We know how hard the economy is for everyone, not just in the Neopagan movement, but the whole world. Twenty-eight years of lowering taxes for the obscenely wealthy, eliminating regulations on the financial industry that were put in after the greedheads caused the first Great Depression, and pouring tax money down the endless rathole of the military-industrial complex, have led us to the mess we are in today. Eight years of national leadership by incompetent morons and chickenhawk sociopaths, all cheerleaded by the traditional mass media, wasted trillions of dollars we could have used to fix the mess, not to mention fixing our bridges, highways, and educational system.
Now, we’re stuck trying to clean up the damage. I have faith that Mr. Obama will give it a good effort, even if he isn’t as progressive and bold as I think he should be, but he can’t do it all by himself. Everyone has to work harder, plant victory gardens, and lower prices for our brothers and sisters when we can.
As the economy has sunk into the Bush Depression, we have seen the size, number, and budgets of Neopagan festivals and stores dwindling away. Our income from speaking gigs has almost completely dried up and other Neopagan speakers and authors are reporting the same. Therefore we have decided to lower our speaking fees to their 2006 level! We can’t tell other speakers what to do, but this is our idea to make it easier for festivals and stores to hire us. Who knows? Maybe it will catch on.
If you visit our other sites, Hudson Valley Civil Ceremonies and Unusual Ceremonies, you will see (if you’ve been there before) that we’ve lowered our fees for weddings as well. These steps are pretty much all we can do to help our fans and friends in the Neopagan movement, since we can’t lower the costs of plane tickets or caterers (or our books).
