Truth-Telling in a Time of Catastrophe

the double bind of being a Cassandra

Once upon a time, a scattering of people noticed there was something fishy about a certain ‘natural’ catastrophe. They started looking closer. They raised questions. To their surprise, everyone already had the answer. It was that they were wrong. Moreover, they were selfish, cowardly, conspiracy-minded and gullible.

They did research. They came together. They said the catastrophe isn’t where you think it is, it’s in the cure. That’s the purpose of the catastrophe. There are ways to end it, right now, but that’s not what they want. They created this catastrophe to make you afraid, isolated, obedient. And it worked. No, not the truth-telling.

The cure was inflicted on most of the people, some eager, some willing, some reluctant, some without a choice. The Cassandras were in more of a bind. How to tell a friend, this thing you did may have permanently harmed you or your loved ones? Please don’t do more. Who wouldn’t want to shoot that messenger?

And then one day the blame began to flip: “If you knew all along, why didn’t you do everything in your power to warn me … before I lost my husband, my wife, my child, my mobility, my fertility, my heart, my health, my limbs, my livelihood, my life?”

So, fellow Cassandras, be forewarned. You are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Stay true to yourself and your message but don’t expect applause. Be self-affirming but save the congratulations for another time. That time is coming.

Troy must fall; it’s written by gods who are neither capricious nor vengeful. It’s written by small gods of kindness, the kitchen gods, the gods guarding the cradle. This isn’t the life of stress and servitude they want for you, for your child, for the baby your child is meant to have and hold, not hand over in order to get back to work.

Don’t blame the angel-agents of change—their role is harder than you think. Agamemnon will not return to a warm bed and a welcoming wife. Pity them and wish them well on their journey, never again to haunt your shores.

In this version, you stay behind to help rebuild. And you are believed! Believed when you say there can never again be kings with the power to slaughter, silence critics, command obedience, quell local trade, and control the world in proxy wars.

You are believed when you say that sick care is not health care and we have the wisdom of mothers and witches—medieval Cassandras, who already knew how to heal.

You are believed when you say that men are not laptop warriors but farmers and builders, not couch commanders but fixers and doers. When you withhold your favors from the idle Apollo, this time he is cursed to a life of online porn until he repents.

You are believed when you say that home is the heart of the family, and you don’t sell your heart for a moment of profit, you strengthen the heart so it can hold all you love.

You are believed when you say that we are the teachers and life is the classroom, a school with no borders but passions shared by sibling cities around the globe. Learning is a joy that’s wasted on the young when crammed down their throats and left as a fat debt in the pits of their stomachs, never to be vomited up.

You are believed, you are cherished, you are loved. Believe me now, Cassandra. Let your bitterness die with the embers of what was. What is coming will be better and is inevitable. Herstory awaits.

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For a more narrative version of the same message, I think, read Charles Eisenstein’s The Mask of Reason and Caitlin Johnstone’s Separation is the Largest Religion in the World. This poem was inspired by the ending of Robert Malone’s essay, Physicals, Virtuals, Machines and Overlords:

Which are you? Physical, Virtual, Transhuman machine, or Overlord? Which world do you want to live in? The sterilized, depopulated and highly managed city of Danish Parliamentarian Ida Auken’s fantasies, or the physical world for which she has such distain? 

And more importantly, what is the world that you wish to have your children inherit.

I have made my choice. I prefer to join Candide and go work in the garden. 

What I would like to know is what your positive alternative vision of the future looks like. Whether Physical, Virtual, or a blend of the two, if we want to beat the Overlords, we need our own great narrative. One which evokes Morning in America rather than the Matrix and the Borg as the future of humankind.

And most importantly, what I want to know, is “are you kind”.

Uncle John’s Band

Grateful Dead

Well, the first days are the hardest days
Don't you worry anymore
'Cause when life looks like Easy Street
There is danger at your door

Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Whoa, oh, what I want to know
Is are you kind?

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My video also celebrates the coming together of community that was my daughter’s wedding, and I see it as a good omen for the rebuilding we’re going to do after the empire crumbles. In it, I mention their first dance as Michael Franti’s Life is Better With You, which I include for your viewing delight:

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A less poetic and more nuts-and-bolts rendition of my economic system is coming soon. In the meantime, here’s the groundwork in Build a New Model:

Buckminster Fuller said “You can never change anything by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.” This episode outlines ten universal principles of a new model, including the purpose of government, how to measure its success or failure, what community wealth really is, how to protect and proliferate it, the intergenerational transfer of wealth, and paying your debt to society backwards and forwards. I begin by talking about the spiritual and metaphysical obstacles that keep us from imagining a new model and how to remove them in your own psyche. Based on my book, How to Dismantle an Empire, I end with the three powers that communities require in order to control their own labor: debt & tax & digital cash.

And for a spiritual-psychological approach, this is Winning Hearts, Changing Minds:

The inspiration for this episode is the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. They cite The Bad Popcorn Study and why you don't have a people problem, Chocolate Chip Cookies vs Radishes and willpower exhaustion, and how to direct the Rider and motivate the Elephant. I apply these to our mission to change the global economy to enable communities to be self-reliant. In the process, I bring in the world's best flourless chocolate cake, my daughter's wedding, my leaky refrigerator, and aerial ballet Buddhas.

And Reversing the Reset:

With the consequences of the Great Reset becoming evident, but even those affected not wanting to see it, what's the most helpful thing we can do? I give the perspective of A Course in Miracles, having just finished the 670 pp manual once again. I look at The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow for an anthropology of anarchy. Vladimir Putin's June 17th address at St. Petersburg was an astute analysis of Europe and the US, with economic policies for Russia that support small business and home ownership. I apply his principles to the micro-communities we may need to start when economies in the West come crashing down, and show why it could be better than we'd dared to hope.