• BLOG

    Safety Pin, Paper Clip, Power and Privilege

    November 23, 2016 - By 

    safety-pin-trump-brexit

    If necessary in front of you.

    And yes this may get me killed.

    Or I could be a white privileged, slacktivist that only cares about personal guilt  about this cultural farce, that has been going deadly earnest.

    Racism has been deadly since the beginning of this country.  From  slavery to  incarceration, whether it is about cheap labor, drug wars or simple hatred for people of color POC, or pure greed  with genocide and theft  of the lands of the Native Americans.

    No matter what I do, I will always be suspect of privilege and have enjoyed some aspect of privilege.  I am  not female, a POC,  LGBT, or any other target of bigotry, or am I?   I am a white male, large and now middle aged.

    The safety pin or paper clip had supposedly been used to identify resistance to Nazi Germany and support of Jews  or any other minorities oppressed by them.  In England and the US,  anti-immigration sentiments essentially insured millions died.    The Safety Pin instead of the Paper Clip in Britain is being used to support immigrants and muslims post the Brexit vote to leave the EU European Union.  Britain’s rise of conservatism has been hand in hand from Margaret Thatcher with Ronald Reagan and all their successors.

    The USA incarcerated  120,000 Japanese, and the USA lost 420,000 men and women.

    Putin’s interest in Trump as a fascist is simple.  Trump is an isolationist, as are other republicans and they will destabilize NATO.   Trump will gain more leverage in the EU.   Russia lost over 26 Million people to Nazi Germany and WWII.   Thirteen percent of the population gone.   They will have no problem convincing their public and the EU to take the USA to task and wipe us off the face of the map. States will exist in their state’s rights as a divided third world bombed out dystopian hells.

    The Genocide of Native of Americans either directly or by disease over these centuries is horrible at a level that is unconscionable  and is still being exercised today. Corporation agents employed at various government agencies insure a sanctioned theft and abuse to this day.

    The reasons why Trump got elected   is sadly due to a prosperity theology along with fundamentalist dogma in rural white America, people that have never been exposed to anyone beyond their narrow white world.  This has been used in politics and  extremely conservative religious right groups for over three decades, with an extreme  use of conservative propaganda.  They are racist and they don’t believe anyone else deserves human rights or dignity.

    Over most of the last century the two party system was ostensibly bought and sold by the corporations and elite rich.    There was a while in the past 30 years  the elite were comfortable just purchasing one side,  the republicans, with a little support to be thrown to the democrats.    Hillary was an example of the old time  political cronyism and corruption bought and paid for by Wall Street.

    People are sick of it all.   In the election Bernie and Trump were seen as getting rid of the status quo politics with the libertarian party waiting in the wings to take over the bought and paid for  position of the republicans as they disintegrate.  The powerful elite have plans with in plans and contingencies.

    So, here we are.  Nazis Fascist America.    Either well meaning reactionaries who voted for Trump  Gaslight themselves or they are in part with most of the FOX news and republicans trying to Gaslight the rest of us saying they are not  Anti-LGBT, Misogynist, Racist, against Muslims, immigrants or any other minority.  If they deny it now, it is only from Sea Lioning , race baiting,  or a profound engrained  disassociative disorder that is psychotic.

    There is only one set of winners this election, the rich and powerful that either directly or indirectly own the premium stock of of the largest corporations in the world.  Common stock has been made to be sucker’s game where we invest in it only to have them drain the value of it and rob us yet another way.   How the  powerful elite has institutionalized wage and debt slaves is another long article that I may  or may not write.   The fact is the south who fought to keep slavery  lost to the north that insured all immigrants  would be wage and debt slaves in a rigged system.  The support of the current Republican party, as a way for the south to rise again, has only enslaved  all the white people as well, but also to be the cracker enforcers,  of this power structure.    The midwest rural  people who fought to carve out land, stolen from the Native Americans, to develop their own wealth have lost it to banks.   This has been manipulated for the past 50 years with the Farm Bill Subsidizing small farms only to eventually get rid of the programs to bankrupt the farmers and have these properties and farming opportunities go to the large agribusinesses.  The Agriculture department, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs,  Bureau of Land Management, Food Drug Administration, and Department of Natural Resources have been peopled, implanted with corporate agents of Agribusinesses (Monsanto, et al), Oil, Timber, Mining corporations, to insure the theft, or orderly acquisition,  is all legal and neatly tied up.       Now along with the Native Americans, Farmers and Ranchers are being affected also.    Yet the White Farmers and Ranchers want to blame minorities and the Government as outlined by the media, as a liberal black president.

    Only now, as it is with the Emperor of the Star Wars, “Now your training to the dark side will be complete”.

    The whole use of  exhortation and other apologetic rhetoric  styles, along with best neurolinguistics  used in media,  editorial talk shows and Fox news for 30 years have people programmed.    The use of Prosperity Gospel in the fundamentalist churches along with the Dominionist movements to turn the US into a theocracy, has created that perfect storm of belief, to ignore all truths and self awareness, seems to finish us off.

    The power of monied resources,  propaganda, and religious  entrainment to belief  has turned  half of  America into useful tools.   Beyond the  obvious abusive sociopathology, they are in turn taught to blame everyone and everything else except themselves, creating narcissists that can’t and won’t ever deal with the truth of themselves.

    We are all in a very bad place.  One thing I learned about narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, they will not and can not change.     They only respond to pain and the power to execute pain, or the fear of pain of death.     The only cure is death.   They however believe that anybody who opposes them are not human and that is the first step of rendering us as targets.  As targets we are no longer human.  Conscience, common sense or basic human decency are not even in the picture and can’t be brought up to be questioned unless you too will be labeled as another non-human target.

    The Safety Pin,  I have heard two arguments against it.   First,  Alt-Right people are or might use it to lure people into confrontations.   Anything that helps someone abuse it, misuse it and make people afraid of anything that may help them.    It furthers abusive isolationist strategies.  Second,  there are good intentioned white people who feel guilty they haven’t done anything of substance to help so they are showing  an outward symbol that in essence means not a damn thing.  What have your really done?   In essence most of them will say nothing, or conflate a bunch of BS that they can not see as being absolutely useless and inconsequential.

    Many gave up on the idea.

    I will use it as an opportunity to get to know me.  I have no guilt, I am more than simply aware that I might as well put a yellow star on me and say “Ich bin ein Juden!”     Don’t start a fight to test me.   Know me and need me,  I will be there.

    So get to know me.

    Beyond being an older white male, and there is privilege with that.   It ends there.

    Anyone that claims they are an ally, get to know them.  Let them get to know you.  Being white is  a big hindrance to developing this trust.  Being male is another big hindrance.     Living as a male in Upstate New York and the NorthEast during the 70’s where radical feminism was in full flight, I was another damn patriarchal male.

    Get to know me.

    As an intellectual in an anti-intellectual america, I am a target.  I am not relatable.   I graduated out of Colonie Central High School, in 1975.  I was 16 years old.     The suburbs between Albany and Schenectady NY, was poor.   The working lower middle class and mobile poor lived in these post WWII and Post Korean War  Saltbox  Bungalows.  This is where the middle class losing ground met the up and coming out of the slums of the city.   My neighborhood although white, was the urban type of redneck, that was called the “Greasers, Motorheads and with a liberal sprinkling of Stoners”.   There was a sprinkling of the “Preppies” but mostly they were in the other school districts.

    The principal  worked with the local authorities  to give bad recommendations about the students, even if they were well placed academically or financially to go to college.  They were highly recommended for the draft into the Vietnam War.  In 1974 many of these students who had  older brothers that died in Vietnam held a riot  at 100 days (till the end of school) with a smoke bomb  the size of a coffee can to evacuate the school.  They carried the principal’s car up to the top of a hill, upside down and trashed it.

    My neighborhood, had two drug gangs separated by age.   We had  a whorehouse where the local girls from 12 – 17 worked it.   That business was shut down because they didn’t pay the rent of the house they rented. The lack of police,  the use of the locals,  and the lack of any common sense on the worth of what they were doing, speaks volumes of the dysfunction there.    At 14 years old I am walking down the street and I get stopped by the police and threatened with my life. Being polite, hands on my head and not moving may have saved me. The parents  protected their little monsters, and the police were way past fed up. The parents were abusive, manipulative, sociopaths.  If not they were alcoholics or addicted to valium or the gamut of legal drugs of the day. I was big so I was a challenge and a target, by police, parents and the gangs.

    I went to church as a social outlet and to escape the dysfunctional home.    It was the only free time I got beyond being the good compliant daughter that mother wanted and never had.  I was the namesake of my Uncle Bill who she dearly loved and expected me to be an adult, do adult responsibilities with no authority, no support and to be treated as a complete idiot child.   Psychotic double bind there.  I was  the obstacle to her career.  I was unwanted and nothing I ever did would ever be good enough.  She had a long term affair with a married man, who was probably the best influence in my life, while he was a political hack that insured my brother knew how to verbally manipulate people as one of the best classed sociopaths I know of.  I was “shark baited” to my mother constantly, for a string of verbal and physical abuse, for  and by him and my mom both.  Church was where all the hypocritical kids went to, to get their free love, sex, and partying while God and Jesus forgave them.  I was pondering the insanity of life, why God put me where I was feeling like a complete alien.  I was in The  Twilight Zone where an individual was put on display with creatures that were clearly not like him, but look liked them as a scientific study.  When you read the bible through and start asking questions,  now I become a target  by those who just want me to believe.

    If you are empathic, telepathic sometimes and have experienced a bunch of paranormal experiences, fundamentalist churches are not your friends.

    Without the finances and falling through all the social programs and into the cracks of society, “so-called” easy student money  for the late 70’s didn’t exist for me.    A simple 1040 form from a parent starts the whole financial  world of being a student, even being poor. Had I stole the form as my brother did, or declared emancipation from my mother that could’ve changed things for me.  I had no one who would throw me that clue. The counselors at the school were there for a paycheck and viewed all the kids as hoodlums or worse.   I asked for help or for someone to talk to my mother.  I was told to go away, or they would call security and the police.  And, don’t bother them again.

    I was beat up every other day for several years until I turned 12.   I  grew to be 5’10” tall 180 lbs., took up wrestling in school and studied martial arts on my own.   After a few last fights with gangs and their leaders,  I was left alone.   Except once where a local goon was attempting to go back to school, but mostly it was to intimidate me.   I was blessed with a bunch of kids jumping on the guy who 4-6 inches taller and outweighed me by another 100 lbs. and probably  19 yo when I was 15.  I was ready to go to jail and do my best to kill him in school. This goon went straight after me with out all the highschool drama.  It was serious business to him.   I knew nothing less and I would be hounded day in day out, eventually have a whole gang of bigger monsters in the older gang, that were more violent.

    I worked odd jobs,  painting, mowing, raking leaves, fixing plumbing.  What allowance I had was taken away from me, and I bought my own clothes, gym clothes, school books and if I wanted, my own school lunches.  I was a target for the scam artists and thieves  from the school, neighborhood kids and the adults.  I learned the deep nuanced skills of  sociopaths,  psychopaths  and this social pathological way of dysfunctional thinking.

    Needless to say trying to go to college in 1975, with no money, parental support, or not being a ward of the state,  although I was courted by some of the best schools in the nation, including RPI, Stanford, etc.  those administrative hurdles might have been the Grand Canyon, ask me to jump it with a kite.  I was given the ultimatum to work and pay rent,  go to college or go into the service.   There was glut of 18 year olds, and the jobs wanted 2 years experience even for McDonald’s and Burger King, preferably with degrees in business.    17+ colleges in a very small population for the Tri-City Area, made getting a job Impossible.

    Two days after my 17th birthday, I joined the Marines with  someone I knew in Scouts.   He bailed in boot camp.  Believe it or not Bootcamp was better than my home life.  Marine Corp Boot camp, better than my home life. 1975-79 was directly after the Vietnam War, and still being spit on and named a “baby killer”, did nothing for me socially.   I was manipulated and got involved, unknown to me, with  a DC prostitute that was recently freed from prison, to use me to get her kids back.   A whole new level of sociopath to learn and survive from.   Before I met this  woman I was in Camp Barret  OCS Field training school for Midshipmen freshly minted lieutenants.  I was coming home on the camp bus from the Main Base’s Enlisted Mans Club.   I was enjoying the one privilege of being an underage serviceman, to enjoy drinking alcohol.   On that bus I was the only white man.   I was stomped on for over a half an hour while the bus driver pulled over to allow my fellow marines to continue beating on me and  to stomp on me more.  I am made of stern stuff.  I wasn’t hurt bad. They got to the camp and I went to the on-duty Sergeant of the guard, while this one big dude was still beating on me, I asked for assistance.    Three weeks later  I got pulled up in front of the camp’s CO for an inquiry of me being a racist, saying I used the word “jigaboo”.     I never heard the word before in my life.   I did call them chicken, because they wouldn’t let me up to fight them. I asked for the Provost Marshall  ” a defending attorney in the military justice system” .     I was being set up to be a scape goat.  What I found out was that 6 months before I got to the base there was a race riot.  Six months before that 3 fellow Marines were shot dead because they were black and an opportunity of a target by what appeared to be another marine driving on to base and shooting them with a shot gun.

    I  did not choose to hate women.  I did not choose to hate black people.  I chose to understand.

    In these intervening years I was stuck with a worthless GI Bill that could not help afford a college that was meant to educate someone.  Community colleges were looked at by professors as an extension of high schools by privileged brats.   What I was, was apparently worse.  I have suffered more outright hate, abuse, and dirty under handed dealings by white people,   banks, landlords, bosses, you name it.

    I worked as a typist for a college where I was one of 3 men of an office of over 70 women.    I was not male enough because of the job.  I wasn’t  a person of respect because I was part of the evil patriarchy.  No matter how hard I worked I wasn’t good enough for even as an employee for most of them.  I don’t hate women.   I learned office politics, and the reality of NY clique behaviors and how pathological they are.  If you don’t fit in any one of them, you will never get a chance to  migrate in the ageist, cliquish extremely small jingoistic groups that existed in the Tri-City area.

    I got  to work for the State of NY.    Their affirmative action was in full swing and whatever you scored on your civil service tests even a 102, 2 points added as a veteran, would not get you a job or promotion.    I learned about nepotism, grooming of favorites and the low  brow cliquish  good ole boys or girls clubs, and was always put on the outside.  I watched people as they lost their retirements from NAFTA agreements and treaties sending their mill town jobs from the Mohawk and Hudson River companies overseas.   They hated minorities,  not the corporations.  They hated foreigners and not the politics that played them.  I watched  Carter be set up by the CIA Director to have the American students in  Iran rescue be sabotaged.  I watched  the tax reforms advantage the rich and  the “invest in America” of Bush Sr. to have his son execute fleece  all of America by crashing the stock market as people tried to have anything to retire with 16 years later.

    All of what I said was true, and was forgotten and it came to pass, and being solidly ignored because I am young, not positioned in society correctly, no degree, no support, with a only a couple of weird friends, only to be constantly dismissed, abused and used by women, employers, bosses, and acquaintances pretending to be friends.

    And still I am privileged, as a white male.  Were I  female, minority or gay, it would have been much much harder.  At the same time my social education was excellent.  Because I learned from it, searched for the answers out of love and not hate.  I want to help and fix this mess, and I needed to understand it.

    I am 58 years old.   I have tried to donate to Equal Rights,  Planned Parenthood,  and other organizations.   Unfortunately I watched as these organizations put up people for a vote that had no common sense and common ground beyond the one issues.

    My family  supported the Liberal party.   My Grandfather helped with the Worker’s party.   Railroad workers were worked around the clock and dying at the switch and controls for train engines and Eugene Debs was trying to keep girls from being chained into sweatshops and dying from fires if they were allowed to use fire escapes.  It was being infiltrated by the  Communists and he helped with Socialist party which became infected with Communists, and  helped break it.   He helped with the creation of the Liberal party that was pro-union and very anti-communist. They worked for the 12 hour a day manifesto.  This got the Railroad socialized by the government for the planned war for WWI.  Post WWII  they worked for the 8 hour day as we know it.

    My grandfather, father and older brother went down south to help sign up black voters, and push for the Equal Rights Amendment.  The family pushed for issues so that they would be dealt with by whoever won the elections. They each ran for various elected offices and failed.

    My great grandfather and his brother fought for the Union in the Civil war.  And to the anger of the Confederate Sons,  they were part of Sherman’s scorch and burn campaign.

    This is not enough to cover the sins of our family.  My great great grand aunt took the slaves our family had south and sold them. This is after NY outlawed slavery.

    I have stood up for women, minorities, the handicapped,  the mentally disabled, and the LGBT people,  for the financial freedom  and liberties we all as human beings deserve.

    I found that nothing short of  a bullet will cure these narcissistic sociopaths that are parasites or enablers of parasites in our country.

    I am working with a core group of friends to create a church, a tribe, that focuses on leadership, community values, and supporting family and diversity.     We can garner absolutely no interest whatsoever.   We need leaders, healers, and skilled people to build a new society.   We need groups of people to help heal and build the society when it all blows up and goes to hell in a handbasket.   Like anything, it seems likely I am destined only to clean up the messes that others have left behind and be abused for it, not to be trusted to help make any of it better, to prepare for anything better.

    I am 58 years old, fell into the cracks of society, and eke along.  I need to get my last two kids into college or work.  They are good kids.  That may be the only successful thing I have ever done.  Their mom helped.  I am watching me being shuffled out of work and out of skills to work here in the near future.  I have no success, no retirement, bills and nothing of value except for some books.

    I don’t care if you don’t believe me.  I don’t care if you think I am one of the damned oppressive white patriarchy.  I don’t care if you hate me.

    I will stand up for you.  I will stand in front of you and if need be take a bullet or the abuse.   I have gotten pretty used to doing that.  If the safety pin  is like a gold star and  be considered SJW “Social Justice Warrior” and I get shot by one of the Alt-Right, so be it.  If it keeps you safe and gives you time to flee, so be it.   If you want me to obstruct traffic, no.  That will be on you.  That is your choice to do that.   I understand why that may be something to do. I believe in public safety. I don’t believe in giving any of these rat bastard Nazis an excuse to mow people down. I  will be armed,  I will fight back.

    Our country has taken a significant step to becoming a Fascist corporate Oligarchy.  The rich will be out of the country hiding all the ill gotten gains through this while our country kills each other.  I can’t afford to escape.  I can’t afford to leave.  There are good people in this country. If I can be part of the resistance against a Nazi America, so be it.

    Know this:

    • I will be going dark about all these things and beliefs on Facebook.  Facebook is owned by conservative right people.
    • I will start deleting my old posts and hiding them from the public and eventually my friends.
    • There are conservative acquaintances that have acted in accordance with the abusive narcissistic parasitic behaviors  they have been programmed with. When they come with guns and brown shirts, I will be pointed at.
    • If you question if I will support you, do question me and others.  You can not be too  careful.
    • It will be getting worse.
    • When it does, I will do what a fat old man can, and it will be much worse than obstructing traffic.
    • I would rather be in a place to create a better world, better people, and be there to put a world back together that is worth living.  Like any other hoped for dreams, that too will likely be destroyed.
    • I will pray for a better world.  I will do magic.  I will struggle mind, body, spirit and soul, to make things right.
    • or die trying.

    I must be satisfied with love I have received for being who I am.

    I want to finish a book on magic.   The wage slave I am I must study to be accredited for something that will keep me employed.

    If not that then.  If the Gods deny me, they can’t destroy me.   I have survived, this scouring chaos of existence.  I have integrity.  I will struggle to keep my last scrap of dignity and yours.

    This is dark, this is pessimistic, but not negative.    I cannot help what the pragmatic reality actually is.  I pray for our country and all good people to survive.  I have faith there are good people out there and they are worth preserving.

    Let me know you are trying too.  We need allies, friends, and witnesses if it is our last breath.

    If we fall into the abyss, I will hold onto my light and pray you find a way out.

  • BLOG - Uncategorized

    LIVES MATTERS #not TRUTH MATTERS #not

    July 8, 2016 - By 

    The Second Triangle of Immortality is Life, Love and Truth   in Harmony creates Integrity.

    The First Triangle is  Mind, Emotion and Body in balance creates Spirit.

    Spirit and Integrity creates and maintains Soul.

    Truth is the singular most important thing that can help people get along and is the absolute necessity for Gods to exist and for anyone who wishes to obtain immortality in any of the World’s belief systems.

    Cognitive Dissonance is the most singularly frustrating thing when dealing with people.  It is when their brain’s  operating system is based on emotions.  They switch from one operating system to another by a constant flow of emotions.    It is from this very flow of emotions people gauge their comfort level of information based on these emotions and how they evoke the next set of emotions.   Sadly,  cognitive abilities, analytical skills, and information don’t  buffer well between these  emotional states.  There is an extremely limited overlap of information and abilities from one emotion to another and fail people miserably.   Disjointed analytical tools live in different emotional operating systems.

    People live constantly in cognitive dissonance their whole lives.    The very purpose of meditation and contemplation is to create a singular  state of mind which holds all the data and analytical skills in one place to grow and to be improved upon.  Then no one can relate to these people because their emotions and data don’t match the patterns that make them comfortable.

    Comfort and a fear from being made uncomfortable, beliefs from comfort regardless of the context of the thoughts and feelings don’t match what is expected,  is out right rejected.

    Cognitive Dissonance is the very playground sociopaths, psychopaths,  FOX news, Conservative Think tanks & social media outlets, and every one in a culture that expects a specific sets of actions and reactions works from.   It works because it is an empirical  logic that shows for  most of one’s actions works.   It is lazy and economical requiring no thinking whatsoever.   People think they think; however, listen to them say “I believe”, “I feel”, and “you should” which are all speaking from a set of programmed responses.

    They take everything they think, feel and believe for granted.  Because it feels right, they believe it to be true.

    The sad fact is there is truth in each of these beliefs which is turned in to an actionable emotionally charged reaction.   The context,  and circumstances are missed.

    Case in point, I posted a simple meme in the wake of  yet another murder of a black man by police officers.  “STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE”.    That is it.

    A good friend of mine simply stated All people’s lives matter.  She cares about every one, is multi-ethnic and has a broad view of life.    Another friend of mine gets triggered  from what would sound like #AllLivesMatter.       To put this in context of #BLACKLIVESMATTER as part of a post on Treyvon Martin’s Murderer, George Zimmerman’s, acquittal.   Since then many other black people are being murdered or killed by police, in jails, and elsewhere.   Many are innocent and demanding their rights.  Lately in our society that will get you killed.    Post Ferguson Missouri, with Michael Brown being murdered,  white racist provocateurs who started shooting into a peaceful demonstration exacerbated an ever worsening situation.   What came out at that time from white supremacist social media trolls, was a meme from conservative, bigoted think tanks: #AllLivesMatter.  There was a space of time this meme got out into liberal environments and was embraced by well meaning people.     Quickly people realized this was an attempt to “whitewash” and down play all the severe issues #BlackLivesMatter embraced.   It was indeed meant to diffuse the this movement with a racist  inference that white people lives matter.    This created even more confusion with the intent of each.  My friend  did not mean to infer or embrace this whitewash propaganda tool.   If you knew her this would be the last thing on her mind.    My other friends were severely triggered  and acted as if this was the intent.     When people are getting verbally assaulted or have their sense of self assaulted, they fight back.    They each did.     Each of them I like and would want to spend a lot of time with.    They all, if given a chance, would probably think everybody is a good and great person.   The think tank that created this racist meme of #ALLLIVESMATTER succeeded in having people tear each other apart.

    I failed.

    I shared something I feel and what should be a simple action and a simple truth.

    I failed because what I said was empty without a personal action.

    I failed because the problem is so much bigger than a simple meme.

    I failed my friends because by sharing this it divided people who should work together.

    To address these issues, and other issues like:   rape, rape culture, corporate greed, citizens united, labor inequality, gender inequality, racism, bigotry,  income inequality, lack of health care, lack of education,  disability, retirement, healthcare, foreign policies, the enslavement of country by debt, corporate ownership and manipulation of government,  foreign wars,  wars that support an industrial complex, education inequality,  economy, corporate tax loopholes, misogyny, hate groups,  and so many others, they are all intertwined.

    We are taught to label and put simple handles, to make how we deal with specific issues easy.  They are based on beliefs, values and judgements, that are not necessarily our own.   They are convenient rationalizations.  For some they are decent, and others they are horribly bad.   The fact is we don’t actually work with so many of these issues directly, however we feel a need to identify one way or another as if it defines us in society.  And it does because it attracts and detracts the type of people we can work with at some level.   It is a shorthand that is easy and natural.  It is easy and natural for it to be manipulated by those who know these issues and people at a much deeper level.  Because we believe we are in control of our lives, this  thought that others control our very thoughts, emotions and beliefs is difficult to believe.

    All these issues are so big, so massive, it is overwhelming.   It is easier to focus on singular issues as an issue unto themselves.     We have been taught to manage things with small incremental changes.    This is a perpetual treadmill, a drudgery of paperwork,, housekeeping, bureaucracy, and industry to make everything and do everything as cheaply as possible, to further make us slaves to our work, culture and the way things are done.

    What have we done?  What activism have we done?  Have we at least stood up for our friends?  Have we taken care of the sick, the poor, or the disabled?    Have we voted?  Do we know or care what the local elections look like, what issues they are bringing?   We have stood up for our friends.  We share memes, and stories.  Have we asked for facts, figures, and what the truth is, or do we just repeat what others have sent?

    What can I, a single person, do?      Do we know enough about others to stand with them and do a protest?   Do I have bail money?  Do I have friends, lawyers and a support structure to take care of me, my children, my family, and  to keep them from being killed at least?  And what do politicians and people in power care about protests, petitions, and our facebook memes?   Nothing.    Zip, notta, nothing.  Zero.   And if you do stir some truth up, a little funding here and there, and these nutjob  provocateurs make the protesters look crazy,  or shoot them, or cause other mischief.  What is the effect?  Again, zip zero nothing.  We are supposed to stare at all the divisive emotional differences, without the depth of investigation they deserve only to be given emotional divisive issues to focus on.

    We don’t have to convince the choir.   The nutjobs aren’t on our friend’s lists.  If they are they probably turned off following the sources to our memes.   We have done that with theirs. Or we simply have unfriended those who are so heinously off into their own little world.

    All the truth in the world won’t change  scared, feeble minded people, who have lost their jobs, their retirements, their way of living, who have been made to be afraid of everything and everybody. They are fighting for the same  little modicum of life and justice they use to have.  Hell, people would be happy with what they have now.    And they know they are losing it one bit of a time.  They have been lied to by a society that is sociopathic, narcissistic and led by psychopaths, that care not one wit about them or any of us.

    Is there anyone you trust?   Heck, if you are following me on social media, you can almost guarantee people who are following me are decent people.    Thank you for what trust you have in me to post or share things that matter to you, that supports you.  Thank you for sharing things with me that uplift me and support the type of person I choose to be.  I hope I do the same for you.   Do you trust me?  Do you trust the people that follow me and post stuff on my stuff?

    Who thinks this stuff through and keeps updated on various things?   I don’t know everything.  Who tries to be fair and have a level view of things from multiple angles?    Is that a leader or a politician?   A politician works to get emotional support and tacit approval for what they do.   A vote, in a corrupt, rigged, and representative of only the richest supporters is what you get.  It is a game of charades.     It use to be they at least played along and paid lip service to what we as a people care about.      Instead of a meaningful platform, they took issues that would move people and assemble them as a campaign marketing tool.     Can you trust them to get experts to tell them what to do?

    So, what we do lacks power or leverage.   Activism, voting, and through the most positive thing  by education, and that is corrupted by propaganda, media and misinformation.  Who can we trust?   Do you have leaders?   Do you empower them?  Do you support them?  Is the ideas, or ideals worth working for,  dying for, worth sacrificing yourself for?  Are they worth it?   What are we worth?

    Revolutionaries  the thinkers, philosophers and  ideas to make things better are systematically destroyed by those who have grabbed power.  They promote what cements power in the vacuum left by the destruction of  what was bad with what is the new evil corrupt mechanisms.

    So when it comes to power, Truth doesn’t matter, and Lives don’t matter.  The milieu of the existential angst of the powerless, prey on each other.   And if they are motivated against powers that be, the underlying power of the new order is supporting it.

    “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” Said by Jay Gould.  Today, the NRA right wing, controlling the conservative right who are supporting our corporate neo-fascists are being souped up to kill minorities, anybody who isn’t conservative christian, and each other when it suits them.

    “I don’t care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.” Said by William M. Tweed   This has been an ongoing strategy of the political parties, and those that sponsor them for most of our country’s life.    Each segment of population that gets the vote, the outcome has already been predetermined.

    Truth matters and Lives matters.   They are our most precious resources that need to be cherished.     We need leaders, and the truth is there is a cost to make them, to feed them and all the endeavors, that deserve our efforts, our lives and sacrifices.  Because we have so few of them, we need to create them and back them up.

    We have failed our country because we have let what is going on in the past 100 years or more happen.  We have allowed ourselves to be blinded by mouthing platitudes, principles and morals without context, thought, review, or be guided by intelligence and spirit.     We have allowed  ourselves to be uneducated and to be led by valueless, misguided or misled politicians who become convinced of the sacerdotal kool aid offered by those in power. They have not listened to, nor supported those who sacrificed their lives to know the truth of things, and those who sacrificed their lives to make a better country for themselves and their children.    We forgot to question, to fight for something greater than ourselves.  We have been inured to people’s suffering, and engendered greed and selfishness as a virtue.

    If we can not trust a few close people, how can you trust one to become a leader, to create the power to change society?  The power is in us collectively, and we need a vision and a visionary to contain and wield that power, who is responsible to the people who would tear them to shreds if he or she betrays the people.    Those who have economic power who hire mercenaries, police, politicians, lawyers, doctors and soldiers are responsible only to themselves and get the other people seduced by power and greed to kill each other off.

    All Lives, Truth and Living don’t matter, if the truth is that you are powerless to change a damn thing.   It doesn’t matter if we can’t talk with each other, trust someone to sort it out and back them up if you aren’t willing or able to do it yourself.  If you can’t build a culture where we get along, then we are separated, manipulated and are a commodity for someone else’s use.

    I have and still get beat up by trying to build the bridges between people.    The fact is people still cling to their narrow ways generally, and rarely bridge that gap of understanding between individuals or groups.       To manage the issue at large one has to have 50,000 foot view of the problem and be able to tend to those issues.   People in general do not have the capacity to see that.  Because they don’t have the capacity they can’t and won’t believe the person who is trying to  help them bridge the gap.     This was true 30 years ago and it is more true now.    If you cannot get two cliques of of people to work together, over a simple issue, how do you manage this with large issues across a whole country?

    If people could give each other a break, check their assumptions and their emotions,  ask for clarification we might get dialogues going.   If we are willing to entertain another person’s point of view we might be able to build bridges.  If we cultivate people that can find a way between two points of view you create statesman.  If we support people who bring better ideas, and trust people to develop better world, we might get a world that we may be more engaged in and trusting each other to become mutually decent citizens.

    People Embracing Change is about building such a culture.   I may be unworthy for such an undertaking.  Maybe I am.   Maybe you are.  This will need a fundamental change in the way we think, feel and behave.     And that is too scary.    Lives will matter if we have absolutely honest relationships with ourselves, others and the world around us.   That would be an act of love that is too scary to commit to.  The Truth is we are too afraid to live a Life that Matters,  or are crushed by those who are afraid of that change.

    What we need to do is build and create, leaders, cultures and relationships.  We need to study and speak to each other’s truths and experiences and build common ground.   We need to acknowledge each other’s hurts and experiences.  We have to be able to move beyond our hurts and our experiences, to build new lives.  Build new Lives that Matter together.  Then we will embody the living truth.