Quit The Road: God MUST Love Me Because …

“Thank you for all you’ve done … and for allowing me to eat this past year … but ‘yall can have these keys back.”

That’s right … on Wednesday I handed the man back the keys to his truck.  No more Flatbed Fred wrestles with filthy tarps, heavy chains, and dusty straps. No more unloading in frozen ice and snow. Gone are work days spent in southern Arkansas … where you can pass out before your load is secure and tarped.

Now … I’ve returned to the INSANE, arrogant California Bay Area and on the first day, I’m amazed at how well things are going. This is the same place where economic racism forced me to become a truck driver. This is the same place where I left 14 months ago and traveled to OKLAHOMA to get a job! Now, on my first day back, I already have:

• A new job … one that allows me to go home every night
• A new van - the owner has a body shop and someone failed to pay, so he has to get rid of it…
• A new apartment - he’s throwing in the small apartment over the shop

This allows me to take a Greenhouse Production class out at City College. Amazing. God is good. I don’t think it’s ever been this easy. After the semester, it most likely will be the right time to pack “my stuff” into my new van and drive to South Carolina … which will become … “My New Home.”

Alternative Building: Papercrete

Okay, so you’ve got your eye on a piece of property that has a 3 bdrm/1.5 bath house on it, 17 acres of land, a barn, an all season creek (fresh water is going to be increasingly more important), and is divided between 5 acres of cleared pasture/farmland and the rest in timber that you can mill or sell.

We’ve already learned that one of the best small farm practices is to start off using no more than one-to-three acres for crops and flowers. So what else can you do with all that land?

When you have land, you have SooOOooo many options. Every structure you add to your land increases its value. Building Green and “Alternative” allows you to creative wonderful, mortgage-free buildings at pennies to what traditional buildings cost. The building can be wood burning Sauna cordwood building or a Strawbale “Adobe” home that keeps you warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer while decreasing your dependence on both energy and energy companies.

The latest … and the building style that has recently caught my eye is Papercrete …. a substance that creates lightweight “concrete-ish” mix or “adobe-ish” blocks to build with.

Like cordwood homes, you don’t have to be a builder to build a house. There are books and videos at your local public library. You can begin your search by clicking on the links and by googling some keywords like: alternative building, papercrete, cordwood building, strawbale houses, and building with cob.

Successful Change lends to Opening The Heart

Things are looking just a tad different since I got out of California. I never thought I’d be anywhere near Tulsa, Oklahoma, but as they say, “God smiles when you make plans.” I’m shocked that Oklahoma is so very Kool compared to over-done “Cali“. It’s far from perfect, but very surprising.

I’m witnessing the effects of the policies and greed of the last 10-20 years. Huge Korporate farms caused huge numbers of Midwesterners in small towns throughout Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas to migrate to urban cities on both coasts. Some changed as a result. Others brought their resentment and fear with them and made urban life just a tad more toxic than it already was.

But this isn’t about finger pointing—because there is far too much blame to go around. No, this is about discovering that the new changes we’ll all have to make in the future just may be more racially inclusive than we imagine. Those who are preparing to leave the malnourished environments that urban America will increasingly become (as the economy declines and crime rises) are people who wear all manner of “labels”. Lesbian commune builders, new young black farmers, white permaculturists, Buddhist village creators, and Native American returnees will be opening aware hands and welcoming you.

Here in Oklahoma I see how economic struggle has forced many whites to be open to anybody with skills who wants to come here and better the economy by creating more jobs. Black Oklahomans seem respond by taking a more tolerant and accepting attitude in turn.

So, who for those who want to leave the no-win of life in the urban hood and move out to the land (once they’ve created the skills necessary to live anywhere), they are going to be surprised to find that they aren’t alone, and that some of the kindest hands that reach out to them … will be white, red … yellow … brown … pink … etc….

God has funny ways of opening our stubborn hearts. I came across this website as an example: Ryan Is Hungry

Financing My Urban Escape

Okay, so in the process of concluding that I want a greater quality of life than I can create in urban America … and then deciding that I can best create such a life on a small farm (8 or more acres) … I’ve learned a great deal even before leaving Oakland, California.

But perhaps the greatest thing I’ve learned is how to make my fantasy a reality. In other words, how to finance the move. Life in the country requires a lower amount of money to live on. The reason why all that beautiful property is so cheap is there is a lack of jobs out thar. Hence, I decided to learn to become a truck driver.

I drove a cab in San Francisco back in the late 80’s for a few years to finance my return to college, but I never dreamed I’d ever yearn to drive an 18 wheeler. But it’s such a great choice because not only can I drive through various parts of the country and get a feel about potential areas where advertised cheap property is located, but I can live anywhere and be a trucker. (Not to mention that truckers can potentially earn up to $200, 000 a year!)

FREE Truck Driving School
This journey is teaching me faith … and more… the power of following your dreams. I actually found a FREE truck driving school. When I graduate, I won’t have any contracts nor will I owe anyone any money. More, the school is located in San Francisco’s City College Bay View Campus off Evans Street. It was started by Tania Alexander and her father, Rev. Alexander of True Hope Baptist Church in the Hunter’s Point area. Class is located in the Evan’s Street Campus of San Francisco City College. (The program is so new that I see it isn’t even listed on the SFCC Webstite .) The program is sponsored in partnership with Goodwill Industries and here’s a link to press releases about the program:

Goodwill Truck Driving Academy

Bayview True Hope Truck Driving Academy

Phone Number: 415-550-4421

NOTE: If you look at the picture above, you can see me standing in the backgrown just between Rita’s eyes (the person in the simulator’s driver’s seat) and the screen.) Da kid ain’t playin’ … I’m going to have my Class A in about two weeks. Um … perhaps you folks should decide to stay off the streets for the next two months … )

14 Steps To Begin Your Black Farm Dream

Dreams of moving to the country continue as I walk constantly into the reality of making it happen. Only a few more steps before I enter truck school. It’s a free program sponsored by a church in Hunter’s Point, Goodwill Industries, and San Francisco City College. Attending an independent truck school rather than a truck company’s school means I won’t be under a $5,000 contract when I leave. It also means I will most likely earn more money starting off.

Why truck driving? I dunno … I like to drive and it’s a long way from listening to crack addicts tell me lies all day. Homes and land are cheap in rural America … but it’s that way because there often is a lack of jobs. This means I’ll have to:

1. Take a few Horticulture and/or Permaculture courses
2. Take a welding class (FREE too at several locations here in urban America)
3. Make sure I’m getting enough exercise so that I’ll be fit when I get there
4. Research the appropriate farm equipment, farming practices, local truck actions, and other means of paying less than full price for much of what I’ll need
5. Read up on rural life … like a book I ran across the other day that illustrates why country neighbors really are better than city neighbors … because they need you more … but … research will still have to be done …
6. Visit http://www.city-data.com and gather as many candid remarks about the towns, states and cities I’m curious about
7. Visit http://www.unitedcountry.com and check out the tip of the iceberg of what’s available (I’ve noticed they’ve stopped posting the really cheap places … hey … Real Estate Agents want to make money too… they also have a huge book that comes out twice a year that’s far better … only $9.00 a year for a subscription.)
8. I also like to open http://www.wikipedia.com and pull up the demographics of an area … won’t paint the whole picture … but it can fill in a few blanks
9. And if you visit the http://realestate.msn.com ’s Real Estate link, you’ll see where you can request hard copy books for areas you’re curious about. These books are found in free sidewalk newspaper bins all over the U.S. … but if you request one online, Real Estate agents from those areas will send you emails, listings, and letters inviting you to build a relationship with them
   [Click on http://realestate.msn.com ... and check out the second one down that has a house and two barns with acreage and timber for $160,000]
10. Start dreaming into all the things you’d do if you only had land … and a bit of time to pursue them. Then start searching the web for examples of what those projects look for other people. You’ll really be surprised if you let yourself go
11. If you’re single, start posting your ad on dating sites for country and farm people
12. Remember … there are fears about a looming global recession in 2012 … so people with small farms WITH WATER under or on it will do better than those sisters and brothers still complaining in the hoods … did I mention the fears around a global water shortage starting in 2015?
13. But above all … I have to remember that it really isn’t all about me. That if God gives folks gifts and talents, He wants them to funnel them into our bringing something to the table … assisting with the greater good …
14. Look around for friends and family to bring along. Asian and Mexican immigrants are showing us some excellent examples of how to create successful social models that create both economic success and individual / group safety. It’s FAR better to bring some trusted comrades to watch your back as you build your fences … and more importantly … your bridges … in the new rural community you select

But if it’s one thing that all that non-profit, social service trench work taught me … when I want to save someone… I’m usually projecting onto someone else a part of ME that needs “saving.” Hence … pause, SAVE MYSELF FIRST, then do some … wise … charity work.

Green Movement Can Help Blacks

I rode the 38 Geary out to the San Francisco Ft. Miley Veteran’s Hospital this morning. A group of pre-teens were headed to school. Several of the boys were black … the scene they put on wasn’t nothing nice.

 I always write that if it ain’t broke ~ don’t fix it. We all know this buggy ain’t just broke, the wheels done come off and the bottom done dropped out. Time to re-boot the system and get back to baseline. That’s why I always assert that getting out of Urban America and rejecting its values are key to our survival, our healing, and our future economic growth.

Land has always been the major path to wealth in this country. The fact that so few blacks currently own land is a corner stone to our problem. Forget racism. Forget what the white man done done or might do. Look at what we’re currently doing to ourselves….

• Our rate of divorce far exceeds our rate of marriage.
• The Civil Rights Movement was won on moral grounds … and that’s exactly where we’re losing it.
• HIV/AIDS continues to be the Number One killer of black men 16 - 25 and the senior citizens are now following suit. That looks like deep despair around love to me. When so many are desperately jumping for lust instead having the faith and character to create love … well folks … don’t look good. You cannot point a finger in any direction of the African American Community and not see, hear, or feel pain … yet we want to keep doing the same things and believing in the same fantasies?

First black men were demoralized, then black youth. Next they got to women and now they’ve hit mothers. Ain’t nothing left. Grandmothers are struggling to raise their children’s children. We make up the vast majority of Foster Children numbers even in places where we are a fraction of the population. Are many of these systemic problems? Yes. But that has little or nothing to do with our responsibility to grow through them.

“Every problem is an opportunity in work clothes.” ~Henry J. Kaiser (I love that one…)

This is why the Green Movement holds out great promise to blacks. At present, whites and others have been holding down the fort at Ecology Centers all across America. Middle class despair and “Liberal” blindness abounds. But give them credit … they have and are doing their work and they are holding out the door for us. That means there is already tons of information available on Permaculture (a system of planting, housing, and living the incorporates everything in a  person’s environment.

The Green Movement touches every aspect of a person’s life and in the future, this will be of even greater importance. Global warming and the very, very real threat of a future WORLD economic “downturn” means that those who live on land with a watershed beneath it will feel no pain and in fact be in a great economic position.  [NOTE: It's forecasted that the shortage of fresh water alone will cause a world crisis by as soon as 2015. Read Guardian Report ]

 Canadians fear Avian Flu could help ignite economic crisis. I don’t know about you, but when white people keep warning each other about something, after a while, it’s time to look up.

The list of reasons why it makes sense for us to move out of urban America, create some sweat equity, rebuild our family structure, and prepare of any one of the many future threats that loom is large.  Just the fact that it’s black men’s  responsibility to create families AND make them safe should ignite some desire to look into moving onto 5 or more acres in rural America. You don’t even have to farm it!

1. You can lease some or all of it out to others who want to farm (and there will most certainly be many)
2. You can put some cabins or trailers on it and become a “Home Developer.”
3. You can adopt some of those many black children currently in Foster Care and orphanages and discover the spiritual truth that it really isn’t all about you … but more, it’s about what do you bring to the table!

Here … just glance at some of the post I quickly pulled up about a LIKELY, world economic disaster:

 Australia on: “The Future Collapse Of The World’s Economy”

Mainstream, respected European economist Stefan Karlsson on: The Future of The World Economy” (read the last two paragraphs)

 The World Conservative Union on Why It’s Not Business As Usual … or bust: (Meaning OPPORTUNITY FOR US!!

And last, here’s a “funny” one that raises your eyebrows: Samizdatdata.net

Lawyer’s Website Helps Blacks With Ideas

Came across this site dated 2005. I haven’t researched it much (give a hollar if you find out more info on it) but the website states that it helps black entrepreneurs start businesses. Patent and trademark attorney Darcell Walker post information about the processes for protecting ideas, using patents, copyrights, trademarks along with trade secrets issues.

Check the brother out and see if he has any information you can use. One thing I agree strongly with is his assertion that ingenuity and creativity abound within the hearts and minds of African Americans. I’ve posted a new article on the window we are currently looking at concerning monetary incentives for new farmers that the Department of Agriculture has recently initiated. [SEE: Black Solutions ]

Baby Boomers are getting old. The age of the average black farmer is 60. Only 1% of the American population even farms. I don’t know what that sounds like to you, but to me that sounds like a “window of opportunity” for a whole lot of quick thinking brothers and sisters to climb into. Check out the link$.

Why, “Back To The Land”?

 

“I personally want a higher quality of life than I have been able to create as a city dweller. I don’t want a lot, but I want to walk out of my door without seeing that my car has been towed … and I’m tired of parking tickets. If feels like the various municipalities all have hoses hooked up to me and they’re slowly, parasitically draining me dry. When I talk with people who have children, many are concerned about where and how to raise them in these “interesting times.” For many people, it just makes common sense to do so in the most natural and healthy environments possible. Places where you can raise healthy food without worrying what has been sprayed on them or meat without wondering what they ate. These pages are designed to explore a few of the many alternative ways anyone can live without being either wage slaves, or institutional slaves…regardless if you want to acquire property in the country or continue to live in urban or suburban environments.”

What are “we” facing? Why should people look into buying some of the many cheap, small farms now available throughout the Midwest and South? Are there other ways to make a good living on the land without “just farming?” This blog discusses these along with other related questions.

“The Only Constant is Change”
Currently we all know about large segments of black and other “People of Color” being locked up. Yes, the laws are unfair, but far too many have fallen prey to their own choices and feel that their future is “locked in stone” as a result. I assert that current Urban Values are not “Black” values. African Americans as well as others thoughout the diaspora share intrinsic values that reach back to agricultural  ways of being with self and others.

There are subtle but huge but huge changes amongst black and disenfranchised urban value systems. Joe Marshal of “Street Soldiers” remarks that, “..even in good, two parent homes, the lure of the streets is often too strong to save a child.”

It is clear that the dynamics now in place throughout urban America will have to run their course before things change. Murder rates in many large cities have declined, but does that mean that being just one more rat amongst an already over-crowed cage of rats is the only option open to me?

Back To The Land
I assert that it’s best for blacks …and anyone else who has not created enough security in their careers and safety for their families and trusted friends…to find greener pastures by joining with Intentional Communities, Co-Housing Communities or simply, become one of many who find remote places and buy their own land. We don’t have to waste time condemning what is naturally happening … we just have to find our own paths.

We’re living in a Bardo … at time of transition. What comes next will most likely be, “interesting times.” So, in “interesting times” it’s best to have someone to watch your back. Those who don’t believe in work certainly do … and they will certainly be watching who is buying new cars, and new computers, furniture … etc…

American psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote that we all must self-actualize. When I was young, I needed places and lifestyles filled with drama and over-stimuli to balance the internal turmoil I felt. I know desire a place to serve as a backdrop for … “putting it all together.” A sort of place to serve as a creative palette for ideas I’ve yet not found time to bring forth. There are many reasons let nature balance us out.. return us to baseline…quality of life, security should the greater economy turn unstable, or just a desire to learn a fuller sense of self-reliance by living as our forefathers did are just some of them.

• Grand Theft Auto
• Rock Star Games
• CBS News: Can A Video Game Lead To Murder?
• Young Black Farmers

 

“Without a vision, the people perish.”

“…They want you to self-destruct.”

“Texas Prison Camp Future American Gulag?”

One More Reason to MOVE and Take Control of Your Destiny.

Detention facility currently holds as many as 200 children and many more adult men and women incarcerated after midnight arrests. Is this the foreshadowing of America’s future work camps?

Reprinted Prison Planet story by Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Monday, January 8, 2007

The Prison Planet story discusses one of the many prisons already built in remote areas that are poised to become a system of penitentiaries that can only be described as American Gulags … or Work Prisons. The prison spoken of in the article is in Tyler, Texas currently holds hundreds of rebuffed asylum seekers who legally entered the country, half of which are children swept up in midnight raids, is a potential prime location for the enforced transfer of American citizens during a time of “national emergency.”

One of the first questions that come to mind is that due to the fact that these prisons were quietly built in remote areas—in relative secrecy—what talks will take place to decide what is and what isn’t a “national emergency?” Reportedly, many people who live in adjacently towns aren’t even aware that the prison even exist.

• Currently, America’s Public Health System is already overwhelmed.
• This country locks up over 2 million people each year and each year, over 600,000 circulate back to the streets where many teach dysfunctional lifestyles acquired in prison, to populations that may or may not ever go to prison. Parole
  
• Officer Dan Belford recently reported that officers “felt embattled … at the point of being “over-run”Prison sentences have gotten longer. There are more “lifers” and an expensive ageing population.
• The mental Health System has virtually collapsed and many of the mentally ill that should be going to hospitals or asylums are now routinely sent to prisons. Currently there are many people on SSI who lie around the hood doing nothing but occasional, mild mannered mischief. Often worse. The Feds look upon them as people who don’t contribute to the public coffers, and drain public funds. When the series of upcoming recessions occur, how will many of these people be viewed?
• What are the going to do with the millions of addicted life-time self-professed criminals they can no longer house nor supervise?
• The gap between the rich and poor is only going to increase … and what is going to keep all those “poor people” out of your cars, houses, and apartments when you’re not looking? Nothing.

Question: Do you think for one second that white America is going to sit quietly by and let anarchy back them up against a wall … the rulers of New Rome?

Entertaining this question is just one more reason I advocate moving to LAND (with your name on the deed) along with like-minded friends and relatives to help you watch your back. The writers of the article cite ways this moving people from over crowded prisons and from towns and cities will legally occur:

“A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, has recently been updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”

Click here for the total story.

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it, but..

 

I strongly believe that Urban America has become a terminal disease that is killing black folks. Should the 2007 reader still need more “facts” and statics to support this claim, please drive through your nearest “hood” –day or night– and refresh yourself with the sights, sounds and smells of black, urban death and decay. Issues not seen by the naked eye but still strongly felt are:

• Despite all the killings, AIDS is now the Number One cause of death for black men 25 and under. (And no, they are not catching nor transmitting the virus by themselves… our black women and mothers  are dying at an alarming rate for the simple crime of wanting love and not insisting that the character-less infected “brotha” not wear a rubber)
• The Public Health System is now officially overloaded. They don’t have enough money nor grant services to provide individuals with known cures they already have.
• Even Black Theology (black churches) are out-dated… still preaching that same old Santa Claus version of God, that didn’t keep pace with the Space Age we entered 30 years ago … let along this alienated, technocratic, New Millennium.” And worst still, is the fact that they are STILL preaching that we need to beat our children … and produce still more violent children emotionally equipped for 18th Century survival and not 21st Century success.

High Tech Guru “Art” a.k.a. “Frank Pembleton” wrote:

“I’ve always said that Black people are a rural people, and that we weren’t meant to live surrounded by concrete.  This whole western urban environment is partly responsible for our jacked up mental, emotional, and physical condition.  Half of what we call “Blackness” or Black culture is southern culture anyway.  Black people are in denial about our southern roots, because for too long we have associated the south only with terrorism and pain.  The white man has tricked us out of our birthright.  We didn’t just escape from the south, we were also driven from our true homes, not in the absolute sense, for the south isn’t a specific place, but rather, rural living, amongst nature, with trees, grass, vegetables, and flowers, is where we should really be.  Folks don’t even understand.  This urban environment is partly responsible for the insanity around hypermasculinity.  The whole construction of Black male identity as being only about “hardness” or toughness is directly tied to this urban nightmare we’re trapped in.”

People all over the nation… as well as worldwide… are now feeling the desire to move into either more collaborative living that involves small farming, permaculure and other green living, or simply getting out of the way and  moving back to the land.

Land provides self determination. I remember my parents telling us how people who lived on farms like theirs back in Mississippi, were immune to the horrors of The Depression. When you own your own cow:

• You have plenty of fresh milk, fresh cheese, cream, and other dairy products to use or sell. [NOTE: While most African and Asian people are lactose intolerant, we still need Vitamin D. Cancer has been linked to a lack of Vitamin D. Our darker skin demands we get over an hour a day in the sun or take Vitamin D supplements.]

When you own your own chickens:

• You don’t have to wonder what you’ll eat for breakfast.
• You can sell the additional eggs at Farmer’s Markets or other sources. 
• You have a meat source that replenishes itself.

When you grow your own vegetables:

• You don’t have to wonder what type of pesticides are on your tomatoes
• You can link with other organic seed growers and remove bio-engineered crops from your diet as well as remove your wallet from large agri-corporations that currently have larger farmers under their thumbs by hooking them to seeds that are good only for one year.

~You don’t have to beg or steal
~ You are healthy
~You have dignity
~You are happy
~You don’t see the insides of a Kaiser Stress Clinic
~The only boss you have is the bank … and God

This isn’t a lifestyle change for everyone. Yes you can easily find 5-10 acres of land with a 3-4 bedroom house on it for under $150,000 (and MANY times under $100,000) in rural communities throughout the South and Midwest, but you have to have ways of making money BEFORE you buy. This will work best if ideally:

• You have done your research and have started educating yourself on some of the MANY ways to make a good living in rural America
• You have researched the areas where your grandparents or great-grandparents lived, researched inexpensive land/farm/rural living choices near Black Universities and/or outside of larger cities
• Decided you want to live out your life peacefully and provide safe, enriching housing to raise healthy children
• And decided that you either want to be self-employed or live and work with other like-minded people who will collaborate with you as you follow your other, primary or secondary dreams like being an artist or writer. You may also have a valuable trade that you can take almost anywhere like teaching (rural communities always have trouble finding enough qualified teachers) or you’re involved with medicine, Bio-tech or high tech endeavors that you can do anywhere you can link with DSL, Cable, or Satellite.

 Urban life ain’t getting no better, and unless you’re very skillful in a LEGAL career field currently in high deman in your area, it most likely won’t provide you with anymore opportunities than it has in the past.