit a power button than train to actively dream, but the thought that we carry within us such untapped power does evoke awe.

 

OK…for all of the people out there who keep saying shit like “i don’t even know why those Occupy people were camping out, or protesting. What are they even protesting??!!”,well, here it is.

These are the Principles Of Solidarity from the Occupy movements, with my breakdowns:

“1. Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy;”.

This means us having consensus voting. No majority rules but 100% agreements. “But how do we have 100% agreements on everything?”. With the use of a powerful tool we created to communicate. THE INTERNET. We redesign the system of how measures pass, how everybody has a chance to vote and what we vote on. People don’t understand the voting process and the illusion that majority rules is democratic has to be stopped. Either EVERYONE agrees on an issue or measure or law or bill or IT DOESN’T FLY. Simple. And the internet would help ALL people in the USA to be involved in the voting process. That’s the 1st principle.

“2. Exercising personal and collective responsibility;”.

This to me means being made aware of TRUE knowledge so we can make proper decisions. The best way for all people, especially in the USA, to be able to be exercise responsibility in their personal lives as well as collectively as humanity is to have real shit be accessible and spoonfed to the masses. So for us to be able to make WISE decisions based on actual facts regarding history, math, science, etc., we need real EDUCATION NOW.

“3. Recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;”.

This to means a different system of media, news, “programming”. Being given access to INFORMATION that helps us as individuals be influential in decisions that are made in government. AGAIN, consensus voting. Redefining the “language” used in politics, government, taxation, etc., so that ANYBODY can understand it so we know how influential we are. I’m sure a majority of people in the USA have no clue how government works, taxation works, etc., so how can they help make decisions/change. People everywhere feel that as individuals, they have no say in shit that happens or that they don’t count. The system makes us feel this way. we have to change that ASAP.

“4. Empowering one another against all forms of oppression;”.

This is pretty obvious. Just standing up for one another. Taking care of ALL people that are oppressed EVERYWHERE. Not being able to peacefully protest or to speak up against injustice without being ridiculed, clowned or arrested is wrong. We should be able to HELP all victims of abuse, oppression, famine, crime, slander, etc.

“5. Redefining how labor is valued;”.

This means the inequality that exists in our system of monetary-ism. A little bit of rich folks & a whole lotta broke folks. This is BAD in my eyes. Redefining labor means the re-focusing on the automation of our society, eliminating human labor. Machines can do ALL of the work that we do. All physical labor that exists in the human labor force can be done by computers/robots. We have automated surgeries, car factories, food processing, etc. By eliminating human labor, we can free up humans to explore, live, exist, create, etc. AND we eliminate Wall Street. Straight up. Fuck that. Mo more humans makin money from money. It’s a ridiculous system where only people that understand that “game” can play. It’s WRONG. End it now.

“6. The sanctity of individual privacy;”.

This is obvious. No more infringing on privacy. There’s civil rights and human rights that have been violated since the creation of the C.I.A. and before that and certainly after 9/11. People should still feel like what they think is protected and cannot be invaded by our government

“7. The belief that education is human right;”.

This is obvious. No more tuition & student loan debt and fucked up curriculum in school. Redesigning the entire educational process from top to bottom. And teaching TRUE MATH, HISTORY AND SCIENCE. Not the regurgitated shit.

“8. Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source”.

This goes back to what I was saying about THE INTERNET. Along with education being redefined, re-sculpted, etc., the usage of the INTERNET must be taught to all people. And we must use it BETTER. We’ve needed a “thing” to be invented that allowed all of us humans to interact, vote, learn, etc. we have it. called the INTERNET.

 

DECLARATION OF OCCUPATION

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the Los Angeles General Assembly occupying City Hall Park in Downtown Los Angeles urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

 

To draw a simple example, take two content providers such as the Verizon website and the University of California website.  If net neutrality were upheld, both entities would pay their monthly fees to the network provider and if all else equal, any bit of information from the Verizon website will make the same trek as one from say the UC Berkeley website.  There would be no roadblocks or shortcuts any of the websites can take to make the end user desire their content more. 

However, without a neutral stance in what is carried over their pipes, network providers can choose to discriminate and decide how fast data will be transmitted and at what quality.  So in our example, say Verizon (which is also a network provider) chooses to prioritize their data over that of UC Berkeley.  Information from Verizon will then be more desirable to the end user since it is so much faster than the UC website.  The problem then arises when Verizon is trying to promote something opposed to that of the beliefs of the University of California.  Is it fair that Verizon has these advantages over the university?  What would happen if network providers bar content providers that they think have a conflict of interest from using higher speed networks?  What if the network providers degrade the service of specific content providers?  These are just some of the many questions that plague the net neutrality issue.  

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

Internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast or Verizon control how you access websites and content. Let’s use an old-school metaphor: the information superhighway. Think of ISPs as the freeway on which your content travels from a website to your home.

An Internet governed by net neutrality would bar ISPs from creating special toll lanes for fat cats. Everyone would have the same speed limit.

Isn’t that how things work now?

No, it is not. Right now, there is no regulation of how ISPs treat traffic from different websites. In 2010, the FCC enacted the Open Internet Order, which was built with three principles:

• Transparency: ISPs should be open about how they handle traffic.
• No blocking: As long as content is legal, an ISP is not allowed to block any site, service or device.
• No unreasonable discrimination: ISPs are not allowed to favor some traffic over others.

But in January, the D.C. Court of Appeals struck down the rules that the FCC had put in place to ensure net neutrality. The court said the FCC does not have the authority to require ISPs to treat traffic equally. The court told the FCC it had overstepped its bounds and needed to rewrite the rules.

Today, the FCC will propose a new set of rules to regulate ISPs and attempt to re-establish net neutrality or something close to it. Net neutrality advocates worry that the new proposal will abandon the idea of net neutrality. The FCC says it is trying to create effective regulation.

Why does the FCC get to regulate the Internet?

No entity is in charge of regulating the Internet, but the FCC is as close as it gets in the United States. The agency oversees the ISPs, a role that makes it the watchdog of the Internet’s infrastructure.

An Internet toll road doesn’t sound so bad. What’s wrong with paying for a faster connection?

Worst-case scenario: the Internet becomes more like cable TV.

Net neutrality advocates argue that the Internet is a success because it is an equal-opportunity medium for innovators and startups. But if big companies like Amazon and Netflix pay for a quick connection, there would be little incentive for the ISPs to provide good connections to everyone else. A startup might not have much of a chance if most of the Internet has slowed to a crawl while Netflix streams smoothly.

Such a shift wouldn’t happen overnight, but critics contend that it would push the Internet toward a system akin to cable TV, where the service providers are the gatekeepers determining which content reaches consumers. Having enough money to pay ISPs would become essential to operating a successful website, meaning ESPN.com would do just fine but your sports blog wouldn’t.

Going back to our freeway metaphor: In an Internet where there’s a shiny, well-maintained series of lanes for companies like Netflix, your road could become a decrepit, crowded single lane that is barely operable.

And some content providers like Netflix, which accounts for a huge percentage of online traffic, don’t want to pay extra tolls.

The proposed rules are not final. The FCC is seeking input for 60 days, a period that will be followed by 57 days of reply — on how best to proceed to protect the Internet, including the potential to regulate Internet as a utility.

The FCC has asked for public comment on new rules about net neutrality.
Use this form to submit a comment to the FCC. Learn more about the FCC rulemaking process. 

https://dearfcc.org/

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/execute?proceeding=14-28

 

“School of the Americas”

1959: the US helped install “Papa Doc” Duvalier, the Haitian dictator whose factions killed over 100,000. shoutout Forrest Whitaker

1961: CIA Operation Mongoose attempted and failed to overthrow Fidel Castro. whaddup Cuba.

in ’61, they also assassinated the Dominican Republic’s leader Rafael Trujillo & assassinated Zaire’s democratically elected Patrice Lumumba

oh and let’s not forget how the CIA staged a coup against Ecuador’s President Jose Velasco in ’61 too. big year for the spooks.

in 63 the CIA was back in DR and Ecuador performing military coups, overthrowing Juan Bosch and President Arosemana. cold.

1964: CIA-funded/armed coup that overthrew Brazil’s democratically elected Joao Goulart, replacing him with Dictator General Castelo Branco.

1965: the CIA performed coups in Indonesia & Zaire and installed military dictators; General Suharto in Indonesia killed a million+ ppl

in 1967 a CIA-backed coup overthrew the government of Greece & in 1968 they helped capture Che’ Guevara in Bolivia. viva Che’

1970: CIA overthrew Cambodia’s popular Prince Sahounek & in 1971 they backed a coup in Bolivia and installed Dictator Hugo Banzer.

1973: the CIA assassinated Chile’s democratically elected Salvador Allende and replaced him with General Augusto Pinochet

you get the picture. let’s not mention the Osama and Saddam situations. Desert Storm. Martin Luther King Jr. Huey. Malcolm. etc.