HOMEOWNER FORECLOSURE DEFENSE AFTER SECURITIZATION

Foreclosure used to be a cut and dried procedure. Those were the days when you got a mortgage loan from a bank and that bank held your promissory note, usually for 30 years, while you paid it down. At settlement you also signed a document known as a lien instrument, either a mortgage or a deed of trust, depending on what state you’re in. If you defaulted, the bank could foreclose on your real property, sell it, and recoup its investment. It was clean and simple and there were not many defenses available to the homeowner borrower. But that classic mortgage/foreclosure situation changed. It changed because banks started playing a game of musical chairs with home loans during the recent real estate bubble, roughly from the year 2000 through 2007, by “securitizing” it.

Instead of simply holding your note in its vault, banks began to use people’s loans as investment securities. Under the commercial law of each state, a promissory note (also known as a debt instrument) is a negotiable instrument. This means that the note itself represents value that can be negotiated in commerce, much like a check. “Negotiated” means that notes can be sold. Upon being sold a note is conveyed, i.e., assigned or transferred, to a new owner. This is done by indorsing the note. An indorsement is a stamp upon the note itself (or on a paper affixed to the note called an “allonge”). The stamp states, “Pay to the order of ___________. Without recourse.” It then recites the name of the entity that is conveying with a space for a person to sign who represents that entity and includes his or her title. (The indorsement is rarely, if ever, dated, though it certainly ought to be.) If it is indorsed to a specific entity, then only that entity owns your note; if it is indorsed in blank – that is, if the buyer or new owner is not named – then whoever possesses that original note is presumed to be its owner. That is the way that promissory notes are transferred or assigned (i.e., “negotiated”) in commerce. If the indorsement is blank the note is “bearer paper”; if the indorsement names a specific entity, then the note is called “order paper.” But this is just the beginning, the first hurdle when trying to find out who sold and who really owns your (soon-to-be securitized) note.

When a loan is securitized the note is commonly indorsed in blank. This allows whoever is in possession of the original note to claim ownership as a “holder.” When “securitized” a note commonly changes hands an average of four times. This seemingly allows many subsequent transferees who obtain possession of the original note to either resell it or enforce the note as bearer paper. As just mentioned, a new owner becomes what is called a “holder” of your loan and only a holder owns your loan and can enforce your note. Enforcing the note not only means that the holder has the right to foreclose if you default, it also means it can enforce all of the terms and conditions of the note, including the right to receive your payments. But all of this dry background, based on the commercial law of your state, is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning.

As stated above, Wall Street wanted the banks to turn these loans into securities. They did this by bundling them into packages of perhaps 1000 loans and offering them as a securitized trust package to investors. In this way Wall Street saw a way to reap huge profits. Now your note did not simply sit in the vault of the original lender, it became a negotiable instrument actively used to earn investors and those handling the investment transactions lots and lots of money.

At settlement you probably agreed to allow your loan to be assigned, but you never agreed to allow your loan to become a security and be bought and sold for the purposes of enriching other entities unknown to you. Now, if others are getting rich off of your indebtedness, doesn’t it stand to reason that new rights might inure to your benefit as a result of your debt instrument being unwittingly placed into the hands of those who are reaping financial gains from it?

To understand the new foreclosure defenses of homeowners, one must look to the chain of custody of the promissory note as it proceeds through the securitization process. Why? – because, as mentioned above, when “securitized” a note commonly changes hands an average of four times. In order for the loan to enter the securitization process it must be made a part of a securitized trust. As mentioned already, loans are bundled together. This bundling is known as “pooling.” The bank that originated your loan (the “originator”) sells your note (by ultimately indorsing it in blank). Your loan then starts its long journey into the bowels of a securitized trust pool, a black hole where the usual laws of commerce are further enhanced via federal (SEC) regulation.

The pool is first assigned a trust certificate number and offered to investors in a prospectus, as required under Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. The securitized trust is in turn subject to a pooling and security agreement (PSA) that is set forth in the prospectus. The prospectus is supposed to provide details about the investment offering for sale to the public so that an investor can make an informed investment decision. However, the nitty-gritty that sets forth the inter-relationships between the actors in the Trust is almost always exiled to a supplementary document called a Free Writing Prospectus, or FWP. The FWP often contains a flowchart entitled “Transaction Structure” reflecting in detail each step from origination of the sale to the asset pool.

The PSA has stringent transfer requirements that apply to your loan as it changes hands from one new owner/holder to another. These PSA transfer requirements are even more stringent than the commercial law of each state. Usually they require the note to be indorsed in blank but to list on the Note all the intervening indorsements for a complete chain of title. Thus, it must be shown that the transfer requirements were strictly adhered to as your note, i.e., your loan, changed hands. In the rush to harvest profits from your loan, these transfer requirements were rarely if ever adhered to.

Surprisingly, most foreclosure plaintiffs (usually attorneys who style themselves “substitute trustees” for the purported owner of the debt instrument) do not know the intricacies of these transfer requirements. More importantly, what plaintiffs’ attorneys fail to grasp is that if the transfer requirements are not adhered to, then no ownership interest is conveyed. This means that whoever purports to own and hold your loan – and authorize enforcement by appointing substitute trustees to foreclose – in reality owns and holds nothing and has no authority to appoint substitute trustees or to do anything else to enforce the note.

New Defenses: Show Me the Note and Show Me the Chain-of-Custody Indorsements on the Note
The first thing a homeowner borrower might do who has stopped paying his or her mortgage, or received a Notice of Intent to Foreclose, is to contact a reputable company specializing in the forensic examination of the loan settlement papers. The examination should be ordered promptly as it may take up to sixty days to complete. Very often, RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) or TILA (Truth in Lending Act) violations are detected. Violations of such federal statutes can impute consequences to the originator bank that may be sufficient to “taint” the validity of the loan. Having such powerful evidence at the ready can be a useful tool that one can use to convince a bank to sit up and take notice of a borrower. Banks who previously stonewalled borrower efforts to contact them and negotiate with them may suddenly seem quite receptive to what you have to say.

The next “new” defense that a homeowner has is to insist that the plaintiff produce the original note for inspection in court. Because possession is indicative of ownership when the note is indorsed in blank, then it seems both logical and just that presentment of the original should be required, especially if the homeowner raises the issue as a defense. In fact, there is often a provision in the foreclosure rules for requesting supplemental documents that are (theoretically at least) in possession and control of the plaintiff or secured party and this provision can be used as a basis for requiring presentment of the original note.

Secondly, the note must be inspected for indorsements. These indorsements must indicate the chain of custody of that note from the originator to the entity claiming to own the note in the foreclosure proceeding. The defendant should come to court with the PSA and demand that the indorsements on the note indicate clearly that the note has been properly transferred in accordance with the transfer requirements contained in that PSA. Plaintiffs’ attorneys regularly march into court baldly proclaiming ownership when the copy of the note they filed into the court record recites a completely different entity. Let me repeat – they only need to present a copy of that note in order to foreclose on the purported debt and take away the borrower’s property!

An informed defendant must demand strict proof by way of demanding the original note that indicates thereon the proper indorsements all along the chain-of-custody of that note. Following this methodology it can often be established that the defendant is in fact not in default to a foreclosing plaintiff because that purported owner of the debt has absolutely no ownership rights and therefore no standing whatsoever to have access to the court for the purpose of foreclosing on the borrower defendant. That is, the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction when a plaintiff has no standing to sue you. The imposter is NOT a bona fide holder of your note. The poseur entity suing you is only a “pretender lender,” and its enforcer attorneys should be run out of town on a rail for not doing their due diligence to determine whether the “bankster” they represent is actually the legal owner of the debt.

Still, the plaintiff is left in a bind. Because the originator of the loan has indorsed the note in blank, it is no longer (and can no longer ever be) the owner; and because the note was never negotiated properly from that point onward, no one in the chain of custody can establish valid ownership. The note is effectively in a black hole wherein there can be no owner or holder of the note. The debt is not so much discharged as unenforceable. Why? – because it has almost never been properly indorsed according to the PSA requirements.

It may be argued, however, that perhaps the first entity that bought your loan, the first transferee is a bona fide holder. That is, the first indorsement by the originator was effective under the commercial law to transfer the note and convey ownership before the loan was placed into the securitization trust; subsequent transfers were ineffective because they did not comport with the PSA transfer requirements. What about that argument? Perhaps that first transferee is a bona fide holder who has standing to demand payments and foreclose on the homeowner borrower.

But what if, as often is the case, that first valid transferee was FannieMae or FreddieMac? These hybrid government entities are not known for foreclosing on homeowners. Can they do so via an agent such as the current servicer? There is a section in the commercial law that allows for a nonholder in possession of the instrument who has the rights of a holder to enforce the debt instrument. See UCC 3-301(ii). Could the plaintiff argue that the bona fide holder, e.g., FannieMae or FreddieMac can execute a power of attorney appointing, for example, the servicer who receives a borrower’s monthly payments as attorney-in-fact for purposes of foreclosing upon a homeowner? There is case law that says NO. In Maryland a secured party is “any person who has an interest in property secured by a lien or any assignee or successor in interest to that person. The term includes: (1) the mortgagee; [and] (2) the holder of a note secured by a deed of trust.” Maryland Rule 14-202(k)(1)(2).

What is known is that these defenses, at a minimum, can certainly slow down the foreclosure process – and rightfully so. After all, taking a home from a person or a family is serious business. And doesn’t defective foreclosure have Constitutional implications? Do not citizen homeowners have a right to be secure in their homes by being afforded the due process guaranteed to them under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (not to mention their respective state constitutions)?

Indorsement Mills
The setting up of “indorsement mills” is one devious way banks are trying to cover themselves for their failure to have had notes indorsed according to the state commercial law and/or the PSA transfer requirements. An “indorsement mill” is a place where clerical staff sit around all day stamping and signing indorsements onto original notes. These indorsements should have been performed and completed long ago, of course, when the note was repeatedly negotiated as it proceeded through the securitization process. Indorsement mill staff have been “deputized” as V.P.s (“Vice Presidents” of, e.g., Option One or Deutsche Bank or Citi Residential Lending) when in fact they all work for an entity such as Nationwide Title Clearing or some similar entity. The banks are of course cashing in on the fact that indorsements do not need to be dated – as unbelievable as that may sound. And so, I suppose the rationale is something like, “Well, if they need not be dated, then let’s just get them on there!”

Is this legal? Or more importantly perhaps, are the indorsements legally enforceable? Banks apparently seem to think that such indorsement mills are legitimate and what they are doing there has legal efficacy. Courts, on the other hand, may have a very different opinion on the matter. But, in order for it to be made an issue, the question needs to be asked in court: “Were these indorsements stamped on the note as it was negotiated through the securitization process or were these indorsements provided after-the-fact?” As none of these indorsements have dates, in order to authenticate them in a court of law it would be necessary for each of the persons having indorsed them to appear in court and testify and be cross-examined as to that fact. An attorney/substitute trustee has no personal knowledge on this point and cannot testify as to its authenticity. Can a defendant borrower insist that this be done? Most certainly. Will the judge permit it? It depends upon how interested the judge is in adhering to the rules of evidence. Foreclosure proceedings are not traditionally long, drawn-out affairs. It may require a countercalim and/or an appeal.

Require Proof that the “Defaulted” Loan Has Not Already Been Paid, either by Default Insurance or by TARP Money
There is one more defense in the trick-bag of the Defendant. When a loan was securitized, very often the various players – from the intermediate holders to the investors – covered their risk by purchasing default insurance. This would enable them to recoup the major portion of their investment, even if they suddenly find that they “have no chair to sit in when the music stops.”

AIG was in the business of providing just such insurance. During the recent sub-prime mortgage meltdown AIG paid and paid big, until they almost toppled over. But the federal government rescued AIG, propping them up by providing TARP money to them and other financial institutions; whatever money was needed to cover losses was provided. That is, in the “security trust casino,” banks can gamble all they want and if they lose, they can still cover their losses; they can still walk out of the casino almost unscathed.

What this means for a homeowner is that a short period of time after the mortgage payments stop (unbeknownst to the borrower) the note holder – as well as others claiming an interest – may already have collected most of the balance of what is owed. In fact, as bizarre as it may sound, the claim may already have been paid not to just one party, but perhaps to three parties, each of whom had a default insurance policy in place. Could it be that your loan has been paid – three times over? Some things are stranger than fiction and this is one of them. Insurance is another concern of the securitized trust that is addressed in the PSA.

Thus the homeowner defendant must insist that any third party payments be divulged to the court as a condition precedent to a judge allowing a foreclosure to proceed. The mechanism for any such request might be in the form of a sworn affidavit from the bona fide holder and the substitute trustees attesting that no such third party payments have been made. Willful (or even negligent) misrepresentation of this fact, should result in a total forfeiture of the holder’s lien or security interest, and should include severe penalties to both the holder and the substitute trustees (who are almost always attorneys). Committing a fraud on the court, especially by officers of the court, should carry grave consequences.

Summary
The foreclosure defenses discussed herein can usually buy more time for the homeowner. And obviously, they are designed to put homeowners in a better bargaining position so that they have leverage to force a HAMP modification, or a modification based on prior RESPA or TILA violations. But more importantly, these defenses are meant to put the foreclosing plaintiffs on notice that they cannot just mindlessly steamroll over the rights of homeowners with the usual, cookie-cutter documents. Empowering defendant homeowners in this way allows them to demand that, if banks intend to take their homes away, everything better be in perfect order, substantively and procedurally. The foreclosure defenses are not designed to help people live in their homes mortgage-free, although in some cases that could very well end up being the case – and if that happens then banks have only themselves to blame.

If a homeowner is hoping to be in the best possible position (i.e., staying in one’s home without ever having to pay another mortgage payment, giving new definition to the expression being “home-free”) at this writing it seems that this could result from one of only four possible scenarios.

1.) The bona fide owner/holder of you note does not have the original note (it has been lost, stolen, or otherwise destroyed) and cannot prove that it was in its possession at the time it was lost, stolen or otherwise destroyed; or,
2.) The bona fide owner/holder of the original note does not wish to sue and foreclose upon the homeowner because to do so would be an admission against interest. Lenders are now being sued by certificate holders whose investments lost money due to just the sort of negligence that turned these lenders into owner/holders by legal default. To foreclose would be to admit that they, indeed, however unwittingly, retained their ownership interest when in fact they were supposed to have transferred that ownership interest to other entities in the securitized trust; or,
3.) The bona fide owner/holder is a financial institution that is no longer in business; or,
4.) After a so-called “default,” a claim was made against the default insurance, and/or the loss from the “default” was offset by TARP funds provided by the federal government. If the bona fide holder of a homeowner’s loan has already been paid in full, then that holder is certainly not entitled to be paid yet again. Case closed.

What homeowners should take away from all of this is that if they are foreclosed upon they should not accept that situation at face value. They need to make the foreclosing plaintiff prove who owns their loan. Without proof as to who owns the loan there can be no default. They might just as well say that you are in default to the man-in-the-moon. Make them produce the note, demand the chain-of-custody of that note, and require them to prove that each purported holder of your note has indorsed it correctly. Only when all of this documentary evidence is presented to the court might there then be an actual foreclosure by a party validly authorized to take your home from you.

In the rush to reap huge profits and fees, the improper short-cuts taken by financial institutions (and now by their enforcers) must result in some very hard lessons learned. These folks are now looking for ways to make sure that at least one bona fide holder can find a seat in their game of musical chairs. Be that as it may, when servicing lenders themselves cannot tell you who owns your original note, and when lawyers and judges don’t understand this convoluted securitized trust business, it is up to the homeowner borrower to educate his- or herself and to take charge themselves.

So, borrowers need to know their rights in foreclosure (or need to start educating their attorneys) in order to defend themselves and save their homes. After all, one’s home is certainly worth fighting for, is it not? Boning up helps one to resist the old-style “steam-roller and cookie-cutter” practices that foreclosure firms have grown so accustomed to prior to more homeowner-friendly revisions to foreclosure statutes and rules being undertaken by legislatures across the country.

TRANSFORMING HUMAN SYSTEMS: ORIGINARY MUSINGS

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

BOOK PROPOSAL
My doctoral research focused on the intersection of law and consciousness. In my work I tried to articulate a kind of attractor basin [1] meant to orient human consciousness so as to remake the world into one that embraces global democracy, economic justice, and civil society. This is in contrast to a world that suffers, at present, from the deleterious effects of empire-driven policies and those actions of corporate capitalism that have caused such misery for people worldwide. [2] The remaking of the world is no utopian pipe-dream but rather a bottom-up phenomenon that is already underway.[3] Using a relational/ participatory frame [4] of consciousness, networks of problem-solving cultural creatives from diverse backgrounds are working to ameliorate and ultimately supplant harsh socioeconomic, political, and environmental policies. These actors are transforming the world by attuning human systems to a more human scale, one that is capable of meeting the needs and concerns of people and the planet more readily and more equitably.[5]

A major block to effective change in human systems is the undue influence wielded by what has been called corpocracy (or corporatocracy).[6] The aim of my research is to suggest human system alternatives to those de facto inhumane systems established and preserved by corpocracy.[7] From the stance of a worldview that embraces a new consciousness of integral values, the avaricious consumerist/materialist, Cartesian frame-of-reference (i.e., the top-down status quo values and agenda of an entrenched, global corpocracy) would no longer be viable. Indeed, the timeworn notion of an insular sovereignty – with institutions that serve immediate self-interests of power elites governing each nation-state or a cartel of powerful nation-states – has become anachronistic, all but bankrupt, and increasingly dangerous in the 21st century.

According to my doctoral research, at some point in pre-history there occurred a crack in a formerly all-pervasive originary [8] custom that was in symbiotic balance with the nature-centered consciousness of primal peoples. Recovering something of the values that we have lost from originary custom may lead us back to becoming more Earth-centered, more grounded and thus more egalitarian. Such values result from an awareness coming to be known as ecopsychology.[9] To this end it is helpful to review participatory field research among primal societies wherein researchers have been able to immerse themselves in originary custom, a simpler way bereft of law as it is commonly conceived of in modern, industrialized societies.[10} Such heuristic immersions reveal invaluable instances of “linking back” to human values uncontaminated by modernist deformities.[11]

A worldview informed by integral consciousness [12] would see politics, culture, and spirituality evolving via a transformative unfolding that draws on wider epistemologies and integral values of the heart, i.e., the moral and spiritual dimensions of empathy for each other, for all living things, and for all life-sustaining qualities of our environment. Accordingly, an integral jurisprudence (that includes yet transcends the hard-won liberal gains of ages past) might offer the world a democratic global authority [13] that is not based on violence, oppression, and environmental destruction (viz., corporate globalism).

One major tool for precipitating such a consciousness shift is the language we use. I believe that we must learn to question the presumptions that invisibly inhere in everyday dualistic/mechanistic think-speak via a relational/participatory frame. By changing the epistemological framing and contextualizing the language, one can ultimately affect the substantive content. This essential skill of critical thinking can help to remake the world. It does so by orienting human consciousness to participate in genuine discourse on issues of global democracy, economic justice, and civil society.

What results is transformative institution-building based upon 1) envisioning and founding improved emancipatory and regulatory human systems that give impetus to what is being referred to as global governance [14] structured and nurtured in large measure by 2) reconfiguring the notion of national sovereignty in accordance with what has been dubbed “evolutionary idealism” [15] and/or via a model known as “disaggregated sovereignty”.[16] In sum, the ultimate goal would be to establish many “living” community environments [17] under the umbrella of a de facto world federation.

The fragmentation of our mental-rational world calls for healing. By revisiting originary custom, humanity can re-discover values it discarded when it veered onto the path of an acculturated custom that led to its civilizational project. In this sense, engaging the harmonizing powers of shamanic guidance is arguably not a retro-romantic reversion but rather an upsurgence of integral consciousness steeped in heuristic, process-oriented, polymorphic experience.[18] Again, recovering something of what we have lost may lead us to what we can become.[19] What we can become is also a symbiotic function of how we frame our language and think and act from a relational/participatory frame of consciousness. Drawing primarily on the work of theorists referred to herein, I propose weaving the values of originary custom and integral consciousness, into a work meant as a kind of new “Guide for the Perplexed.”[20]

Ultimately, the Cartesian frame can be understood as simply a small part of a much bigger frame – one that delights in wholeness, justness, fairness and a humanitas that is deeply rooted in the wisdom of nature and a worldview less identified to itself, more nuanced. That is, a holistic, integral worldview includes-yet-circumscribes the non-holistic, Cartesian frame that is a part within a more capacious frame of consciousness with a much higher order of complexity – a complexity founded upon a simpler way that is being intuited by more and more people.[21] How to develop and articulate all of the above into an attractor basin for human consciousness that can be apprehended and accessed – and thus practiced and learned – is the goal of my research, my life’s work, and the heart of this book proposal.

Significance of the Book
My book seeks to demonstrate how consensual (or consensus) reality acts as an ontological anchor of consciousness that dominates human perceptions and guides one’s worldview via a particular culture trance. The result, I contend, is that many in the developed world overwhelmingly suffer a psychological disconnect from their true, natural state and wholeness-of-being. I refer to this disconnect as dissociation. Consequently, human systems have come to reflect the malignancy of a corpocracy, that – in the name of neo-liberal, “free market” capitalism – has subtly traded democratic values and the ideals of liberty for rank, neo-conservative materialism based on a petro-dollar enforced via the militarism of over 800 US bases overseas. My research would propose a way out of our shared ontological nightmare via a rejection of consensual reality and culture trance in favor of an embrace of “living” communities that, e.g., include the home-schooling of children to combat falsities in consciousness and culture.

How My Book Project Relates to the Publishing Strategy of _______
The impression is that _______ publishes books that conform to academic standards but are stylistically accessible and generally written with the non-academic in mind. It is my intention to re-work my dissertation in such a way as to appeal to the educated layman. A review of _______’s authors page indicates a congruency between the type of subject matter published by ________ and the panarchistic/eco-minded/libertarian aspects of that which is being proposed herein. My book exhorts the reader to “beware the dark side” of modern mass societies and global development. It bemoans the demise of the traditional multicelluar polity, advocating development that is attuned to the innate dignity of common people and their democratic hopes – rather than one that is subservient to the dictates and agenda of a global corpocracy. This is a rugged individualism that trades dependency on specialists for the sharing of skill sets from a knowledge bank within one’s own locale. It is a melding of traditional living into an informed, self-reliant and thus a transformational society. Originary values infused into human systems that are supported by a new consciousness transcending linguistic presumptions, may present the most valuable experiential lesson of the century, thus making this a book project worthy of publication and deserving of broad dissemination.

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FOOTNOTES

1. A converging ensemble of “information” fields or states of being/becoming, akin to David Bohm’s “quantum potential” (Bohm, 1952) or to Rupert Sheldrake’s “morphogenetic field” (Sheldrake, 2005).

2. Johnson, 2007; Johnson 2004; Johnson, 2000; Perkins, 2007; Perkins, 2004.

3. Mare, 2000; Global Ecovillage Network, n.d.; Gaia Trust,. n.d.; Trainer, 2000

4. A frame wherein the consciousness knows itself to be inside and part of the total complex reality, related to all other parts, and knowing that all other parts are similarly inside and part of the complexity, and are related to other parts. Out of such a consciousness a person thinks and articulates from this relational/participatory perspective (E.g., Participatory Action Research; also see, Berman, 2000; Abram, 1996, Clastres, 1989; Gebser, 1985; Bateson, 1972).

5. Schumacher, 1973; Papworth, 1995; 2006; Sale, 2000; Kohr, 1957/1978

6. De facto rule by mega-corporations in conjunction with international banking, corporate-owned media, and the enabling collusion of a militarist government and/or a network of such governments (Perkins, 2004; 2007; Johnson, 2000; 2004; 2007; Hartmann, 2002; 2006; Bakan, 2004; Drutman, 2004; Nader, 2004; Kelly, 2001, 2003; Raskin, 2003; Derber, 1998, 2000; Edwards, 1995); Cf. the military-industrial complex.

7. E.g., the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, a debilitated United Nations, etc.

8. “Originary” is a term borrowed from integral theorist Jean Gebser (1985), appearing in his index and synonymous with primal/ primordial phenomena; original does not carry the requisite sense of timelessness freed from a spatially-bound reality; Gebser refers to “originary” as being, by its nature, “spiritual.” (Gebser, 1985, p.39)

9. Roszak, et al., 1995

10. E.g., Clastres, 1989

11. E.g., Liedloff, 1986

12. McIntosh, 2007

13. E.g., The Earth Charter – a global initiative that began in the 1990s that is a kind of Declaration of Interdependence or international Bill of Rights that is steeped in integral values whose inclusive ethical vision recognizes that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisble. The Earth Charter was drafted in coordination with a legally binding, hard law treaty designed to provide a legal framework for all environmental development law and policy. This hard law treaty is called the International Covenant on Environment and Development. It is being prepared by the Commission on Environmental Law at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN brings together 82 states, 111 government agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations, some 10,000 scientists, and experts from 181 countries into a unique worldwide partnership. Earth Charter Initiative. (n.d.). Earth Charter Initiative. The Earth Charter International Secretariat. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.earthcharter.org/.

14. Global governance helps by regulating interdependent relations via a complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental. It is in this way that collective interests on the global plane are articulated, rights and obligations are established, and differences are mediated. The literature indicates that a niche for global governance is especially crucial to develop as the international system reshapes itself in the 21st century. (Thakur & Weiss, n.d.; Glogov.org, n.d.)

15. Litfin, 2001

16. Slaughter, 2004

17. A “living” environment is a place that engages in a life of satisfying simplicity with maximum self-sufficiency and minimum use of money, where real food is grown, and where people have access to nature and to holistic healing programs. 18. Mindell, A., 1993; 2007

19. Megre, 2005

20. Schumacher, 1973

21. Ray & Anderson, 2000; Trainer, 2000

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Mare, E.C. (2000). A concise history of the global ecovillage movement. Retrieved on September 26, 2009, from http://www.villagedesign.org/vdi_writings/Concise%20History%20Ecovillage.doc

McIntosh, S. (2007). Integral consciousness and the future of evolution: How the integral worldview is transforming politics, culture and spirituality. St Paul, MN: Paragon House.

Megre, V. (2005). Anastasia. (Book 1 of The Ringing Cedars Series, Eight vols., Sharashkin, L., Ed.; Woodsworth, J. Trans.) Columbia, Missouri: Ringing Cedars Press.

Mindell, A. (2007). Earth-based psychology: Path awareness from the teachings of Don Juan, Richard Feynman, and Lao Tse. Portland, OR: Lao Tse Press.

Mindell, A. (1993). The Shaman’s Body: A new shamanism for transforming health, relationships, and the community. San Francisco: HarperCollins.

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THE SKEPTACLE

Since the days of cave paintings, indentations on clay tablets, and the quill pen, the skeptic was there. Through the invention of the ball point pen, typewriter, and now the ubiquitous computer, the skeptic is still around. The skeptic sees the big picture, approaching each subject from all sides at once and takes no prisoners in a virtual tell-all exposé. Somebody has always been there to remind others that things are not necessarily what they seem, and that tradition lives on.

There is always a story behind a story, if you are willing and able to dig in order to get there. And if you apply your gut instincts (not forgetting to wear your thinking cap), what unfolds before you is nothing less than what might be called a "skeptacle." The skeptacle reveals inner workings, hidden motivations, masquerading agendas – things that run deeper and wider than most suspect.

Ah, but suppose we apply our magnifying glass not to the quirky fringes, but to the staid and tefloned status quo? How fiendishly delightful if, instead of watching Houdini debunk the Spiritualists of yore, we could all enjoy The Skeptic calling to account those supposed untouchables in positions of power and influence who, day-by-day get away with unquestioned, unexamined lies and outrageous nonsense! Indeed, such a prospect would be titillating and a healthy antidote to the cynicism of today.

Stay tuned, not for the ghost writer-in-the-sky that lopes along in the footsteps of Drew Pearson or Jack Anderson. Tough times call for even tougher journalistic sleuths – someone along the lines of a Robert Langdon, who comes close to upsetting the Capital City's applecart in Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol. Like Langdon, The Skeptic is no nattering nabob but rather a tattling treacler of tropism, patiently mapping the way forward.

© 2009 by J.D. Suss (a/k/a Bro. Jack, O4B)

THE WEIRD TASK SPECIALIST

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. SPIRITUAL FOUNDATIONS

From my Catholic upbringing I learned that Christ preached love above all else. I also took to heart the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. It is via these noble Works that we exercise love and become real human beings. And I thought there is much value in becoming facile at negotiating and transcending the seven deadly sins.

From my immersion in Sufism I learned the way of being heart-centered and the value of knowing oneself via meditating on the annihilation of the false self. And it is in knowing oneself that the false world begins to fall away and we can become real human beings.

From my appreciation of Buddhism I learned mindfulness, simplicity, and tolerance via peaceful acceptance.

From my appreciation of Zen I learned that learning and unlearning are together the sound of one hand clapping, the Oneness that is non-duality.

From a limited exposure to Kabbalism I learned that there exist occult dimensions accessed via an interpretive esoteric grasp of letters, texts, numbers and symbols.

From my appreciation of humanity’s first religion, or Advaita-influenced ruminations, I learned how rich is the root of the soul’s yearning.

From my identification with Native American and other aboriginal peoples I learned that nature is the real world and to live harmoniously with the quotidian rhythms of the natural world is to experience Heaven on Earth.

____________________

ALIENATION AND SEPARATION
Feeling estranged from and unsuited to almost every known career identity, secular and otherwise, I found myself adrift in the world. I resisted committing myself to much of anything because not much that I encountered seemed very “real” to me; that is, the world I had come to know had developed a problem with authenticity. At the same time I also felt a strong yearning for some indefinable connection to something greater than myself, e.g., a loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex, family, community, the deity. I longed for meaning, purpose, creative focus, whatever might foster a sense of truth, goodness, and beauty, of accomplishment, of satisfaction in doing a good day’s work. I sympathized with the underdogs of this world; I identified with those who had failed at becoming successful in normative reality via honorific titles or secure positions, and the materialistic ways in which that is usually measured. On the one hand, I felt that such failure should be worn as a badge of honor; on the other hand, to be poor, powerless, or to feel like a loser on the material level is not all that contributive to one’s sense of mental and emotional stability and self-worth. In fact, when one is an abnormative it can often get difficult to maintain a healthy modicum of confidence and self-esteem. And so, rather than wallow in the despondency side of things, my tendency is to empathize with people from all walks of life that I meet in order to try to feel what it must be like to walk around in their shoes. As a result of my own experience of doing this, I recommend it to all of the so-called disaffected, disenfranchised, and disempowered as a kind of therapeutic regimen. Empathy somehow helps to attenuate the alienation and separation that is so pervasive in modern life; via empathy the inter-relatedness to another is made palpable and the truism “We are One!” can impart a whole new meaning.

WEIRD TASK SPECIALIST
Eventually, by default, I made my own career identity and called myself a Weird Task Specialist. A Weird Task Specialist goes about his or her day doing odd jobs (weird tasks) that are not just for oneself, but include helping others with getting “stuff” done. It does not pay money, necessarily, and one should not hold any expectation of return. There is generally an ambivalence about the making of money, though there is an exception to that rule. When I have my own urgent need I may ask a favor in return. Asking another human being for help teaches us humility, a burying of one’s pride. Getting things done is satisfying enough; helping others to get things done provides a satisfaction that is shared and this makes it a wonderful reward in and of itself. Still, learning to receive graciously is as important as giving generously. When something is done for someone else, it is natural for that someone to feel obliged, to be in that person’s debt; not to be open to receive in return is really a desire to retain a certain power over that other person who has been helped. And so a kind of weird calculus is born wherein favors can be owed and repaid by favors in-kind, whether that is a service, a gift of something in barter, or money.

AN IDEA IS BORN
After years of weird tasks it finally dawned on me that I can provide much more to people from the various skill sets that I possess. Rather than simply painting a fence or running a weird errand, I am also capable of providing legal services, entertaining on the piano, writing, and so on. And yet I always had a problem characterizing myself as someone offering services for money. It seemed seedy, like prostitution. For me, the motivation should not be money, just service. Of course if it helps those benefiting to offer me money, so be it. And so I founded the Sovereign Union of the Spiritual Self as a corporation sole [1], for spiritual, charitable, and educational purposes: spiritual energy is formed in the grace generated at the encounter between oneself and others; the work is charitable and donations are certainly accepted but never expected (though sometimes requested); and the education is in the example one gives to others via the kind and giving manner in which the weird tasks are freely rendered.

By using the corporation sole structure I mean to give perpetual life to the idea and the enterprise that supports it; it does so by being as free as possible from entanglements with the machinations of government and the demands of its bureaucratic institutions. This is what a corporation sole is, a kind of semi-autonomous entity. It is not exempted from the tax code, as is a non-profit or 501(c)(3), it is an exception to that code that is based on the free exercise of religion clause of the United States Constitution. In a democratic society, the People are sovereign and the government is servile to them. The individual person carries within him or herself the spiritual essence of liberty; the union of these many spiritual selves is a greater, spiritual self. The sovereignty of the individual self, when multiplied many times over, becomes the oversoul of liberty in a sacred trust with all life on the Planet. Just as Spirit is a pure love that is life-giving, the Sovereign Union of the Spiritual Self sustains itself through the practices of selflessness, self-reliance, and the sharing of service and resources that it seeks to cultivate in its work.

Being a friend, being honest and helpful, thoughtful and caring – these are qualities most cherished and worth cultivating. Those who participate in the Sovereign Union of the Spiritual Self are adopting a way of life, a way of doing that is, at the same time, a way of being that honors our common humanity. It is hoped that this enterprise shall contribute to the general welfare of the People and the Planet. Even if it does so by small deeds, the shared joy it brings to those otherwise unsuccessful makes successes out of all who are touched by it.

MONEY AND BANKING
Ideally, the use of money (dollars) should be minimized. Why? Money is not controlled by We the People, but by corporatized private banks (viz., “banksters”) that control the government via their own financial and monetary policies [2]. Control the money and you control the People, their possessions, and their institutions. Over-dependence on money implies over-dependence on others who are NOT interested in the welfare of People and the Planet, but only in profits. Thus, human or social capital is to be preferred. Picture an Amish barn-raising, or a surprise makeover of someone’s home, or baskets of food brought to a family in mourning. On the other hand, money is not “evil” in and of itself. So long as there is a connection to the status quo system there will be a connection to and a place for the use of money. And so when offered, money is accepted and deposited into a bank account set up to receive it as donations to the Sovereign Union of the Spiritual Self, a corporation sole. Perhaps one day the bank in which the deposits are made will be owned by the folks participating in the Sovereign Union of the Spiritual Self who have formed their own credit union-style cooperative.

FUTURE VISION
Being of service to one another can be viewed as a training ground wherein like-minded souls learn to support one another for the purpose of realizing a common vision. That vision is one of entire communities freed from the yoke of debt and the need to participate in an economic system that is inhospitable to the integrity of People and the Planet. That vision includes the founding of multiple, off-the-grid Eco-community Land Trusts ("Ecolts") worldwide, using as models the Global Eco-Village Movement [3] and the Global Eco-Village Network [4], but more particularly Anastasia’s vision [5] of returning the Planet to its natural state of bountiful gardens inhabited by real human beings living free from dominion by any and all overlords. For more information on Ecolts, see, Eco-Community Land Trusts holding title as Corporations Sole: Organizing the Global Ecovillage Movement into a Network of Semi-Autonomous Zones (the post below), bits of which are extracted below:

Eco-communities are examples of sustainable society in which members take responsibility, research, plan, organize, manage, evaluate, and govern well, while promoting the following:

- Much simpler, non-affluent living standards

- Small, highly self-sufficient local economies, mostly using local resources to produce and meet local needs with little trade between regions, let alone between nations

- Highly participatory and co-operative systems

- Alternative technologies that minimize resource and environmental impacts

- A totally different economy, one that is not driven by profit or market forces, in which there is no growth, and in which much of the economic activity does not involve money [6]

A newly suggestive cartographic representation of the contemporary global order, Eco-community Land Trusts ("Ecolts"), especially ones titled as corporations sole, can be a particular affront to state sovereign hosts, as they largely are, in and of themselves, discrete economic and lego-political entities that enjoy their own de facto internal sovereignty of extraterritoriality. A more uniform, internationally validated protocol concerning ecovillage legal structures would likely strengthen horizontal integration, intensify a sense of decentralized unity founded upon common purpose, and foster stewardship of the planet as a garden rich in democratic simplicity, justice, peace, and contentment.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?
The most direct way to help is by taking action to start a self-sustaining community. What are your current skill sets? Do you know any like-minded souls? Good pioneering opportunities? I think what you come to realize is the enormity of taking that step (which is not to say that it can't be done, as anything is possible with enough gumption!).

What I conclude is that by following the path of the weird task specialist, by openly making oneself "available" to others, a corps of like-minded souls begins to gather naturally, almost unintentionally. The result just might be an "unintentional community."

A weird tasker thinks of others much of the time, takes action, follows through on his or her word – in short, does not forget. With materialism and self-absorption ruling the day, the modern tendency is "me first." This is symptomatic of false consciousness: an enthroning of the ego-self, which is not so much a character defect as it is a trap set by our conditioning.

Let me reverse the question and ask what I can do for you? The only difference between us is that I have set up a special enterprise with a bank account for the purpose of dedicating ourselves to the proposition that by loving and helping one another, and with enough gumption, anything’s possible. Articulating an alternative structure to the status quo system IS a beginning. I think what you find is that helping others helps you a lot, until, finally the conclusion makes itself obvious => there are no "others" as such, at least there need not be.

Doing something together (a weird task) has a way of drawing the attention away from one another, or from one’s distractions, onto the "doing"; "being" has a way of manifesting via the doing.

What is expressed in this document is meant to help all of us in our aspirations to be real human beings, to regain our true selves, our humanity and our authenticity.

___________________________
[1] See, Cases on the Corporation Sole (n.d.). Retrieved on September 26, 2009, from http://www.trioid.com/PDFs/Cases_on_the_corporation_sole.pdf

[2] See, e.g., Greider, W. (1989) Secrets of the temple: How the Federal Reserve runs the country. Simon & Schuster: New York; See also, Fitts, Catherine Austin. (February 2, 2009). Financial Coup d’Etat, Retrieved on September 26, 2009, from http://solari.com/blog/?p=2058

[3] Mare, E.C. (2000). A concise history of the global ecovillage movement. Retrieved on September 26, 2009, from http://www.villagedesign.org/vdi_writings/Concise%20History%20Ecovillage.doc

[4] Global Ecovillage Network. (n.d.). Retrieved on September 26, 2009, from http://gen.ecovillage.org/regions/index.html ; Gaia Trust.(n.d.). Retrieved on September 26, 2009, from http://www.gaia.org/gaia

[5] Megre, V. (2008). Ringing Cedars Series (9 Volumes). Ringing Cedars Press: Paia, HI; See, http://www.ringingcedars.com/

[6] Trainer, T. (July 2000). Where are we, where do we want to be, how do we get there? Democracy & Nature, Vol. 6, No. 2

© 2009 by J.D. Suss (a/k/a Bro. Jack, O4B)

Eco-Community Land Trusts holding title as Corporations Sole: Organizing the Global Ecovillage Movement into a Network of Semi-Autonomous Zones

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Abstract: The Global Ecovillage Movement offers a newly suggestive cartographic representation of the contemporary global order. Eco-community Land Trusts ("Ecolts"), especially ones titled as corporations sole, can be a particular affront to state sovereign hosts, as they largely are, in and of themselves, discrete economic and lego-political entities that enjoy their own de facto internal sovereignty of extraterritoriality. My research proposes interfacing with ecovillages and international law policymakers for purposes of developing optimal legal structures and drafting these into a uniform international protocol designed to allay state fears and nurture global acceptance of Ecolts as dynamic models for sustainable society.

Research Proposal
Research topic and main research question:
Developing Legal Structures for the Global Ecovillage Movement: Can a Uniform International Protocol Advance the Viability of Eco-Communities and further Stabilize their Legitimacy and Success via a kind of Decentralized Unity?

Description of proposed research:
The Earth Charter is a global initiative that began in the 1990s. The final version, issued by the Earth Charter Commission in 2000, is composed of sixteen principles steeped in environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace. It is a kind of “Declaration of Interdependence” or global Bill of Rights. The Earth Charter was drafted in coordination with a legally binding, hard law treaty designed to provide a legal framework for all environmental development law and policy. This hard law treaty is called the International Covenant on Environment and Development.[1] It is being prepared by the Commission on Environmental Law at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN brings together 82 states, 111 government agencies, more than 800 non-governmental organizations, some 10,000 scientists, and experts from 181 countries into a unique worldwide partnership.[2] With the Earth Charter embedded in an international treaty, arguably there is already a framework in place for furthering initiatives on behalf of the Global Ecovillage Movement.[3]

Since the 1960s there have been efforts to establish communes or intentional communities. These were first attempts to propose alternatives to an affluent, industrialized society characterized by mindless consumption and domination by powerful corporate forces causing social fragmentation and destruction of the environment. Especially after E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful[4] was published in 1973, there has been a growing recognition of what is referred to as a “limits to growth analysis,” which concludes that a sustainable society must be defined in terms that extend well beyond taking social control of markets; it must focus on notions of simplicity, co-operation, and self-sufficiency, and a long period of negative economic growth culminating in a steady-state economy. By definition this requires autonomous, skilled, conscientious, responsible, and active citizens banding together to cultivate their local ecological, food-growing, fabrication, commercial, social and cultural systems.[5] This is in contrast to external, centralized government at any level imposing its authoritarian relations via top-down control of any kind.

Eco-communities are examples of sustainable society in which members take responsibility, research, plan, organize, manage, evaluate, and govern well, while promoting the following:

- Much simpler, non-affluent living standards
- Small, highly self-sufficient local economies, mostly using local resources to produce and meet local needs with little trade between regions, let alone between nations
- Highly participatory and co-operative systems
- Alternative technologies that minimize resource and environmental impacts
- A totally different economy, one that is not driven by profit or market forces, in which there is no growth, and in which much of the economic activity does not involve money[6]

Today there are many thousands of intentional communities worldwide that comprise the Global Ecovillage Movement.[7] This sustainable alternative path is sometimes referred to as “The Simpler Way.”[8] Such a Way means actually building impressive instances of settlements and economies exhibiting the sorts of lifestyles and values that the limits to growth analysis shows must be the essential elements in a sustainable and just world order; a veritable remaking of local geographies with many ecologically aware, small scale, co-operative, largely self-sufficient economies leading the way. Ecovillages are not part of a larger hierarchy, but rather part of a horizontal pattern of culturally creative customs, extended kinship, contract and alliance, and spiritual affinities fostering a more abundant life.[9] In ecovillages power is in the hands of the people via a radically participatory, inclusive democracy. Ecovillage strategy is about building the required new socio-economic systems right now in a “prefiguring of the new within the old,” before the old society has been swept away. Such settlements worldwide allow a massive socio-political movement with a new consciousness to come into being.

An Eco-community Land Trust ("Ecolt") is a form of common land ownership with a charter based on principles of self-sufficiency and sustainable, ecologically-sound stewardship and use.[10] In my research I wish to explore the titling of the land in the name of a corporation sole, which in turn is held out as an Ecolt administered by a democratically-governed village council which manages the trust via a Land Stewardship Trust Agreement.[11] The trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates uses such as off-the-grid, inheritable eco-housing and organic garden plots, common village spaces, and open space preservation. Through a renewable long-term lease, individual leaseholders own only those improvements on the land created by their labor and investment (or that of their forebears), and do not own the land itself. Resale agreements pertain only to improvements. This ensures that the land value of a site is not included in future sales, but rather is held in perpetuity by the Ecolt in the name of the corporation sole. The income and property tax exclusions afforded to the eco-community via the Ecolt/corporation sole entities effectively constitute these settlements as semi-autonomous zones within their own sovereign states. Ecolts do not seek to elude formal structures of the state, but rather to attenuate the states’ hierarchical and centralized impositions, such as involuntary taxes and manipulation via systems of, e.g., financial exchange, education, food and energy production.

The use of the corporation sole is somewhat unique as ecovillages are not religious organizations per se. Rather, they share a deeply spiritual sense of sacredness in their relationship to the land, and endeavor to educate their fellow, planetary citizens in sustainable practices of land stewardship,[12] e.g., permaculture[13], doing nonprofit-type, charitable work.[14] The sole corporate overseer is the ecovillage founder with a named successor designate. This is a mostly ceremonial role akin to that of a tribal chief or senior elder.

Successful ecovillages include the Findhorn Community, Scotland; The Farm, Tennessee; Lebensgarten, Germany; Crystal Waters, Australia; Ecovillage Kovcheg, Russia; Gyurufu, Hungary; The Ladakh Project, India; and the Danish Association of Sustainable Communities. Some collaboration between ecovillages already exists. A more uniform, internationally validated protocol concerning ecovillage legal structures would likely strengthen horizontal integration, intensify a sense of decentralized unity founded upon common purpose, and foster stewardship of the planet as a garden rich in democratic simplicity, justice, peace, and contentment.

Literature references:
Atuahene, B. (2005-2006). Land titling: A mode of privatization with the potential to deepen democracy. St. Louis University Law Journal, Vol. 50, p.761.

Bates, S. & Van Ryn, T., eds. (2006). The Land Trust Standards and Practices Guidebook, 2d ed. Land Trust Alliance: Wash., DC.

Christian, D.L. (2003). Creating a life together: Practical tools to grow ecovillages and intentional communities. New Society Publishers: Gabriola Island, BC, Canada.

Communal Studies Association. (2009). Communal Studies: Dedicated to the Understanding and Study of Intentional, Contemporary, Historic and "Utopian" Communities. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.communalstudies.info/index.shtml.

Gerstenblith, P. (1995). Associational Structures of Religious Organizations. Brigham Young University Law Review, Vol. 1995, p.439.

Megre, V. (2008). Ringing Cedars Series (9 Volumes). Ringing Cedars Press: Paia, HI; See, http://www.ringingcedars.com/.

Ohara, J.B. (Fall, 1988). The modern corporation sole. Dickinson Law Review, Vol 93, p.23.

Papworth, J. (2006). Village democracy. Societas Imprint Academic: Charlottesville, VA.

Quigley, W.P. (2006). Revolutionary Lawyering: Addressing the root causes of poverty and wealth. Washington University Journal of Law, Vol. 20, p. 101.

Sharshkin, L. (2008). Family gardens: Russia's primary agriculture, Ringing Cedars Press: Paia, HI.

Approach and global time plan over 4 years:
My approach is simple: Listen to and learn from all knowledgeable individuals and their communities. Familiarity with all voices in the Global Ecovillage Movement in collaboration with their legal advisors is, of course, essential. Outreach would also extend to traditional indigenous groups whose non-hierarchical, non-sedentary, semi-nomadic lifeways and originary custom are the bedrock model for sustainable society and culture. Also essential is a thorough and exhaustive grounding in the work to date on sustainable communities in the comparative and international law arenas. This would entail research and analysis of all of the relevant documents available and interfacing with people in governmental and non-governmental organizations who are involved in environmental development law and human rights policy. My aim is to create a syncretic database that is gleaned from interaction with officials, educators, activists, and ordinary folks who are either directly engaged or tangentially influential in ecovillage phenomena and sustainability efforts. I propose immersing myself by actually living in a local ecovillage during the proposed four-year tenure. This would allow my critical intuition to engage a life-long heuristic tendency that inclines toward a phenomenological apprehension of my research area. Through problem-based learning, cohorts of students can collaboratively engage sub-areas of the research to help facilitate their own learning and the research as a whole. My experimental research would by necessity involve travel to and stays of short duration in a variety of ecovillages and intentional communities. I propose using participatory action-research (PAR) as my methodology.

Scientific setting within research school:
By its nature, the Global Ecovillage Movement encompasses eco-friendly scientific aspects that are common to the health, safety and welfare of any and all small human settlements. An obvious sampling of these include shelter, food-growing, energy production, education, fabrication and commercial enterprises. The social sciences of sociology and anthropology also come into play regarding an ecovillage’s social, cultural, and spiritual practices, and their impacts on the surrounding cultural ecology. The subject matter for my research proposal has elements common to various areas of research: human rights, comparative law, ius commune and community law, and cross-border environmental law.

Scientific and social relevance:
If ecovillages are to lead the way toward sustainable society they will require the structural support of a viable legal and jurisprudential underpinning. The community of nations is poised to explicitly posit an unalienable human right to associate and to establish societies into structures of their choice that demonstrably model the Earth Charter principles of environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace. Doing no harm to and communing with the natural world, while building self-sufficient, more associated individuals within cohesive and just societies is not just good science; arguably it is a social imperative.

[1] Commission on Environmental Law of IUCN – The World Conservation Union in cooperation with the International Council of Environmental Law. (2004). Draft International Law Covenant on Environment and Development, 3rd Ed.. Environmental Policy and Law Paper, No. 31, Rev. 2. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.i-c-e-l.org/english/EPLP31EN_rev2.pdf.

[2] Earth Charter Initiative. (n.d.). Earth Charter Initiative. The Earth Charter International Secretariat. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.earthcharter.org/.

[3] Mare, E.C. (2000). A concise history of the global ecovillage movement. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.villagedesign.org/vdi_writings/Concise%20History%20Ecovillage.doc.

[4] Schumacher, E.F. (1973) Small is beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. Blond & Briggs: London.

[5] Trainer, T. (July 2000). Where are we, where do we want to be, how do we get there? Democracy & Nature, Vol. 6, No. 2.

[6] Ibid., p.272.

[7] Intentional Communities: A Project of the FIC (Fellowship for Intentional Community). (2009) Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.directory.ic.org/iclist/; Global Ecovillage Network. (n.d.). Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://gen.ecovillage.org/regions/index.html; Peters, V. & Stengel, M., eds. (2005) Eurotopia: Directory of intentional communities and ecovilllages in Europe. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.eurotopia.de/englverzeichnis.html.

[8] Turner, T.(F.E.) (n.d.). The simpler way: Working for transition from consumer society to a simpler, more cooperative, just and ecologically sustainable society. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/.

[9] Dawson, J. (2006). Ecovillages: New frontiers for sustainability. Schumacher Briefing No. 12 (Schumacher Briefings). Chelsea Green Publishing Co.: White River Junction, VT.

[10] Note: “Eco-community Land Trust (“Ecolt”) is my own neologism. For a definition of “Community Land Trust,” see, The E.F. Schumacher Society: Community Land Trusts. (n.d.). Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.schumachersociety.org/clts.html; Swann, R. (1972). The community land trust: A guide to a new model for land tenure in America. The Center for Community Economic Development: Cambridge, MA.

[11] Banighen, J.T. (1990) Intentional Communities & Land Stewardship Trusts. Trumpeter. Vol. 7, No. 1. Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/522/887.

[12] Jackson, H. (2002). Ecovillage living: Restoring the Earth and her people. Chelsea Green Publishing Co.: White River Junction, VT.

[13] Bang, J.M. (2005). Ecovillages: A practical guide to sustainable communities. New Society Publishers: Gabriola Island, BC, Canada.

[14] Gaia Trust.(n.d.). Retrieved on April 11, 2009, from http://www.gaia.org/gaia.

EULOGY FOR JANE (and John)

Having known Jane's ways and also knowing (the hurt we (mostly her brothers) inflicted on her when she was in her formative years) it is understandable how she had closed down emotionally to a significant degree. And from a psychological point of view she was depressive and combative while guarding herself first, others be damned. Given the difficulties of trying to live with someone such as Jane, you, John, managed more than tolerably well. When you yourself gave in to strategies in coping with her that were less constructive, I'd say that you were simply being human and doing what you felt you had to do in order to co-exist. There is that old action/reaction thing that often gets in the way in relationships. It's called complementary schismogenesis. But whatever it is called, it is not easy to overcome. It takes two, working together in an honest, concerted effort to transcend knee-jerk, button-pushing, communication pathology. Myself, I am convinced that you loved Jane. I am thankful for the fact that you found each other. Bad times are a dime a dozen, but just one good time is a priceless gift. And I know that you enjoyed some very tender and poetic moments together. These memories will remain and should be dwelt upon in quiet lonely hours when life seems impossible. I think when you remember those times, Jane's good spirit will embrace you and help to guide and comfort you.


The secret life between a man and woman is a mystery that belongs only to them. It is never for others to judge, but rather to support and nurture the kernel of love that exists within each of them - unconditionally. Despite all of the cold and distant behaviors that visited your marriage, it survived afterall, even if barely. Despite all of the negativity and problematic relationships, misunderstandings and upheavals, I think you essentially acted honorably, with insight and principle. Let no one say otherwise - even Jane was not quite right in her condemnations. In her battered and beat-up heart I think she loved you too. I think she tried, as only she was able, to given her analyses and opinions, skewed as they were by her own imperfections. Neither of you was right and neither of you was wrong. Both did your best, which is all that can be asked of anyone.


To you and Jane I say, "Be of good cheer and know that you will be missed. Go on to your next adventure in life, as we all should do, with the knowledge and understanding of what we gain through experience with life - doing our best while realizing that we can always do better, and trying ever harder to live up to our full human measure. Atonement for past misdeeds is made complete by acts of love that are informed and strengthened by lessons learned and life endured on this soul-making planet."

WHY DOTH THE HEATHEN RAGE?

The heathen in us rages at what’s going on in the world today. Everything’s been cheapened. All is controlled and corrupted. Nothing works anymore.

But instead of whining about the effects, start raging against the cause.

America is being run-down by a dastardly cabal of men known as The Committee of 300. These plutocrats emerged (in their present form) about 150 years ago, heirs to the British East India Company’s opium trade. Now, through a descending hierarchy of executive arms such as the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Tavistock, The Club of Rome, NATO, The Council on Foreign Relations, and on down the line through government and military, the courts, mega-corporations, media chains, banking and insurance companies, law firms, public relations firms, think tanks, foundations, universities, and constellations of other entities – this Committee of 300 rules the world (at least most of it). It is the cause of all of the booms and busts, wars, and every so-called historical event we have had to endure to date. Rage, oh heathens, rage!

Whether or not heathens rage in Russia or China, we should be raging here in North America, oh brother! oh sister! Yes, rage, rage against the dying of the light! (D. Thomas)

As a taste of that about which I speak, tune into Dr. John Coleman at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=170819614143019768

Go to his website, the World In Review: http://coleman300.com/ – the only news magazine that refuses all advertising.

Find out the details about the assassination of JFK, its cover-up, and lots of other dark deeds: http://coleman300.com/books.htm#300

Yes, brothers, sisters – oh heathen nation – RAGE! RAGE! RAGE!

Why doth the heathen rage? – why does the wolf howl? – out of extreme alienation from truth by forces darker than can ever be fully known. Only heathens – especially those with intelligence, yet unselected for obedience and subservience – have the capacity to let out a rage so powerful it can shake this corrupt system to its core and bring this Committee and all its minions to their knees. Yes, all outsiders, even eccentrics, cranks and kooks – all of the "unselected" – are right. Find out for yourself why that heathen doth rage…

BLUES MEMOIR & FULL REPORT: Useless Tales

"What landed you in New Zealand?"

I've taken a position as a not-so-noted solicitor in the Wellington area. I'll be looking around to play some piano - always an iffy proposition...so much so that I just sort of wait and see and try to fall into something naturally. For me, the days of begging some money-grubbing bar owner for a gig in his booze palace were over long ago. This, of course, means I don't play that much. But...then I'm not out to prove anything or try to become "famous." I'm sort of an invisible and ambivalent bottom-feeder, content with my own rambling and researching of things. If someone wants to hear me though, I'll usually play and sing. Every once in a while someone finds my website and gives me a holler.

I read some of the narrative below on Bobby Radcliff, et al. Having grown up in DC, I remember Bobby well at the Top 'o the Foolery, the Rogue and Jar, and Cousin Nick's down on 13th Street. I sat in with him at the Rogue and Jar. Not long after he moved to NYC. I used to hang around with Big Chief Ellis when he was living over in SE. We'd go to each other's gig. He sold me his Fender Rhodes 88. That was when Bowling Green John Cephas and Phil Wiggins were just getting established and they would hang out with the Chief too. In '78 I moved to New Orleans to try and finish my undergraduate degree at Loyola U. My ulterior motive of course was to play and hang out in the juke joints. I did get a regular gig at an outisde place on Decatur St. called the Gazebo. And Tipitina's called one day in 1980 and asked me to open for John Lee Hooker. That was a highlight in my otherwise lackluster career as a blues piano player and singer. I went to Chicago after that and hung around at BLUES on Halsted mostly. There I met some fading heavyweights and sat in occasionally.

But I soon returned to DC late in '81. Lovey Lee, Jr. (the late Lee Rosenblitt) asked me to join him in throwing together a group. At first we called it The Honeydrippers, and later it was called Lovey Lee's Blues Revue. We played at a few places around town, but it wasn't anything to write home about, especially when you're already home. But we did record some tunes, which I have preserved on my website. I also did a brief stint with Little Red and the Renegades. Little Red (Tom Corradino) is a good man.

I went on to law school in Baltimore, then went into the Army as a JAG officer, got out in '91 and moved outside of Santa Fe for about a year and a half. There I played at a few spots around town and actually gained some short-lived notoriety. Then again, I returned to DC in '94, only to leave in early '95 for Korea. I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to be a writer and teaching might grant me the time and provide the means to stay alive long enough to do some scribbling. (I've since transcibed and added to the lot of writing I started over there - and even before - into three or four blogs.)

So, I took a job teaching ESL for a couple of years in a university over there in Korea. I got it in my head that I might just become an itinerant English teacher, taking assorted jobs here and there around the world. On my first vacation I flew down to Cairns, in Queensland, Australia. I had heard of an American guy who liked blues and lived in nearby Port Douglas. So I looked him up and discovered he owned a pub, bottle shop, bistro, motel...AND he did love blues. I was soon playing happy hours at his bistro five nights a week. And he called me again around the time my teaching contract was up and induced me to do another run down there. It is a lovely place, Port Douglas.

But my roving days were numbered. I had met a good woman in Korea who would "Catch the Coon at Last." (Memphis Slim) I tried to run - went first to Istanbul, then to Saudi Arabia (following in the footsteps of the French Foreign Legion) - but the pull was just too strong and this lifelong bachelor finally fell into the marriage bin in the Spring of '98.

Already a refugee from the law, I started getting interested in consciousness and esoteric traditions and decided to enroll in a course of studies online at the California Institute of Integral Studies in SF. Again I was back in Korea then, at a different university, and trying to get my wife back into the US with me, as I had to do some coursework in San Francisco. She was finally able to join me in SF and we spent our time there essentially in pauperdom while I finished my doctoral coursework. I was playing less and less. It seemed no one was much interested in traditional Chicago blues and the rest of what I had to offer. Eventually, as ever, I migrated back to DC and decided to stop resisting and tried to make a go at doing some law. As luck would have it, I became the perenial piano player for the IMF at their annual International Photographic Society exhibition. This was my only regular paying gig over the past 5-6 years, although I occasionally did impromptu gigs in Easton, often accompanied by brother Fred (Fast Fingers Freddy) on drums. During this time I also tried getting something going with Johnny Tickton, and we did some gigs at Clyde's in Chevy Chase (in my old neighborhood, Friendship Heights) and a few other places, but somehow it just didn't "take." To keep body and soul together I opened a title company and cashed in on the real estate boom until that petered out. But I did finish writing my dissertation and my doctorate in Humanities was conferred in May 2006. The title of my dissertation? - The Odyssey of the Western Legal Tradition - Integral Jurisprudence: Toward the Self-Transcendence of Deficient Mental Legal Culture. (Somewhat autobiographical yet forwarding-looking, and in compensation perhaps for years resisting the law, it essentially is about law and consciousness.)

As things began their slow financial demise in the states, I looked elsehwere and found this new gig in New Zealand. We shall see where it all goes from here. I might try to make the Manawatu International Jazz & Blues Festival going on this weekend in Palmerston, NZ. At any rate, life is a great big adventure when you're out and about as I am once again (wife to join me after some months) - and it's a whole lot better than the past year or so, when life seemed like a shit sandwich and every day I had to take another bite...Aren't you gald you asked what landed me here?

I guess I'm either bored shitless, homesick, or in the mood to tell a sordid and useless tale.

____________________________

Ok, I'm finally set up at home so I can now give you a full report.

The flight here was the longest I've ever been on in my life. It seemed like two nights passed and I lost a day when I crossed over the international dateline. Left LA around 10PM on Tuesday evening and arrived in Wellington at 10AM Thurs. At least the plane wasn't very full and there was no one in the two seats next to me so I could stretch out a little. But it was grueling and I didn't sleep much (the pills a friend gave me didn't do much of anything). Clearing customs in Auckland was a breeze, but they lost my checked bags. And I'm sorry to report that when they delivered them, my big leather suitcase was ripped all along the top. I wouldn't be surprised if it had dry-rotted a little over the years. Luckily though, nothing seems to have fallen out.

The husband of my new business partner met me at the Wellington airport. I liked him right away. He was kind of tall, thin and unshaven - reminded me of my buddy in Australia, Stephen Philpot - scruffy and friendly. He turned out to be a great guy (he makes organic apple juice and cider vinegar). Anyway, I opened a bank account right away and picked up the key to my new place from the rental agency. The three of us had dinner that evening. You can often bring your own wine or beer to restaurants here and we had a couple of bottles of NZ wine, which was tasty and hit the spot.

I rested up on Friday, though I took the train to Wellington that day ($3 each way/ 20 minutes away) to apply for the equivalent of a SSN. Taxes in my income bracket ($60K) are 33%. No wonder people here seem kind of poor. Still, though somewhat shabby in appearance, the folks I've run into so far are mannerly and kind. There are virtually no black folks. You can detect quite a pervasive Maori presence however. There is even a Maori TV station where they speak their own language. The first closing I sat in on was for a Maori couple. I guess there are a lot of mixed-bloods - whatever.

The new pad is kind of drab and dark, but it'll do until I get my bearings. There are two couches, a TV, a kitchen table with four chairs and small kitchen with most everything needed for cooking and eating. There's a full bath downstairs and upstairs there's only a shower (weird, it should be a toilet) There's a queen size bed and a single bed upstairs with a dresser. Two closets and vacuum cleaner. How's that for a rundown? The apartment is one in a series of apartments all under one roof in a two-story building.

In the morning I leave my little cage and walk to work - one block to the Melling train station (end of the line), then right, across the bridge that spans the Hutt River, and then right again onto a walking path that is atop a levee. It's about a four or five block walk and very pleasant. I can hear strange birds nattering in the trees along the riverbank and I don't have to dodge cars. My building is about five stories. My office is on the third floor. My partner, Martha Hu, owns the whole 3rd floor. She rents out part of it the Hutt City Council and part to a locally famous psychic and Pilates person (which just happened after I got here). There are lots of restaurants and bars and stores of all kinds, all within walking distance. You don't really need a bus. And if I need to go into the big city, the train is very convenient. In sum, it has all worked out very nicely.

Our office space is HUGE, very roomy. My office is in the corner, front, and I have a couple of windows. It's all set up with a computer and everything. Martha and her husband Tim invited me to their farm and picked me up Saturday morning after stopping at the farmer's market (where I had been earlier). There's a huge farmer's market just on the other side of the river from me every Saturday morning until about 2PM - lots of fresh veggies and fruit and other stuff. It's great!

Their farm is located up a very narrow, zig-zaggy road and is nestled among some big rolling hills. It's really quite beautiful and quiet there. They've only been there for about a year and a half. So they're still getting it organized. Tim was planning on planting about 150 apple trees and asked if I wanted to give him a hand. So, about 48 hours after arriving, I'm out in this field boring holes with one of those twirlybirds, each of them two meters apart from the next. It was actually invigorating to do something active after being a slug, more-or-less for so long. I had brought two bottles of wine with me. Martha made dinner while I played their piano. In short, it seems like we are already good friends who have known each other for a long time. The next morning we finished up the hole boring and they took me back to my place. As my ulterior motive is to eventually have my own farm here, it is very fortuitous in that Tim is a wealth of knowledge about farming. He's been doing that almost all his life I think.

So I spent the week trying to understand the flow of the office, poring over the files, and learning the settlement process here, which is completely different. There are two other women in the office, a paralegal and a receptionist, who seem very nice and easy-going. But it's almost as if I'm starting from scratch as a lawyer. Still, Martha is sure she made the right decision in hiring me. She wants me to learn to draft Trusts, which is a big part of her business, along with Estate work, and to develop a domestic relations practise. Down the road she's thinking of taking on another solicitor, who can do domestic relations, so all I need to do is kind of know what its all about in order to keep tabs on that once we get the other solicitor in place. There's another, as yet undefined area of practise that she wants to add - I, of course, have some very interesting ideas on that front. Martha essentially wants me to ease into and take over her firm, as she eases out of it, or at least reduces her daily involvement to just a few days per week. It's great because I would in fact inherit her practise and her clientelle. I'm "set up"! But...it will take a large amount of work and diligence to catch up and be competent at the level at which I need to be. I expect to hear from the NZ Law Society soon. Once I know what I must do to qualify as a solicitor and do it, then I can apply for residency, become a partner, and make much bigger money.

That's it, in a nut shell. Martha shares a lot of my own intuition as regards alternate realities and the like. So the chemistry seems good and I think it will all work out quite well. But I do have my work cut out for me. I do hope to start all over again here, but this time in the right way - no cell phone, no car (if I can help it), eating healthfully and exercising regularly. I'll tell you one thing - there is no high fructose corn syrup in anything here, at least that I've been able to detect from reading labels. And the water running in the river looks clean enough to drink. I hear people swim in it in the summer.

I believe the winter is about half over . The mornings are like cold Spring mornings back home. There are some misty days, not really heavy rains, with little if any humidity otherwise. It warms up into the upper 60s during the day. There are tropical-looking plants around, some date palms and some other palms with leaves that look like big ferns. Everything looks lush and green and seems ecologically sound. It's exciting to be back out into the great beyond again, and I'm enjoying myself immensely.

Keep in touch and let me know how things are going back in your neck of the woods.