The Herd become the Hunters

I went to a retreat to teach a workshop on "Predators and our own Fierceness." Imagine yourself there with us sitting beside a mountain stream: you've indulged in hot tubs and much more bean salad than you'd ever eat at home. High above our group tower majestic fir trees punctuated by a raven's rude version of "Huh?"

We humans introduce ourselves around the circle. Then we break into pairs to play predator/prey. We're not allowed to hunt or use each other as food at this particular healing retreat center. But each person takes turns acting ferocious while their partner cowers. Someone has brought his little nephew Calvin, so a diminutive Tyrannosaurus Rex is represented in the melee.

The 1%

Afterwards we discuss: what are predators? Have you seen any in the wild? One guy Russ had been on a safari where a lion stared at him as if to attack; the tourist averted his eyes and hunkered down in the open-sided Jeep, returning home to read that a lion in the same part of Africa had indeed just dragged a woman out of a safari-tour Jeep and killed her. "They don't like when you stare," Russ concluded.

At the end of the workshop, I posited that many politicians are predators consuming us. They take our tax money to make themselves more powerful, often killing us in the process (via Iraq, pollution, for-profit medicine, etc.) One way to look at the current election is that the herd has woken up and is STARING at the predators. Our immense herd stretching across America is stamping our hooves, conveying, "We can trample you bloodthirsty pack. You may kill some of us. But you're causing mass extinction, ruining the climate, poisoning our home and picking us off anyway." The predators are pretending we don't exist. Right now we're all weighing the odds of surviving what could be a bloodbath.

At the mountain retreat, someone volunteers to play the predator while the rest of us hold hands to form a herd. The little boy Calvin drops hands -- breaking ranks -- and puts his fingers by his head to represent horns. He storms the predator alone while the rest of us realize horns are a GREAT idea.

In this 2016 Primary, a single journalist Julian Assange has revealed crimes like racketeering that the ill-named Democratic Party perpetrated to cheat voters. We'd already seen that Voters' Registrations were altered to prevent votes for Bernie Sanders from being counted. Even beyond such voter suppression, Exit Polls prove America's elections are rigged... with OUR MONEY.

Will you be sheep? 

-- V.C. Bestor is Director of FangedWilds.org

@VCBestor (but promise you won't give Twitter your ad dollars!)