"All it takes is faith and trust." Peter Pan Thinking

I recently read an article on The Nation where the author talks about putting a wealth cap of ten million dollars on the rich. No one could accumulate personal wealth beyond that limit. Any excess wealth would be taxed to fund infrastructure and social programs. I take issue with the idea of social programs because that sounds like we would keep many people in poverty. Social programs are not necessary if everyone has a basic living wage and income. So, I am all for setting a limit on wealth accumulation, but I wonder and worry about what governments would do with the new windfalls of money.

There is legislation in California which proposes to take control of the utility companies and have them assess the level of income for every household in the state and base everyone’s electric charges on how much money they have. Supposedly, the poor will pay less for their electricity and the wealthier people will have added charges on their bills to address wealth inequality. I take great exception to this idea. A basic need of the people should not be turned into a tiered system where some pay more than others. Programs like these invariably lead to a better quality of service for some and shoddy service for others. While it may sound (on the surface) like a great way to get the rich to pay their fair share in the world this is not the way to accomplish that.

The United Kingdom has been experiencing a dire poverty situation within a large proportion of the populace. Scholars there are comparing it with how bad things were in Victorian England. Many people are now suffering from diseases that were pretty common back then such as scurvy and rickets. These diseases are all curable if people have a balanced diet but far too many people now cannot afford to eat properly. They call it “food insecurity” but that is just a prettier way to say that they are starving. How much money would go to eliminating the insecurity of living so many people are experiencing if the ten million dollar wealth cap were to become law in every country? That we have gotten to this point in human evolution where starvation even occurs makes me think that there are so few people on the planet who even give a damn about it that those in power aren’t likely to fix a problem that they don’t even believe exists. It took a lot of ignorance and inattention to get us to this place. When they have billions more dollars in their coffers will they take any notice of the misery and poverty that needs to be addressed or will they decide that what the planet really needs is more of what we have already done to make us look like the envy of the world? The White House has been around for a very long time. How about building a bigger, better, and more palatial one? What good does wealth do us if we can’t show off to everyone? Without a change in the mentality of the people who control the resources in the world you will not see any of our problems eliminated. They will not address anything that is not already a part of their thought processes or part of their experience. What would make them suddenly want to bother with it now?

Unlike the other two situations that I have written about here I did not see that there has been a solution to starvation proffered by the UK government or concerned citizen groups. It is not a problem that is unique to the UK but this is the first time that I have heard anyone liken the problem to a dreadful and deadly time in history. I am sure that hunger and starvation exists in every country on the planet in one form or another but it is an issue that isn’t likely to go away easily because elitism exists in every other country as well. The royal palaces and residences will continue to have lavish meals several times a day as will the houses of government, the well to do, and restaurants without giving a second thought to how much their privilege costs the rest of the world. No matter where you look you will find that societies unchecked operate like this because they believe that they deserve more than others do. We can only change this by not believing and supporting their perceived right to it.

What would be done with all of the new money that governments suddenly had at their disposal if the above proposed solutions to inequality were implemented? Would it be turned into a national healthcare system in America? Would it be used to provide a basic income for everyone in an amount equal to a living wage in the US or the UK or any other country that is seeing a surge in poverty levels? What is a living wage in America? Depending on where you live here it has jumped up to more than one hundred thousand dollars per year. Bear in mind that no one would actually have that much in actual pay after deductions. Would it provide free college or free childcare or affordable housing? Some countries already do but that hasn’t solved the wealth inequality issues that have skyrocketed. Would anyone think to put a cap on how much people will be charged for basic necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, etc.? If they don’t, expect that people would fall right back into poverty in a short period of time even with more equitable wages and income. Without a cap on the ability to raise prices for everything through the roof there is no way that any of these new situations would be sustainable. So, how should the new economic system be set up to prevent a new corruption of society? If you don’t like the new system, can you fight it within the judicial system? If you can, the courts could be bombarded to high heaven for years and maybe even decades. Does the President have the power and authority to say, “This is how it is, people. This is what we are doing so everyone has a fair share and governments can no longer be bought.” Do we have a President who will say enough is enough as far as inequality goes? Have we ever had one like that? Does such a person exist in the world? Is this what is supposed to happen when the second coming of Christ arrives? Is there really going to be one? If it doesn’t happen pretty quickly a great many people will not live to see it. There are people saying that Jesus was too “woke” and Christians need a new leader. If he comes back tomorrow will anybody even pay attention to him if he doesn’t show up with some serious miracles and destroy everything that has corrupted the world? I think not. A great majority of the people would deny that he was Jesus even as he performed a few thousand miracles right in front of them.

So, until the Universe sends us a supreme deity to strike down inequality here, we are totally dependent upon a supreme human someone or someone’s to get the job done. I keep looking and listening for them. While there are many people with good ideas and helpful knowledge in the here and now which could make a tremendous difference in the way things are done it is troubling to know that they are scattered among the masses and not in solidarity in numbers large enough to fix a broken world. The author of the article in The Nation regarding the wealth cap cited two millionaires who believe that they should be taxed more to address wealth inequality, but I suspect that the majority of millionaires and billionaires out there never give a second thought as to how their actions put the entire world in peril and at risk. Actor Jim Carrey once said in an interview that many people give him flack for making and having so much money. His own family fell upon severe hard times when he was a teenager and had to live in a tent on a relative’s property. He obviously has never forgotten where he came from but one has to wonder if he has ever questioned the system that put his family in that situation? In the interview, he wondered aloud what people think that he should do when people in the film industry offer him millions of dollars to be in their films. ‘Should I tell them that I don’t want it?’ he said. Yes, Jim, that would be a good start. Or at least tell them you don’t need it. Because no one needs more than ten million dollars to live well. But it sure does take more than the majority of the people have. They are definitely not living well. And far too many are not going to live to see things get better. If this bothers you, speak out about it and we will pray that your words catch fire with the ones who can change that. Many people know that change must come but we really do need to speak louder and in unison and have some serious, definitive answers on how to make things better. Actions speak a lot louder than faith and trust in existing systems. We had faith that we would never see times like these again but there was no one that we could trust to make sure that it didn’t happen.

And without pixie dust, it ain't gonna fly.

What Will Save Us? Who Will Save Us?

“When the truth is found to be lies. And all the joy within you dies.” - Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane

Whether you are willing to admit it or not this planet and its inhabitants are doomed. Nobody runs around incoherent and blabbering and blaming and fighting and stealing like people are now unless they believe that their bubble has burst and they cannot get it back without destroying whatever it was that did the bursting. And there are so many things that did it. How can we possibly stamp them all out?

 A truth teller now is a marked person. “You just shut up about what you think is wrong because I know that it is you who is wrong. The truth has come out and I don’t want to hear it. You are changing what I have believed in all of my life. You are killing my nirvana! I won’t accept it. I will destroy you. I cannot just die like this. I am unhappy. It is your fault that I am unhappy. I have an AR-15 and I will use it.”

They are angry at you, you lying liberal assholes! There is a target on your forehead and on your back. How dare you point out what got us here to this miserable state! So…what has set us against each other besides a difference of opinion? Theft of property. And who is doing the theft? Bottom line; a system of government that has sold its soul to keep its job. I hear all the time how capitalists and corporate fascist masters have set up a system where everything that they want can be bought, but who are they buying from? A government that has sold its soul to keep its job. So why are people shooting random people in the streets and in the marketplace and in the schools and churches and on, and on, and on, when these random people are not the ones who have burst your bubble? Because you are terrified of calling out and holding accountable the real perpetrators of the theft and misery. To do so would really topple your house of cards and the “I’ll get you anyway, peewee!” solution is always unpacked first because it is the easiest and isn’t likely to make us as uncomfortable as the possibility that we will have to build our house again from scratch if our pseudo monarchy falls.

Until we get it through our heads that we have lost and we cannot go back and fix it, we are not going to come through this black hole unscathed. It is inflicting pain to avoid pain and it will not work. We are nowhere near as repentant and apologetic as the little dog in the following video but what this dog has brought upon himself because he was troubled by Fluffy talking back is where we are about to be. Take a lesson. There is no hope without the realization that we might actually be totally wrong about our entitlement. Our sacred truths have been found to be lies. Have any joy left?

Have a nice day. It is at the expense of your own world.

For We Are the Chosen Ones

“And one ring to the race of men, who above all else desire power.”- The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of The Ring

In the Fellowship of The Ring, Frodo Baggins inherits a ring of power from his Uncle Bilbo. Neither one of them fully understand the extent of the power that the ring holds but Frodo comes to know how powerful and dangerous it is as he is charged with seeing to its destruction before it falls into the hands of others who would destroy their world in full ignorance of what it actually means to hold that kind of power. Frodo embarks upon a journey fraught with incredible danger for him. He is nearly killed many times and the ring exerts a sometimes overwhelming power over him. Ultimately, he does destroy the ring but his journey leaves him depleted of the ability to pick up from it and live normally again. The power of capitalism and greed that we are experiencing the fallout from right now is destroying this generation. More than 150 years ago Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels realized what it was doing to societies and individuals in their time. They set about trying to create a society that would not destroy the people as they tried to make a decent living for themselves and their families. The struggle of Marx and Engles is still going on today. It has never taken hold in any generation since their time because there are not enough people who will listen to a philosophy that can negate the destruction of the modern world. Destroying capitalism’s unbridled power once again falls upon those of us who may not be able to withstand the forces of men who have sought only wealth and profit and power to the point of eliminating a future for their descendants.

The adults in America who had lived through the stock market crash in the 1920’s, the Great Depression in the 1930’s, and World War II in the 1940’s never wanted to see their children suffer through such times as they had seen. Babies born after the war grew up in a world of building up instead of tearing down. There was a new prosperity and great hope for the future. These children were the future and no one wanted them to know poverty and want or need. A great many of them never did. So their comfortable world was built for them and they had the time and the freedom to cash in on it. Unfortunately, they saw no need to keep building on that for the generations to come.

“But I got a drug and I got the bug and I got something better than love.” -from the Beck song Beercan

For a time in the 1960’s, there was freedom and fun and college and protest when war came again, but this generation did not see it in terms of patriotism and civil responsibility. This war was different and this generation was different, and the times were different. So there was a period of energy focused upon the previous generation who had gotten us into the war. They were wrong, we are right. “Make love not war.”, and so they did. Then in the 1970’s the troops were brought home from Vietnam and the children felt better. But what would they do now? They would make money. Lots of it. It was decided that there were many untapped avenues for doing so. They weren’t doing it just for the money. They were “doing it for a “s**t load of money!” (from the film Spaceballs) And thus began a 50 year quest for ungodly profits for the former “love generation” who were able to leave that philosophy behind and never look back and not remember to preserve a place for their children who would never learn about the struggle that came before them. “Nobody told us. ‘Cause nobody showed us.” (from the song Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart.)

And now it really is up to us to fight for and insist that our elders who have left us a crumbling and broken system and society fix the damage. We are working hard to repair what we can but they keep showing us in no uncertain terms that we aren’t deserving of a good start in life. They fix nothing and break everything. They are taking away every freedom from us that they enjoyed, squandering resources, and making it impossible for us to afford a balanced life. Why are they doing that?  Because they cannot stand the fact that the future is ours and they are on their way out. They were the generation that was going to stay young and beautiful and on top of the game forever. How dare these kids expect to take over! This land is not your land it is my land and I will destroy it before I let you take it from me.  It is jealousy and narcissism from the “Baby Boomer” generation who fear the death of their lifetime in the sun that they enjoyed for longer than they were entitled to. 

So, we stand upon the mountain battered and beaten with the hope of changing what our forefathers left us with, and as we contemplate throwing the capitalist ring of power into the fire, we encounter those who covet it so much with a poisoned mind that they see nothing but how they must hold onto their prize, and they will fight to the death to keep it, hoping that the death will be of those who seek a different way. God only knows if we will prevail as Frodo did when the ring went into the abyss with the power-hungry creature who could not stand to live without it. Even if we do prevail, we will never be the same. It has taken too great a toll on us. And the spoiled children who brought us to this point will bring about the death that they so fear rather than find the courage to let go of the myth that they are invulnerable and immortal.

Because No One Answered (Part Five)

I was in a grocery store some years ago and came down an aisle where a woman was kneeling on the floor looking at products and checking prices on some items that were on a bottom shelf. She talked to herself as she did this trying to select the best item. After a minute or so I heard her say in a voice a bit louder, “I shouldn’t buy his ass nothin’!” It was hard not to laugh.  I know that feeling.

So much of what we are experiencing here in America, and most likely everywhere on the planet is the result of what we have had put upon us by wealthy capitalists. They are a minority of the populace but somehow they have managed to collect the majority of the wealth and power here. We have to stop supporting and doing the bidding for people who are continuously making our lives a living hell. We shouldn’t 'buy their asses nothin’' when they don’t give how they are treating us a second thought. Why have we been so complicit in allowing this to be so?

We have been conditioned to fear and admire in the same breath the affluent among us, and the capitalists laid the foundation for that before any of us who exist now were born. It is all that we have ever known, and to raise hell about it now could lose us our jobs, our homes, and our freedom. The political and corporate elites set up a system that favors and benefits them. Sticking your neck out now could lose you everything. We know it and we fear it every day of our lives. So, we keep the system that glorifies them and keeps us down whether we like it or not. We are paying for the treatment we get by continuing to buy their products and pay for their services and work for them as employees. Untangling ourselves from their web is a monumental task.

People have talked about and written about how unfair the system is to us for centuries and some of us try to band together and rally around stopping the support that we give to our tormentors but we are greatly disorganized and divided on how it could and should be done. Much of the time it has to do with the level of pain that it is causing us. It almost always takes a tragedy and a lot of pain to realize that things must change. As long as we can limp by and not feel too dreadful many of us are not likely to take a step toward fixing our problems. We know that it cannot be done without some sacrifice. Our pain is growing every day now but we aren’t used to seeing ourselves as a family or a community that has strength in numbers so much anymore as generations before us did. Priorities of elitism and the self have turned us in to small islands of individual concerns and we would rather not deal with our differences on a larger scale. This separation makes us weak. Too many people want the same kind of power and autonomy that our abusers have and in trying to establish a coalition there will be far too many of us who want to be in charge.

My previous four posts were written to tell you how to know the people who have the necessary inborn personality traits that can, when combined with the best traits of others, create a chain of strengths that can bring about great change if we stand firm and united in common goals. In order to stand firm you need a mix of leaders, communicators, organizers, and believers in the value of the human heart. Without these combined elements you cannot hope to balance the lopsided and singular goals that tightfistedly govern our world now. Not everyone wants to share this world. Too many prefer slavery and exclusion because they can pretend to be kings and demigods if we are complacent and our efforts are disjointed. Many of us will never feel empowered without help. We are shunned and ridiculed because we don’t possess the illusionary power of the extroverts, but why should we have it? It isn’t necessarily why we were put here. If everyone was born with the same traits of the Fire Signs our planet would have burned out centuries ago. The same can be said about Water Signs who would not have had the ability to rise above the emotional distress of being on a planet where we don’t understand the rules of nature or why we are even here. We have to have diversity to balance our world as individually we are incomplete beings incapable of making it alone. There is no one leader who can change what has manifested. Our country was founded on the ideal that one Monarch should not rule absolutely but those in power now are a collective of believers in their own grandiosity. It was not meant to manifest in this way but they operate as an exclusive and private club now that refuses to see it any other way. Our two-party political system prevents us from making sure that everyone is represented. Others will tell you, and have told you all of your life that you have no worth other than what they assign to you but that is a lie. In truth these people cannot make it without YOU. They have learned to do one thing in this life which is make money out of your toil and labor and willingness to support them lavishly. If they lose that they lose everything and have no life skills that would keep them alive without you doing things for them. Those in power actually do see the writing on the wall predicting their demise but unless we believe it, too, they are still in a position to keep their power over us by stacking the deck and lying about their twisted tactics. We are an endangered species on an endangered planet and in the end if no one answers for that, the major collapse will come as a result of the inaction of those who could have picked us up on their way down. They are on a downward trajectory and they know it, so the best thing to do in their view is to raise their prices, produce less inventory and make out like bandits without doing as much work, and pacify us with amusements and false hope. There may still be hope for us but only if we recognize that we all have a part to play in the revamping of the current system. We are at this point because not enough of us have answered the pleas for help. So many people have been down for a very long time and too many of us allow this because their loss looks like we have gained. That is a monstrous illusion, but cracks in that veneer are being seen today and instead of realizing that we are headed toward the bottom as well, we pretend that it cannot happen here. It did and it has and it will continue to do so.

Armed with the knowledge of our best selves we have all that we need to change the course of the downward spiral we are in. Take the time to remember what is already in you. The answers are revealed in that one endeavor and are there for the taking. Find your potential in what you were born with and join it with others who want to make a difference.

Seen But Not Heard

The term, “Children should be seen and not heard” is something that I was told frequently as a child. Many times, when I entered a room where people would be conversing about who knows what, this was said to me if I tried to participate in the conversation. Oddly enough, it was never my parents who said this to me. It was always my older sister, though my mother never contradicted her. I only had to be told this a few times before I stopped trying to engage in their socializing.

My sister was always snotty and condescending in her interactions with me and that didn’t stop until she got married. After that, she mellowed a bit, but not much. She told me once after we had both become adults that she was sorry that she had been so hateful to me when we were growing up. She cried as she admitted that she failed at being the “big sister” and how she could have and should have been kinder and more supportive, and as the older sibling she should have been there for me and been more caring. It is a fact that she never was but as a child I just saw it as normal behavior on her part. She was a mean-spirited person and that was just the sister card that I drew, but that didn’t make her cruelty hurt any less. I truly did not know what to say to her after her admitting that she was unkind, but it seemed to me that her admission was pretty irrelevant by then. I responded by brushing it off somewhat and chalking it up to kids will be kids, but mostly I just wondered “what the hell brought this on?”

Actor, Ian McKellen said in an interview once that his older sister was the same way, refusing to let him play with her and her friends and hurting his feelings constantly when they were children. He said that he forgave her and she grew up to be a lovely person. That is wonderful, but this was not the case for my sister. She became tolerable - if I didn’t have to be around her very much. So, I wasn’t.

This is the way that I used to feel about politics and social injustice. As long as I could stay out of the fallout from political and social inequality, I did. It is what it is, was the view I tried to take on it. Even though I experienced more than my share of abuse, misogyny, and unfair treatment, I worked around it as there was little else that I thought I could do. It was less troubling than trying to analyze the why of it, but when I began to see people in politics and local government that I knew gain power and authority and use that power to disenfranchise those least capable of fighting the tyranny I began to see things differently. Few things get your attention as quickly as working with the poor and being the poor, and I did both. It was around this time that the Universe came calling with influences that were too compelling to ignore as well.

It is much too easy to believe that charities will solve the problems that exist in this country. Former President George W. Bush tried to start a movement toward expecting churches and charities to take care of the needs of the people and therefore shift the responsibility of rampant poverty away from the government being obliged to do something about it. This was very popular in many states who quickly started dropping or cutting existing help programs for the people. To this day, many of those programs have not been reinstated and many more have been lost since then. What these lame-brains don’t “get” is that charitable giving cannot “fix” a problem that is rooted in a society that sets us up to fail so that capitalism can prevail at every turn, as profit is always the bottom line with “big sister”. It is designed to lift them up as they keep us down. It isn’t an accident that poverty exists. It is intentionally built in to the system. They cannot maintain their exalted status without taking us to the cleaners.

I saw recently that billionaire Jeff Bezos gave singer Dolly Parton 100 million dollars in recognition of her charitable work. What Ms. Parton has done as a philanthropist is definitely worthy of noting, but I am appalled that a billionaire would give money to a millionaire when Mr. Bezos could never be bothered to recognize the efforts of thousands of Amazon employees who once worked for him and made it possible for him to become a multi-billionaire, while they received inadequate salaries, intolerable working conditions, few if any Covid protections, and many were fired or penalized for daring to try to unionize. Charitable giving sounds very admirable on the surface, but deduct the salaries and administrative costs for operating said charities from the amount given to them and see how much of the money actually goes to the cause. Then realize how much of a tax deduction the donors receive for their generosity. Who really wins here? Not the Amazon workers or anyone else in this country who must survive on substandard wages which are considered acceptable by far too many people. 100 million dollars could make a substantial difference in the lives of a great many people if it was distributed to the citizens fairly. Charity would not be necessary in a world where classism and favoritism did not exist.

For all the things that our government does that never solve the problems of poverty and inequality, they aren’t responsible for how employers treat the people who work for them or how unequally resources are distributed and sold to consumers. They are however, complicit in perpetuating the problems.

Just like my Mother never stopped my sister from bullying me. She would just sit there and allow her to exclude and belittle me, and wouldn’t make eye contact with me while it was happening. This is how our government reacts. They can see the effects of not paying a living wage and ignoring the difficulties of the people but they do not intervene to stop it. So, the “big sister” employers continue to bully and abuse the “little sister” employees as long as the “parent” government says by saying nothing that it is acceptable to be this way. So many things are learned by the employees when they are treated as underlings and 50% of it results in depressed, burned out, and defeated workers with the other 50% becoming angry and aggressive toward everyone except the very people who are responsible for the injustice. We are a culture that admires and aspires to be like the wealthy capitalists who gorge themselves on what little resources that the people have. Anytime that people can manage to elevate their status to a higher level they many times forget where they came from and are just so proud of their achievements that they never look back because this proves that they have always been worthy of their new status, and the people who never get there just don’t deserve it.

Giving back to the processes that have helped us achieve a better situation should be as normal as breathing when you understand that no one makes it to the top by themselves. I believe that this is the place where Dolly Parton’s charitable giving comes from and I commend her for that, but being that she is a wealthy person now, I find it difficult to believe that she needs a benefactor like Jeff Bezos to continue doing what she does. The biggest kindness that anyone can do is to raise the standard of living for all of us with a living wage, healthcare for everyone, and a fair say in what happens in our world. Little can be done by a society that lives from hand to mouth and lives in fear of never having enough to get by on. We have been seen but are not being heard as to what will resolve the multitude of problems that we have. It is extremely easy to dismiss us as just unworthy because God didn’t see fit to bless us like he blessed them. We didn’t choose a lucrative career path or we just aren’t smart enough to do the jobs that garner a higher income. There are hundreds of excuses for why we are just unfortunate people but the only true reasons are greed and elitism, which are actually glorified and admired traits by many.

Our “big sister” capitalist employers are rarely held accountable for their crimes and abuses of the people. Our “parent” government refuses to be bothered with the system that never stops being thoughtless and lacking in empathy. Why should they? Toughen up “little sisters” because we have earned the right to lord over you by virtue of our superior status. You will be “seen” as a resource and nothing more. You will not be “heard” because your protestations of unfair treatment are irrelevant.  Breaking this cycle is possible if the “parent” government calls a halt to it, but few of them are inclined to do so.

Trickledown economics does not work. They know this already but they feel no responsibility for changing the prevailing warped mentality that exists in the world. Too many of us also feel that they are probably right about us not deserving better.

“Big sister” may grow up and learn to do better if there are enough voices out there to reveal the real cost to society as a whole when dis-ease and a simmering resentment toward them breeds a breakdown in the culture that has had a devastating effect on everyone. An apology down the road means little when the basic behavior stays the same. Crime, hate, loss of respect for others, and a perpetuation of egotistical and status seeking behavior that we see in profit driven pseudo role models becomes the norm in all areas of society. A set of values that disregards people as being people has evolved into what we are reaping on a massive scale right now in this country. This is the legacy of a “Me First!” country and family dynamic.

The United States is very much like a highly dysfunctional family that has many secrets, faults, and delusions which they continuously sweep under the rug and blame others for the fact that the rug is now too lumpy to walk on. We have arrived at this point in time by them being too arrogant and guilty of ludicrous choices to backtrack and repair the damage. The children must lead us out of this because the representative parents and the older siblings will not budge if we don’t make some noise and barge into the room with a determination to be heard. Many times, it truly is a child that can lead to a truth that was unnoticed before. The child may be an adult now but when people are used to not listening to them it is often necessary to cause a commotion to get attention. The hard part is getting a seat at the table with the big people. You won’t get an invitation but you have the power to be heard on social media and many other forums that were never available to the generations that came before you. To assume that your expressions have no worth in the eyes of the ruling class is an easy assumption to make but remember that they have made some major screw ups from where they sit right now that look pretty damn dumb to the rest of us. Ridiculous statements and insane comments have come out of their mouths on national television. To say nothing gets you nothing because it will be assumed that you either agree with what they have given us or you agree with their assessment that you have no right to be heard.

Say something. Give them a shake up, because you are very tired of the shake down that they keep giving to you.

On one occasion when my sister was spouting off to me I unexpectedly pushed over the chair that she was sitting in and she slammed into the wall. I got reprimanded severely for it by my parents but it was worth getting in to trouble for because the shocked look on her face when she hit the wall was priceless. She picked her battles a little more carefully with me after that and I felt a little more empowered after showing her that I had a limit to how much crap I would take from her. We have never really been able to become friends in this life but I have never felt guilt or regret about that. It was a necessary break from a dysfunctional relationship. She had to go, and so does Capitalism.

"An End To Need and The Politics Of Greed."

 -from the Tears For Fears song Sowing The Seeds of Love

In the late 1990’s my cousin won $175k in the Florida Lottery from a scratch off ticket. She and her husband were a young married couple who lived very modestly in three rooms of her parent’s house which had been converted into an apartment. After collecting her winnings, they were very smart and frugal with the money. This was a time when their money went a lot further than it would now. They were able to buy and furnish their own home, and decided that they could now afford to start a family. I was so happy for them.

Something like this should happen for every young adult. To receive enough money to start your life and establish a secure base before you have to face the many adult struggles to come would most likely keep you from having to compromise so much of who and what you are as a person in trying to attain a sense of security. While the US spends a great deal of money to support other countries with their individual issues, people young and old here could use a grant in a comparable amount to jump start their lives again now when loss is and has been for some time the only thing that we see on the horizon for us. But it would not be enough to just give the money/resources to the people and expect that to stabilize them. You would also have to call a halt to the capitalist/corporate invasion that would immediately follow the distribution with their hands out raising prices and withholding the necessary goods and services that we need to make sure that they profit enormously from what the people receive, rendering it impossible to benefit from the help as well as they ought to.

Author and Journalist, Chris Hedges said in a speech once how the money our government gave to US banks in 2008 after the housing debacle could have been used to help and support the American people by establishing a national health care system, giving all citizens a basic income and offering tuition free college plus many other systemic changes that would make a stronger society for a fraction of what they gave to bail out the rich. Why they never understand that stronger citizens make this a stronger nation makes absolutely no sense. When there are 1500 vacant properties in San Francisco for every 1 homeless person in that city it is ludicrous that anyone should ever be homeless here. I am told that the situation is very much the same in New York City, Toronto, Canada, and many other places.

It is only greed and ignorant public policies that make something like this possible. So how do we change the selfish and incompetent policies toward our people? Some would tell you that only public protest on a large scale would change it, but I truly do not believe that it has to come to civil unrest or civil war. What we really need is a change in prevailing thought and government representatives who can put ego aside and understand that we have been breeding fear and ignorance in this country for far too long. A few representatives have already come to that realization but they are in the extreme minority.

This country needs to be re-educated in the basic decencies of human rights and the benefits of strengthening the people who live here. It isn’t rocket science. It is only coming to understand that each country is a family and how you manage the family has to be for the benefit of the entirety. You would not feed and house a few of your family members in luxury and throw the others out to starve and die. In the 1970’s tv miniseries Centennial, this actually was shown to be the way the Arapaho Indians dealt with a woman in the tribe who had lost her husband. In their culture this was considered to be the best way for the entire tribe to survive without having to care for individuals who were deemed to have no more worth once the family patriarch had passed on. The children were taken in by others in the tribe as they assumed they might still have some worth in the future. This is basically what we have allowed to happen in America. It would seem that it doesn’t happen here if you don’t look very closely, but our policies toward humans who don’t look like they can produce wealth or create a façade of superiority are being allowed to live on the streets and in dangerous homeless shelters. Many have children with them. Many others, such as immigrants are put in to virtual prisons rather than try to place them somewhere safe and help them establish a decent life. We are not being taught or learning not to act in inhumane ways anymore.

Who will write a new Bible for the 21st century? Who will write the primer for the processes that will bring us out of the cesspool that we have created for ourselves? The Holy Bible was written centuries ago as a guide for balanced living - at least the New Testament was. Much of the Old Testament is a telling of history and the prevailing laws at the time. What we are experiencing now requires updated thought and laws that can be applied today in a world with a much different mentality. Who are the Scribes and Prophets in modern times with the knowledge and the expertise to advise and reach our people with a message of what needs to be done and how we can accomplish it?

It could not be written by one person. There would need to be many writers, just as it was for the Bible. Experts from many different fields would need to collaborate to assemble volumes on psychology, economics, civics and political structure, history, and sociology. It is a tall order but we have gone beyond the simple answers on how to restructure into a workable society. Thousands of books have already been written on these subjects, but separately and individually they are not capable of speaking to the masses as a whole. A Netflix movie dramatizing the information would also be a tremendous help. Distorted values are already out there and making a mockery of all that doesn’t suit selfish purposes.

The Bible has never been embraced by the entire world, but it has resonated with enough people to make a huge difference in how we came out of dark times to do better. Many people have forgotten or discarded the principles laid out there. Hence, the need for an updated system of thought and action is sorely needed. Can such a book go viral again as the Bible did? I believe that it can.

Most of the struggles that we have are born out of doing our damnedest to avoid fixing anything and, as any neglected house would, it is coming apart at the seams. Will it take a deity coming down to earth and separating the good from the bad as the Bible says to call a halt to the tragedy that we have become? Will the makers of chaos and inequality have to be cast into another dimension such as a hell to save us, or can we as thinking human beings make it so on our own?

At a time when some Americans are frantically doing their best (actually, their worst) to eradicate books that they object to on the grounds that their little darlings are troubled and being corrupted by truth telling regarding whitewashed history and alternative thinking, we desperately need a new and updated accounting of what it will take to break down the walls that we have built in to our society to divide us into a class system that is choking the life out of America. I don’t think that we need more of the news that we are in the crapper here. If you are paying attention, you have already figured that out.  Now that the truth is out there as far as what we have destroyed, there needs to be a step by step guide as to how we can fix up “this old house” and make it livable. We are at the point where you either bring in the wrecking ball and level the place to the ground or you bring in a Bob Vila and some contractors to assess the damaged structure and draw up the plan for remaking the house. I see a lot of “home inspectors” who are telling us that the house is no longer inhabitable but I see very few who are proffering a real set of blueprints for starting construction. In the film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,  Tina Turner sang a song called We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) during the end credits of the film. In the lyrics, she sings, “We don’t need another hero. We don’t need to know the way home. All we need is life beyond Thunderdome.”  If you have never seen this film or the precursor to it, Mad Max, I would recommend that you do so because you will see how a society that does not give a damn about its citizens can evolve into something so terrible that the people become savages fighting for every scrap of resources and decency that they are being denied. At the time that these films were made, it may have looked like pure fiction and an impossibility for us, but look around you now. We need a life beyond what we have created here. And we must have leadership that will help us bring it to pass. When you realize that there is a hole in the roof you cannot just sit there and say, “Yeah, there’s a hole in the roof.” Somebody has to get up and get a bucket, because the rain is coming in! And we are drowning in the deluge.

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I would like to include here a thank you to Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, Tears For Fears, for calling attention to the many problems that have plagued humanity as far back as the 1980’s in their songs such as the one I cited above. We may have been listening but I wonder how many of us took the messages to heart? One of my favorite songs of theirs was called, Change.  In the lyrics, they say, “When it’s all too late, you can change.”  Too often, this is the case. Pray that it isn’t now. With their music to remind us, it may not be. Listen to them again, and remember how to care.