Tag: Economics

Empaths vs Logicians: A conflict which requires resolution for sustainability.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Mental Health, Personal Development, Politics, Psychology, Spirituality, Sustainability
c-alexmax-www.fotosearch.com

When the Empaths (I feel strongly that…) within society find themselves intensely opposed to what the Logicians (logic tells us that…) within a society are proposing, that society is facing an existential problem. The same is true when the situation is reversed. How long the society may have before it suffers serious, if not irreparable harm, may vary but is a function of the intensity of the conflict.

Why does such a conflict weigh so heavily for the health of a society? Because both our feelings and our intellect exist for the primary purpose of counseling us on what pathway we should take in any given situation. To fail to give adequate consideration to either aspect of our innate guidance systems does not bode well. That is true whether the “we” is more accurately an “I’; an individual facing an internal conflict between their feelings and intellect, or an entire society in which the people more oriented toward a feeling/emotional experience of the world are at odds with the people more oriented toward an intellectual/logic related experience of the world. Such a conflict on either the intrapersonal or interpersonal level is an expression of the plight addressed by the axiom: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (Paraphrasing the Biblical reference Mark 3:25).

To put this in simpler terms, when the “warm and fuzzy” of an issue finds itself intensely opposed to the “cold and objective” of an issue, or vice versa, it does not bode well. Something significant is being missed (overlooked or ignored) most likely by the people on both sides of the issue. One thing that can be counted on if both sides are working in good faith, is that both sides of the conflict are, to a greater or lesser extent, grounded in reality. Another thing that can be counted on is that if those on both sides of such an issue would calmly sit down and the Logicians would try to empathize to understand the strong feelings of the Empaths, and the Empaths would try to see the reasoning of the Logicians, the chance for the best possible outcome becomes a possibility. In all likelihood when such an agreement is able to be worked out neither side is going to find their original position completely vindicated. However, neither side is going to find their original position completely invalidated either. The scales may tip more one way than the other, or not.

That being said, it is conceivable that one side may be completely right and the other completely wrong IF one side is not being completely honest. Or, if one side is attempting to further a covert agenda. If either side is pursuing special interests of some kind that also stands to confound the situation. Further, if the special interests are overly represented in the outcome, the outcome will not have the authenticity, the same potential, to produce the degree of favorable outcome it would have if that weren’t the case. If both the feelings and intellect, when expressed in authentic form, are working toward the wellbeing of the “whole”, any efforts to artificially distort those efforts, one way or the other, will distort and/or warp the authenticity and the effectiveness of the outcome. The “whole” will not be honestly nor optimally served. Whether the “whole” in question is an individual or a society.

For those who have been heavily indoctrinated in the pre-quantum physics illusion of separation and individualism, the proposition that a society may be a single interconnected organism and that all the citizens within that society are to a significant extent, as cells within a body, may seem subversive to some egocentric agenda or another. However, having said that, don’t conflate “interconnected” with “the same”. While all people share, to a greater or lesser extent, many common characteristics, we also have aspects to our authentic selves which, when taken altogether, are unique to us as individuals. That’s why over regimentation of a society is ultimately doomed to failure. But just as over regimentation does not create a viable society for human beings to live within, neither does anarchy. If we want healthy, viable societies, the recognition and honoring of the basic, mutually shared aspects of our lives is the bedrock upon which the basic structures of a healthy, vibrant, viable society, one which also provides room for the diversity so necessary to a healthy society, must be built.

When we know enough about ourselves and our mutuality, and we find the viable balance wherein we are honoring both the mutually shared aspects of our being and the more individual aspects, we will be a lot closer to being able to create the wonderful, viable lives within a wonderful, viable society that we have the potential to create. Until then we are allowing the illusions, the fears, the hatreds, the perversions, the distortions which in large part, if not in totality, are birthed by the lies and abuses which we have too often inflicted upon one another, control our present and our future.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Public Health in the U.S. An overdue overhaul of a corrupted system.

by kendunning, posted in Community, Economics, Healthcare, Medicine, Politics, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Science

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is increasingly having the allegation leveled at him that he is destroying the Public Health system in the U.S. What is actually happening is that he is destroying the carefully and insidiously crafted illusion of a public health system that has been incrementally foisted upon the American public by profiteers. Profiteers from within a healthcare system which only exists with the trust of the public it is meant to serve. Yet increasingly the true recipients of the benefits served up by the system is becoming an issue.

One thing that I have seen over the past 7+ decades is that over that time there seems have been few, if any, originally honorable, originally beneficially effective public agency or elected office that have been immune from being usurped and turned to the service of corrupt profiteers if enough money is involved. Most, if not all, of the public officials, elected or appointed, who are at the forefront of the currently ongoing attempt to smear RFK Jr. and his efforts at reform have in the past and/or are currently directly or indirectly benefiting significantly from the vast sums of money that the corrupt profiteers are spending. Spending to keep their sordid, immensely financially profitable, businesses and schemes untouched by reform. Corrupt profiteers who influence or control so much of the health and medical and related industry in the U.S.

Over my lifetime I’ve witnessed the E.P.A., the C.D.C. and much of the medical industry as a whole go from admired, honorable, public services to agents of aforementioned profiteers. Profiteers who engage in practices which create and sustain widespread chronic illness in the American population. Apparently because that is how the most money is to be had.

Right now the E.P.A. is engaged in challenging the verdict from a Federal Court Case in the 9th District Court in California that ruled that fluoride presents an unreasonable risk to the health of children. If I hadn’t witnessed part of it taking place, E.P.A. attorneys working to allow the continuance of the insertion of one of the most toxic substances around into public water supplies, I would have a hard time believing that allegation. I happened to be able to view, via Zoom, the closing arguments. The Judge stated that the videos of the proceedings would be made available on the Court’s website. But again, as happens so often when there are people whose covert interests and methods wilt in the light of public scrutiny, somewhere in the process, there was an intervention and they have been censored.

If you’re still under the hypnotic illusion that “fluoridation is safe” check out the work done by Phyllis Mullenix regarding fluorides effect on cognition and Jennifer Luke’s discoveries regarding fluoride and the pineal gland. Also the information regarding fluoride’s carcinogenic properties brought forward, some decades ago, by Dean Burk an American biochemist, medical researcher, and a cancer researcher at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the National Cancer Institute. An issue most recently brought forward by William Marcus, M.D. who at the time worked at the E.P.A. He has had to pay dearly for his breaking lockstep with the “orthodox” litany that “fluoridation is safe”. There is so much more. Look into fluoride toxicity and the thyroid and the kidneys. Look into how fluoride renders bones and teeth more brittle.

But as horrible as the criminal fluoride scam being run on the American public is, it is only one of the issues involved with the usurpation of American medicine. The issues being most ardently defended/protected by those profiting from the involved practices, are the dangers, toxicity, of the COVID vaccines and other vaccines which RFK Jr. is exposing. Dangers due to the presence of mercury and aluminum. And, in extreme cases, dangers engineered into the vaccines to serve some covert agenda of those manufacturing them. These abuses of the public trust have been going on, with knowledge by at least key people in the pharmaceutical industry. And undoubtedly people working within agencies, such as the C.D.C., who American children are encouraged to trust via direct education to that effect and indirectly through their “white hat” portrayal in movies and other media.

I venture a lot of the people whose efforts are essential to keeping this ugly, perverted system alive really have no idea of the current nature of the system they’re serving. They are still seeing the efforts going on within those agencies as being what it was, at least what the public believed it to be, at the time of the agencies’ creation. That being said, not knowing and not wanting to know are two very different things. Willful ignorance and the best interests of the American public are diametrically opposed when it comes to the issues RFK Jr. is exposing within the American healthcare system.

Vladimir Putin is not Russia and Donald Trump is not the United States

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Donald Trump, Environment, Health, Mental Health, Personal Development, Politics, Psychology, Spirituality, Sustainability, Vladimir Putin
(C) Alex Max, http://www.fotosearch. com

When did it happen? When did people around the world begin to identify an entire nation on the basis of the character of whomever happens to occupy high political office within that nation? It’s as ridiculous a practice as trying to characterize the ocean on the basis of the behavior of a single fish. It always, absolutely always, provides us with a distorted, inaccurate, conception of the nation concerned.

Vladimir Putin is not Russia. Donald Trump is not the United States. Nor was Joe Biden, Barack Obama, nor any other President. Likewise Xi Jinping is not China and Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not the Ukraine. Droupadi Murmu is not India. No single man nor woman ever has nor ever will be the sum total of the nation which they find themselves in a position of leadership within. And so it goes with every single nation on the face of the Earth.

A nation is the people who live within it. A nation is the people who farm the land, occupy the cities, build the houses, clean the streets, cook the food, create the art, attend the concerts, eat at the restaurants, and generally participate in all the activities which sustain, enliven and enlighten the bodies and spirits, the hearts and minds, of the citizenry. If you travel the world it doesn’t take long to realize that the citizenry of every nation on Earth is pretty much the same. We breath, we eat, we love, we work, we play, we worry, we laugh, we eat, we read, we celebrate,  we grieve. With our work, with the time and energy of our lives, we strive in myriad ways to improve our lives and the lives of others within our communities. So why do we, the citizenry of the nations of the world, allow the misbegotten, and often grandiose, aspirations, or the fears, of one person or group of people to lead us into conflict with one another? Conflicts which obliterate so much of what we and our ancestors have worked so hard to build? Cities, homes, farms, shops, restaurants, concert halls, hospitals, schools, the productions, the dreams, of so many people over so long a period of time. And then there are the human costs, the suffering, the deaths of so very many including family and loved ones.

War, conflict, any extreme competition which theatens the life or well-being of the citizens of any nation, or even a single individual, is something which threatens the life and well-being of us all. Why? Because the spirit of competition for territory or other worldly wealth inevitably leads to larger conflicts. Larger conflicts which lay the stepping stones on the road to war. It is like a contagious virus which spreads through the hearts and minds of people who are vulnerable to it. It breeds fear of those whom we perceive, or more often are told, want to take something from us which we hold dear. And we human beings have an innate tendency to try to destroy, to kill, that which we fear. On the other hand, to want others to fear us is inescapably, no matter how much we may think otherwise, to lead others to desire to destroy us.

We cannot fully develop our innate capacities as human beings when we live our lives burdened by fear; experiencing the stresses and debilitation, the actual trauma, which fear inevitably brings into our lives.

It’s high time we average people, average citizens, the true builders of civilizations, stop letting ourselves be blind followers of those among us with the most needy egos, the most avaricious among us, the most callous among us. It’s time we see through the half truths and outright lies the bought and paid for media outlets insistently try to present to us as reality. It’s time we realize our shared divine heritage here on this planet and treat ourselves and the planet with the love and respect we, and it, rightfully deserve.

The Perpetual Relationship Between Freedom and Power

by kendunning, posted in Community, Economics, Manifesting our Future, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality, Sustainability

There is freedom and there is power. They are not the same thing. However, our human cultural reality is that these two things very often rise and fall in a correlated manner within a population. I remember a few years back when someone asked the question of a young person what freedoms they would like to have. The young person said something like the freedom to travel by air whenever I want to so I can see the world. The person who asked the question then responded that what they were asking for essentially is the “power”, financial power, to travel by air whenever they wanted. They already possessed the freedom to travel by air whenever they had the means to do so. Sometimes we confuse freedom and power.

They truly are two different things. In the United States the Constitution of the United States of America has theoretically guaranteed our freedom as a God given inalienable right for over 200 years now. Yet, even from the first day that this Constitution took on the effect of the law of the land not all people within the new country were the beneficiaries of this noble, legal, statement. Why? Because some people did not have the power to effectually claim this freedom that theoretically existed all around them. Freedom and power, power and freedom, sometimes they are directly related. Sometimes power is essential to claiming one’s freedom, and sometimes power is what others use to take yours away. Even a cursory look through some history books should produce a number of striking examples of a cause-and-effect relationship between a people establishing their freedom through the use of power or losing their freedom due to someone else’s wielding of power to deprive them of it. So if power is essential to freedom, and we want freedom, how do we get power?

Francis Bacon, a Brit who lived between 1561 and 1626, is credited with delivering the pronouncement that “Knowledge is power.”. For most of humanity’s recorded history on Earth that statement has undoubtedly explained how one tribe or group has ascended into a notable position of recognized power. The knowledge of fire, of metallurgy, of gunpowder, of steam, gas, jet and rocket engines among other things has gradually increased one tribe or civilization’s ability to conquer another. Knowledge has most definitely been closely associated with power and it still is. Knowledge is still a key to humankind’s ability to survive and move forward into a brighter future. However, another kind of power has been growing, competing with knowledge. That is the power of wealth.

Some might say that knowledge is still the key source of power because it takes knowledge to accumulate vast wealth. There is some truth in that. There are ways in existence today, the stock market for example, via which someone who does not possess the creative talents to succeed as an inventor or farmer or entrepreneur can by sheer predatory cleverness amass a great fortune. Also, it doesn’t necessarily require a whole lot of knowledge when it comes to how wealth is utilized. Spending wealth on the myriad high-tech population management and weapons technologies that exist in the world today simply requires the will to do so. And it can require mere information, to employ surveillance and weapons technologies against others. Combine all this with the reality that a predatory shrewdness combined with marked deficits in empathy and sound ethics can and does lead people to “engineer” wars in order to increase sales in war related products and to acquire new resources for further exploitation. The point is power can be and often is simply bought these days. Consequently, the ability to give or take the freedoms of others with less power (money) can be bought along with it.

I think one basic principle of life which most people have learned is that too much power concentrated in the hands of one man, or woman, or relatively small group can and usually does lead to intentional, or unintentional, misuse and/or abuse of that power. Now substitute “money” for “power” and you should be able to see the fundamental problem which underlies a great many of the problems in the world today. We, the global masses of humanity, have allowed an economic reality to emerge in the world which not only allows but glorifies the acquisition of inordinate wealth. And we’re suffering the consequences of our short-sighted follies and and neglect. Of course, in our defense, we as individuals and as populations are all on a learning curve. Yet sometimes critical points are reached at which the costs of lessons unlearned, or unimplemented, can have disastrous effects beyond our expectations.

The real life quote “Greed is alright, by the way.” which Ivan Boesky delivered at a commencement speech at the U.C. Berkeley School of Business, which later seems to have been changed to simply “greed is good” by the cinematic character Gordon Gekko, seems to have been internalized by a large segment of the world’s population. Without going into a lot of detail this has resulted in a competitive business environment which has eroded the foundational ethics necessary for trustworthy, sustainable, healthy enterprises to flourish. At this point in time though, I think there is change happening among many young, and some older, entrepreneurs. Will this change prove to be lasting and genuine or is it merely PR tactic utilized by those who are trying to capitalize upon whatever human decency remains in the world until they get big enough to join in the orgy of greed?

It is important to realize that there are two ways in which greed driven individuals and businesses which routinely sacrifice morals and ethics upon the altar of “profit” negatively affect the prospects of humanity for a long, healthy life. The first is by what they produce in terms of goods/information that sabotages health, trust, and longevity. The second is by what they intentionally withhold that, were it released, would stand to greatly benefit human kind. This second method of harm is especially salient in any discussions of medical/health care and technologies for sustainable energy production. The latter arena of withheld technology has a huge, twofold, impact upon the environment. The first impact is in the opportunity to prevent pollution and the second is in the opportunity to clean up existing pollution. Both opportunities are being criminally ignored. A true crime of omission.

The “bottom line” to all this is that unless we, the majority, want to have our freedoms and many other aspects of our lives perpetually at the whim of one extremely wealthy individual/group or another, it is critical that we limit the amount of money/wealth which any one individual or small group can personally/privately acquire. Not to do so is to continue into a future filled with the sort of ego/profit driven wars, rampant poverty within the world and, as is clearly shown in this essay, the relinquishment of peoples’ freedoms and the stability of their futures and their children’s futures to the whims of the inordinately wealthy.

To do so will require a significant amount of restructuring of our current economic environment. I’m not going to try to delve into all the potential scenarios I’ve contemplated on this subject. I am going to say we can’t have simply a flat income for all people. Such a system would discourage personal incentive. And we can’t have too great a gap between the lowest income and the highest income. I’ve been told there is a Japanese study that suggests when the highest income is 7 times that of the lowest the culture can remain stable. Although I’ve tried to contact the source I heard about this study from I haven’t been successful at obtaining a reference. However, this figure does seem like a potential framework to look at. Some prices will drop, some will rise. Overall I think the cost of living will decrease. I invite you to mentally explore the possibilities that can accompany such a system.

As I heard somewhere recently: information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom. We need all three of these resources being simultaneously employed for the benefit of all of humanity if we wish to avoid the dystopian future our current trajectory has us hurtling toward.

It is time we address the underlying pandemic of our age.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Health, Politics, Psychology, Science, Spirituality, Sustainability, War

We are in the midst of a pandemic. Not COVID nor a new viral concoction those disposed to do so may be devising. It is a pandemic of mental/spiritual origin and effect. The infectious, destructive condition I’m referring to has been with us for millennia. It is a condition, a dis-ease if you will, which leaves many of those affected languishing in the belief that the “physical” world is our primary, if not our only reality. Or, others affected often see fit to engage in overly self-centered, sometimes brutal, schemes for personal gain. Schemes which ignore the damage such thoughts and actions are doing within our underlying spiritual reality. Damage which sooner or later expresses itself within our “physical” reality.

Above I put “physical” in quotation marks because, as with light waves which we can only see a certain portion of the full spectrum of, our physical reality also extends beyond the denser forms and actions we’re all accustomed to dealing with in our day to day lives. It extends into finer, more ethereal, spiritual aspects of our reality which those who are infected with the mental condition leading to the denial of this reality apparently find beyond their perception. Or possibly they have some perception of it but for reasons having to do with their enculturation choose to ignore such perceptions. Yet inescapably we affect and are affected by the finer, more ethereal aspects of our reality.

This condition, which results in a narrow window on our world, is a mental/spiritual condition which many seem to accept as part of the price for being a “good citizen” of a materialistic, competitive culture.  I wonder how many people are receiving treatment both in outpatient and inpatient settings simply because they found themselves perceiving and finding reality and meaning within some of the forms and actions within the more ethereal aspects of our reality? How a person reacts to perceiving things outside the realm of what their culture may regard as normal is often determined by whether or not they primarily regard the world with an attitude of fear or an attitude of faith.

It is when we are able to stretch out our perceptions more fully into the finer, more ethereal/spiritual aspects of our existence, our reality, that we can discover many blessings and abilities which remain out of our reach when too many daily stressors push us into a withdrawn, shut-down state of being. When fear and anxiety are intrusive into our lives, we tend to draw in, to shut down some of the higher functioning parts of our mind, our being. This loss of so much of the potential richness of our lives is one of the cruelest of the collateral damages within a culture of competition.

We see so much cruelty, so much inhumanity resulting from people holding an attitude of fear, avarice, intolerance, that it is easy to be deceived into believing that these ways of relating to the world are the underlying, inescapable reality of our existence on Earth.  They aren’t.  Love is the underlying reality.  However, when unguided by compassion and sound reason, even love can produce perverted, destructive actions. Such as when, as I have seen it expressed, we “love things and use people instead of loving people and using things”.  Or when we love the experience of our own being yet choose to callously disregard the experiences of others.

Creating a culture of fear is relatively easy.  Engage in violence, do things which blatantly and glaringly or subtly and insidiously injure people. Engage in actions which engender distrust.  Use political/economic schemes with armed legions of enforcers to take away and control the goods and freedoms of the general population of entire nations (even your own).  Those involved in the thinking patterns and behaviors which lead to the creation of cultures of fear are following their most self-centered, self-serving impulses with little or no concern for the effects which their actions impose upon, or evoke within others.   

Creating a culture of love, compassion, and understanding is a harder task.  The desire to do so usually is preceded by the awareness that we are all interrelated. For one thing, we are all a part of the environment which all other people live within. However, when we learn more about the energy/spiritual reality of our lives we understand how we are quite literally interconnected on an energetic/spiritual level. Someday I imagine there will books written about the effects each person’s spiritual energy contributes to our spiritual environment. We now know beyond a doubt that groups of people meditating in an area can reduce the crime rate. Manifesting a culture which is an expression of the positive, life-oriented aspects of our underlying spiritual reality requires people to be willing to put the time and effort into understanding themselves and others.  It requires compassion and patience when facing difficult interpersonal situations.  It requires tolerance of different practices and worldviews as long as those practices and worldviews are not inherently harmful to others.  It requires people to have a rock-solid commitment to the well-being of others as well as one’s own.   

Right now we are living in a world in which far too many are suffering under the pestilence of a culture of fear, avarice, intolerance.  Many are reaping the bitter fruits of devoting time and energy into fear, hating and war. Many are reaping the bleak fruits resulting from the personal or cultural allotment of large amounts of human and material resources for the building and acquisition of weapons of destruction.  The more energy, time and resources we pour into these things the more we see war and destruction proliferating around the world.  After all the teachings, the warnings we have had through the ages from saints and prophets about reaping what we sow, this sorry reality should come as no surprise. 

I would rhetorically ask what we should do about it, but the answer is obvious:  we need to start consistently sowing the words and actions which are exactly those which we genuinely would like to have returning to us and our loved ones.  That’s all. 

How did the United States take such a wrong turn?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Mental Health, Personal Development, Politics, Psychology, Science, Spirituality, Sustainability, War

As the song says, “War, huh, good God, y’all, what is it good for?” Something war most certainly is, is the violent introduction of some, if not all, of humankind’s most ill-conceived, lowest frequency, motivations into the spiritual/physical realm of our planet. Into our communities, into our lives.

The act of war, or acts of violence on an interpersonal level, without exception result in vibrations of dissonance reverberating within our energetic/spiritual environment. The traumas which war produces can, and too often do, resonate within generations becoming a self-perpetuating source of hatred and violence. The result is traumatized people blindly acting out of impulse to perpetuate more trauma and on and on.

How different our world would be if following the Second World War the United States had decided to “be the change we (the vast majority of people on Earth) want to see in the world.” How different the world would be if the United States had decided to model what an evolved, educated, caring nation could be instead of deciding to try to accomplish global domination via military might. How did a nation so blessed as the United States in the period after the Second World War take such a wrong turn? It isn’t what the people wanted. In 1960 we voted for a man who promised to take the path of an evolved, educated, caring nation. The early 1960’s with John F. Kennedy in the White House and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the pulpit, held so much promise for an enlightened future for humanity. Under Kennedy, foreign policy meant constructive cultural exchange. What we have seen foreign policy devolve into the past few decades is vicious attacks upon whatever nations aren’t getting into lockstep with the wealth/power/control aspirations of a coalition of a relative few of the world’s wealthiest and most politically powerful.

We, as a people in the United States and around the world, need to stop engaging in, or supporting, the madness of materialism, imperialism, competition and profiteering that has become commonplace in our world. We are, all of us, children of the Universal Divine Creative Spirit. We are all brothers and sisters in the spirit. We are all connected by the energy/spirit that we are made up of and that we live within. Sooner or later the cruelties expressed and the suffering taking place anywhere in the world are going to touch all of us.

At our core, our needs as human beings aren’t all that different. We do have differences in appearance: skin color, hair color, eye color, height, weight, and other physical attributes. We also have differences in the way we relate to the world. Some people are more intellectual, some more physical, some more visual, some more auditory. These differences may affect one’s values, likes and dislikes. They can affect who we seek out for companionship. All of these differences together lend each of us a certain uniqueness. And thank goodness, what a drab, boring place this Earth might be if we all were in lockstep with how we view the world, our likes and dislikes.

However, at our core, we are all of the same ilk. In order to be healthy, we all need clean air, clean water, nutritious food, shelter from extreme weather conditions. We all need to have other people we socialize with, share our thoughts and feelings with. We all need to love and to be loved. While we all may enjoy periods of isolation, some may say they don’t need socialization or love at all. However, that condition, if it exists at all, is rare. Abraham Maslow recognized these shared needs among people and produced his “Hierarchy of Needs” to help us all understand them, and ourselves.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Our natural way of relating to one another is copacetically. Babies and young children don’t want war. They know instinctively that it is not good for them. It’s only after we become acculturated into competition, envy, jealousy, greed, hate, essentially all the things that trauma and deprivation (also a form of trauma) nurture in the world that we as adults begin to imagine that there is gain in violence and war. When we know love, belonging, we don’t want to throw that away to go kill someone, somewhere, in order to try to achieve some ill-begotten, grandiose plan. Or more ridiculously to devote our lives to support someone else’s ill-begotten, grandiose plan.

We cannot fully develop as human beings when the higher functioning capabilities of our brains are diminished due to trauma. Do we want to keep living in a manner more suited to the beasts of the field while we live in a universe of unlimited possibilities? If so, all we need to do is build and sustain a culture of competition rather than cooperation. To keep on warring instead of working together. To keep on destroying each other rather than honoring the innate kinship of all of humanity, of all life.

It is when people are mistreated, traumatized, deprived, destitute, suffering, and/or deluded that fear, greed, callousness, and myriad other negative thoughts/feelings/and motivations arise. Competition as cultural norm breeds these all of these things and more. Within a framework of a few basic laws, within a culture of people who are thinking in terms of mutuality, trust, fairness, and compassion, the wondrous possibilities of this world are endless.

The Congressional Hearings on UAP are fraught with the same worn-out denials and obfuscations which sincere investigators into these phenomena have faced for decades.

by kendunning, posted in Community, Economics, Integrity, Politics, Science, UFOs, UAP

We need to stop giving equal time to the “flat earthers” of Ufology.  The “flat earthers” are those who directly or indirectly attempt to negate all the evidence which has been brought forward by hundreds of conscientious men and women over the past few decades.  Sometimes this negation is expressed by feigning a genuine, healthy interest in the subject and then repeating the worn-out, nihilistic mantra: “Wouldn’t it be great if we had evidence.”

Is it just me reaching this conclusion at this time? I’ve been interested in our beautiful night sky, space, UFO’s (UAP or whatever name is currently in vogue) for decades. I’ve read books and articles, watched videos and documentaries, listened to authoritative people describe their first-hand experiences with alien technology and, in a smaller number of cases, with extraterrestrial beings. A lot of the first-hand accounts come from ex-military personnel who have had distinguished careers. There are the many brave whistleblowers who risk much professionally and personally to come forward with their first-person accounts. Additionally, there are so very many people from all over the world who don’t and have never worked in a profession which would particularly lend them to encountering extraterrestrial craft or beings, yet they have. And again, taking personal and/or professional risks, they speak out.

Why?  I believe it is significantly due to an underlying realization that it matters. Having a reality-based understanding of the world we live in matters. Knowing where our tax dollars are spent matters. As the de facto financiers of so much of the effort that has gone into the investigation of the extraterrestrial phenomena, we deserve to know what our money is being spent on. Which evidently includes the acquisition of extraterrestrial technology and the subsequent research and development which has taken place. Humanity should, by all rights, be able to reap any and all benefits from this technology which stands to improve the quality of lives around the world.  Benefits which, from all reports, will improve our efforts toward a cleaner and healthier environment.

Yes, there are some people who for whatever reason offer up untrue, fabricated information or intentional misinformation. But as with any new field of natural science, with repeated exposure to the samples coming in from the field, one increases in ability to discern a fabrication from an authentic article. That being said, this task is becoming more difficult with the deployment of human built and operated gravity drive vehicles and the technological advances in the ability to create convincing illusions.  It is our great misfortune that there are unscrupulous people who already have and as long as they can continue to engage in employing such technology in their efforts to confuse the public and obfuscate reality will do so. This becomes an even more grievous assault on the citizenry when we consider that we the citizenry have footed the bill for much, if not all, of this technology. However, overcoming such heinous efforts at confusing and disorienting our understanding of the world we live in is not an insurmountable task.  A lot of people are working to counter such despicable actions with their continued efforts toward sharing the genuine knowledge that is available.  I want to add that as a mental health professional I find the efforts at confusing people about our reality to be as heinous and as dangerous an assault on our minds as is the assault upon our bodies by those who persist in polluting our environment and the products we consume.

Thankfully there are many people with a genuine, healthy interest in “UAP” who have spent countless hours pursuing this area of study.  To you who are also on this path who haven’t experienced this already, I can state with assurance that there comes a point in which the accumulated knowledge which has been brought to light by all the aforementioned contributors moves a person from curiosity to certainty. There is such an abundance of evidence, ranging from the credible to the undeniable, that for any person who wants to represent themself as a serious student of this field of knowledge, much less represent themself as an expert in the field, to engage in overlooking, or in any way stating or insinuating that such evidence does not exist reveals themself as a charlatan or worse: someone who is intentionally working to undermine the perceptions and credibility of a great many intelligent, astute, honorable people.

Just as we have stopped lending an iota of credibility to “flat earthers”, it’s time we stopped lending an iota credibility to those whose presentations directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, serve to downplay, obfuscate, or deny the realities which conscientious people have brought forward. We need to be aware that sometimes the obfuscations and denials are done by someone pretending to be an “expert” who presents how wonderful it would be if we only knew for sure that intelligent life existed in other places in the universe. Such a presentation is a de facto refutation of the accumulated knowledge and evidence that has come forward over decades. Knowledge and evidence that authoritatively speaks to the reality that contact has taken place between extraterrestrial beings and people from Earth.

Lastly, much more is known about extraterrestrial life and human contact by those involved with and jealously guarding the “black” programs.  This includes the knowledge that some highly advanced technology (relative to what is in general use) has been gained and is being employed in a covert manner.  This will continue with the technological imbalance between covert technology and what is widely known increasing. This dual reality which has been created constitutes the very reality of a relative handful of men and women acquiring the very “unwarranted influence” which President Eisenhower warned us of in his farewell address.  “We the People” need to wake up to this reality, step out of the darkness and denial, and demand full disclosure of, and inclusion in the management of, the knowledge and technologies which have been and are being acquired from contact with extraterrestrial beings.  For the sake of humanity.

As a species we face the need for a major transition.  Will it happen by design or default?  And if by design, whose?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Personal Development, Politics, Psychology, Spirituality, Sustainability

An article carried on the AP recently has the statement: “…the United States and Japan are expected to agree to changes in the joint defense posture this week as the two nations confront rising threats from North Korea and increasing aggressiveness from China.” These kinds of statements in the news are nothing new. It is common for news reports these days to be about the threats and violence one country, or faction within a country, are inflicting upon another. It is so common that I imagine many adults who were born in the 1990s just take it for granted that this is the inescapable way of the world. It isn’t.

I also know that gratefully there are many people in the world, people of all ages, who have a different vision for the world. One in which headlines can read something like: “A cooperative international effort has eradicated hunger in 99.5% of the world’s population and is expected to have completely eradicated it within another year.” Or “International efforts in education and health care have resulted in greatly improved educational and medical treatment options throughout the world.” Wouldn’t that be nice?

I can remember the world during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. The optimism, the dreams, the good will being expressed on the international stage. Of course, as we know, people enamored of war and violence killed President Kennedy and effectively turned that optimistic trend around to express what they knew. Toward what they envisioned as the future of the world. And now we’re experiencing their preoccupation with war and violence being expressed in the world.  The world which is our home. 

Is this any way to run a world? No, it isn’t.  Not if a healthy, thriving, worldwide population is the goal.  However, a healthy, thriving worldwide population evidently isn’t the goal of the money/power “elite” that are pulling the economic, political strings in the world.  It is apparently their desire to establish a worldwide political/economic system which is essentially a return to something more closely resembling the medieval feudal system. 

The above pyramid roughly illustrates the composition of the 21st century feudal system that is being engineered into existence.  However, it is not absolute in it’s designations.  For instance, many Presidents, Prime Ministers, and other national heads of state fall in the category of “Lords” rather than being part of the actual international ruling/governing body.  And some with a high level of a particular skill which is needed by the ruling body may find themselves at least honorary members of the “Lords”. 

The following illustration roughly provides a reference point for how the wealth, which is largely manufactured, mined or otherwise produced by the Peasants and Serfs, is ultimately currently being distributed.  The ongoing increase in automated systems which perform labor previously performed by human workers calls to question the need for as large a general population as historically been needed.

Largely by manipulations within the educational, media and entertainment systems, the King and Lords have managed to convince the general public that such an inequitable distribution of wealth is right and proper.  This is no small feat considering all the wealth has either been provided by either the natural composition of the Earth itself or the labor of the Peasants/Serfs.  Often it is a combination of these things combined. 

One inescapable problem with this system (among many) is that people tend to look enviously, lustfully upon the wealth of others.  Possibly the money/power elite behind current events believe that by consolidating world rule under one ruling body, as opposed to many fiefdoms which existed during the medieval times that they will have effectively prevented any serious challenges to their position. However, when there is such a disproportionate distribution of wealth taking place we may be certain that there are persons with resources whose egos, whose greed, will not allow them to accept such conditions.  This ensures that there will be wars, uprisings, revolutions and the like.  Which simultaneously ensures that the conditions which prevent human beings from more fully discovering their innate gifts and abilities will continue to plague humanity.  Too much stress and repeated trauma are not conducive to positive, holistic, human development.

So, do we have any options?  Yes we do if we work together.  We desperately need to largely replace competition with cooperation.  Cooperation between individuals, groups, professions, businesses, nations, and with the Earth itself.  Humankind has ample stress/challenge placed upon us simply by existing upon this Earth at all (yes, a certain amount of stress is healthy/needed.)  We do not need to be continually creating lethal amounts by our own actions.

I love the following illustration.  I’ve used it a lot in my blog articled because it sums it up so graphically.  It beautifully illustrates for us all we need to do to maximize our potential both as individuals and as a species.  To work together so beautifully will, of course, take work.  It will require that we sincerely and diligently work to overcome our prejudices, misunderstandings, relatively trivial and not so trivial differences.  Impossible?  Not at all.  If we want it, really want it, and are willing to work for it, we can have it.  Might it be hard?  Yes, at times it might be.  However, it couldn’t possibly take any more work and resources than we currently devote to violence, killing, war.  Ultimately it very well may be our only long term option as a species.  We are currently in possessions of the weaponry and delivery means to wipe ourselves from our Earthly existence.  To think such a potential exists but that some crazed authoritarian head of state or rogue military officer would never actually employ it is, I think, naive.  We very much need to curb our intolerance, judgementalism, and other ego driven constructs which separate us and pit us against one another.  We very much need to realize our interdependence, our interconnectedness and begin enjoying all blessings which lie in wait for us when we do.

(c) AlexMax http://www.fotosearch.com

The Family Potluck

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Health, Politics, Spirituality
Image (c) AlexMax http://www.fotosearch.com

Maybe some have never experienced a large family potluck. I know many have, however, unfortunately, there are probably some who haven’t. If you’re one of them, I hope as your life proceeds you have the opportunity to do so. A large family potluck provides an excellent analogy for how world economics should operate.

First, everybody should contribute. If not in supplying the food, in helping with the set-up or the clean-up. For the most part though, in my experience, participants either individually or as a component family of the larger family group, bring some kind of food. The result can be the most wonderful, varied, delicious collection of edibles one may have ever seen. A dizzying collection of aromas, colors, textures, and finally tastes. It can be difficult knowing where to start, what to put on one’s plate. Some may pick a selective and limited menu, opting for three or four items. While the plates of others may be a microcosm of the dizzying kaleidoscope of food displayed on the serving table. Large family potlucks can be some of the most wonderful feasts, both of food and of fellowship, that one can experience. As long as everyone is considerate, no one takes an inordinate amount of food, then everyone finds themselves delightfully filled.

But what if someone decided that they were going to take all of one of the items rather than a sampling of many offerings? That would put a crimp in things. Or what if someone said that because they had supplied the dinnerware, all the other family members should pay them an exorbitant fee to participate? Maybe someone in the family invented the fork and they want two-thirds of all the food as recompense? (Maybe they should be sent to their room and told to eat their forks?) Maybe someone is an excellent pastry chef and feels that because they have contributed such excellent pies they should be first in line and allowed to fill five plates; one for now and four for later? Or, maybe the elder family members feel age should determine the serving order and if, after they eat their fill and fill a few take-home containers the younger members can fight over the scraps? Or maybe it’s the reverse and the more youthful, belligerent family members forcibly commandeer the table and to hell with everyone else?

Family potlucks should not, and I venture rarely do, require someone to be the “food police”. Oh, sometimes it may require a parent to admonish a child that, for their own good, they should not just fill up on pie. However, generally everyone recognizes the flow and the balance of the gathering and with appropriate consideration for others, things simply flow smoothly and wonderfully.

Do you see where this is going?

Our unsustainable, schizoid, economic reality.

by kendunning, posted in Community, Economics, Oppression, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality, Sustainability
Photo: Ken Dunning

I was listening to a program on Public Radio this morning. The reality of refugee children, their usually traumatic, desperate life experiences were being detailed. I suppose, for someone living in the U.S. or another country which refugees are fleeing to, one reaction to such a presentation is to feel good that safer harbor is being offered. That is a good thing. However, that is not an ultimate answer to the problem which the current masses of refugees are a symptom of. The overriding problem is the creation of nonviable, unsafe, violent, often deadly conditions in the countries, cultures, and communities from which the refugees are fleeing.

I’m sure that some analysts can point to a myriad of reasons for the horrible conditions which are manifesting in country after country around the world. The Ukraine is the latest country receiving world wide news attention to be experiencing such a descent into hellish conditions. I am fairly confident that there are other countries, other populations, also experiencing such a descent at this time which are not receiving such wide news coverage.

Analysts can take a great amount of time and energy pointing at historical events, cultural proclivities, past wars, historical animosities, and assigning current ravages to such causation can all seem very convincing, and hopelessly complex and irreconcilable. I’m not saying that there are not real contributing reasons to be found in such analyses. However, whenever there is a population experiencing cultural deterioration and the rise of hellish conditions, there are causative factors which are not so complex, culturally specific, nor so perplexing and/or mysterious. There are a few key factors which are common to all such descents into hell being experienced in countries, and among populations, around the world. These factors are:

  • People who occupy key social/political/economic positions that are infected by a compelling lust for the acquisition of wealth and power.
  • Persons of similar mindset who hope to share in the plunder by adopting a subservient attitude toward those waging campaigns of acquisition of wealth and power upon the world.
  • A callous disregard or contempt for the lives and well-being of the general populations held by those involved in the quest for wealth and power and those that support them.
  • An inability, or unwillingness, on the part of the population to resist the depletion and/or destruction of their communities and lives. Sometimes segments of the population may support the cruelty and violence on the part of those in power toward other segments of the population. Thereby becoming accessories in the descent into hell of their country, and ultimately of themselves. This can be the result of a strategy of divide and conquer being implemented by those in power.
  • A desire to exact retribution/revenge on the part of the persecuted segment of the population toward their persecutors. This opens the door for an ongoing cycle of violence, misery, and hell on Earth.

It is important to note that while material wealth and cultural/political power are the currencies of such situations, the driving forces involved are spiritual. The greed, lust, hate, contempt for the lives of others, that underlie all such situations are symptomatic of a toxic, ailing, spiritual reality. One in which all affected know little or no peace nor harmony with the world around them. In essence, the internal spiritual toxicity and sickness of those in power becomes expressed in the conditions of the countries and populations over which they wield power/authority. It is not required to somehow address all the historical factors for healing to occur. What is required is for the persons in the here-and-now, the present, to recognize the destructive reality consistently brought into the world when people lose sight of the innate spiritual need for people to treat one another as we want to be treated. For people to adopt life oriented, life affirming, egalitarian values and actions. To recognize the pervasive divine spirit of life that flows through and connects all life on Earth and throughout the universe.

It may present as a simple proposition, however, it entails people voluntarily, with dedication and commitment, entering into a monitoring of their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. It requires consciously transforming intentionally or inadvertently destructive and/or malevolent motives into benevolent ones. Reorienting the thinking and behavioral patterns that have engendered the descent into hell. It is imminently possible, it does require commitment, dedication and work. I would suggest to anyone entering into that discipline, that a place to start is in recognizing when any thoughts or feelings which entail doing direct or indirect harm to others to take place within your mind then redirect that energy into addressing the provocative issues in a constructive, benevolent manner. What on Earth could be a motive powerful enough to motivate a person to such a reorientation? The realization of what the world can be if humankind can succeed in such a transformation. Studying the works of the saints, prophets, healers, shaman, can help provide material to aide in redefining, reorienting, one’s ingrained, dysfunctional, self-destructive thinking patterns.

So where does the “schizoid” aspect of it all enter in? Contemplate this: in the U.S. and some other Western countries, tax dollars are used, public money, to spend extravagantly on military purposes which often seem to be in support of corporate agendas. Agendas which too often involve killing people and destroying infrastructure in poorer, often Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries. While there may be some form of industry which takes place as a result, this industry is too often predatory. With a priority on corporate profits the resources, both material and human, of the affected nation are plundered with the nation being left poorer, often fragmented and further traumatized.

“We the People”, via the Government and U.S. corporations allow, subsidize and/or provide weapons or literally are the military force for much, of the murderous destruction that is taking place in the world. Then we have fund raisers and charities and offer refuge to the hapless victims of the enterprises of those enterprises. Band aid responses to sledgehammer blows. If that isn’t schizoid nothing is. However, then we the citizens of the countries in which are home to the persons, corporations, who are the actual driving forces behind all the carnage, the principle profiteers of the plundering and carnage taking place, may feel resentment to the refugees of that plunder and carnage. A resentment born of the perception of increasingly scarce resources going toward foreigners who have not earned those resources.

Often the general populations of the U.S. and other involved Western countries may have an apathetic attitude toward it all, or even support the carnage. Usually while under the trance of the professionally thought out, compelling narratives, those most directly involved and profiting from the carnage are broadcasting. And it gets even worse, The very same people and corporations that are driving and profiting from the aforementioned carnage are also driving and profiting from the policies and practices which are creating the aforementioned increasing scarcity of housing, jobs and other resources in the U.S. and other involved Western Countries.

Most of the work being done to support these wealth and power driven individuals and corporations is being done by people whose own lives, or those of their children, grandchildren are, or will be, negatively affected by the fruits of their labors. It is as irrational a situation as could exist.

We, the people of the world, need to come to our senses, stop aiding and abetting the madness, and treat each other fairly, with understanding and compassion.