Politics made easy: Would you bet your life on dinosaurs or mammals?

I have a friend who went out into the forest and, under the watchful eye of a Native American elder, took hallucinogenic plants. "Wow!" said I. "What happened?"

"Clutter," said he. "I learned about clutter. I went home and threw out half the stuff in my house."

I wanna take peyote! I wanna dump out half the stuff in my house! I have WAY too much stuff. How did I get all that junk? I was brainwashed! Too much TV.

"You really really need this new Barbie doll!" the television told me. I do? "The War on Iraq is a necessary thing," said the TV. It is? "Tide gets your laundry really, really clean." It does? My eyes took on this glazed look. "Consume, Jane. Consume!"

I've got a great idea. Instead of selling us all this clutter, why doesn't Big Media sell us stuff that we really need?

Instead of telling us to blindly consume more and more inconsequential junk on the crazy assumption that all this clutter will make us happy, let's start selling Americans stuff that will REALLY make us happy. Like wonderful forest places, clear rivers and streams, peace, freedom and DEMOCRACY.

Who were the most content people in history? Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi. What did they all have in common? A two-car garage? Not hardly.

Oops. I just had an epiphany (even without peyote!) Big Media -- and the bladerunner corporate welfare queens they work for -- are like the dinosaurs. They ruled the earth. They thought they owned everything. They were big, big, big. Then there were those tiny little mammals. What were the mammals compared to dinosaurs? Nothing!

Then the comets hit. The dinosaurs all died. And the mammals survived.

We're like that, we poor maligned progressive untouchables who silently hope for a better world. Raytheon and Fox News and GE now think that they are the tyrannosaurs. "What's good for us is good for the USA." They have nothing to worry about from those weird little sandal-wearing progressives. But we know better. We have God on our side! Plus we have the Internet. We don't need the Big Media corporate queens to tell us what to think. We got other little mammal things. TruthOut. MoveOn. CLG News. The ACLU. Jewish Voice for Peace. And people like Dennis Kucinich too.

Big Media thought that just because Dennis's face never appeared on prime-time TV that we would forget that he had a message of hope for the working guys. That he had a message about what it once was like to be free. Like in the movie, "the Last Unicorn" when Schmendrek was talking to the skeleton.

"You can't taste wine. You're dead!"

"Sure, I can no longer taste it. BUT I REMEMBER."

I remember the ideals I learned as a kid. I remember what Jesus actually said. I remember the Constitution. "We the people..." People are hungry for truth. Why do you think Fahrenheit 9/11 was so popular? It was a breath of fresh air, a perspective that had been carefully kept off the evening news. And now there is "Control Room" and "The Hunting of the President" and "Orwell Rolls in his Grave" and "Hijacking Catastrophe" and "OutFoxed" and "9/11 in Plane Sight".... All the wonderful documentaries coming out now? They are slipping in under Big Media's radar screen because us little mammals want to be free!

So. How are we -- the little people, the mammals -- going to survive? By spreading the word. By telling our kids, by having pot luck dinners and house parties, by spending our money on what is meaningful instead of what is not. By subscribing to CLG News and KPFA instead of to Fox. By learning the truth. By burrowing from within. We CAN win the fight for survival, the fight for democracy. Why? If for no other reason than because, even though we are smaller and have less of a roar than the dinosaurs, there are many many more of us than there are of them!

According to John Machado, we no longer live in a capitalistic system. "Capitalism" is when you bet your money that if a new and exciting idea comes along, people will all run out and buy it and you will get your nest egg back. In corporate America, however, new and exciting ideas are discouraged in favor of dinosaur things. But no one can stop us from investing in -- and marketing and even buying -- new and exciting ideas on how to make our country a better place. That kind of capitalism is carefully squashed by dinosaurs but never forget -- us mammals have pocket change.

The political bottom line? Voting at the polls is fine but Americans REALLY vote with their money. Dinosaur George Bush spends HIS money blowing up children throughout the world while mammal Dr. Paul Farmer spends his money helping starving children in Haiti. How would you rather vote? Who would you rather be?

I heard some caller on KPFA the other day. He said, "We must take the money we would have spent on buying consumer goods and put that money toward buying back democracy." Great idea! Instead of buying oil, chrome and plastic, let's donate to KPFA and TruthOut and True Majority and the ACLU and CLG. And in New Hampshire, Granny D is running for the Senate against a heretofore-unopposed Republican. Donate to her! If enough of us little guys add together enough of our pennies, watch out all you corporate welfare queens! You are just about to get kicked out of Jurassic Park!

Here is one way to invest in mammals (not dinosaurs!): Let's all call our cable companies today, disconnect our TVs and donate the money we save to someone on this list. THAT will make us happy! And let's stop rotting our teeth by buying soft drinks too.

Jewish Voice for Peace: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

Code Pink: http://www.codepink4peace.org/

CLG News: http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#contribute

I Want Change.org: http://iwantchange.org/

Information Clearinghouse:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/support.htm

KPFA (A Pacifica station):http://www.kpfa.org/

True Majority: http://www.truemajority.org/homepage.cfm

People for the American Way: http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/

ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/

Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/

Truth Out: http://www.truthout.org/

Online Journal: http://www.onlinejournal.com

Granny D for Senate: http://grannyd.com/donations.htm

Dennis Kucinich: http://www.kucinich.us/

Read the Muslim perspective on the news: http://www.aljazeerah.info/

Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health: http://www.pih.org/index.html

Black Commentator: http://www.blackcommentator.com/

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"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!"

Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds. Here's an opportunity to do one: In October, I will be walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-day walkathon to benefit breast cancer research. Donate $5 and I will put you on my prayer list! (You are on there already but hey...) To donate, please go to http://www.the3day.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=30112 Click on "sponsor a participant" and type in my name.

Another way to fight breast cancer? Women exposed to pollution develop breast cancer first -- so let's fight it by dumping those money-grubbers in the White House who are allowing toxic polluters to endanger the lives of our wives, mothers and sisters.

Another cancer prevention technique: Outlaw depleted uranium! In just one service unit, 8 out of twenty returning troops have developed malignancies. 40% of just one unit sent to Iraq and exposed to DU have become cancerous only 16 months after exposure. Our troops deserve better than to rot away so that Bush can have fun playing armchair soldier for fun and PROFIT.