[CRNMC] Decolonization of Mind - Discussion Group - Meeting Notice

[Charles Cresson Wood]

DECOLONIZATION  OF  MIND 

Lunch-Time Discussion Group Announcement
Event Title: Class, Money & Power
Time & Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2015, at 12:30PM (second Tuesday of month)
Location: Downtown Ft. Bragg (see directions below)

Event Description
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Our conversation will examine the ways that people separate themselves from others via financial status. Our culture even has special words for the separation based on money, like “upper class” and “lower class.” Social Darwinists claim that those who are intelligent are rich, and those that aren’t intelligent are not rich. That is a convenient way to rationalize continued insensitivity, blindness, and deafness to the plight of, and legitimate complaints of, those who do not have the lion’s share of resources. Others claim that riches are the result of working hard, but the Horatio Alger hard work success story is not only rare, it is increasingly used as a way to justify oppression. The propaganda, misconceptions, unjustified pride, and needless separation among people around this topic are rife. We will examine the often-unconscious stereotypes, prejudices, entitlement beliefs, and cultural stories about class, money, and power, that are collectively used to disempower and suppress the people.

Facilitators
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Charles is a law school student and a professional writer. Among is books is a frame-shift meditation book called “Opening To Abundance,” which can be found on Amazon.com. Charles will talk about psychological strategies for self-emancipation, and the opportunity to be in truth by stepping outside of those cultural beliefs that enslave us (some call this the “matrix”). Also facilitating this meeting will be Linda, a local activist and co-counseling teacher. She will speak about mutual support as we navigate a way through our personal process of escaping from the matrix of class/money/power propaganda and cultural myth. She will cover the lessons we learned as young folks. So many of us grew up feeling that we didn’t have enough: love, attention, money, and more. As adults, we can see that these old beliefs don’t work any more, and are actually destructive. The perspectives of the group participants will also be actively solicited, pondered, and discussed.

Location & Directions
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The location of this meeting will be Linda’s house in Fort Bragg. Consistent with the nature of our discussions -- which are not approved or endorsed by any government or corporate entities -- there's no official address that you could look up on Google maps, since Linda lives in an alley. To get there, drive east on Oak Street for about a mile from Hwy 1. Wall Street is on the right side and her house is in the alley right after Wall Street (between Wall and Sanderson). There's a fire hydrant at the alley. Make a right into the alley (you can't make a left) and her house is the first (and only) house you come to. The house number is 139-1/2. 

About the Decolonization of Mind Group
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An outgrowth of Mendocino Coast Transition Towns and the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County, the discussion group was a spin-off from a weekend workshop that activist Paul Cienfuegos facilitated. That workshop, dealing with community rights, and the powers of people versus those of corporations, included a challenge from Paul that the participants not only understand how our minds have been colonized, but that we escape from that colonization. In keeping with Paul’s challenge, the decolonization of mind group seeks to go beyond the propaganda from government, the indoctrination of the public school system, the brainwashing from corporate advertising, and also the myths created and perpetuated via movies, TV, newspapers, Facebook, and other modern media. The discussion group seeks to empower people so as to emancipate themselves from all that, and to come back to our own personal power to live the life we feel called to live. For further information, contact Charles at ccwood at ix.netcom.com.