Zeitgeist

Growing up I was never an A student. I was never the teachers pet. In fact my teachers could be often over heard saying, "He's so intelligent, he has so much promise if he would just apply himself." Or "Oh he gets the materials. I questioned him verbally and he understands and has the ability to express himself clearly and with incredible verbiage. Once he has read the subject of study and has committed it to memory he can recite it at will. I don't understand why his test scores don't reflect this."


My problem as I see it is that I was raised by parents who grew up in a bygone era. My dad was born at the end of the great depression in 1931, in Rusk, Texas. He, my grand-parents and his three older sisters lived in a small two room shack with dirt floors. The land the shack sat on was owned by the man who had owned my grandmothers' mother during slavery. The owner of the land tasked his wife with the charge of always allowing my grand-mothers descendants to live on the land after he died, knowing that because of Jim Crowe, blacks could not own land. Grandfather worked as a Carnie Strong Man because it paid better than any other job he could find being black, and un-educated. So due the travelling nature of Carnivals my father was often left with the task of taking care of the family when granddaddy was away. He took whatever jobs he could find, and at 10 years old in 1940, that wasn't much. He cut puck wood, he rolled logs, worked sawmills, and plowed fields. What little money he made always went to purchase food. Everything else they made due without. He wore old burlap bags left over from the potatoes on his feet. At thirteen he was told that he had to attend the local school for blacks. This he did only part-time because still money was scarce. At 15 my grandfather died leaving my father the sole bread winner. Grandmother cleaned homes and washed clothes for people around town but even that wasn't enough to pull them out of hardship. Then at the age of 17 grandmother died.

My father told his oldest sister that he was going to go into the military because he could make enough money to support them until they could find husbands. So when he went to join up they told him that he had to be 18 to join. His oldest sister told them that my father was 18 that he had been born in 1930. They accepted her word and allowed my father to join the Army because blacks didn't have birth certificates, and any way he was just fodder for the machine any way.

After seeing his sisters married and on their own he began to forge a career for himself and after five years with the Army he decided that the Air Force might prove better soil for advancement, so he transferred. The cruelty and the racism of his superiors was relentless. But in a very candid conversation about the military in those days he told me, "I wanted my children to have every advantage that I didn't. I wanted my kids to be able to go to school and learn reading and writing like the white kids, instead of having to work to support the family like I did. I wanted my kids to have what ever advantages being the children of serviceman could afford them like base doctors, eyeglasses, and college money. So I ate it. I stuck it out and suffered because I knew it would make life better for you and your siblings."

This uneducated, farm boy, from the heart of Texas did things that he should not have been able to do. He should not have been able to make his way up the ranks and retire from the Air Force as a Staff Sgt. in 1969. He should not have been able to pass the tests given him for advancement. He should not have been able to repair the vehicles he worked on in the service, not having had any training of the sort.

This is the man who educated me. Who taught me on his knees how to use my mind when money was lacking. How to assess a problem, come up with a plan, and put the plan into action. If it don't work then you need another plan don't you? While this may sound like the ramblings of a bumpkin, the intellect among you will recognize this for what it is. The Scientific Method, albeit simplified, but the method none the less. This is how my father managed to live, survive, and succeed in a world that wasn't about to give him a dime.

My mother was born in 1941 in Seagraves, Texas into much similar circumstances as my father. If not for the strength of our Cherokee ancestors my mothers’ family might have been a footnote on the pages of history book that doesn't even tell the whole truth of the horrors, deceit, and death dealt to this particular tribe of indigenous heroes. Travelling from town to town my grandmother single handedly raised her 14 children. How she managed to become a nurse in Texas of the 1930's is testimony to the Scientific Method. I remember my grandmother telling me once when I was having trouble with some homework, "Baby you keep on them numbers and words. I promise you they gonna serve you well."

My mother who was the actual hand that rocked the cradle and changed the diapers of her younger siblings while my grandmother worked had to teach herself how to raise children. You guessed it, the Scientific Method again. This is what she told me once when I decided to build my own doghouse without any help from daddy. "You look at something that needs doing, you decide how you want to do it, and then you do it. If it don't look like what you planned then you made a mistake. Only thing wrong with a mistake is if you don't learn from it. Take the doghouse apart and do it again.

She didn't receive much education either being mother to so many. But over her life time she taught herself and is one only a few people to ever be pardoned of her crimes by a Governor of the State of New Mexico. Who realized my mothers’ worth and hired her to work on his campaign for the Presidency of the United States. A heart attack ended his plans and his life but if not for this seemingly innocuous act I might not have been born.

These two people came together. Yes there are other children and other stories but this one is the one that drives home the message. These two people came together and without any education raised children who have gone on to greater things. Doctors, business men and women, entrepreneurs, nurses, military personnel, police officers and sheriffs. All of us the progeny of simple people who looked at life not as a reason to quit, but as a reason to succeed. They without ever knowing what it was called, successfully used the Scientific Method to plant the seeds of family in this country and we are their legacy.

This story should not be used to further divide blacks and whites, indigenous from non-indigenous. It should not be used as a reason to not even bother to trying. It should be seen for what it is.

The Zeitgeist movement may not be the perfect plan for our future as a people. But I have the highest amount of respect for what it envisions. A world where I don't have to try to cut your throat to make sure my kids have enough to eat. A world where politicians and government, and militaries are things we laugh about while sipping the tea of the future. A world where everyone has enough so that there's no need to hoard. A world where money doesn't exist because we (the world) take care of our own.

The Zeitgeist Movement may be our best chance of seeing this bright new world in the lifetime of one generation.

I am a product today’s greatest melting pot. I have indigenous Native American blood in my veins, I have German blood in my veins, I have Irish blood in my veins, I have Scottish blood in my veins, I have African blood in my veins. I am sick and tired of a world that tries to force me to choose my affiliations based on tribal, national, ethnic, or religious mores and traditions.

I say now for all eyes to see that I am a child of the Earth. Brother to all creatures who wander her lands, sister to all creatures who tread her waters, mother to all creatures who navigate her winds, and father to every other life form that depends upon the earth for their lifes blood. For the continuation of their kind.

For the sake of the future generations we must decide what kind of a world we want to live in. Utilize every tool and every piece of information that is at our disposal to come up with a plan. And with the combined strength of every man, woman, and child execute that plan as best we can.

The Scientific Method, and the plan as espoused by the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project are working towards that world. Won't you put aside your fears and use that energy to help us. We can't do it without you. Thank you.

http://www.thezeitgesitmovement.com/
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://www.thezeitgeistmovie.com/