Long gone are the days when Valentine’s Day celebrated true romantic love. Today, like most holidays, Valentine’s Day is a celebration of commerce rather than love. It is just like Christmas: another holiday for the benefit of the merchants. If some love is in the air, as every February 14, a lot more money than love will be exchanged in the process. The commercialization of romantic love will benefit florists, chocolate manufacturers, Victoria’s Secret and restaurants. As for about everything else in our monetized world, romantic love comes with a price tag.

In the Middle Ages, when courtly love (romantic love) started, this notion had no correlation with material issues. Courtly love was a paradoxical experience of erotic desire and spiritual connection between lovers which today seems to be in complete opposition. Courtly love was a study in complexity and contrast, but not a futile exercise in contradiction. On one hand, on the erotic side it was often about breaking taboos, drifting into the irrational passion of lust without caring about humiliation and social stigma. On the other hand, it was pure, altruistic, of the highest moral order and almost transcendent. Romantic love was always dangerous, often secret and socially outside the norm.

Romantic love was never a meat-and-potatoes dinner; it was a feast reserved for the aristocracy. Marriage at the time, and one could argue that few things have changed, was mainly a business transaction. Within the aristocracy and amongst the European royal families, marriages were not about love but about wealth management and consolidation and political alliances between kingdoms. The same logic was applied all the way down the social food chain. In India, until very recently marriages were arranged by parents with almost no say from the future bride and groom in the matter.

In our time obsessed with money and social status, little has changed as far as marriages being essentially business arrangements where carnal lust serves as lure — at least for one of the partners — at the initiation and then as a cement with a short life span if the lust element is the primary bond to the relationship. Currently, around 50 percent of all marriages in the Western world, where women can divorce freely, end up in divorce. Typically, couples fight and part over money and intimacy issues. Since the economic crash of 2008, the ratio of marriages ending in divorces has improved slightly. This is certainly not because couples with problems are going massively for couple counseling — as they should — but rather because economically they cannot afford a separation, even less a divorce. Instead, they must often live with the enemy under the same roof.

Real love (romantic love) is rare. It is harder to find than a needle in a hay stack. It is never about money or gain in social status. It is not to be confused with physical attraction either. Both aspects, material gain and lust, have finite life spans. For real love, which is neither lust nor a material arrangement, to last the bond has to be deeper than what most people call love. It has to be based mainly on a strong connection between two individuals, as if they were spiritually tied by an invisible umbilical cord. Only this type of love, unlike ordinary love, can transcend trivial notions such as money, lust and practicality. This said, most people settle for less, a lot less, because what they call love is only a crutch against loneliness.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gilbert Mercier.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gilbert Mercier. To view a bigger size of the photographs, please click on the images.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gilbert Mercier.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published, with the very same title, on December 8, 2011. At the time, no significant actions had been taken by Occupy in conjunction with labor movements to take on global capitalism with the peaceful, yet most effective tools of exploited workers: strike and consumer boycott by other citizens to show solidarity. This Black Friday action against Walmart, calling for strike and consumer boycott, almost a year after the original article was published, will test whether such a strategy can be successfully applied. Walmart is the symbol of global exploitation of labor and also of  extreme concentration of wealth. Walmart is the symbol of the broken capitalist system.

The Occupy movement is becoming viral, but its very own merit, which is to be a true grassroots movement without hierarchy or a defined leadership could be its Achilles heel. The global capitalist system, run by the very few people in control of mega corporate entities, will not cave in or even yield an inch just at the sight of camps, banners, and meaningful slogans. If the 99 percent want to have a real impact and effective results, without resorting to violence, they must focus on strategy and tactics. A new discourse must be defined, and this is far from the case at the moment.

The occupy movement themes of grievances and protests  can be historically compared to similar movements in the late 60s, in particular May 1968 in France. On the other hand, during the mini-revolution in 1968, the protests got violent and the ideology behind them had a clear Marxist or Anarchist undertone. The 1968 French revolution ultimately failed, but it shook France’s power apparatus. There are lessons to be learned, however, from the successes and failures of May 1968. The most effective tactic applied by the protesters was a general strike that completely paralyzed the country for five weeks.

General Global Strike and Large Street Protests

The global capitalist system is like a giant octopus with many heads and  tentacles that reach everywhere. Single-state players matter less and less. To tackle the tremendous global strength of this nexus of finance and repressive power, enforced by what is becoming a global police state, the global Occupy movement, short of becoming radicalized and violent, must consider the best tools at its disposal: a coordinated global strike and street protests across the world. The Occupy movement must also work on defining an overall platform instead of merely relying on various slogans. In other words, the Occupy movement must become a political force.

Consumer Boycott

Activists in camps that are still standing, such as the one in McPherson Square in Washington DC, rely on food donations to survive. But, right “next door”, there are Starbucks, banks, and fancy restaurants and stores. The people against the movement view the activists as harmless “hippies” in need of “a shower and a job.” By contrast, a global general strike, massive street protests, and a consumer boycott would have a real impact on the giant hydra of global capitalism. Fighting a global system with peaceful means requires global strategies, not local ones. The various Occupy movements must define a common discourse, a precise platform, and adopt effective strategies such as strike and consumer boycott. Otherwise, they are likely to fizzle and melt away like snow under a bright Spring sun.

Editor’s Note: Liam Fox wrote the original article below on November 29, 2010 under the title : “Can the EU Spark a Global Insurrection against Shock Capitalism”. Almost two years later, it seems that the situation has become ripe. On November 14, 2012 a general movement shook Europe. In Spain, Anarchists and syndicalists combined took on the riot police. With things heating up quickly in the Middle East with an attack by Israel on Gaza, it seems that the complete capitalism edifice is about to burst at the seams. Will the events unfolding rapidly in Spain spread like wildfire to Greece, Italy, Portugal, France and the UK, and how will the police-state apparatus react?

Across Europe people are taking to the streets to protest the ravaging of their economies by the global financial elite.  The very banks and financial institution that have caused the economic crisis enveloping the world are now squeezing the working class for repayment of the debts they incurred.  Neither their scheme, nor their remedy, has been subtle.  They’ve been arrogantly transparent with their machinations.  The financial sector greedily, and perhaps purposely, overextended itself, demanded bail-outs from its allies in the IMF, World Bank, WTO, et al., and then insisted that the money be recouped from citizens and taxpayers.

It doesn’t simply end with higher taxes and lower civil services.  In addition to the direct theft of those dollars is a proposed privatization of education and health care, and the chance to purchase public lands and resources with the grotesque profits they made from crashing the economy and demanding bail-outs.

Greece

The first glimmer of the insurrection started in Greece in May 2010 as citizens took to the street to oppose their government’s capitulation to global finance’s extortion.  Tensions that had been building since the riots of 2008 erupted as the workers of the country were told that their wages and pensions would be cut to repay the debt created by the bail-out to their financial elite.  Three lives were lost on that particular day, but millions more have been ruined by the power-hungry greed of the one percent who grew wealthier off the misery of the other 99 percent.

In October, five months after the initial uprising, the people of Greece remained determined to oppose their exploitation.  A general strike was organized, and the relentless street protests continue despite ongoing police oppression.  The resolve of the workers has not waned, and their strength is building as they are joined in solidarity by organizations and individuals across the European Union.

France

As the same financial scam was perpetrated against the French people, likewise was the reaction of a society committed to political involvement and the principles of liberty.  Once again, as part of a global symphony of financial malfeasance and exploitation, the financial elite grew richer as they crashed an economy, demanded a bail-out, and then insisted that it be repaid by the working class through their taxes, decreased pensions, raised retirement age, and reductions to the services people had funded with their tax dollars.

Street demonstrations like none that had been seen in forty years coursed through the streets of Paris.  Protesters continue to clash boldly with state police charged with protecting the accomplices to the greatest global theft ever perpetrated.  Rather than confront the banks and titans of finance, Sarkozy has pledged to “crush the enemy.”  The freedom loving, and deeply independent, people of France refuse to be bullied into compliance by their country’s political arm of the global banking cartel.

Italy

Once again, the same financial players have taken a country to the brink of collapse and then coerced their partners that hold political office in that country to accept austerity measures in order to pay back the debts created by that same financial elite.  Once again, the banks and financial elite have run up debts, demanded that they be paid by others, and they are growing richer while the citizens of the country suffer.  And, once again, the people have taken to the streets in anger and frustration.

On Saturday, November 27, a labor-organized demonstration faced off against riot police on the streets of Rome.  The Italian workers are not going to tolerate a government that is willing to sell them out any more than Greece, France, Spain, Ireland and perhaps even Britain.

Spain

On September 29, 2010, all across Spain, more than ten million workers participated in a general strike. Of these, approximately 1.5 million took to the streets in demonstrations.  In Madrid, between 100,000 and 500,000 people mobilized in the city’s center.

While Zapatero did not enter into a bail-out agreement with the IMF, he decided to institute austerity measures to pay the financial cartels’ debts nonetheless.  He failed to evade the extortion of the financial elite but he avoided the loan-shark tactics of the IMF by breaking the thumbs of the Spanish people himself.  The real impact on the people of the country remains the same.

Ireland
Only a few years ago Ireland was an economic tiger riding the ‘bubble’ that economies all over the world had been tricked into supporting.  Young people were becoming real estate magnates before they had time to go out and buy themselves a good suit or a nice haircut.  After centuries of oppression and occupation it finally seemed it was their time.  They were short-lived, heady days.

Unfortunately, the global financial system saw them as youngsters full of piss and vinegar, with stars in their eyes clouding their vision, and they were able to rape the Emerald Isle before the head settled on their celebratory pint.  Unlike Spain, the Irish Dais fell right into the hands of the IMF.  Incompetent politicians and gross mismanagement of state finances left little alternative in their eyes other than to sell out the Irish people and their island.  The Irish people have other ideas though.

As the Guardian reports;

One of the largest demonstrations in the Irish Republic’s history brought more than 100,000 people on to Dublin’s streets in protest over the international bailout and four years of austerity ahead.

As European officials thrashed out the finer details of an €85bn ($111.5bn USD ) rescue package, huge crowds braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate against the cuts, aimed at driving down Ireland’s colossal national debt.

Britain

Until recently, in traditional British fashion, protests against austerity measures have been rather quiet.  However, November of this year saw a rise in tensions and several student led protests that have resulted in the occupation of University buildings and violent clashes with the police.  A genuine movement has begun and, like many others that have started with a student movement, is now gaining widespread public support and participation.

Not only have cuts to social programs decimated the services available to Britain’s working poor but massive tuition hikes have made education inaccessible for few outside the wealthiest class.  The children of the elite who have profited from crashing global economies have little to worry about and their future of continuing the job that their parents have started remains secure under these current conditions.

All across the European Union people are rising up against their governments and the politicians whose pockets are being lined and power secured by aiding and abetting the global financial elite.  Unwilling to have their lives reduced to indentured servitude to one percent of the population that plays while 99 percent pays, these people are finding the intestinal fortitude to stand against these powers and claim their rights.   The citizens of the European union understand that an economy is meant to serve the people, not the other way around.  In the words of the British Labor Party’s 1944 Manifesto; the financial sector is meant to be in its “role as servant, and the intelligent servant, of the community and productive industry; not their stupid master.”

The United States of America
Nowhere on the planet has the theft of public wealth been less blatant.  Less than two years after demanding a bail-out of tax dollars, the financial sector is flaunting record profits and obscene bonuses.  While millions of Americans have lost their jobs — unofficial unemployment numbers exceed 20% as official numbers only include those receiving benefits — and millions more have lost their homes, Wall Street executives are planning parties, hiring entertainers for private events, and purchasing luxury items that the rest of the country can only glimpse as these executives drive by the bus stops in their chauffeured cars.

Industries that readily use the American people’s tax dollars, for the research and development of products that they sell back to the people for a profit, are refusing to pay any returns to the public in the form of responsible taxes, cut from their already too-low rate by the Bush administration.  Rather than stopping a system that exploits Americans at both ends of the process, President Obama has announced that he’s going to recoup some of that money by freezing the wages of the federal workers that serve the public interest in their jobs.  Aside from the fact that this is a drop in the bucket, it’s adding insult to injury.  It’s nothing more than a show of fiscal responsibility because being truly responsible would require taking on the powers that fund the government he was elected to run.

The American education system is in shambles, the prisons are overflowing with non-violent criminals, and billions of dollars are being spent overseas fighting wars of corporate interest.  American people are suffering in the street and the financial elite are laughing, literally, all the way to the bank.  Except in this case, they are the bank.

What are the American people doing?  Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, Spain, England…. all of them have people in the streets.  All of them are protesting.  All of them are calling for strikes and trying to force the overthrow of not just their government but the entire financial system that would enslave them.

Yet, in America, the only voice of dissent is one that has been organized, funded and controlled by the corporations that are ravaging our society, to protect against any reforms that may limit their power to do so in the future.  While the rest of the world is standing up against the exploitation, America has the TEA Party fighting for the rights of corporations to keep the profits from the products that the American people funded by keeping their ridiculously low tax rates in place.  Corporations should be taxed at no less than 75% to reimburse the American people fairly for the investment of their tax dollars into the development of their products.  After being raped by the financial sector the TEA Party wants to cook them breakfast in bed and shine their shoes.

Over fifty million Americans are without health insurance, yet the TEA Party are dragging around their government-subsidized oxygen tanks, in their government subsidized Huvarounds, screaming that the government needs to keep its hands off their Medicare.

There are the beginnings of rumblings from the much more sensible, and somewhat less manipulable, ‘Left’, but if people don’t get their asses in gear, it is going to be too little, too late.  Not only did Obama announce that he was going to freeze the wages of federal employees, but also he made the much more ominous announcement during his press conference — an announcement that received much less attention — that he is authorizing the sale of public lands and their natural resources.  When the only ones that have any money left are the financial sector and the corporations that have profited from this crash through the bail-out money they extorted; who do you think is going to profit from the sale of these lands?  Who do you think is going to be able to decimate even more of our protected lands through resource exploitation?  Is the plan really to save America by selling America?  This is disaster capitalism at it’s finest.  Knock them down and then buy them up.

It’s time for the American people, the real American people, not the corporate flunkies and their misinformed Conservative-Christian-Nationalistic-Xenophobic sycophants, to stand up and take some action.  Action on behalf of the people.  Action against the banks.  Action against Wall Street.  It’s time to join with all the people of the planet who have been exploited and abused by the one percent.  No longer should 99 percent pay while one percent play at our expense.  It’s time to take some action.

On December 7, 2010, join the Peaceful Revolution Against the Banks Cartel.  Take your money out of the bank.  Take all your money out of the bank.  Whether it’s $10.00 or $10,000.00; take it out.  Close your account.  Show the banks that we no longer give them permission to use us as their cash cows.  Without us they have no power.  Without us they are broke.  We can choose not to assist them any longer in our demise.  We can take the power back.

This is a good start.  After that, Americans have to realize that their fight is not just with Washington.  Washington has been paid to stand between the people and those that would continue to pillage everything you have.  It’s time to take to the streets, but not just Pennsylvania avenue.  It’s time to pound the pavement on Wall Street until the windows shake in their panes, and fill it with so many bodies that the fat-cats can’t get to their computer terminals in order to mortgage your future.  It’s time to identify the real enemy and take direct action.

Can the EU spark a global insurrection against the predatory capitalists that are intent on driving citizens into poverty for their personal gains?  Hopefully, but America will have to conquer its first and perhaps greatest enemy, its apathy and malaise.  The bell has been rung.  The fight has started.  The courageous citizens of the European Union have answered the call.  Will America?

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article was written on December 27, 2011. At the time NJP was “floating” the idea of a Senator Sanders run for the 2012 US presidential election. The article was not received well by the decision makers at Occupy, who painted the movement paradoxically as a “pure grassroots leaderless movement”. With only 40 shares on Facebook and very few on Twitter — a very small number for our publication — the original article was basically shut down by the powers that be within the OWS movement.

Some Occupy activists conveyed to NJP that they didn’t want to get into the “fray of electoral politics”, at least not at a national level. Some were sincere. Others were in the process of infiltrating the movement on behalf of the Obama campaign. Occupy was in the process of being neutered, hijacked and even bribed  by Obama’s indirect surrogates such as George Soros (through his outlet MoveOn.org) and even directly by Obama’s thinly disguised political operator Van Jones. Both infiltrations were exposed by Liam Fox and myself for NJP.

The Occupy movement has changed the overall political discourse and is helping to define what could be a global left. Needless to say, US Democrats, at large, are so center-right that they do not offer anything the Occupy movement could remotely support. Even in Europe the mainstream left — Socialist parties in France, Spain and Italy — has no political alternative to offer to the Occupy movement, because the so-called European left has become neoliberal. In the United States, one of the only political figures who could legitimately garner support at the polls from the Occupy movement is Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Some are pushing him to challenge President Obama in the Democrat primaries. Even though President Obama is more or less a shoe in, someone like Senator Sanders would be the best option for Occupy to have a voice during the 2012 election cycle.

Although the United States is usually described as having a two-party political system, it has been in the reality of policies, both foreign and domestic, a one party system, with minute nuances between Democrats and Republicans, for the past 30 years. In this uniform political landscape, there are really only two worthwhile exceptions which do not belong to what has morphed a democracy into an oligarchy/plutocracy: Senator Sanders and Representative Ron Paul. Ron Paul is tracking remarkably well in the GOP primaries, but even though his campaign is actively trying to tap into a potential Occupy voting block, he is unlikely to get any real momentum going in his attempt.

Some view the Occupy movement, both in the United States and Europe, as “vague and lacking focus, despite good intentions.” Indeed the scope of the Occupy movement is wide in its critiques of neoliberalism, war, inequality, corporate-controlled globalization, and concentration of wealth. But the wide scope of Occupy should not be confused with a lack of focus. The Occupy movement is a “big tent” encompassing a lot of causes, but the essence of it is rather simple: ideologically, Occupy can be defined as an anti-neoliberalism and anti-corporatism movement fighting for the rights and interests of the 99 percent.

But Occupy cannot be simply reduced to a movement for debating ideologies. Instead, the Occupy movement is about redefining moral and ethical principles. Philosophically and morally it is a fight against oppression, for equality and social justice. The Occupy movement is not trying to reinvent the wheel either. Occupy gets its core direction from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has non-discrimination as its fundamental principle. Human beings, whereever they are, shouldn’t have their rights denied based on class, race, gender, disability and religion.

Occupy is about leveling the global playing field in human affairs to give the many real say and power over the few. Occupy is about defining a real democracy where the long forgotten and mainly never applied  motto of the French revolution “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” would be implemented and not just be mere lip service and make believe. Occupy is about challenging the failed world order of corporatism and neoliberalism. For the Occupy movement, we are all Egyptians, and we are all the 99 percent fighting to define a better world without oppression, war, famine, inequality and gross mismanagement of our collective resources.

By Kit Kimberly

As Halloween approaches, images of kids in costume, of Linus waiting for his Great Pumpkin, of ghosts and ghouls, the street decorations and signs of autumn fill the pop culture consciousness — at least in the USA and some other Euro-based cultures.  In the US this year, All Hallows also falls on the eve of an election — with possibly scary consequences for all!

But as witch and pagan scholar Starhawk recently pointed out in her Washington Post column , Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell and others greatly misunderstand these ancient traditions.  A self-proclaimed feminist, Ms O’Donnell’s ignorance about the religion she claimed to have “dabbled” in is a shame:  This religious mythology has much to offer women.

Founded in Samhain (pronounced sow-an, meaning “summer’s end”), Halloween comes from the Anglo-Keltic tradition and marks the end of the growing year and harvest, the beginning of winter.  It is a time for ridding society of the old, raising bonfires, recognizing the end of the old year in preparation for the new.  Other cultures celebrate the Day of the Dead (Mexico), Martinisingen (Germanic cultures), and the tradition of Qarqe’an (Arabic). Christian churches also recognise it as All Hallow’s Eve, the day before All Saint’s Day.

US Americans and others celebrate via (now often commercialized) rituals of popular culture and contemporary religion, but few acknowledge the ancient traditions behind them.  Pre-patriarchal, nature-based pagan cultures established festivals to correspond to the seasons of the year.  With Samhain comes the death of the Horned God, the symbol of fertility, who has been feted and blessed with the best of the harvest, the most comfortable place, the highest quality poetry, singing and dance, and the most fertile of females — including the Goddess herself — to ensure the fertility of the land and success of the harvest.

He must die, to be born again in Spring.  If he does not, as T. S. Eliot describes in “The Wasteland”, the Earth becomes barren, no longer thrives to share its bounty with humanity.

The idea of a god who is born to die and be resurrected is not unfamiliar to the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Indeed, the Christian church did not, as my grandmother so acerbically observed, “pick it up off the streets.”  Nor was the idea of a god coming down from the heavens (Olympus, Asgard, Avalon) to mate with a human woman anything new:  One of the greatest Greek myths has its foundations in the story of Leda, who was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan.  In every sacred Judeo-Christian rite or belief can be found seeds of pagan mythology.  While successful in demonizing and eradicating much of the pagan belief systems and traditions behind them, the Christian forefathers were not particularly original.

The term pagan can be used in a number of different contexts; the most narrow defines all religions and mythologies not based in or stemming from the Abrahamic traditions of  Judeo-Christianity and Islam (including Buddhism and Hinduism, both of which are older than Christianity and practiced by more people) as “pagan”.

For the context of this article, however, the term paganism refers to Anglo-Keltic-based mythologies/religions. These manifest today in the forms of Wicca, witchcraft and generic or “neo-pagan” adherents.  Some follow the Gardenerian tradition, based in the studies and book of Gerald Gardener which are somewhat rigid — some might even say patriarchal — in their interpretations.  Others look to more progressive philosophers such as Starhawk, whose books over the years and columns for The Washington Post have helped to dispel some of the myths and clarify the position of thousands of hedge witches and other pagans throughout the US and Western world.

Unlike the patriarchal, monotheistic “major world” religions prevalent today, Goddess-based paganism recognizes the equal value of the feminine.  At the center of this mythos is the concept of the Divine Feminine  as well as a Divine Masculine.  Neither dominates the other; indeed, the concept of hierarchical values, of one gender (one species, one type of life form) dominating another is the essence of patriarchy.  It has no place in nature-based religions.

Nor does the concept of suffering for one’s sins.  In this pagan belief system, there is no dualistic “good vs evil”.  Evil does not exist as a separate entity — it is a creation of Judeo-Christianity, of patriarchy, to provide a “stick” with which to intimidate and control a recalcitrant population. Even some Christian philosophies reflect a similar tenet:  To paraphrase St. Augustine (354 –430 CE), “All that God creates is good; the only evil is in not choosing the greatest good”.

On the contrary, the pagan traditions focus on pleasure — the “carrot” — as a means of integrating the individual into the community and solidifying the whole.  This desire for (this pursuit of) pleasure is the basis for much of pagan ritual.  Samhain festivals include candle-lit parades of thousands costumed to represent iconic pagan figures such as the God and Goddess, harvest deities, and the dead.  Despite their solemnity (Who says pleasurable activities cannot also be serious?), these rites can engender a profound sense of connectedness to community as well as the Earth. The other major cross-quarter festival, Beltane, comes at the beginning of the fertile season; all are encouraged to eat and drink of the new growth, of Spring lambs and wine; but most especially to engage in an orgiastic pursuit of sexual pleasure to ensure a fertile growing season.  It is here that the young Horned God meets and mates with the eternal Goddess:  She comes to us as Demeter, Medusa, Hecate, Isis; the Kelts give us The Morrighan, Dagda and Kerridwen;  his randiness recognized in the Roman Bacchus, the Greek Pan or Dionysus; in Kernunnos, Janicot, Dianus and Actaeon of the Anglo-Keltic tradition.  It is he whom the Christians patriarchs—who well knew how difficult it is to control a people whose values and mythology are pleasure-based—transformed into Satan, the horned, hoofed anti-god, whose presence in one’s life ensured an eternity in hell.

How much easier to control through fear and punishment, fear of punishment?  To ensure that the Church, the nobility and the monarchy, had first access to all of the best the land produced, the strongest warriors, the most fertile/beautiful women, the greatest art, the most valuable elements of the society.  By providing a rigid set of rules and social structures, by demonizing all that was hedonistic and pleasurable about the “Old Religions”, and especially by degrading and debasing the feminine and female sexuality as depraved, wicked and immoral, the Christian patriarchs managed to create the hierarchical pyramid value system that exists throughout Western “civilization” today.

Yet every October 31 (based on the Gregorian calendar and not really accurate; these traditions began millennia ago and were based on moon cycles.  Interestingly, the arguably most sacred of Christian festivals, Easter, still takes its timing not from contemporary calendars but from the ancient way of telling time:  It is the first Sunday after the full moon of the spring equinox) we in Western society dip, often shallowly, but sometimes more deeply, into our hedonistic ancient myths, seeking perhaps to reconnect to that Earth, that land that was the very first victim (and remains most critical) of patriarchal domination.

On a personal level, however, can we not engage in Samhain as a cleansing of the old, a time to eliminate the unsound, unhealthy, less-than-valid ideas that have bogged down our progress? Perhaps even the current political paradigm could benefit from such a purge — in preparation for the fallow Winter. That way, we can emerge from the ritual as clean and empty vessels, ready to take on the challenges of the new season.

Editor’s Note: Kit Kimberly is a US-born expat who has lived in Prague, Czech Republic; the Highlands of Scotland; and Brisbane, Australia.  Raised and educated in North Carolina, she has worked as a journalist, political activist, university lecturer and creative writer and editor for more than 20 years.  Her writing has appeared in The Prague Post, The Sunday Mail, The European, Transitions, The Durham Morning Herald, and other international publications.

On June 22, 2009, Kodak announced  that it was stopping the production of its oldest color films: the magnificent color slide film Kodachrome. The hey days of Kodachrome were in the 1950s and 1960s, but it was still widely used in press and art photography alike in the 70s and 80s. In June 2009, the sales of the stock represented only 1 percent of Kodak overall business. Kodak started phasing out the 25 ASA and the 64 ASA stock a few years back, and the last one to go was the 200 ASA .

This was the end of an era, and a sad day for a lot of older photojournalists. Many favored the stock for its saturation and color brightness especially in red and blue tones. Kodachrome slides are incredibly durable and maintain their original colors for more than 50 years. A few years after the end of production, many photographers were still looking for the stock, but what ultimately killed this great medium was the unstoppable rise of digital photography. Film use in photography- Black and White and cheap color film is still available- was just another road kill of technological “progress”.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gilbert Mercier.

As we are coming closer to December 21, 2012, anxiety is building up for many. It is of course the prediction of the Mayan calendar, the one of Nostradamus, and the belief of christian fundamentalists  that the fateful “judgment day” phase has already begun with a few potential candidates  playing the role of the anti-Christ. As a rationalist, I can not adhere to any of this and especially not the part of the return of Jesus. However, anyone able and willing to analyze our current human predicament knows that we are entering a very challenging period for our own survival. The two main causes are purely man made in the form of overpopulation and climate change. As a specie we are heading for a cliff to be forever sent to oblivion. We can only blame our own arrogance, selfishness, lack of foresight and stupidity.

We have a plethora of problems that our largely incompetent governments are not tackling. It is of course climate change, but also overpopulation and social inequality. The world will unlikely come to an end in 2012, but we might have entered the phase of “the end of the world as we know it”, and most of us are not prepared to make any significant adjustments from our current social behavior. With a world population already at six billion, not addressing this quickly ticking time bomb is the equivalent of global suicide. With the ice cap quickly melting, fertile and highly populated areas worldwide will be flooded and will become inhabitable for 600 million people within less than 20 years. Large migration of people, escaping the floods, will take place, and such migrations will likely cause conflicts with existing local populations.

We are living under the delusional concept of stability and permanence, as if our trivial mentality of “business as usual” will always prevail. But, with sea waters rising, extreme weather spreading destruction all over the world, and nuclear disasters poisoning our food supply, it seems that humans have created an unstoppable army of Frankensteins, with the ability to destroy our very own planet. Since the industrial revolution, the focus of development has been on constant growth of production and labor force to accomplish it. The concept of exponential growth is by essence unsustainable.

But in order to accommodate this exponential development drive our insatiable appetite for natural energy and mineral resources have depleted planet earth and compromised the natural balance necessary for our survival. Unfortunately, this obsession for energy and resources is even more prevalent today than it was 150 years ago. We have collectively raped the planet for one and a half century, and we are about to pay the price for it. Some of us already have: just ask Haitians or Japanese facing their respective man-made so called “natural” disasters.

My experience with a preview of such apocalyptic scenario  was in New-Orleans post-Katrina. It gave me a precise idea of what our life can be like when you can’t rely on standard first world amenities, such as electricity, gas, water coming out of the pipes and stores to buy food. In disaster situations such as New-Orleans, Haiti or Japan, governments usually fail, to some degree, and survivors are left to fend for themselves. Then, it is back to the basics, and it translates into the two absolute  human necessities: food and water.

Today humans are stupid enough to fight for the exploitation of resources such as oil, natural gas and charcoal. If we are unable to curtail this madness, the wars of the very near future will not be about energy, control of transport and access to cheap labor forces. Instead, they will be about basic survival. There is an international trend burgeoning all over the world, populated by people smart enough to understand that the proverbial feces is just about to hit the fan. The off the grid survivalists are trying to be self reliable, and they have the right idea.

In California, Los Angeles is overdue for a major earthquake, yet, is the population prepared? As a former resident of the City of Angels, I can say that the community is absolutely not ready to handle such a challenge. Globally, we should ask ourselves some critical questions.  How would we survive if all our utilities (water, power) were cut off for weeks? How and where would we get water and the food to feed ourselves and our  families?

Editor’s Note: All photographs of New-Orleans post Katrina  by Gilbert Mercier.

Recently, Congressman Paul Ryan has been getting a lot of press from news outlets across America. It is as if his office put out a feel good press release and editors everywhere jumped on the story as more than filler. It is good that our esteemed press can think for itself. Instead of doing original reporting, why not follow each other into the abyss of the copycat. Covering stories is easier that way. Here is what is going on.

Paul Ryan is now the face of fiscal responsibility for the Republican Party, and thus, in what they dream is best for America. Not so fast because for mere mortals, meaning those who disagree with his ideas, Ryan has become a dangerous man, especially now that Mitt Romney genuflects when he burbles about Paul Ryan and the way he can fix America and save it from its coming fiscal doom. Ryan usually gets good press from the self-anointed pundits on the right, as expected. But rarely do we see stories elsewhere about regular guy Mr. Ryan, a man who catches catfish with his bare hands and was once an instructor in a gym.

It is as if some in the press have been seduced by Ryan, the budget he calls The Path to Prosperity and his desire to change America from a caring, socially conscious society to one where if you cannot make it, it is under the bus you go. It is a tough world we live in, losers have no place in it and only the fit will survive, at least for Paul Ryan and his cohort.

It is worth repeating what Ryan wants to do with the budget. He would start by cutting the budget by about 5 trillion dollars over ten years. At least he does not want to put his plan into operation immediately. He would take that money from Medicaid. He would cut and discontinue monthly food stamps for probably millions of single mother households. Mostly whatever else the poor and needy require to just get by will disappear.

Unemployed workers would be dropped from the rolls until they spend down their cash savings below two thousand dollars, as if the unemployed have that much cash, if any, on hand. He would also cut Pell grants. So much for education. Ryan believes government welfare, in his words, “ dissolves the common good of society and it dishonors the dignity of the human person.”

By killing anti-poverty programs, because that is what he would do, Ryan believes he will restore human dignity and thus reform the social compact.

The trouble with the Ryan budget is that it is a perfect fit for the Republican ethos that says numbers come first, people last. For Republicans, people are statistics, ciphers, and pixels on a virtual ledger. They are merely numbers on a chart, an actuary’s dream. Once on the chart, they number among the walking dead.

If a person cannot help him or herself, why should anyone else help? Especially if the person is among those in society who no longer contribute the way Republicans want them to.

The New York Times ran a story several weeks ago about how poor mothers on welfare are faring in the recession. The story especially cited Arizona, the poster child of state conservatism, where life in the poor lane is more difficult every day. Arizona is one of 16 states that cut welfare rolls since the recession.

Single mothers suffer the most. And because they cannot make ends meet, “they have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals for their children, shoplifted, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans … and even returned to relationships with violent partners – all with children in tow.”

Due to a variety of circumstances, many of these women fight addiction and depression, sometimes separately, often in combination, and sometimes dangerous to those around them. Cutting them off from government help is not the answer to solving their problems.

Equally relevant, The Employee Benefit Research Institute has some fascinating news about America’s aging population. In a study that took place before and during the first year of the Great Recession “between 2005 and 2009, the rate of poverty among seniors rose as they aged.” It is highest for the oldest of the elderly, meaning that almost 15 percent of those older than 85 were living in poverty in 2009. The poverty rate for women is almost double that of men.

One in 5 single women over 65 lives in poverty. The odds of a health crisis striking at any time go up 45-55 percent for those who live below the poverty line.

According to the Center for Rural Affairs, using the Great Plains for the basis of its study, rural areas have higher poverty levels than urban centers and the region as a whole. Studies reveal, “that there is often not enough food for a healthy life.”

Add to this that people often have to choose between “ adequate food and other expenses such as medical expenses.” The study finds, “that childhood poverty is higher in rural areas in the region than the general poverty rate.”

We have a situation here that is not going away soon. According to a Census Bureau report issued in 2011, 46 million people were living in poverty, the highest number in the last 52 years. That translates into more that 15 percent of Americans living below the poverty line. As the Great Recession only slowly abates, that number has surely gone up.

Fix entitlements, you say Mr. Ryan. Cut welfare, you say. Reduce government help for the poor. Wear your actuarial green eyeshade and your horse blinders to keep out the truth. Maintain that chasm between your Republican blindness and what is real. With all this, I wonder, have you, Mr. Ryan and your colleagues ever heard the cry of a hungry baby? Did you ever see the face of an undernourished child or watched helplessly as an elderly person drifts away at the end of his or her life because he or she has no food or medicine? 

Editor’s Note: All photographs and graphics by EN2008.