Tag: Politics

Demonstrations, protests and riots are going on all over the U.S. Why?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Innovation, Personal Development, Politics, Psychology, Science, Spirituality
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Why do I use Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs so often in my articles? Because it informs us of a concept key to a successful life as a person or for a culture.

In many important, essential ways, people, by and large, aren’t all that complicated.  Maslow knew this aspect of our reality and took the time to try to organize our needs by importance in relationship to our survival and well-being.  Of course we don’t always find ourselves involved with filling each need in exactly the order Maslow arranged them, however, if our needs aren’t met at one level, the more desperate the need we feel, the more we’re stuck on that level.

We need to keep this reality in mind when we are working to understand and/or figure out how to respond to the demonstrations, protests and riots going on in the U.S. and elsewhere.  What these events are, every one of them, are symptoms of unmet needs.  They are populated by people who can no longer stand idly by while feeling their innate human needs go unmet.  It might have worked for them at one time.  A time when they were, for whatever reasons, able to suppress their internal urges because they felt hope that a pathway was going to open up for them to pursue fulfillment.  But when that hope wanes, desperation comes in on it’s heels.

The “rugged individualists”, particularly the ones who have found themselves in comfortable positions, might say:  well it’s their fault, they didn’t work hard enough to take care of themselves, they’re lazy.  Maybe, to some extent, for some of the people, there is some degree of truth in that.  But there is something obvious that really flies in the face of that logic:  those “lazy” people are out marching in the streets.  They are feeling a need and somebody, or something, provided them with a direction.  When one is desperate, doing something, anything, even if it’s wrong can be preferable to doing nothing.  If a direction offers some degree of even blind, hope, it is going to have an attraction.  That’s how desperation works.

The fact people are out marching, protesting, even rioting, shows that, given a direction, they are willing to take action to do something, anything, to try to gain fulfillment for their unmet needs.  It is clear that what most people need in such a situation is direction.  What is being demonstrated in these events is raw, potential energy looking for a way to become kinetic, to provide what is needed to fulfill the unmet needs.

In a civilized society it should just be a given that we are working together to meet the needs of all.  Whether we privately own things, communally own things or work with a model that embraces the best method for the immediate needs at hand, as long as we have the mind that it is a combined effort for the good of all, we will be fine.

Have you ever been poor?  After two-thirds of the month has gone by have you ever found yourself wondering how you’re going to eat for the remaining third?  When you are in that position, and you walk into a grocery store, you want EVERYTHING.  It can seem that you couldn’t possibly buy enough to satisfy your hunger.  However, if you’re not poor, if you’re well fed and you enter a grocery store, it’s not that hard to be totally satisfied picking up whatever it was you came for.  People are like that, in more ways than simply regarding food.  When we are feeling an acute shortage of something, a deep-down need for something, we can easily find ourselves thinking we want it all.

No matter how absurd or grandiose the participants’ expressed demands in the heat of desperation may be, when the people involved see and feel their needs are being genuinely fulfilled, they will, however tentatively at first, begin responding favorably to whatever is providing, and shows it can continue to provide, that fulfillment.   To merely offer such a movement resistance is to stand squarely in the way of much needed hope and change.

A footnote:  This is not to advocate for a program of ongoing free stuff for all dissatisfied people.  In Maslow’s hierarchy, self esteem is a basic human need.  Working at a fair rate in exchange for what one receives is a part of healthy self esteem.  Sometimes a person’s being able to accept “free” stuff is needed in order to pull that person up when they are down, but it’s not a viable long term solution.

A house divided against itself…

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Environment, Mental Health, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Unified Field
Fotosearch_k22192444
(c) AlexMax http://www.fotosearch.com

In our attempts, our efforts, at building a viable, vital society, we can learn much by observing and understanding the functioning of our own bodies.  There is a saying attributed to Hermes Trismegistus:  “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.”   This is often shortened to “As above, so below, as below, so above”.  This concept, or the observation of the nature of our reality, provides us with an understanding, which, if applied to our efforts at creating and maintaining a human culture, can do much to guide us toward what will be in harmony with the natural world.  The natural world which we are working with and within and therefore toward a more vibrant, stable and enduring culture.

Our bodies are miracles of design.  They are self-repairing, self-renewing, and they offer us multiple senses, or avenues of interface, with our environment.  They provide us with much enjoyment and pleasure.  And provide us with discomfort and/or pain to let us know when we’re not supplying them with what they need, or too much of what they don’t need.  Ultimately what makes the whole thing work is the the organs, the cells, within the body work together to keep the body, the whole, alive and well.  One of the serious threats to the health of our bodies is the occasion when some cells become sickened and engage in a pattern of runaway duplication (growth) and a voracious appetite for energy.  One could say they get greedy for resources and want to take over.  They behave more competitively than cooperatively.  Of course, as our ancestors knew centuries ago:  Mark 3:25, Jesus states, “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”  

Now really, just think about that last statement for a minute, it’s not rocket science.  It’s something that immediately makes sense both intellectually and emotionally.  I think this is one of those truths that people just innately know, that comes with birth.  Yet it is one many people quickly turn their backs on when the world dangles some bling in front of them and says:  Go now and compete.  Within human cultures around the world that is the genesis of a cancer that is destroying our cultures with the same certainty that an untreated malignant cancer destroys a human body.  I can imagine someone thinking, but isn’t that just exercising personal freedom?   Yes it is.  And freedom is an essential aspect of a healthy human culture.  However, it is also just exercising personal freedom to take an automatic weapon to an elementary school and start shooting students.  Freedom is a double edged sword and is only an asset to humanity when it is combined with wisdom.  Such as the wisdom that if we aren’t all working together, cooperatively, for the good of the whole of humanity, the body of humanity, we are in the process of destroying that body.  And just as the cells of a body cannot survive for long once the body as a whole becomes unviable, no matter how adept a survivalist one might think they are, human beings cannot survive indefinitely outside a viable human culture.

All my life I have heard Charles Darwin exalted as one of the, effectively, high priests of the natural world.  I don’t think it’s possible to think of Charles Darwin and not think of the phrase survival of the fittest.  That is the phrase those most industrially disseminating information within popular culture have locked onto regarding Darwin.  But today those who are seriously researching Darwin’s ideas and adaptive strategies are saying friendliness and cooperation is the most successful strategy for survival.  This is just one more example of how spirituality and science are converging in the world today.

If we are to survive as a species on this planet we must recognize our oneness, our interconnectedness and interdependence.  Not merely within cities, or nations, but as global body of humanity.

What does a new “case” of covid-19 mean? (And is it okay to shout “fire” in a crowded theater?)

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Healthcare, Medicine, Politics, Psychology, Trust and betrayal.

fake-news-2

One of William Shakespeare’s most well-known questions is: “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  However, it is also well known that names, words, can and do make a great difference in how we perceive a thing.  The noun “case”, especially when relating to illness/disease is one of these words.  We have to be aware that sometimes a word means something in common usage, and also, within the specialization of one discipline or another, that word may have a particular meaning.  For example, we all know what the common usages of the word “head” are.  Either a body part or possibly the boss, or leader of something.  However, in the Navy, the word “head” can and often does refer to the toilet/WC.  Sometimes it all depends on the context the word is being used in.  The word “case” has some similar usage issues.

In common usage I venture to say we usually think of a “case” as being something that holds something else, like a cellphone case.  Or, when speaking about illness, a case is commonly thought of occurring when someone is actively ill with something.  We’ve all probably heard about someone coming down with a case of food poisoning, or, heaven forbid, a case of cancer.  The fact that someone ate some food which somehow, later, turned up as tainted, means that maybe the person might “come down with a case of food poisoning”, but not necessarily.   With cancer I have heard that at any given time most (all?) of us have some potentially cancerous cells in our body, however that doesn’t mean we’re suffering with a case of cancer. A “case” of something commonly means someone is actively suffering, ill, with whatever it is.   The CDC and other public health related people and agencies however, seem to have a different meaning for the word “case” within their technical jargon.  In that usage a “case” can evidently mean simply a positive test result which may, or may not, indicate the presence of detectable material from a COVID virus. Remember, at any given time most of us have some potentially cancerous cells in our body which does not indicate we have a case of cancer.

So when we hear about all the new cases of covid-19 turning up, what does that mean?  Does that mean all the people represented by that number are actively suffering from the severe ravages of covid-19, which we’ve heard so much about?  If we’re thinking in common usage terms, the word “case” tends to lead our minds down that path.  However, the reality is that in terms of the daily covid “scoreboard”, it doesn’t mean that at all.  It means more people have been tested and some of the test results are positive.  Kind of like someone eating some food with some unwanted bacteria growing on it.  It doesn’t mean that they are necessarily going to come down with a case of food poisoning.  As with exposure to just about every potentially harmful substance on Earth, there a few other variables involved such as the amount of the “dose” of bacteria and the person’s pre-existing state of health.  I think that the robustness of the human immune system is being largely ignored as the covid scenario progresses.  Which brings us back to: will someone who tests positive for covid become ill, develop symptoms?  Maybe. I’m not sure there are any reliable numbers on the relationship between testing positive and becoming symptomatic.  But even if odds are that an infected person will develop some symptoms, as the World Health Organization states:  “COVID-19 affects different people in different ways. Most infected people will develop mild to moderate illness and recover without hospitalization.”

At this point I find myself asking, would the daily news have the same quality of sensationalism if what is reported as “cases” are more accurately reported as “positive test results”?  At this time the sensationalized use of the the word “cases” is an instrument for the production of fear.  Imagine the headline:  “Today an additional 1,000 people tested positive for covid.”  After a few weeks, how many people are going to be on the edge of their seats waiting for the latest tally?  But if they say there are 1,000 new cases of covid, especially without any qualifying explanations, our minds, our imaginations, tend to take us down the path of common usage to a forest of doom and gloom, don’t they?  So, are we being misled?  I think so, I think the folks putting the words together know exactly what picture those words are likely to conjure up in the minds of the general public.  However, are they lying?  I think it can be easily argued in a court of law that, no, the health officials are merely reporting the facts as they define them.  And the media is just parroting what they’re being told. 

I think the reporting which is taking place around covid by the mainstream media in the U.S. begs the question: is it okay to shout “fire” in a crowded theater?

Psychology, manipulation and the coronavirus.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Environment, Politics, Psychology, Unified Field

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Why do I use a graphic of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs so often in my articles? Because it informs us of a reality key to a successful life as a person and as a culture.

I began studying psychology in 1969, as a Freshman in college. I had a predisposition to being interested in human behavior. I felt the same about psychology as I imagine a lot of people do about chemistry, engineering, nutrition, or medicine. I felt psychology held keys to understanding and improving the quality of life for everyone. During my Sophomore year I changed my major to psychology (it had been music).

As time went on, I found myself in a wide range of environments, exposed to just about the full gamut of human behaviors. All through this time I have had the good fortune to be exposed to instruction ranging from the cutting edge, the esoteric, the eclectic and the classic trains of thought. My life has pretty much revolved around working to understand why we humans do what we do. I am happy and grateful to report that, on the whole with information coming from a plethora of fields of study, we humans have garnered a very great deal of knowledge about ourselves.

We know much about what we need to have healthy, full, wholesome, complete lives. However, as a race, there has possibly been no other time in recorded history, in which we, as a species, have ignored so much available information. I would add: not only are we widely ignoring so much available knowledge, some individuals and groups which are working to advantage their own wealth and power, are perverting and abusing much of the knowledge that we do have. I don’t think there’s any field of study more widely abused right now than psychology.

The “powers that be” within industry and government very early on recognized the potential the information coming from the field of psychology offered for manipulating people. Not for informing and leading people to understand ourselves, make wise decisions, and have healthy, full lives. But for manipulating people to do the things “they” want to see people doing. Buying things “they” want people to buy. Believing things “they” want people to believe. Behaviors that enrich their lives, not ours.

The contemporary, industrial use of psychology as a tool for manipulation of the public began manifesting as: advertising, which evolved into public relations, which has evolved into engineering consent. Engineering consent is currently the art of controlling what people perceive so that their/our reactions will pave the way for the fulfillment of the controllers’ agenda(s). We used to simply call it “lying”, and that definition still applies. But the current manipulative efforts are happening in such a sophisticated and technological manner, being done in service of people whose agendas are so totally based in egoism, so devoid of consideration for those who are the targets of the manipulation, that merely calling it “lying” doesn’t do justice to the depths of depravity these manipulative efforts emanate from.

Back in the early twentieth century, one of the seminal people in this dark trend was Edward Bernays. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, His efforts contributed heavily to women getting into smoking tobacco and fluoridation of public water. He has been referred to as “the father of spin”. I would say his title should more appropriately have to do with mastering the art of betrayal of trust.

What began as, and still is, a science with so much promise for improving the quality of life for humanity (which is how most sciences get started) is going through a time of profound perversion.  Mental health services are, I think, the most common interface between the general public and psychological expertise.  However mental health in many cases has become just another sales outlet for the pharmaceutical companies.

The reality of the evolution of the science of psychology is that what we have learned can show us much of what is needed to establish personal and sociologic well-being.  One example is Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” which provides a basic template for personal and collective well-being.  But these aspects of the science of psychology, the aspects relating to the general population becoming healthy and whole, seem to be truly frightening to those who have been using psychology for manipulation and exploitation.

Restating the situation, the science of human behavior contains great deal of understanding of what we need to be whole, as individuals and as a culture.  What we know about what we need to be whole and healthy, as individuals and as a culture, is often directly contradictory to what many in positions of industrial and political power, around the world, want us to believe.  What we need for health and wholeness often informs us to behave in ways those currently holding the reins of industrial and political power do not want to see us behaving in. Ways that do not primarily serve them and their egoistic agendas.

Very often today the field of mental health is viewed with skepticism.  The results frequently experienced by those accessing mental health services, and seen by those around them, tends to cast mental health services as a marginally effective service at best. To a very significant extent, this is a result of what I call the unidirectional nature of how mental health knowledge and services are most often applied.  Every challenge to our mental health is occurring within a context. To try to resolve the issues by only addressing the dynamics within the person experiencing the challenges (mental-emotional distress, maladjustment, mental illness) without simultaneously addressing any pathological dynamics within the context, the society, the person lives within, is to simply ask a person to be healthy within an unhealthy culture. It is a unidirectional approach to mental health.

(There is a similar unidirectional phenomenon happening with laws and law enforcement in the U.S.  But that is another story for another time.)

There is a saying: “Culture is to people as water is to fish.”  The fact is, a human being cannot be whole and healthy within an unhealthful culture any more than a fish can be whole and healthy within a polluted lake.

The best that can be hoped for is to compensate as well as possible until the challenges with their accompanying stress finally take their toll. Physical illness, and/or mental illness, and eventually a hastened death are not an uncommon result. One coping option, one which some have been using for centuries, is that an individual or group can try to escape the hellish dynamics too often present in society at large by attempting to live in a self-contained society. Monks and Nuns have sought refuge in such an attempt at controlling a micro-environment for centuries. In the U.S. small communes have experienced varying degrees of success. However, such efforts come at a price. That price is the seclusion itself. While those opting for such a lifestyle may genuinely feel that the benefit is worth the cost, such a system is not a viable answer for everyone.

So where does all this leave us? Exactly where we are right now. We are a species too often turned upon itself. Narrowly defined self interest expressed in predatory financial practices, an absence of consideration for others and even an absence of consideration for our natural environment itself, combined, are genuinely threatening to extinguish us as a species. We are on a spaceship called Earth. You would think that even the most narrowly self-centered among us would have consideration for the natural life-support systems we all rely upon. But, as widespread pollution and destruction of essential habitat and species shows, that isn’t the case. Right now, the fact is, there are some extraordinarily short-sighted, narrowly focused, inconsiderate, egoistic, ignorant (by default or by design) people running too much of what is going on. And we’re letting them.

As I’m writing this, April 1, 2020, much of the U.S. and the world is quarantined due to the coronavirus pandemic. As someone has put it: It’s like mother nature has sent us to our rooms to think about what we’re doing. Will we? Will we, across the globe, use some of this time to consider our own thinking, our own behaviors, and rejoin the world at large better for it?  Will our individual and collective well-being be prioritized higher than corporate profit, corporate well-being?  We’ll see.

Will we, can we, as a species, realize our interconnectedness (as demonstrated graphically by the current pandemic) and apply this awareness to the betterment of our collective well-being? It’s all up to us. Part of what a genuine recovery will entail, is the realization of how pervasively our cultures have been being manipulated by those with narrow, self-serving agendas.

Too often we are being manipulated to hate and fear those who are different in some way from ourselves. We are being manipulated to believe that pursuing narrow self-interest is what we should be doing. We are being manipulated to believe that those who are the most successful at narrowly pursuing their own self-interest are the successes in life. That we should look up to them, emulate them.

As a species, ultimately, we cannot survive, we absolutely cannot ever thrive, with such a mindset.  But if we truly grasp our interconnectedness and act in ways which, in every way, further our personal well-being and our collective well-being, we have the potential to experience a quality of life beyond what many have imagined.

The most important battle going on.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Mental Health, Oppression, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Trust and betrayal., War

Fotosearch_k17282832 (1)
(c) mrdoggs http://www.fotosearch.com

 

This post is essentially an invitation to watch a documentary which was produced in 2010.  However the subject matter of the film is timeless.

Whether you’re watching FOX, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., you’re being fed bullshit. But it comes in different flavors, because those controlling the news know, everyone doesn’t like vanilla. However there are certain constants no matter what channel you tune in to. Some of them are:

1. Accumulating vast wealth is good.
2. We should all admire those who have accumulated vast wealth.
3. Be afraid, be very afraid.. Depending upon what channel you’re watching, what we’re supposed to be afraid of can vary. But it’s never the extravagantly wealthy, nor war.
4. War is a necessity.
5. We need to spend more on war.

It is important to those busily accumulating wealth and power, regardless of the effects of their actions upon the majority of people in the world, or the planet itself, that we, the masses, believe these things. They are constantly endeavoring to engineer consent for their actions. Our continued belief of these concepts enables them to maintain and advance their agenda.

All we need to win this war is to realize our kinship, our innate interconnectedness. To love one another as we love ourselves. And to love the universal creative spirit that gives us life. To respect the creator, respect the creation.

The most important battle going on is to control our perceptions of what is going on. The battle to control our thoughts.  This documentary provides a clear picture of history and nature of this battle.  Click on the link to be taken to the full video on YouTube:

Psywar

What’s changing the attitude of immigrants?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Oppression, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality

sailing-ship
(c) NesaCera http://www.fotosearch.com

There have been a number of posts about how someone’s ancestors (like mine) immigrated to the U.S. Were glad to be here, learned the language, and assimilated into the culture. That used to be the norm.

As is all too clear from the news that is not necessarily the case with immigrants today.

However, there is something else that is different that isn’t as widely distributed via the news. When my ancestors, and others, in the past came to the U.S. it wasn’t because U.S. individuals and corporations, and foreign tyrants, often with assistance from the U.S. government, had destroyed living conditions in their countries of origin.

That being the case, why would they want to come here?   Why come to a country whose governmental policies obviously, and increasingly, show moral bankruptcy?  A country which the home to those who have absconded with a great deal of their country’s natural resources? That’s a good question, however, it also provides the answer. They are just, as the phrase states: following the money.  The wealth which, at one time, resided in their home countries, or was the land they lived on and farmed.

Countries are like ships.  While conditions are acceptable on them, whose going to jump overboard and risk the dangerous swim to a ship on the horizon?  Nobody, or very, very few.  Everyone needs a ship to live on.  We all need a home.  We all need hope.

So, unless we want to see this mad scramble continue indefinitely, this mad scramble to find space in one of the ships of state where conditions still offer hope, one of two things has to happen.  1. We either try to revitalize conditions on the other ships in our world, or, 2. We kill a whole lot of people around the world, stop the flow at the source.

At this point a lot of you are offended, shocked by the latter option.  Good for you, you’re still fully human.  But there are some reading this who may not be shocked at all.  Who will think, good idea, let’s take that second option.

There are a number of ways that a human being’s innate sensibilities can be numbed to the point the second option seems attractive.  Ongoing trauma, over years, might do it.  Chronic severe stress, again over years, might do it.  Or belonging to a group, a family or club, which engages in practices designed to numb, to obliviate, those aspects of our humanity; empathy or any other innate connectivity to others, can do it.  And if you aren’t already aware, there are such groups, families, and clubs.   If you occupy a position of authority, it doesn’t seem to be all that difficult to find some who will blindly follow.

Humankind has a sorry history of people being willing to be used by those in positions of authority.  We’ve been doing it for decades, centuries.  Sometimes it doesn’t require a whole lot of effort on the part of those working to manipulate us to serve their agendas.  If starting with a human being early enough, with the right indoctrination, mass murder can just seem normal.  I think that was probably one of the goals within the Hitler Youth movement.  There are many reports of practices among groups claiming to be satanic which feed such a state of being.  And, as noted in the prior paragraph, there are others.  If you doubt this at all, look around, events in the world clearly show there are a good number of  people who do not flinch at the prospect of killing, murdering others to gain some worldly resource or another, or simply because someone in a position of authority told them to.  They can be found in dark alleys, on battlefields, and  they can be found in what has come to be known as “polite society”.

I tend to think it requires even less in the way of indoctrination to get people to perform activities which support rapacious, materialistic behavior when all they know of it are figures on a spreadsheet, abstractions.  White collar crime has, in many places, had many of it’s forms legalized by those who benefit most from it’s practices.

So, what about the rest of us, those of us who are still fully in possession of our innate human faculties?  Do we just follow the example of the three monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?  Following that model will only help pave an unobstructed road for those who seek to prey upon the world at large.

I am in the U.S., the examples I have given refer most directly to things going on the U.S. However, the behaviors, the actions, the dynamics described in this post are most certainly not limited to the U.S. The very same dynamics are going on around the world. Different predators, same activities.

What those of us who still are cognizant of the interconnectedness of life, who are still guided by our innate sense of what is fair and reasonable, must do is speak out, act out.  Speak out the truths we know.  Do not quietly allow those with purely self-serving agendas slant, distort and/or fabricate the information which is being disseminated within our communities.  Act out.  Vote whenever possible to support just causes.  Participate in and support businesses and activities which truly are benefits to our communities.  Refuse to participate in the machinations working to drain the economic life out of our communities.  Refuse to participate in activities which are polluting our air, water, soil, our world, our very bodies.  Discourage our young people from becoming tools for the militaristic destruction of other people, the takeover of other country’s resources.

Love one another as we love ourselves.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the nature of the future we are creating? Will we have a place in it?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Innovation, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Unified Field

Oliver and the fishIn case you haven’t become aware, throughout the U.S. and other places in the world, we have been being sprayed from airplanes with metallic nanoparticles for years now.  We breathe them in, they permeate us.  Also, they are toxic, they accelerate forest fires, and they contaminate the soil and water.  Now powerful microwave stations are being set up across the U.S. and other countries (5G). What we know from the study of human brainwave activity is that the potential to affect human brainwave production with external sources of stimulation is very real. We can be induced to be anxious, angry, docile, sleepy, even dead, via external stimulation at varying frequencies. I have worked in this area for years doing neurofeedback and have seen how even a small amount of external stimulation can drive our brainwave production up or down the frequency spectrum.

By turning us into even more sensitive walking antennas through infusing us with fine metallic particles, the potential to be able to externally affect us with microwaves increases. Does anyone think this is being done with the intention, the plan, to somehow make us healthier and happier?

There are people, rich and politically influential people, who want to see us gone from the face of the Earth.  This is not some hidden agenda, it is written and there for all to see, if one looks.  The Georgia Guidestones, Agenda 21, and other sources reveal this agenda.  They believe there are too many of us. They have collectively hoarded trillions of dollars, built vast underground bunkers, some quite luxurious. Some small cities. What we common folk represent to them are people with needs. Needs they don’t want to have to think about.

The technology, the resources exist for all of us, literally every person on Earth, to have happy healthy lives. But that requires those who have captured the vast majority of worldly resources to want to use them for that purpose.

What is our future going to be?

What we have been doing through hating one another, fearing one another and being willing to abuse one another, is feeding the mean spirit of those who love material wealth more passionately than the spirit of life itself.  

We can turn this horrible pattern of events around.  To do so we must turn to our source, the Universal Creative Spirit, God, and embrace love.  Not a passive, complacent love,  but an active, vital, love.  An active, expressed, caring for life itself.  We must realize it is us who must engage in the nurturing of ourselves and the beautiful planet we call home.  We must lovingly, but firmly, resolutely, expect it from ourselves and from others.   It must be our creed, our guiding motive.  Doing so we all can not only live, but thrive.  We can experience personal development beyond anything we are commonly taught to expect.  Working together, we can heal not only ourselves but our planet.

Or we can continue with the fearful, hateful, short sighted, egoistic, greed-filled, patterns that are tearing our lives and our world apart.  It’s entirely up to us.

 

Postscript:  While the mainstream news media pretty much ignores the dumping of tons of toxic metals onto the U.S. and other countries, some information is making it’s way to the light of day.  Here are some videos which shed more light upon the subject:

Ted Gunderson was the former Director of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles office, and a couple others. After retiring from the F.B.I., working as a private investigator, he began to discover truths he had never imagined in his career in law enforcement. By all accounts, he was killed for it. There are many videos on YouTube of him reporting his findings. They are shocking, a lot of people will find them difficult or impossible to believe. His videos are indispensable to anyone trying to get a clearer picture of what is going on in the world, and why.  Ted Gunderson on chemtrails.

Documentary:  What in the World Are They Spraying?

A typical bureaucratic response:  Interview in Shasta County.

One of the Most Important Questions Facing Humankind Today

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Environment, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality, Unified Field

Ripples 1For most of my life, the U.S. has been involved with one war or another.  My young life was very much affected by the Vietnam war.  I remember when it was over.  I thought maybe sanity would have a chance to take hold of the world.  It looked like it might, for a while.  But that was only an illusion afforded me because I had no idea about what was taking place in the private rooms of the power-brokers of the world.  Other plans were being laid.

There were a few involvements here and there, Granada, Lebanon, and others.  However it still looked to me like maybe we (the people of the world) were on our way toward a more harmonious existence.   I do believe that is what the majority of the people in the world, the common people, want.  When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, that seemed confirmation that a positive trend was indeed happening.  But again, that illusion was only afforded me, and in retrospect a lot of other people, due to ignorance of the plans the rich and powerful had in mind.

As time has gone on and I have learned more about what has precipitated the wars of my lifetime, I have learned the leading cause can be summed up in one word:  greed.  Of course if any country tries to fly the banner of “greed” to enlist the support of the common citizenry, it probably won’t go very far.  Nope.  So other banners have to be flown.  The favorite ones seem to be “freedom”, “ending terrorism”, “human rights”, “democracy”.  Stopping communism from spreading was the rallying cry during the Cold War, but we don’t hear too much about that anymore.  Except connected with the Presidential election cycles.  I think a while back those who have been able to construct an economic matrix which funnels the vast majority of the world’s wealth into their hands, realized two things:

1.  It was/is important to not let the manipulations and inequities of the system being developed to become a mainstream issue.  This means finding/inventing reasons which direct the public’s attention in other directions.  One of the ploys has been to create a faceless entity “the economy” as a peg on which, with little or no grounding in the day to day world of the general population, explanations for financial conditions can be hung.

2.  It is important to keep the attention, the dissatisfaction, of the general public directed toward issues which drive a wedge between different factions.  (And away from the reality of what is happening with the wealth that is being produced.)  Racial, religious, ethnic, gender, along with a few other issues of the moment, have lent themselves well to keeping the public’s eye off of the wholesale looting of entire countries that is going on.  By widely and repeatedly publicizing aspects of these issues on which there is disagreement within factions of the general public, and framing the news coverage in as inflammatory a manner as possible, a great distraction can be achieved.

So here we are, facing a world which is on the brink of a war chasm as deep and dark as any humankind has faced in recorded history.  With the possible exception of the Cuban missile crisis and one or two other events of the Cold War, we have never been this precipitously close to a potentially nuclear war.

The past few decades there has been an underlying, insidious, movement within the worldly “powers-that-be”.  A movement away from organizing principles such as unity, equity, fairness, compassion, kinship, and toward more divisive ones:  individual identity, competitive acquisition;  a winner-take-all ruthlessness that regards others as little more than abstract entities to be used, and/or discarded depending upon the agenda of the moment.

The cultures of the “developed” Western world have had a lot to do with this unfortunate evolution.  One major contributor has been the emphasis on individual wealth, fame, power that has been increasingly pervasive since the post WWII period.  It is interesting that such a development would take place on the heels of a period in which unity, combined effort, and a worldwide recognition of mutual interests, had played such a critical role in preventing the conquest of the world by ruthless, authoritarian powers.

Considering the current world situation, the current values being exercised, it is enough to cause one to wonder who did win WWII?

Right now we, the people of the world, have been lied to about a lot of things for a long time. We have been lied to by governments, industries, religious leaders, even those from medical science and other sciences. We have been so programmed with lies and half-truths, that for any of us to develop a solid understanding of what is going on in the world is a herculean feat.  Yet we get caught up in the storm and fury.  Usually coming from a place of caring about something in the world which we see threatened, we throw our perspectives back and forth at each other.  And our perspectives on world events, even national events, are often based upon the half-truths and lies the “authorities” have shared with us.

What do we want to be the defining value of our world?  Individual aggrandizement or collective well-being?  That seems to be a dichotomy today’s conflicts all revolve around.  It’s not a matter of whether or not to have a one-world-government, a one-world-bank, an economy based in free enterprise, capitalism, or managed as democratic socialism.  It’s not even whether or not to have a democracy or a monarchy.  The question on which everything going on in the world hinges upon is none of these things.

The question which determines how viable any system is or isn’t is, how viable any culture is or isn’t, whether there will or won’t be wars, is this:  how do we, as individuals, regard one another?   

What do we think about one another?  How do we feel toward one another?  How do we treat one another?

You know what we are aren’t hearing from our leaders in governments, industry and even too rarely from the leaders of the world’s religions?  That we are all brothers and sisters and we should be loving one another and treating each other right.  If all of us would do that, if we will turn our backs on all the urgings from all the different sources that we should fear, hate and attack one another, we will be fine.  All of us.   

We have the resources and the knowledge, as never before in recorded history, to do what is beneficial for humankind and this beautiful planet we call home.   All we need is the will to make it so.

It is probably unrealistic to think that everyone, all around the world, can forget about, let go of, all the hateful, fear-mongering propaganda we’ve been being fed for decades.  But unless some of us do, unless enough of us do, the future does not look bright for humankind.

A beautiful aspect of this reality is that it doesn’t take a college degree, it doesn’t even take a high school diploma, for us to know how to treat each other right.  All it takes is for us to first be honest with ourselves about how we would truly want to be treated in any given situation, and then working to treat others in that manner.  To have empathy.

One key, which is absolutely essential to this effort, is for us to know the answers we accept, for how we want to be treated and then how we intend to treat others, are based in love.  If they aren’t based in love, they’re based in a falsehood.