Friends,

We have had this Sunday’s Zeitgeist meeting planned at the Phoenix Café for some time now, but something has come up, the location is changing.

Some of you may or may not know our friend Hans Barbe, but he has supported us greatly throughout the months that we have known him. Hans and his colleagues have provided us with the perfect venue for our meetings / events, and he has attended most of them. He is running for the Michigan Senate, district # 2. Visit his web site at www.hans2010.com.

Hans is hosting an event that is an attempt to galvanize the spirit, vision and citizenship of our city this Sunday, which is actually a second attempt for decent weather. The first event was last weekend, but it was rained out. The second is this weekend, this Sunday June 6th, 12:00PM, the details are below.

We have chosen to move the Zeitgeist meeting to Hans’s event. Of course the format of the meeting will be greatly relaxed due to the fact that we will be there mainly to support Hans’s event, but we can talk amongst ourselves throughout the event. There will be plenty of time to casually talk about what is on our minds before and after the filming of the speech below. And as a bonus our numbers will be there to help support a good friend that has supported us greatly. The more people the better!

Please email with any thoughts, we apologize if this creates any inconvenience for anyone.

We hope you can still make it to the meeting, just make sure you go to the following addres:18700 Woodward! s AT 12:00 and NOT THE PHOENIX CAFÉ!

Sunday Brunch/Video Shoot

Description

We tried to do this on Memorial Day and got rained on... so we're trying again! This is an open invitation to any and all metro Detroiters to participate in the making of an internet video production meant to galvanize the spirit, vision and citizenship of our city.

Telling a story through images of Detroit and a speech by Hans Barbe, set to the music of Aaron Copeland ("Fanfare for the Common Man"), the final 30 second shot of this video will include any and all who show up at Innate Healing Center on Memorial Day, 3pm, which we will then broadcast far and wide on the internet.

The actual numbers of folks we get to show up will matter to the effectiveness of the production, so we need everyone we can get to come out this Monday!!

All ages, free to attend, food available, drumming/jam sessions, good times. RAIN OR SHINE.

Here is the speech. I will perform it to the music for all who show up on Sunday:

My name is Hans Christopher Barbe and I am a citizen of metro Detroit. I am not a citizen because I have a birth certificate or a social security number or just because I vote. What makes me or any of us citizens is to accept of our responsibility for one another on this shared planet.

Civic responsibility calls us to a way of life in harmony with one another and our planet. Generations past shaped our present way of life, which shapes future generations: every choice we make, every relationship we form, how we eat and maintain ourselves, work and play, celebrate and mourn, contemplate and communicate in so much as to know peace, inside and out, everything we do matters.

As citizens of metro Detroit, our calling demands more than just creating jobs or balancing budgets. As a shared struggle, the profound question of how to create a new way of life for our city is shifting the consciousness of our nation and much of our world. Our calling resounds as a trumpet whose signal can fell the very walls that would keep us from a profound answer.

This summer, a weeklong gathering of some twenty-thousand grassroots activists, organizers, workers, thinkers, visionaries and leaders from across the United States will descend on Detroit, for a convergence called: the US Social Forum. Our downtown area will “provide space to come up with the people’s solutions to the economic and ecological crises.” Pivotal to the movement of World Social Forums, the US Social Forum is organized under the banner slogan: “Another world is possible, Another US is necessary, Another Detroit is happening.”

Understanding that the truest fulfillment of human potential is inextricably tied between us all as a matter of our faith in one another, Detroiters are working together to consciously improve circumstances, enough to have inspired this same faith the world over. Our city, having ascended the very height of industrial revolution and suffered the great depth of working-class struggle, emerges now with the civic resolve to meet its post-industrial evolution.

In this name, we as citizens are forging the example of a society rooted in the spirit of brotherhood, a common destiny that transcends race, color and creed, manifesting what Martin Luther King dreamed would flourish: the “Beloved Community.” April 4th, the date of his assassination, was reclaimed this year by Easter Sunday, reflecting a powerful message:

As martyrs, both King and Christ embodied the notion that neither fear nor threat of death can keep the enduring force of love within us all from creating our world in its true image. This image exposes the pitiful, profit-obsessed outlook propagating from corrupt, corporatist culture as a lie unto itself and to the masses: the emperor has no clothes. We are not meant to reduce our lives, our laws and our labor to serve only so much as a dollar bill. We are not content to sell our souls to the notion that greed and fear are forces great enough to compel us to serve anything less than our human beings.

Hundreds of community gardens providing food and fellowship; dozens of artist and music collectives organizing entire festivals; volunteer corps for literacy training, property restoration and healthcare, sprouting like the plants in the cracks of our pavement are proving all we have to give.

It is in our abilities, our possibilities and responsibilities that we find the way forward, so again my name is Hans Christopher Barbe and I am many things: I'm a young man, a musician, a performer, a teacher, community organizer, small business owner, activist and an aspiring politician as a candidate for the Michigan Senate. I’m the son of two parents, brother of three siblings, friend of many, enemy of a few, lover of all, person of faith, resident of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan and I am a citizen of metro Detroit!