Respect, Social Justice and Non-Violence

There are many paths to choose in life, and even those who choose the same path may follow it using a different form of transportation. I choose the path of social justice using non-violence as my mode of transportation. If we want social justice to prevail, let's embody it. Let's not demean or demonize those with whom we disagree. Let's be non-violent in our approach with them, using facts, figures, history, and principles of ethics/morality in our own communication with others. It is so much easier to put down, laugh at, demonize, share cartoons and curses, show disrespect, dehumanize, and be outraged or angry. It takes conscious thought to be ethical, to show respect for those with whom one disagrees. I have been guilty of some of the former, while I strive for the latter. I am human and am trying to live from a higher level of consciousness in all areas of my life.

Social Justice, Respect, and "Entitlement" Spending

Americans do not need to cut "entitlement" spending when there are so many of us that are homeless and hungry. The most recent census puts 1 in 3 Americans in poverty or near poverty. Which ones would you be willing to look in the eye and say, "No help for you, or you, or you. You can starve and sleep on the street for all I care, because it's more important to me to pass a balanced budget than make certain my fellow humans are treated with compassion and given a helping hand."

If we took all of the money we spend on the military-industrial complex and spent it, instead, on our own people, we would live in a more just society. The extraordinary income inequality, lack of education, health care, housing, and a proper diet are inexcusable in these times. Many of us live in relative abundance, and can provide help for others who are down. We are our brother's and sister's keeper. When our brother or sister is down, we don't stomp on them and tell them, "Go get a job!" when there is only 1 job for every 4 unemployed people. We certainly don't turn our back on them and ignore their pain and suffering.

My mother used to say, "There but for the grace of God go I." Many people work hard, not just the rich and middle class. Why is it so easy for people to dehumanize and castigate others who are less fortunate? Why is it so easy to dismiss them by saying they are lazy good-for-nothings? Are we really so superior and entitled to our own position in life? All it takes is one bad medical illness to bankrupt someone and send them and their family onto the street. One illness!

As for the possibility of giving someone a hand, who one may believe does not deserve it, I say don't judge. One doesn't know another's soul. One doesn't know the pain and suffering of another. Would Jesus have turned anyone away? Doesn't the Church preach compassion and tell its people not to cast stones?

Perhaps the great minds of our time can come up with a more humane form of American capitalism, rather than the current one that breeds greed and spreads inequality and poverty. Rather than judge others, perhaps we might give each other a helping hand, out of love and respect for our common humanity.

The Best Anti-Bullying Strategy Is Within You

"Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.” - Don Miguel Ruiz


Isn't that the truth? If we all truly learned this well, others might try to bully us, but they would have no effect on us. Then, we could have compassion for them and ask that their minds and spirits be healed.

Thanksgiving Day Message

Inspired by the non-results of the Super Committee, I got an idea. Let's all give Congress a break from having to announce their failure to lead and govern our country, for failing to abide by their oath to serve we the people, and for failing to work together to build consensus. No, we don't have the ability to exercise a no confidence vote. Yes, we can vote them all out of office. Instead, let us demand they resign from office if they continue to choose not to govern. We could line the streets in silent protest of their failure. Go outside and just stand there, representing the result of their work...nothing. It's peaceful. We the people don't get hurt, pepper sprayed, tear gassed, bones broken by batons, or arrested.

Let's pick a day and and time to show solidarity with and thanks for each other, and send a silent message to Congress. How about Thanksgiving Day at 2pm? Wherever you are, stop what you are doing, go outside and stand in silence for 5 minutes. Together, we are powerful and empowering; divided we are weak and will fall.

Someone wondered if another day rather than Thanksgiving Day would be better. What better day than Thanksgiving Day? On Thanksgiving Day, we celebrate communion (we commune together) with each other by coming together and breaking bread. We share our lives, our thoughts, our souls, our food, our beliefs, our company. We celebrate the history of sharing and social justice when Native Americans saved the Pilgrims from starving over the winter. This is part of the foundation of the United States of America.

We share the land on which, and the country in which, we all live together. As one people, we can share together in sending a message of our own. We want our leaders to lead with what is best for us, the people. We want leaders who lead by positive example, by coming together to lift us all up, rather than only lift up the few, as they push the rest of us down. Thanksgiving Day is a time for sharing, so why not share our hope for a better, more socially just and ethical America? Why not share in sending our leaders a message that Americans want them to lead with respect for each other and for us? Why not share in sending our leaders a message that Americans want them to lead effectively?

Why not have Thanksgiving Day be a living symbol of empowering each other to share and lead ourselves and our country to a higher level of social justice, rather than just a symbolic day in history? What better day than Thanksgiving Day to celebrate and give thanks for the freedom we have to share and send a message of hope for more socially just and inspired leadership?

Why Occupy? An American Autumn

Occupy is definitely about more than just Wall Street. It's a protesting against the 1% creating, essentially, a feudal system in which the 99% will no longer have the economic or political clout with which they can stop the 1%. They've been privatizing government (control over power), education (to create an uneducated populace that will no longer be capable of questioning them), prisons (for slave labor), etc. They've pushed legislation to repeal minimum wage, child labor and collective bargaining laws. They've reduced the wages, pensions and benefits of non-union labor and are trying to break the remaining unions so they can do the same to those workers. They're trying to reduce, eliminate or privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid so the social safety net is shredded and they can control our money. They've used "tort reform" to reduce the people's access to the courts, just as they're going to use "education reform" to ultimately reduce our children's access to education. They've bought SCOTUS and used them to pass Citizens United so they control elections. They've gotten deregulation and policy changes put in place to benefit their corporations at the expense of the environment and our health. They've spent millions in a propaganda campaign to create doubt in people's minds about climate science and global warming in order to maintain their hold on fossil fuel industries to the detriment of the environment and mankind. They purposefully deregulated the financial industry and created mortgage fraud to enable them to steal the wealth of the 99% via the largest transfer of securities, property and "bailout" monies in history. There's more, but I won't go on. This whole thing has been a well-conceived chess game that they're currently winning. Now that the 99% have finally awakened from their apathy and are protesting, they're going to do whatever is necessary to protect their own position of power.

Cliff Notes on the State of Our Country

Here are the cliff notes of things I’ve posted in the past, both here on this blog, and on Facebook. This is what I see as what's really happening in our country (and around the world - we're not alone).

1 - A revolution in America has begun, although there's a private (corporate-owned CNN, FOX, etc.) news blackout. The attack on National Public Radio was purposeful because the corporations can't control the news disseminated by them.

2 - There's a supra-national group of mostly banks controlling things around the world, and their motivation is power and profit. http://planetsave.com/2011/08/28/who-runs-the-world-network-analysis-reveals-super-entity-of-global-corporate-control/

3 - The push to privatize and control public institutions is purposeful and planned, especially on education, because an uneducated populace is more easily controlled. It's about power and profit going to the corporations and the banks holding the money.

4 - The banks are funneling our money into their coffers through various straws. Here are some ways:

a - We're in 3 wars to increase the profits of private militia, and those of their owners and investors (including Cheney), and siphon our money through tax dollars.

b - TARP bailouts from our tax dollars transferred our wealth directly to the banks

c - the transfer of our property through foreclosures

d - the transfer of our wealth (our pensions/retirement incomes) through Wall Street deregulation that directly prepared the way for the planned Great Recession.

e - the attacks on unions and worker's rights and repeal of minimum wage and child labor laws are all about increasing corporate power and profits.

5 - The patenting of natural seeds, genes and life processes is about power and profit going to the corporations and the banks. It's also about controlling the population. Who controls the food, genes, and life processes, controls the people.

6 - The privatization of water - again profits and power. Who controls the water, controls the people.

7 - The privatization of health care and use of insurance companies to control health care puts the power, profit, and control of people's very lives in the hands of private corporations.

8 - The reduction of US citizen's constitutional rights and our policy of rendition, post 9-11, have given more power to the government to arrest, detain without charge or representation, torture, and disappear people. We can also be called terrorists and arrested for protesting against things.

9 - The control of our government is predominantly in the hands of corporations who send their people into government jobs to control the policies, regulations and funding of their industries. Hence, the removal of Glass-Steagall that paved the way for the Great Recession (the earlier S&L scandal was actually a dry run), removal of environmental regulations allowing free-rein to industries to produce and increase their profits without worrying about the environment and the public health. Then, many of those same corporate flunkies go right back to their high-paying jobs in corporations, having done their dirty work.

10 - The attacks on women - physical, in legislation and lack of it, in lack of economic parity and power, and in the attempted removal of basic health care screenings and denial of coverage to women - all to increase insurance company profits, is ongoing.

11 - The Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision gave corporations the rights of people. Corporations are now free to win friends and influence/control elections to their non-beating hearts' content, while they control our government and our court systems.

12 - Tort Reform has reduced access to the courts by average citizens, giving corporations more power and profit, increasing bank holdings.

13 - They're attacking people who are trying to grow their own food and live sustainably. Why would they do that? Control.

14 – Protests against their many activities at various public sites have been met with undue force, false arrests, etc.

15 – ALEC, their legislative bill-creation arm, has submitted identical bills across multiple state houses to create laws favorable to their agenda.

16 – They use the power of product defense, media ownership, propaganda, censorship, and false advertising to maintain their position.

17 – The “Secret” to their success is has not been the power of positive thinking, but precise, planned, multiple prongs of ACTION. Their positive thinking propaganda has been yet another way to control the population…by keeping us from actually DOING something about all of this. Yes, we’ll become rich and powerful by just thinking positively. Really?! They got that way by working together (conspiring) to take our economic and political power away from us.

Now, if you really have made it through to the end of this, there's more, but I think you get the gist. The only way out that I can see is that we withdraw every cent we've put into the banks and Wall Street. We've given them our own money to use to attack us. We can take our money back, and at least reduce some of their economic power. Let me summarize what's going on: The plan is to privatize as much as possible, enabling corporations to gain more control, power and profit.

Liberals Are Killing This Country? No, We Have Taxation Without Representation!

Liberals are not killing this country. Taxes are not evil. Stop listening to the propaganda of corporate-controlled Fox News and drinking the extreme right's Kool-Aid. If you recall, Bush came into the White House with a Democratic President-created budget SURPLUS, and rapidly changed that into a deficit. FACT!

Tax = revenue. When you don't tax, you have no revenue with which to run the infrastructure of this country. As I've posted here and, especially on Facebook, multiple times with charts and graphs and actual numbers to defend my case - the true facts (not buzz words, propaganda, lies, and rhetoric), the wealthiest Americans and corporate persons pay little to no taxes and less proportional Social Security tax compared to their income than do middle class Americans. With all the tax cuts, tax breaks, loopholes, and corporate welfare for corporations making record-breaking profits every quarter, that's one heck of a lot of revenue missing from our "baseline budget." Add to that the trillions of dollars we've spent on 3 wars, thanks for the first 2 to Bush and the third to Obama, we are STILL living in a war economy. When that happens, we usually increase taxes to pay for our war spending. What did Bush do? He cut taxes!

Baseline budgeting - get out of the wars, increase taxes (progressive, not regressive as it is now) on ALL Americans and corporations (which for the wealthiest Americans after WWII was a 90% tax rate, not the current 0-15% most actually end up paying these days) to pay for the wars, then reduce the taxes once you've paid off the war debt.

Yes, it is about budgeting. You want war? You need to raise taxes to pay for it. You want a government infrastructure so your country doesn't collapse? You make sure that ALL Americans are paying their fair share in taxes, because we all benefit. Want a viable, thriving middle class and economy? Create jobs in the USA and stop outsourcing where you can get away with paying slave wages and little to no benefits in order to increase your profits and CEO wages to ridiculously high amounts - morality and ethics be darned.

If the GOP extreme right were truly interested in helping America and Americans, they wouldn't have simultaneously introduced bills in multiple state legislatures to repeal minimum wage and child labor laws, and destroy labor unions and collective bargaining that protect the average worker from economic and personal abuse at the hands of their corporate masters. Average Americans are losing jobs, are underemployed, have their salaries frozen or cut, while the Lords of Industry have increased the income disparity (Gini coefficient) in this country to be close to that of Egypt. The average CEO earned 24x the average worker's pay in 1965. By 1979, they earned 35x more, in 1989 it was 71x more, in 1999 it was 300x more, in 2005 it was 262x more. Those same CEO's pay lower income tax rates than the average worker, and pay no Social Security tax on income over $106,800.

The people in power purposefully repealed the Glass-Steagall Act with the prior knowledge that deregulation would open the door for them to rape the economy through rampant speculation and mortgage-backed securities at the risk of another depression or recession. They did the dirty deed, and they got exactly what they wanted. It was the largest transfer of financial (including the speculative dollars, securities and bailouts) and property wealth (foreclosures) in history, and the transfer of wealth is still ongoing. The S&L debacle was their dry run.

So, don't tell me the Liberals are killing this country. We live in a corporate-controlled America. If you're an average American, you live like a vassal or serf under the watchful eyes of not-so-benevolent masters. To me, that is taxation without representation!
 
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621/

Bring the Troops Home and Implement a Culture of Peace

‎Let's bring our troops home. Then, let's build a culture of peace, in which we honor the peacemakers above those who are behind the waging of war for profit. Let's build monuments to peace, rather than war. Let's require the addition of conflict resolution, mediation and negotiation to school curricula...worldwide. If you build it, they will come. When the perceived and real monetary value of peace and peacemakers becomes higher than that of war and warriors (no offense to veterans), peace will prevail over war in society. Conflict resolution, mediation and negotiation will prevail over violence, because those who follow non-violence will be the heroes, the most valued members of society, rather than just be considered misguided idealists.