You Can't Win a Fight When You Won't Open Your Eyes and Look at Your Opponent

Prior Aelred sent this Smirking Chimp article to me. You've got to go read it right now. Everyone in America needs to read it. The bottom line is that the Republicans have undoubtedly STOLEN the last two elections and the Democrats seem to want to just close their eyes and pretend that this isn't happening. Which, unfortunately, assures that the Republicans will continue to steal elections.

It makes people uncomfotable when you say that the Republicans are stealing elections. They act as if you've just farted, or just announced that you were abducted by aliens who kept you in a spaceship and made you bear their alien babies. The Republicans count on that.

The article notes that, "the Bush campaign was aided enormously in this thievery because their campaign co-chairs in key states were also the Secretaries of State -- that is, the officials in charge of conducting elections and certifying the vote results: Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000 (with brother Gov. Jeb Bush overseeing her work), and, in 2004, Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, Terry Lind in Michigan, Matt Blunt in Missouri, Glenda Hood in Florida, et al." I've been saying for a year and a half that I won't give any money to any Democratic presidential candidates until the Democrats figure out a way to elect Democrats as SoS of Ohio and Florida. What's the point? So far, I can't see any evidence that the Democrats have made this Job One. They're now busy fighting over whether to give their money to DC consultants (NO! For the love of God, NO!) or local efforts in all states. As if this were going to be some normal election and we just need to figure out where to best spend our money. It's not and that's the least of what we need to do.

The article continues, "One can't escape the conclusion that the Democrats in general still don't know how to respond to cutthroat aggressiveness and criminality on the part of the Republicans. The Dems never knew what hit them in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004 and don't really have their oppositional act together now in 2006, with the midterm election just six months away." This is what really scares me. And, I think it relates to my earlier post on integrity. People are afraid to admit that we're dealing with a group of out-and-out criminals who are willing to break all the rules, because admitting that forces us to face some scary questions about how to deal with those people. It takes us outside the realm of the known, where there are rules that work, and dumps us into an alternate, and frightening, new reality.
We're not going to just get better funded, better organized, and elect better people. I knew when I heard about the NSA phone database that these crooks NEVER plan to leave office. They would never create a tool like that and then turn it over to, say, Hillary Clinton.

I'm not sure what -- other than massive civil disobedience -- will work with the power-mad fascists who have stolen control of America. I am sure that continuing to squeeze our eyes shut and pretend that we're not dealing with a real crisis -- in short, continuing to do what we've been doing but hoping for different results -- will only result in more stolen elections.

In 2004, I hoped that Kerry could pul off a landslide and that a landslide would be more difficult for the Republicans to steal than the close election we'd had in 2000. I still hear people heartened by Bush's low poll numbers who hope the Democrats will pull off landslide victories this fall that will be too big for the Republicans to steal. I don't buy it. In 2000, they had to scramble to steal the election, get help from the SCOTUS (fuck you, Sandra Day!) Again: "One can't escape the conclusion that the Democrats in general still don't know how to respond to cutthroat aggressiveness and criminality on the part of the Republicans. The Dems never knew what hit them in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004 and don't really have their oppositional act together now in 2006, with the midterm election just six months away."

The Democrats are the only hope we've got. We have neither the time nor the resources to organize a third party with any realistic chance of taking control. So we've got to wake the Democrats up, no matter how difficult a job that may be. I'm open to suggestons on how that might be done.

Equs

Bush slips below twenty-nine percent in polls.

An Invitation to the Barricades Based Upon a Realization of the Nature of Our Oppressors and the Need to Live with Integrity

T. Thorn Coyle always has something interesting to say, but this week, her posts keep resonating with things that I've been thinking about, especially within the overall themes of how we thrive in today's world. She says:

"I see that change is possible. Humans can deal with each other in forthright and adult ways, and have fun while they are at it. It is this signal I will follow, not the noise.

I mentioned to my homeopath this morning that my integrity is my only currency. She said it is the only thing any of us have. Yet humans support people and systems that have little to no integrity all the time. Why is this? What blinds us? Fear, greed and neediness."

It's interesting, because I've been thinking about the fact that it is the complete lack of integrity that makes the Bush administration and its supporters, both within the mainstream media and in general, so impossible to deal with. The recent Mary Cheney brouhaha is just one tiny example. She's gay, she's openly gay. She's made a good living off the very fact that she is gay and can supposedly help, for example, Coors attract more gay customers. Her father mentioned shortly before the Republican convention that she was gay. Yet, she and her mama are willing to try to make political capital and sell books by pretending to be highly offended that, when asked a question about gays (that never would have come up at all but for Republican pandering to an inflammable base of gay-haters) Kerry and Edwards mentioned that she was gay. No integrity. How do you deal with that? Kerry's fumbled it up until now. I think the answer may be to do something that liberals have been reluctant to do up until now: to begin to directly challenge these people's integrity.

And of course, Mary Cheney's only one small example in a tsunami of acts that simply reek of a lack of integrity: from the 2000 "election" to the misuse of 9/11 to lying us into an illegal, immoral war to robbing from the poor and the old and the sick to give to the rich to illegal spying on Americans to torture to secret jails with no due process to swift boating and planting kerned documents to polluting the air and calling it "Clear Skies," everything these people do is tainted by a lack of integrity. They don't even feel a need to be consistent; they're happy to claim today that impeaching a president would be the end of the world when just a few years ago they impeached Clinton over a blow job. Kay Bailey Hutchinson got caught recently asserting that lying isn't an impeachable offence, although she'd said the exact opposite about Clinton. Debbie Howell will continue to lie on the pages of the WaPo about whether Democrats were beneficiaries of Abramoff's bribes, even when it's been clearly shown that that is not the case.

Which brings us back, I think, to Ms. Coyle's question: If our integrity is our only currency, the only thing any of us have, why do we support people and systems that have little to no integrity all the time? Why is this? What blinds us? Coyle answers: Fear, greed and neediness. And perhaps she's right. Particularly about the role that fear plays in this process. In particular, I think we are afraid to simply announce and be forced to act upon the fact that we are dealing with people who have no integrity. We're not talking about differences of opinion, about people of good will honestly disagreeing about legitimate policy differences. We're talking about the fact that we're dealing with people -- the people in charge of our government and the largest most powerful nation on Earth -- who lack all integrity. It's an extreme statement to make and liberals have become too terrified of being called extreme, fringe, wacky, dirty hippies, tree huggers, kooks. So it's that fear.

More, though, there's a fear associated with what happens once you admit to yourself and announce to the world that your opponent lacks all integrity. Our system of democratic government, with its checks and balances and respect for diversity, is based to a larger degree than we often recognize upon the premise that even our opponents will act with integrity, that everyone will play by the rules. Once that's no longer the case, when you have a large group of powerful people who refuse to follow any of the rules, our democracy doesn't really provide the tools to deal with that. We can't vote them out of office when they have their fingers on the Diebold hard drive. We can't convince our fellow Americans to vote them out of office when they have blackmail dirt obtained by illegal spying on key members of the media and their bosses.

So, what do we do? How do we thrive when the entire system created to allow us to thrive no longer works, when it's been infected by a complete lack of integrity? If the first part of the answer to that question is to always behave with integrity ourselves, what does that mean in this new world?

I can't remember now where I read it, but I saw something on the web a week or so ago about a woman who attended a political debate where the Republican began by refusing to disavow ads that were clearly dishonest. She said that, on reflection, she wished that she hadn't sat quietly, following the moderator's rule that audience members not ask questions. She wished she'd stood up and announced her objection and refused to sit down until the Republican did the thing that integrity would have required him (or her, I just can't remember) to do. Maybe that's the way we ourselves behave with integrity when dealing with those who have none.

But it's only part of the answer. I think the other part is to acknowledge that we're living in a new world and that new solutions -- possibly involving mass civil disobedience -- are going to be necessary. That's scary, but dealing with the fear that brings up may be necessary in order for us to thrive. Sometimes, a forest fire is necessary to clear old growth and allow new trees to grow. Sometimes, forest fire is the only way for the forest to preserve its own integrity.

I'm not saying anything original. In fact, some guys with long hair said it very eloquently over 200 years ago:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

I Suppose Grown Ups Acting Like Grown Ups Would Be Too Much To Expect/

Via Witchvox, comes an article about the sons of a serviceman being kicked out of the Boy Scouts for being Wiccan. It's 2006 and this is America. For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The article reports that: "The number one scout law is to do your duty to God and your country," Troop 71 Scout Master Gene Doherty said. "They met to discuss whether or not the boys could live up to that because of their religion."

The conclusion was that they could not.

Doherty called Army Cpt. Todd Buchheim, the boys' father and a former Eagle Scout stationed at Fort Polk, to inform him that the boys no longer were welcome in the troop. The Buchheims said Doherty told them that if Cody had lied about his faith, the boys could have remained with no problem."


Does this sound like the sort of thing we'd like to model for our children? I swear there are days when i think Americans have the emotional age of a retarded twelve year old, but that would be unfair to some retarded twelve year olds I've known. So many of the problems we have in this country could be solved if people would just start to act like grown ups.

The freaking point of the meeting was religious diversity! And when they got religious diversity, the grown ups -- not the kids, but the grown ups -- freaked out.

I'll leave aside why any self respecting Wiccan would have their kids in a gay-hating group like the scouts. This weekend, the cutest little nine year old came up to me at the grocery store parking lot selling something for the boy scouts. I said, "Sorry. I won't donate to any group that excludes gays."

I swear, America, grow the fuck up. Because when you hurt yourself, I will laugh.

Walden

One of the smartest people I've ever "known" has started a blog. You must add it to your daily list.

Hmmmmm.

From today's EEI newsletter: "Real Time Power Prices in Boston Area Top $1,000 per MWh

Data from ISO New England showed that electricity prices in the Boston area spiked to more than $1,000 per MWh and averaged nearly $900 per MWh for several hours on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Neither ISO New England nor area power plants knew the cause of the spike.

Traders guessed the price jump was likely due to either transmission or generation problems. Wrote the newswire: 'A spokeswoman at ISO New England, the grid operator, said that despite the high prices (which remained over $1,000 for several minutes) the system conditions were normal and no emergency procedures were in place.'
Reuters , May 9."

In Which Your Humble Blogess Plays Cassandra

Starting to see a number of Republican fundraising appeals that warn that if the Democrats seize control of Congress this fall, they will impeach George Bush. That's interesting. I wish I had their faith in the Democrats. They can't be doing this because Bush is so popular. In fact, as I noted last week, conservatives are beginning to move away from him in droves, claiming that he's never "really" been conservative. So I'm thinking it's a bit of a time bomb being planted in case the Democrats do retake Congress and, even less believable, grow a real spine and punish Bush.

They want to be able to say, "See! We told you so! Those hate-filled Democrats, attacking our president "in a time of [undeclared] war! They should be focused on other priorities!"

Which, coming from the folks who impeached Clinton over a blow job, is going to be pretty damn rich.

Get Her! She's a Witch!

Via Witchvox comes this report of attempts to curtail attacks on those suspected of being witches in India.

Some excerpts from the article: "Recalling the trauma she faced, Ramani narrates: 'I was tortured and forced to eat human excreta just because I was branded a witch by the ojhas (witch doctors).'

Today Ramani is not alone in the fight.

Vaisakhi, another survivor, says: 'It is a blot on our society. We have to face such inhuman torture even in this 21st century. It is a shame that when women have reached space, we are subjected to such horror.'

Vaisakhi, in her 50s, had also been brutally beaten up by a villager, who branded her a witch.

There are scores of women who have been branded witch by villagers and tortured. Many were killed, sometimes by beheading or dismembering their limbs.

Many like Ramani Devi are forced to drink urine or consume human excreta. Some are ostracised and thrown out of their villages."

We like to think that persecution of those thought to be witches ended long ago. It didn't.

Anne Johnson has a report of xians lined up to yell insults at pagans and others who dared to gather for a festival in the US this weekend. Can you imagine the coverage if a bunch of pagans lined up outside the Baptist church and hurled insults at the Baptists as they waited to go inside?

Weekend Akhmatova Blogging

"When the American national poet Robert Frost had visited her at a dacha in 1962, Akhmatova wrote: 'I've had everything - poverty, prison lines, fear, poems remembered only by heart, and burnt poems. And humiliation and grief. And you don't know anything about this and wouldn't be able to understand it if I told you...' Two years before her death at the age of 76, Akhmatova was chosen president of the Writers' Union. She did not live to see the publication of her collected works in 1986 in Moscow."

So, you know, for this alone, I would love Anna, even if I can't quite access her poems yet.

What do you think of this? I like it as well as I've like anything of her, i think.


When you're drunk it's so much fun --
An early fall has strung
The elms with yellow flags.
We've strayed into the land of deceit
And we're repenting bitterly,
Why then are we smiling these
Strange and frozen smiles?
We wanted piercing anguish
Instead of placid happiness. . .
I won't abandon my comrade,
So dissolute and mild.
1911 (Paris)
-- translated by Judith Hemschemeyer

My Goodness; That's A Surprise. No, It's Not!

The WaPo, which is a piece of crap newspaper whose Sunday readership declined by quite a bit last quarter due, inter alia, to the fact that they have a lying scumbucket for an "ombudsman", reports that -- big surprise -- under the Bush administration, rich women avoid unwanted pregnancies, while poor women increasingly do not.

Because governmental policies designed to do just that have been successful.

The article says: "The abortion rate also rose among poor women while declining among the more affluent.

'Clearly, something is changing, and it doesn't bode well in terms of unplanned pregnancies and abortions for poor women, in particular,' said Heather Boonstra, one of the authors of the report.

Asked what was driving the trends, the authors noted that some state and federal reproductive health programs have been cut or made more restrictive in recent years. State and federal programs have increasingly focused on abstinence rather than contraception, and some analysts have argued that the shift is leading to less use of contraceptives and more unintended pregnancies."

I hate these people.

Culture of Life, my smooth, round, peachy ass.

Through The Looking Glass

There's a natural tendency, I think, to suppose that most others believe what we believe. (You agree, right? See! I told you!) So maybe I'm mistaken, but I've always thought that most Americans generally agreed that there were some things that were best done by the government, particularly the federal government, and that, conversely, there were some things that the government should stay the hell out of.

Examples: Protecting Americans from attacks or natural disasters, building interstate highways, funding research into national problems such as cancer, HIV, or the need for clean energy are tasks best done by the federal government. Deciding who to marry, whether or not to have children, what religion, if any, to practice, and deciding when and how to die are decisions best left entirely to the people involved and the government, particularly the federal government, needs to carefully avoid trampling on the personal liberties involved in those sorts of decisions.

In fact, there was a time, not too long ago, when it was the conservatives who kept proclaiming that government needed to stay out of people's lives. They'd dig up examples of over-zealous Social Service agents who removed a child from her home because her parents sent her to bed without dinner one night to punish her bad behavior and worry that the next thing you knew, Big Brother would have cameras in everyone's home to monitor them 24/7. (OK, we didn't say "24/7" back then, but if the expression had been invented, they'd have used it.)

Now, in George Bush's America (I unfortunately mean that more literally than I'd like), it's as if we've stepped through the looking glass and everything's backward. Our first big clue was the federal government's failure to pay any attention to a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike Within US." The president was too busy taking a month-long vacation in a hell-hole in Texas to bother with protecting Americans from attacks by terrorists. Even after it happened, the Bush administration had to be pretty much dragged, pouting and sticking out their lower lips, into attacking the country that had harbored the Saudis who attacked us. Not much fun for them in attacking Afghanistan, even if that's where our attackers had come from.

Our next big clue -- like we needed another one -- was Katrina. Again, Bush and his administration were on vacation and, even with plenty of advance warning, sat around and did nothing to protect Americans from this natural disaster, nor to help them deal with its aftermath. When pushed uncharacteristically hard about its failure to act by the generally lapdogiscal press, Bush & Co. trotted out an idea that should have shocked all Americans even more than it did: it was the State of Louisiana's responsibility to deal with this problem, size and scope of it be damned. It was a particularly amazing statement coming from an administration that had spent millions and millions of dollars "reorganizing" the federal government around the distastefully-named "Department of Homeland Security."

We got our third big clue just this week. Bush announced that, come the avian bird flu epidemic, Americans could count on whatever help they might get from their state governments, but the federal government -- you know, the people who run the CDC -- wasn't going to bother to get too involved, so don't expect it and don't criticize them when they don't lift a finger because, well, they told us a few months ahead of time not to count on them. A coming world-wide pandemic and the federal government of the United States of America says, "Americans, you're on your own."

Coupled with this stunning abdication of traditional federal responsibilities, we've seen an equally stunning intrusion into American's personal lives. Our fist clue should have been "faith-based" funding of religious activities -- something that would have turned the Founding Fathers' stomachs. From that point on, the Bush administration has been more concerned with legislating how Americans live their private lives than any American government ever in the 200+ years of the Republic. Access to birth control of all forms, but especially abortion, is denied, a particularly odious and distasteful brand of xian fundamentalism is shoved down our throats at every opportunity, right-to-die laws are fought all the way to SCOTUS, gay sex is used as a match to ignite the dry timber of Bush's "base," and Bush flies at midnight back from a Texas vacation -- something he wouldn't do for the PDB or Katrina -- to interfere in Michael Schiavo's decision concerning how his brain-dead wife would have wanted to die.

WTF? WTF? Where are all the conservatives of the 1970s and 1980s who wanted a limited role for government? I'm beginning to think they never wanted to limit the government's role in any aspect of American's lives at all. They wanted to limit the extent to which government could regulate corporations. Period. Because, otherwise, I sure as hell would have expected them to be rioting in the street over some of Bush's intrusions into American's lives.

Sure, we're beginning to hear that conservatives are "upset" with Bush over governmental spending -- which has gone up under Bush while taxes on the rich have gone down. They don't want more taxes, but less spending, apparently on the few social services the government still provides because I haven't heard any of them complain about the cost of our illegal war in Iraq coughHaliburtoncough. Recent polls seem to show that some of Bush's losses are due to people who call themselves conservatives being unhappy with him. Not, I guess, for lying us into a war or turning his back on the traditional role of the federal government, but for getting caught lying us into a war and threatening their control of both houses of Congress.

So get ready to start hearing that Bush was never a "real" conservative and that, in 2008, we should elect a "real" conservative who'll do it right this time. It reminds me of a speech that I heard the now-fired CEO of Reliant Energy give after the California energy debacle. (Maybe that should have been our first clue, when Cheney basically told California it was on its own, even though only the federal government could, by law, regulate the energy prices.) Reliant insisted that the problem wasn't that California had deregulated its energy markets, it was that California hadn't deregulated all the way. True, complete deregulation would, he assured his listeners, fix everything. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that Reliant had been manipulating California's energy markets and laughing on tape about it.

When Newt Gingrich says that the Democrats' slogan ought to be: Had Enough? it's because Newt plans to answer that question by saying that Bush was never a real conservative, but that a real, true, honest-to-goodness conservative (who'll cut social spending to the bone) would be a real change and great for America.

Goddess, I hope we're now too smart to buy that tripe. But the marketing campaign is coming. You watch.

Thank You Very Much Mr. Colbert. You Rock!

Go here and thank Stephen Colbert for having balls the size of Jupiter.

Beltane and Walpurgisnight!

Scant posting over the next few days. Monday is Beltane -- for me, the highest of high holy days! We celebrate new life, Spring, sex, growth, flowering, potential, fecundity, and -- frankly -- fucking. I love me some Beltane. And, at my age, I take me some time to recover. Also, huge conference that I've organized happening on Tuesday which, by my calculations, takes place precisely one day after Beltane, so I likely won't sleep for about 48 hours.

It's ok. It's worth it. I love to dance and, on Beltane, WE DANCE!

Here's hoping that Spring in all its forms is good to you. that what you've been wanting to see manifest becomes manifest, that all the seeds you've planted, in every area, germinate, and that, to quote the country song, when you get the chance, you dance.

Boobies!

Women! It's the first of the month! STOP what you're doing and go give yourself a breast self-exam!

Men! It's the fist of the moth! STOP what you're doing and get your woman to give herself a breast self-exam!

Here's how it's done.

At the very least, go calendar this so you'll remember to do it at the right time of the month.

I love you. I want you to live long and prosper. Breast cancer is almost 100% curable if found early.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

In every revolution, the main issue is power.

V. I. Lenin

"Poetry is power," Osip Mandelstam once said to Akhmatova in Voronezh, and she bowed her head on its slender neck. Banished, sick, penniless and hounded, they still would not give up their power.

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Akhmatova continue to evade me. I think now I've been misguided in insisting upon reading her poetry before her biography. I'll need to read about her life if I ever hope to read her poetry even semi-competently. But how can I give up on a woman who agreed so eloquently that poetry is about power and about revolution.

At any rate, I like the feminist feel of this poem:

Lot's Wife
by Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,

over a black mountain, in his giant track,

while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:

"It's not too late, you can still look back



at the red towers of your native Sodom,

the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,

at the empty windows set in the tall house

where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."



A single glance: a sudden dart of pain

stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .

Her body flaked into transparent salt,

and her swift legs rooted to the ground.



Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem

too insignificant for our concern?

Yet in my heart I never will deny her,

who suffered death because she chose to turn.

What's Anna saying? That it's ok to want to look back? That it's ok to love the comforts and memory of home? That men and their patriarchial god too often trail off into the desert ignoring the things important to women? Or was this a huge comment upon the Soviets that I fail to grasp because I know so little of her life? Well, Anna, I wish I could invite you over to sit in my yard and have tea and tell me, while we enjoy the herb-scented breezes, what you were writing about. I'd offer you cheese, fruit, bread -- the things that were in such short supply while you were writing. We could talk about women turned into "transparent salt," which sounds to me like as good a description as any I'm likely to read of tears.

Friday Family Blogging

My gorgeous daughter-in-law, who has turned out to be the world's most wonderful mother, and my wonderful grandson, who loves his Nonna sooooooooo much!

Let Us Know How That Works Out, Will Ya??

From the DCPagan Yahoo Group:

"You have to see this one to believe it. Christians praying to the God Gasolina. How about praying for some alternative energy sources?

Article here.

D.C. prayer rally to seek lower gas prices

WASHINGTON, April 26 (UPI) -- A U.S. Christian group has grown tired of escalating gasoline prices and is set to stage a national prayer rally to lower the numbers at the pumps.

Various Christian clergy from around the country will convene around a Washington, D.C., gas station Thursday at noon to pray. For those who can't attend, a live Internet site and toll-free prayer line have been established.

In a release, the Pray Live group said many people are "overlooking the power of prayer when it comes to resolving this energy crisis."

Apart from sending a message to God, the rally had a message for humanity, said Wenda Royster, the group's founder.

"It is our hope that seeing and hearing some of the nation's most powerful preachers gathered around a gas station and the United States capital as a backdrop, will remind everyone who is really in charge of our world -- God," Royster said.

The Web site is at praylive.com. The toll-free phone number is 888-PRAYLIVE."

Countdown

Too long, by any reckoning!

Fear, Thriving, and Money

I'm thinking a lot this year about thriving. How do we thrive in a world in the grip of madmen? How do we thrive on a planet undergoing dramatic climate change? How do we thrive in the waning days of the carbon-based economy? I'm also thinking a lot about fear. How do our fears keep us from thriving? Do they help us to thrive? What can we learn about ourselves by examining our fears?

Both of these issues -- thriving and fear -- are wound up in the issue of money and, more specifically, in the issue of debt. My brilliant friend Katrina Messenger, who cooks THE best greens that anyone has ever eaten, has posted an article on debt, part of a series she's been doing on the psychology of money in the Western world; Katrina kindly allowed me to collaborate with her on this article. Check it out and let me know what you think!

What are your fears about debt? How much of your debt is related to your fears? In what specific ways would you thrive if you were debt-free?