http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map
Workers of the World Unite! If it sounds familiar - you know your history. If not, you should learn about the long hard fought battles of workers to earn basic rights as in a 40 hour week, overtime pay, safety in the work place, and child labor laws. Unfortunately most public schools in America hardly touch on this important subject if at all. I suggest the late Professor/Activist Howard Zinn's magnum Opus - A People's History of the United States as a starting point. Here's the link to Amazon.
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/14/386199926/west-coast-port-closures-are-hitting-several-industries-hard
http://www.amazon.com/A-Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0060838655
All should learn about the wobblies - first international industrial union in the early 20th century. See Wiki link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
These early workers rights movements following on the heels of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and later in America are the reason we all have some basic working rights today. Americans should learn about the Pinkerton Guards - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_%28detective_agency%29
corporate hired thugs that would beat up and even kill protesters in the late 19th century during the Gilded Age. A greedy era in US history where the stratification between the haves and the have-nots was even worse than today - although the gap is widening rapidly again - now in the early 21st century.
Please support unions - regardless of the all the negative propaganda corporations spew out - unions are working folks last set of power chips at the great capital bargaining table that the masses have left. The politicians are puppets on strings in our current broken democracy. If you believe in the founding fathers original vision of a checks and balances system - then it is in your best interest to support unions and the right to unionize freely without any interference or intimidation from management. This is your right and you can check it out here The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act
It is up to all working peoples in the world to unite and demand living wages and safe and reasonable work conditions. These are basic human rights that most corporations ignore - and is part of the reason many have left the US over the last 30 years post NAFTA - mostly to exploit cheap labor over seas and weak environmental laws. Greed and avarice rule the day in the USA.
Hey all you freelance workers - join the growing freelancers union - stop being exploited by rich corporations! https://www.freelancersunion.org/
Reach out and connect and support fellow workers today! A living wage from the rich executive's fast food franchises and Big Box stores like Walmart must happen asap! Around 30% of Walmart workers are on Public Assistance - American tax payers are supplementing these workers incomes to the tune of $$$ billions per year! Meanwhile the Walmart owning Walton family are amongst the richest in the world - with billions each! It's sick, ridiculous and must stop! But it will only stop when folks take it to the streets and organize! Boycotts, divestment - whatever it takes! A pocketbook revolution! I write about these important issues and more in my book Sto-ology. Link here.
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409526855&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Breaking Bad - Bad for Society?
After watching some of the Emmy Award show last night - I was again made wary of the fact that the most popular award winning shows on television are steeped in gratuitous violence. Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, True Detective, Homeland and all the forensic who-dunnit crime dramas that begin with a slaughtered/raped dead female in a nasty location. Makes you wonder about the writers' in Hollywood vibes towards women. Especially if you consider the crime rate in America has gone steadily down around 40% over the last 25 years. One would never think this based on the number of these popular violent crime shows with men, and now women dancing around, shooting people with guns, and of course are never hit by any bullets. Total unrealistic crap.Yet they are the most popular shows on TV. Why?
Is it because we are an inherently violent society of degenerate immigrants from around the world that are subdued by the police state created post Reagen Era and even more so post 9/11 - and live vicariously through nasty characters in these violent TV shows? Are people so bored with their mundane lives that the only escape that satisfies during leisure TV watching time are narratives steeped in violence? It seems the answer is yes if one goes by the popularity and award recognition of these types of violent programs.
Yet I wonder if the viewing public were given more quality choices they may choose to watch other types of stories that are more down to earth and deal with complex human dynamics. Shows that would help humanity evolve toward a higher consciousness level.
For the first 30 years (1950s-1980s) or so of TV - there were little if any gratuitous violent programs on the air. Sure - there has always been cop shows and court room dramas but little if any scenes of people getting their heads chopped off or women being raped or folks being shot in the face etc. From Leave it to Beaver in the 1950s to The Cosby Show in the 80s - family programming was somewhat wholesome if not unrealistic in the other extreme of too good to be true. However, I feel this ideal of a healthy nuclear family unit to aim for is a better alternative to the current negative bombardment of horrific images kids take in from a young age into adulthood.
There were other shows in the 1970s that achieved a decent balance between entertainment and reality. Such as All in the Family, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Maude - all created by progressive producer Norman Lear. Shows during the golden age of TV - 1950s-1970s - did not rely on the lowest common denominators such as violence, death and destruction. These reptilian aspects of the human psyche are very primitive and at some point we need to shed them like the snake sheds its skin, if we are ever to move forward in evolutionary terms.
People will argue that if all shows were less violent and negative it would not be a realistic view of reality. But which is feeding the perpetual ongoing negative feedback loop? Are glamorized violent shows that feature the under belly of society really a reflection of where humans are at (based upon real crime levels) or are perverted writers in Hollywood merely spreading their mental sickness via these high budget productions?
Granted these shows have the best actors, directors and writers technically - but what about the negative, violent content and its long and short term effects on society? Does not this constant bombardment of hard core violence and empty sex imagery pollute our minds? We may block out these images after watching, but once they are in your mind's hard drive aka sub consciousness - they are there forever and eventually desensitize you and may influence in a negative way, how you deal with life in general.
If we as a human society are to reach our full potential as a gifted species with the ability to shape our own destiny - then we need to make the simple realization that we are what we consume - mentally, physically and spiritually. The prophets and sages - Jesus and Buddha in particular both projected the ideal of a harmonious world where all respect each other and avoid violence by all means. These visionaries set the bar high 2500 years ago and yet here we are in the 21st century in a supposed new golden age of television that glorifies violence and empty no-love sex. This negative madness is in all our creative entertainment - films, TV shows, sports, music and video games. Sad but true.
We as human consumers with freewill have the choice of saying NO - I will not watch/consume negative and violent content anymore. I choose to be part of the progressive element of human society which wishes to make a better, more peaceful world for all to live in. If this sounds corny or unrealistic - then you are steeped in denial of the fact that unless we change our maladaptive primitive consuming behaviors - humans will never reach their full potential.
As someone who grew up in a semi-violent household - I can tell you that the lasting misery and damage to the psyche that comes out of verbal negativity and violence spreads like a cancer through the family unit and is not something anyone with any common sense would ever want to experience - period. I hear a similar story from all soldiers that have fought in wars, which is basically hell on earth - and the innocent people who survive to talk about it. We now we have a medical term - PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) to describe this dark emotional baggage caused by exposure to horrific violence and the negative consequences of human on human violence.
Only we can set us free and truly evolve by making healthy consuming choices. Let's not let sick minds in Hollywood dictate and affect our cosmic evolution as a species. Turn the channel and if you cannot find anything positive or interesting - turn off the TV! Try some new hobbies. Food for thought.
Is it because we are an inherently violent society of degenerate immigrants from around the world that are subdued by the police state created post Reagen Era and even more so post 9/11 - and live vicariously through nasty characters in these violent TV shows? Are people so bored with their mundane lives that the only escape that satisfies during leisure TV watching time are narratives steeped in violence? It seems the answer is yes if one goes by the popularity and award recognition of these types of violent programs.
Yet I wonder if the viewing public were given more quality choices they may choose to watch other types of stories that are more down to earth and deal with complex human dynamics. Shows that would help humanity evolve toward a higher consciousness level.
For the first 30 years (1950s-1980s) or so of TV - there were little if any gratuitous violent programs on the air. Sure - there has always been cop shows and court room dramas but little if any scenes of people getting their heads chopped off or women being raped or folks being shot in the face etc. From Leave it to Beaver in the 1950s to The Cosby Show in the 80s - family programming was somewhat wholesome if not unrealistic in the other extreme of too good to be true. However, I feel this ideal of a healthy nuclear family unit to aim for is a better alternative to the current negative bombardment of horrific images kids take in from a young age into adulthood.
There were other shows in the 1970s that achieved a decent balance between entertainment and reality. Such as All in the Family, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Maude - all created by progressive producer Norman Lear. Shows during the golden age of TV - 1950s-1970s - did not rely on the lowest common denominators such as violence, death and destruction. These reptilian aspects of the human psyche are very primitive and at some point we need to shed them like the snake sheds its skin, if we are ever to move forward in evolutionary terms.
People will argue that if all shows were less violent and negative it would not be a realistic view of reality. But which is feeding the perpetual ongoing negative feedback loop? Are glamorized violent shows that feature the under belly of society really a reflection of where humans are at (based upon real crime levels) or are perverted writers in Hollywood merely spreading their mental sickness via these high budget productions?
Granted these shows have the best actors, directors and writers technically - but what about the negative, violent content and its long and short term effects on society? Does not this constant bombardment of hard core violence and empty sex imagery pollute our minds? We may block out these images after watching, but once they are in your mind's hard drive aka sub consciousness - they are there forever and eventually desensitize you and may influence in a negative way, how you deal with life in general.
If we as a human society are to reach our full potential as a gifted species with the ability to shape our own destiny - then we need to make the simple realization that we are what we consume - mentally, physically and spiritually. The prophets and sages - Jesus and Buddha in particular both projected the ideal of a harmonious world where all respect each other and avoid violence by all means. These visionaries set the bar high 2500 years ago and yet here we are in the 21st century in a supposed new golden age of television that glorifies violence and empty no-love sex. This negative madness is in all our creative entertainment - films, TV shows, sports, music and video games. Sad but true.
We as human consumers with freewill have the choice of saying NO - I will not watch/consume negative and violent content anymore. I choose to be part of the progressive element of human society which wishes to make a better, more peaceful world for all to live in. If this sounds corny or unrealistic - then you are steeped in denial of the fact that unless we change our maladaptive primitive consuming behaviors - humans will never reach their full potential.
As someone who grew up in a semi-violent household - I can tell you that the lasting misery and damage to the psyche that comes out of verbal negativity and violence spreads like a cancer through the family unit and is not something anyone with any common sense would ever want to experience - period. I hear a similar story from all soldiers that have fought in wars, which is basically hell on earth - and the innocent people who survive to talk about it. We now we have a medical term - PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) to describe this dark emotional baggage caused by exposure to horrific violence and the negative consequences of human on human violence.
Only we can set us free and truly evolve by making healthy consuming choices. Let's not let sick minds in Hollywood dictate and affect our cosmic evolution as a species. Turn the channel and if you cannot find anything positive or interesting - turn off the TV! Try some new hobbies. Food for thought.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Excellent Deepak Chopra Essay on SF Gate Website - Naive Realism
I totally agree with Deepak's argument here. I am fed up with the secular priests preaching their own extremist and unscientific view points in regards to a material reductionism perspective on reality that ignores some the most important phenomena that makes us human. Metaphysical phenomena such as questions/mysteries - what is the meaning or nature of existence - what is love or truth are just a few of the heavy topics explored by philosophers and theologians since the beginning of time. Yet most of the pop secular priests such as Dawkins, Kraus, and Sam Harris have little or no background in epistemology.
Check out the essay and then buy my book on metaphysics, which has plenty of scientific studies as well as philosophy and theology to learn about. 2500 years of knowledge and wisdom to peruse. There are 800 references and 500 links to go deeper into the varied subject matter.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/Naive-Realism-Or-the-Strange-Case-of-Physics-5680695.php
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408888717&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
Check out the essay and then buy my book on metaphysics, which has plenty of scientific studies as well as philosophy and theology to learn about. 2500 years of knowledge and wisdom to peruse. There are 800 references and 500 links to go deeper into the varied subject matter.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/Naive-Realism-Or-the-Strange-Case-of-Physics-5680695.php
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408888717&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
What is Truth? Love.
This is a heavy topic that has been covered by many deep thinkers for eons. Today - it is my turn.
I believe in timeless, universal truths. This is contrary to nature in general where flux seems to be the only constant. However, there are truths that are in that mystical zone, such as those that Enlightenment thinkers called 'inalienable' - as in natural born rights. This thought construct of individual rights that is a core part of our US Constitution, exists regardless of what any outside entity says. It is based upon a faith in constructs that live outside of space and time, cannot be put under a microscope, yet are real nonetheless.
There are only a small handful of absolute truths that we currently know about at this point in our evolution, which are not relative but apply to every corner of the multi-verse. These are truths that are beyond facts. Again facts lend themselves to relativity and context. LOVE is the glue or cohesive cosmic element that keeps most creatures evolving toward God's light and is the cornerstone truth of all truths.
You will know real truth using the 3 parts of your current incarnation - Mind, Body & Soul aka the mental, physical and the spiritual. When these 3 aspects of your human-being are in harmony, the truth reveals itself. Your soul has the most wisdom as it has been through many lives already, but the gifts of the physical mind CPU and body machine have power/influence over your free will decision making process (gift). The mind is where your intellect and ego lies and can get help you make great leaps of insight or get you into trouble. The body has its own agenda with the heart battling for the the top of the temple hierarchy with the hormones followed by peptides and a myriad of chemical messengers that all work together to give us homeostasis (smooth working machine). Then there is the spirit or soul that is your conscience or moral compass and most direct connection to God. It exists in all parts of your being but has special relationships with your heart and advanced frontal lobe in you brain. All of these aspects of your being are in sync if something is an absolute truth. Your 6th sense, which is an extension of your physical body's sensitivity to the electro-magnetic field as well as other dimensions not yet understood (Morphic Fields?) - will often act as a quick evolutionary false truth detector as in bad vibrations/vibes.
Meditate and align/center your being and then you are in the best position to know real cosmic universal truths versus relative facts or straight up bullshit. LOVE is the key to all understanding.
I will not go into a deep explanation of all my thoughts about truth in this blog. I have written about truth in my book that has 800 references/500 links to peruse and go deeper into many heavy and light subjects. http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408462020&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
I believe in timeless, universal truths. This is contrary to nature in general where flux seems to be the only constant. However, there are truths that are in that mystical zone, such as those that Enlightenment thinkers called 'inalienable' - as in natural born rights. This thought construct of individual rights that is a core part of our US Constitution, exists regardless of what any outside entity says. It is based upon a faith in constructs that live outside of space and time, cannot be put under a microscope, yet are real nonetheless.
There are only a small handful of absolute truths that we currently know about at this point in our evolution, which are not relative but apply to every corner of the multi-verse. These are truths that are beyond facts. Again facts lend themselves to relativity and context. LOVE is the glue or cohesive cosmic element that keeps most creatures evolving toward God's light and is the cornerstone truth of all truths.
You will know real truth using the 3 parts of your current incarnation - Mind, Body & Soul aka the mental, physical and the spiritual. When these 3 aspects of your human-being are in harmony, the truth reveals itself. Your soul has the most wisdom as it has been through many lives already, but the gifts of the physical mind CPU and body machine have power/influence over your free will decision making process (gift). The mind is where your intellect and ego lies and can get help you make great leaps of insight or get you into trouble. The body has its own agenda with the heart battling for the the top of the temple hierarchy with the hormones followed by peptides and a myriad of chemical messengers that all work together to give us homeostasis (smooth working machine). Then there is the spirit or soul that is your conscience or moral compass and most direct connection to God. It exists in all parts of your being but has special relationships with your heart and advanced frontal lobe in you brain. All of these aspects of your being are in sync if something is an absolute truth. Your 6th sense, which is an extension of your physical body's sensitivity to the electro-magnetic field as well as other dimensions not yet understood (Morphic Fields?) - will often act as a quick evolutionary false truth detector as in bad vibrations/vibes.
Meditate and align/center your being and then you are in the best position to know real cosmic universal truths versus relative facts or straight up bullshit. LOVE is the key to all understanding.
I will not go into a deep explanation of all my thoughts about truth in this blog. I have written about truth in my book that has 800 references/500 links to peruse and go deeper into many heavy and light subjects. http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408462020&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
Monday, August 18, 2014
Education Visionary Sir Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity? & Steve Jobs Stanford 2005 Commencement Speech-Art is as vital as Coding!
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Jim Crow Lives! Healing & Reparations Necessary to Move Forward as a Country
The public is paying attention to something happening in our own country for once and unfortunately it has to do with old race issues that have not improved since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and if anything have gotten worse. We are still living in a Jim Crow era - separate and not equal!
Ferguson is the latest in assassinations of unarmed black people all over America over many years. Regardless of whether they commit any crimes or not - they are due due process of the law - innocent until proven guilty and not to be shot and killed at point blank range. Especially when they put their hands up to signal surrender. US Police and Military forces have historically granted this basic surrender moral principal of taking the most wanted world dictators like Saddam Hussein and serial killers into custody without harm as law of the land - with the only exception being black people.
The old underlying tensions leading to this disaster are all over America. Historical racial divides based on planned real estate red lining segregation (illegal), white flight, over double the percentage of unemployment (20-25%) in the black community, especially the men and worst of all 49/50% of young black men end up in prison (evil privatized industrialized prison complex institutions), mostly for non-violent crimes. And once you are an ex-con, you basically cease to be a full citizen with the all the rights guaranteed by law. Ex-cons lose their right to vote or receive most public assitance. Most employers will not hire an ex-con. They receive no skills or rehab therapy while in prison - so recidivism (back to prison) is of course very high.
America has the biggest prison population in the world at a little over 2 million. Yes, bigger than China and many other corrupt countries all over the world. It has increased 10 fold since the early 1970s. This coincides with the switch over of many prisons to privatization. It has become a US government subsidized, corporate money-maker with humans treated like contemporary slaves/commodities for free labor. 80% of those humans are people of color - mostly black. This is not good considering they are only around 13% of the population. It's obvious that something is very wrong.
This situation is so pathetically ironic and surreal considering we have the first black president in office. Yet because Obama is the son of a high African official that went to Harvard, he does not have the scars on his psyche that blacks who have 300+ years of slavery in their subconsciousness - quite close to the surface in time and place. Therefore he cannot totally relate to the American black men who have this unique history of being taken by force from Africa and being slaves that were treated worse than animals for hundreds of years. Yes, his wife Michelle does have this in her family's roots but she was fortunate to have a successful family unit based on geopolitical liberal work scenarios post WW II for black men in certain parts of the USA. Many of the blue collars jobs that built a small but temporary middle class black American experience have disappeared in the new world (NAFTA) economy that is basically all about exploiting cheap labor. Black women tend to get work easier than black men because of the ubiquitous viewpoint that women are more docile and do not pose a threat to the white man usually in charge of any given situation, in the white hegemony western world environment.
There needs to be some kind of massive healing in the form of reparations. What form they take and how it is done could be figured out by the best and brightest black folks, with input from other marginalized peoples as well. During Reconstruction after the Civil War the congress was throwing around the idea of giving the newly freed blacks 40 acres and mule as some type of recompense for the legacy of 300+ years of slavery as well as a practical monetary way to start a new life based on the fact that they possessed nothing in the way of material goods. But this never came to pass and they were freed, only for most to return to a new type of servitude with a new job title as share croppers - still picking cotton for the man and being exploited for horrible wages. Only now they were pitted against poor whites as well, and ever since. This is the Machiavellian wedge that has kept two groups that actually have have more in common than most realize - from uniting as a power base. Although it happened unintentionally to avoid another horrible Republican Administration in the form of electing the first black president Obama.
Poor and working class whites make up a sizable portion of the population - at least 25-30% and if they would only make the connection or realization that there is a glass ceiling for politically unconnected whites who wish to be part of the wealthy white 1-10%. Well guess what - like corporations - the rich are like aristocracy of the past. They only do $ mergers as in if you do not come from a rich family - you are not in the running as a potential mate for their son/daughter. On rare occasions women from lower class backgrounds are let in to the elite circle because of they are not male so do not pose a direct threat and usually other superficial reasons such as physical beauty - they will make good looking babies.
I suggest that the next big revolution - hopefully peaceful - will be about the color green and not the colors black or brown because the white hegemony 1% in power that control the show want us - the working class whites, blacks and browns to be at each other throats while they build up their offshore bank accounts gated communities and let the rest of us 99% fight for the scraps in a dying local economy. It's classic Roman divide and conquer tactics that we all fall for over and over again - when will we learn that working people are on the same side of the fence? The time to organize as a formadable power base is now! Reach out to folks that you normally do not and make connections and bonds - these will be the foundation of the new peoples army - to fight for what FDR called a human rights declaration - the basics and like it says in the Declaration of Independence - the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How can any of us be happy when we are all stressed out about basic day to day survival - all while the top 1% have quadrupled their wealth over the last 30 years and the middle class wages have completely stagnated or gone down! Enough is enough! Let's unite the 99% of all colors and creeds to make our country a better place for everyone and not just a few thoasand out of 315 million real people with real lives!
I have attached a recent, smart, well argued case for reparations from the Atlantic magazine. If we can afford much blood spilled and trillions of tax dollars to secure oil in the Middle East - then we must come up with the resources for reparations to the blacks who helped build this country - and endured the evil legacy of slavery for over 400 years now if you include post Civil War Jim Crow like conditions that continue today post Civil Rights era - separate but definitely not equal! If we compensated the Japanese for interment camps during WW II - surely we must do the same to the black people for the much worse infringement of human rights and dignity that is slavery.
I have my own ideas such as paid for education at the best institutions as well as free healing therapies to deal with all the psychic scars that will take a lot of time to heal - maybe as much as it took to create them - but hopefully not. If we all come together as one nation of peoples on the same team - we will reach our true potential as a great country. Otherwise if we continue with the status-quo stratification and fragmentation that is currently happening, then the future does not look good at all. But I always see the glass as half full and a little effort on the peoples part will go a long way! Do something to be part of the solution today!
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/#
Ferguson is the latest in assassinations of unarmed black people all over America over many years. Regardless of whether they commit any crimes or not - they are due due process of the law - innocent until proven guilty and not to be shot and killed at point blank range. Especially when they put their hands up to signal surrender. US Police and Military forces have historically granted this basic surrender moral principal of taking the most wanted world dictators like Saddam Hussein and serial killers into custody without harm as law of the land - with the only exception being black people.
The old underlying tensions leading to this disaster are all over America. Historical racial divides based on planned real estate red lining segregation (illegal), white flight, over double the percentage of unemployment (20-25%) in the black community, especially the men and worst of all 49/50% of young black men end up in prison (evil privatized industrialized prison complex institutions), mostly for non-violent crimes. And once you are an ex-con, you basically cease to be a full citizen with the all the rights guaranteed by law. Ex-cons lose their right to vote or receive most public assitance. Most employers will not hire an ex-con. They receive no skills or rehab therapy while in prison - so recidivism (back to prison) is of course very high.
America has the biggest prison population in the world at a little over 2 million. Yes, bigger than China and many other corrupt countries all over the world. It has increased 10 fold since the early 1970s. This coincides with the switch over of many prisons to privatization. It has become a US government subsidized, corporate money-maker with humans treated like contemporary slaves/commodities for free labor. 80% of those humans are people of color - mostly black. This is not good considering they are only around 13% of the population. It's obvious that something is very wrong.
This situation is so pathetically ironic and surreal considering we have the first black president in office. Yet because Obama is the son of a high African official that went to Harvard, he does not have the scars on his psyche that blacks who have 300+ years of slavery in their subconsciousness - quite close to the surface in time and place. Therefore he cannot totally relate to the American black men who have this unique history of being taken by force from Africa and being slaves that were treated worse than animals for hundreds of years. Yes, his wife Michelle does have this in her family's roots but she was fortunate to have a successful family unit based on geopolitical liberal work scenarios post WW II for black men in certain parts of the USA. Many of the blue collars jobs that built a small but temporary middle class black American experience have disappeared in the new world (NAFTA) economy that is basically all about exploiting cheap labor. Black women tend to get work easier than black men because of the ubiquitous viewpoint that women are more docile and do not pose a threat to the white man usually in charge of any given situation, in the white hegemony western world environment.
There needs to be some kind of massive healing in the form of reparations. What form they take and how it is done could be figured out by the best and brightest black folks, with input from other marginalized peoples as well. During Reconstruction after the Civil War the congress was throwing around the idea of giving the newly freed blacks 40 acres and mule as some type of recompense for the legacy of 300+ years of slavery as well as a practical monetary way to start a new life based on the fact that they possessed nothing in the way of material goods. But this never came to pass and they were freed, only for most to return to a new type of servitude with a new job title as share croppers - still picking cotton for the man and being exploited for horrible wages. Only now they were pitted against poor whites as well, and ever since. This is the Machiavellian wedge that has kept two groups that actually have have more in common than most realize - from uniting as a power base. Although it happened unintentionally to avoid another horrible Republican Administration in the form of electing the first black president Obama.
Poor and working class whites make up a sizable portion of the population - at least 25-30% and if they would only make the connection or realization that there is a glass ceiling for politically unconnected whites who wish to be part of the wealthy white 1-10%. Well guess what - like corporations - the rich are like aristocracy of the past. They only do $ mergers as in if you do not come from a rich family - you are not in the running as a potential mate for their son/daughter. On rare occasions women from lower class backgrounds are let in to the elite circle because of they are not male so do not pose a direct threat and usually other superficial reasons such as physical beauty - they will make good looking babies.
I suggest that the next big revolution - hopefully peaceful - will be about the color green and not the colors black or brown because the white hegemony 1% in power that control the show want us - the working class whites, blacks and browns to be at each other throats while they build up their offshore bank accounts gated communities and let the rest of us 99% fight for the scraps in a dying local economy. It's classic Roman divide and conquer tactics that we all fall for over and over again - when will we learn that working people are on the same side of the fence? The time to organize as a formadable power base is now! Reach out to folks that you normally do not and make connections and bonds - these will be the foundation of the new peoples army - to fight for what FDR called a human rights declaration - the basics and like it says in the Declaration of Independence - the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How can any of us be happy when we are all stressed out about basic day to day survival - all while the top 1% have quadrupled their wealth over the last 30 years and the middle class wages have completely stagnated or gone down! Enough is enough! Let's unite the 99% of all colors and creeds to make our country a better place for everyone and not just a few thoasand out of 315 million real people with real lives!
I have attached a recent, smart, well argued case for reparations from the Atlantic magazine. If we can afford much blood spilled and trillions of tax dollars to secure oil in the Middle East - then we must come up with the resources for reparations to the blacks who helped build this country - and endured the evil legacy of slavery for over 400 years now if you include post Civil War Jim Crow like conditions that continue today post Civil Rights era - separate but definitely not equal! If we compensated the Japanese for interment camps during WW II - surely we must do the same to the black people for the much worse infringement of human rights and dignity that is slavery.
I have my own ideas such as paid for education at the best institutions as well as free healing therapies to deal with all the psychic scars that will take a lot of time to heal - maybe as much as it took to create them - but hopefully not. If we all come together as one nation of peoples on the same team - we will reach our true potential as a great country. Otherwise if we continue with the status-quo stratification and fragmentation that is currently happening, then the future does not look good at all. But I always see the glass as half full and a little effort on the peoples part will go a long way! Do something to be part of the solution today!
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/#
Friday, August 15, 2014
New Discoveries in Plant Communication Have me Rethinking my Vegitarianism - Check out PBS Nature Video!
I am a 90% vegetarian since I was a teenager. I still occasionally eat fish and free range organic chicken (rare). I have created for myself a pyramid of consciousness based on research and personal contact with other creatures. I remember reading an article about screaming broccoli many years ago and thought it sounded like hokum because they have no central nervous system. But pain is relative based on the will to survive. Based on recent studies like these - caring, cooperation, competition, and pain can take many forms in different entities.
No matter what - meat eating is bad for the environment because of methane releases in the form of flatulence, land clearing for millions of cattle etc. and the herbivore feed in the form of corn that is not a sustainable crop for the soil.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/what-plants-talk-about/video-full-episode/8243/
http://youtu.be/lLmM1N754vU
No matter what - meat eating is bad for the environment because of methane releases in the form of flatulence, land clearing for millions of cattle etc. and the herbivore feed in the form of corn that is not a sustainable crop for the soil.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/what-plants-talk-about/video-full-episode/8243/
http://youtu.be/lLmM1N754vU
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Paradigm Shifts in Evolution Theory
This Academic sums up some of the current paradigm shifts happening in Evolution Theory. I researched this subject for many hours and explore it in my book as well - check it out!
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407850604&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
http://grassie.net/postdarwinism-the-new-new-synthesis/
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/index.php
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407850604&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
http://grassie.net/postdarwinism-the-new-new-synthesis/
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/index.php
Elon Musk - Progressive, Hyper-Intelligent Successful Man of the 21st Century - Pro Solar Energy & Weary of AI
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Intelligent Design? Freeman Dyson, Roger Penrose & The Golden Ratio
Intelligent Design is attracting some brilliant minds as of late such as famous physicist Freeman Dyson. I have posted a clip of a great little discussion on the very cool but repetitive CUNY show called Closer to Truth - check out the website for a lot of great dialogs - mostly about the host's Dr Robert L. Kuhn's skeptical vibe as related to a creator. But he is a great conversationalist, not negative and condescending like many atheists. Roger Penrose, another giant in Quantum Physics has been quoted as saying the random chance of something like the Big Bang happening is 10 to the 127th power - an unfathomably huge number - meaning that it was not a freak accident as Francis Crick (DNA Nobel guy) would have you believe. (Discover Magazine, October 2014, Beyond the Outer Limits article).
Check out link from distinguished scientists from all over the world that think that there is a weakness in the random mutation aspect of Darwin's Evolution theory.
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/index.php
http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Arguing-God-from-Design-Freeman-Dyson-/556
I also included a basic intro video on the Golden Ratio - PHI - aka Fibonacci Sequence. Did math already exist and humans merely discovered it like electricity? If so - this means some kind of intelligence at work and not just some random freak accident of nature as many of the material reductionists promote. What do you think?
Check out link from distinguished scientists from all over the world that think that there is a weakness in the random mutation aspect of Darwin's Evolution theory.
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/index.php
http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Arguing-God-from-Design-Freeman-Dyson-/556
I also included a basic intro video on the Golden Ratio - PHI - aka Fibonacci Sequence. Did math already exist and humans merely discovered it like electricity? If so - this means some kind of intelligence at work and not just some random freak accident of nature as many of the material reductionists promote. What do you think?
Saturday, August 2, 2014
American Dream?
This not funny George Carlin - a comic genius.
Near the end of his life he started to go on tangents - which turns
some people off but if someone is speaking truth - it is important to
hear. However, I am am of the glass is half full school. I still believe
that America could reach its full potential if we fix our democracy and
lesson the influence of corporations in the political process.
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