Category Archives: The state of democracy

The Worldwide Walkout, Wednesday, November 3

Over the period from July to October 2020 I wrote and published three articles in my “Walking Away series. My aim was to show readers a more complete picture of our predicament, to present some largely overlooked facts, and to alert readers to the dangers of following the course that political leaders across the globe had set for us.  
 
In part one, as in my previous writings, I pointed out that we are presently confronted with a global multi-dimensional mega-crisis which global leaders propose to address with various techno-fixes that will do little to solve our problems but will further reduce individual freedom, free enterprise, and community control, and ratchet up the power and wealth of an elite “super class” that are determined to impose a “new world order” of mass surveillance, regimentation, and domination.
 
Now, more than a year later, it has become patently clear to anyone who cares to open their eyes that this is precisely where we are about to arrive. While we were assured that mask mandates were just a temporary precaution to slow the spread and “flatten the curve,” they have been continued by various governmental entities, medical facilities, and private businesses in many places including my home city and county where one must mask up to enter public buildings, even the public libraries. We were also assured that there was no need for vaccine mandates, and that medical passports would not be imposed, but now they are well on the way to becoming universal. If you think it will end with that, think again. Power and wealth have been so thoroughly concentrated in the hands of that “super class” who own and control the systems and institutions on which we all depend, that they are able to completely dominate the rest of us. Every new technology provides them with better tools to more effectively shape your perceptions, to monitor your every move; to control where you go, what you do, with whom you do it, and your access to everything you need. Everyone who is not a member of that relatively small class will be living in an open air prison.
 
Canada in the coming weeks is launching a standardized proof of vaccination credential for both domestic and international travel that will be required of everyone. Airline pilots in the US have been resisting similar moves by the US government and airline companies, but their attempts to block the mandates through the courts have so far been rebuffed.
 
Even more extreme demands are being made upon citizens in other places, like India. Just the first 5 minutes of this Jimmy Dore report is enough to show you the picture of what is being implemented there and is already programmed to be deployed worldwide. A social credit system similar to what has been operating for some time in China will be rolled out everywhere. As the old vaudevillians and early TV performers used to say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
 
Primary features of the New World Order are “transhumanism” and the “the Internet of Things” (IoT) in which everything is wirelessly connected to the internet, including machinery, robots, livestock, pets, household appliances, and YOU. But as Microsoft describes it, “The Internet of Things isn’t just about connected devices—it’s about the information those devices collect and the powerful, immediate insights that can be garnered from that information.”  From a purely physical/material perspective, there may be some advantages to that, but who will have access to all that information, and how will it be used? Can they be trusted to use it to our benefit? It’s obvious where this is heading: Today the medical passport, tomorrow the implanted chip that you will need to gain access to everything.  Like the cattle in this video, you will be “managed” by your masters. Are you willing to surrender your life to a centralized “Big Brother” authority? Where will you draw the line? Do you want to be a “thing” in this “brave new world?”
 
We humans are more than physical bodies; there is a spiritual dimension to our existence, a force that gives us life, consciousness, intellect, emotions, creativity, and free will. Another civilization is possible and it has been in the process of emerging for a very long time. It is a civilization that is being built upon better sentiments and values than fear, hatred, and limitless greed. It is a civilization in which the spiritual aspects of being are valued above the material.
 
The Worldwide Walkout
Now is the time to stand up and refuse to submit to the New World Order, the Great Reset, and the Brave New World that the oligarchs want to impose on us. Our rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of worship, freedom to refuse medical treatments, and all of the other hard won freedoms that have been the object of centuries of struggle are rapidly being stolen from us. We the people need to strongly express our refusal to submit. A Worldwide Walkout is happening this Wednesday, November 3.  In this one minute video, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is urging everyone to get out onto the streets on Wednesday to make our resistance visible. I am suggesting that we need to go even further. While our actions must remain non-violent, our massive demonstrations need to be accompanied by non-participation in the “system” that has become totally corrupted. Let’s make November 3 the day on which we begin to seriously withdraw from the old corrupt civilization by refusing, as much as we are able, to buy anything (and if you must buy something, pay for it using cash to preserve some shreds of financial privacy); let’s refuse to go to work except only for critical jobs (in health care and other front line occupations); let’s get creative and share other ideas for non-participation, and let’s make this a recurring event that builds with each iteration. 
 
Many workers, especially in the airline industry have been asserting their power by not showing up for work, resulting in thousands of flight cancellations and delays. On the heels of the massive disruptions to Southwest Airlines operations a few weekends ago during which thousands of flights were cancelled and many more delayed, similar disruptions have occurred to American Airlines just this past weekend. Most mainstream media blamed them on the weather but that is patently false. This local Dallas TV report at least was halfway honest in reporting: American Airlines Cancels 1000+ Flights Sunday Due to Weather, Staffing Shortages. Cancelled AA flights over the weekend reportedly numbered more than 2000 and the disruptions have continued into the workweek with an additional 400 flights cancelled as of early Monday morning. Staffing shortages in many other businesses and industries are further evidence that growing numbers of people are refusing to accept the increasingly onerous terms and conditions of employment and are just choosing to “walk away.”

We the people have the power. The system cannot stand without our consent and participation.  Submission is our downfall. We must rise up and take action, not only for ourselves but also for our fellows who remain blind to the corrupting forces that have them still in thrall, and especially for our posterity, the Earth and the entire web of life. We are not alone, more people are waking up, and with courage, faith and compassion we can overcome the forces of tyranny and avert our descent into the totalitarian nightmare.

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To Jab or not to Jab, That is the Question

I published this article yesterday on Medium. Today I’ve been notified that Medium has suspended it because it was “found in violation of the Medium Rules,” nothing specific, just the usual boilerplate. I have no idea what the find objectionable about it. Everything in the article is factual and correct.
Regular followers of my site may find in it echoes of previous posts, but this article is mostly new, an expanded and much improved version of what you may have seen here before. I hope you will take the time to read it.
— thg

Daniel Pinchbeck is an author, journalist, publisher and self-described “bohemian outsider.” I’ve known Daniel for several years, we’ve corresponded on and off, and in 2009 he interviewed me and recorded my views on “The End of Money and the Future of Civilization,” views that I expressed in my newly published book by that same name. Daniel is a brilliant thinker and prolific writer whose knowledge covers a broad scope, and he digs deep when researching topics of fundamental and universal concern. For those reasons, I tend to pay attention to what he says.

I was surprised to read in his recent newsletter that he had chosen to take one of the experimental Covid injections. His rather lengthy essay, From Vacillation to Vaccination: Why, despite uncertainty, I got the Johnson shot, cites many diverse sources of information that he has consulted in weighing the pros and cons of the various options, and then describes his somewhat contorted process of reaching his decision. He raises all of the pertinent questions about the pandemic, its cause(s) and official reactions to it, the likely motivations of the various actors, and their eventual outcomes and long term consequences. He provides numerous useful links for any who wish to become more fully informed.

As I read through his essay from start to finish, it occurred to me that one’s decision to take the injection or not is less a matter of the “science,” and more a question of one’s particular values, attitudes and beliefs, which are, for better or for worse, heavily influenced by each person’s cultural conditioning and the information sources they are aware of and choose to follow. That is something I know from my own experience, having had my own mind-changing “wake up call” that pulled me out of the “matrix” more than 45 years ago. Am I on the right track now? I think so but I’m no longer so adamant in my beliefs and I have a greater tolerance for ambiguity. I try to keep tabs on my internal compass of conscience and compassion by daily meditation, and I remain open to hearing different points of view. I think my conclusions are correct, but I acknowledge that I may be wrong, and that is why I refrain from telling others what to do. I can share information that I think may be important, and I may give advice when asked, but I will not presume to decide the proper course of action for someone else.

In regard to the subject at hand, I will never coerce anyone to take off their mask, nor will I do anything to prevent them from being injected if that is their choice. Uncertainty is a constant in life and everyone has a right to decide what the right choice is for them. It is my responsibility to take care of myself as best I can based on what I know, and it is your responsibility, likewise, to take care of yourself. I will never knowingly put others in jeopardy, but I cannot allow your fears or mine to damage my personal integrity.

Despite the many alarm bells about the various Covid injections that Daniel acknowledges and references in his essay, he went ahead and took one anyway. There are three things that appear to have ultimately tipped the balance for him. First, I detect a sense of helplessness and resignation in his statement that, “Perhaps one reason I finally acquiesced, sadly enough, is my sense that we have gone too far down this road at this point to be able to pull the brakes.” That is difficult for me to fathom, coming from someone I’ve long considered to be a free thinker who has for a long time demonstrated courage in swimming against the current.

Second is his need to be perceived as a responsible member of mainstream society, which he reveals in saying, “Even though the vaccines are leaky and imperfect and I don’t trust the entire apparatus that creates them, I also desired to participate in society and do my little part.” His part in what, what does it mean to participate in society, to go along to get along? Many scientific studies of human behavior have revealed that people will, more often than not, disregard the evident facts and choose to do what everyone else is doing, especially when the group behavior is prescribed by some authority figure.

Third is his fear (of fear) regarding the possible impact of Covid on himself or others. He says, “I didn’t want to be afraid that my failure to get a vaccine would cause my mother, or other elderly people, to get sick, or that I would get a more severe case of the Delta variant in the next months — considering its hyper-infectiousness, nearly everyone is going to get it at some point.” That final point indicates that he believes that asymptomatic people can spread the illness and that nearly everyone is going to get it anyway, So what that boils down to is a “cover my ass” move, as if to say: “I did what I was asked to do so when you catch the illness and die it will not be my fault.”

At the same time, Daniel tried to hedge his bets by seeking out the particular variety of injection that he thinks may be less dangerous because it is more conventional and not an mRNA treatment like the others. He says: “I find it a bit ironic that I finally got vaccinated just as we discover that the vaccines may be more dangerous and of much less value than was originally touted. In fact, one of my main reasons to avoid the shot was concern over ADE, particularly when it comes to the experimental mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. That is why I chose the less popular Johnson & Johnson one, which relies on more traditional mechanisms, even though I had to spend a day asking in pharmacies around Manhattan to find it.” ADE stands for Antibody-dependent Enhancement, a phenomenon where the presence of antibodies makes a disease worse.

Many people, examining the same information as Daniel, have made different choices. One need not be totally against vaccinations to reject a specific injection or treatment. When it comes to bodily sovereignty, everyone’s personal choice needs to be respected. In the wake of the Nuremburg Nazi war crime trials, as well as some notorious medical experiments and studies that were conducted by American scientists, the principle of “informed consent” became established as the rule for any medical study or procedure. In one such case, prisoners, soldiers, and mental patients were intentionally infected with syphilis without their knowledge or consent.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “informed consent” is both an ethical and legal obligation of medical practitioners in the US and originates from the patient’s right to direct what happens to their body.” In considering the questions of personal choice, vaccine mandates, and medical passports, the question before us is this: Shall we allow our present fear to drive us backward into that dark realm of inhumane coercion? Who, after all, owns your body?

As I approach my 85th birthday, I know that statistically I am in the high risk group, but I’m also aware that the human immune system, having evolved over thousands of generations and tens of thousands of years, is the most powerful defense we have against disease. My own personal immune system has been informed and trained by a severe case of the Hong Kong flu in 1968, a disease that reportedly caused over one million deaths worldwide, and by a bad case of typhoid while I was in India in 2007, and by numerous colds and sinus infections over the years, not to mention all of the usual childhood diseases that we all experienced when I was in my early formative years in the 1930s and 40s. So I’m inclined to trust my immune system now. I will take reasonable precautions to keep it strong and to avoid pathogens that might cause serious disease. I believe that if I do fall ill to this infectious disease I will survive it, as the vast majority have, especially if I can get access to proven treatments that if administered early can help me to recover. And if I don’t survive it, so be it, I’m ready to accept my mortality and embrace my fate.

I trust my natural immunity more than I trust experimental inoculations that were rushed through the development process that usually requires much more extensive testing and takes from 5 to 10 years to complete, and I trust it more than I trust the present global power elite that seem intent on getting every person on the planet to accept inoculation and to conform to whatever further dictates they care to impose in advancing their plan for a “Great Reset,” a plan that sounds benign until you look deeper into it. Is all this really about protecting public health? Do huge pharmaceutical companies that are given immunity from liability put my health and yours ahead of their profits? Their past record of frequent malfeasance causes me to greatly doubt that they put anything ahead of profit maximization. I also have serious doubts about the safety of these inoculations. The numbers of adverse effects and deaths from the various “vaccines” that are being reported is extremely troubling. In a recent presentation at the America’s Frontline Doctors summit, Dr. Lee Merritt, reported the numbers that have been compiled by the CDC’s own Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and they are staggering. One must wonder why the vaccination program has not been halted in the face of such a miserable record, and why any informed person would agree to be a “guinea pig” in such an experiment.

As far as spreading the virus to others, The World Health Organization itself has now concluded that asymptomatic spread of the disease is “very rare.” That being the case, why have we not been advised to isolate the ill and let the healthy go about their business? If and when I do manifest symptoms, I will then act according to common sense and self-isolate to avoid spreading disease to others.

But most importantly for me it comes down to this: Life is more than breath and pulse, flesh and blood, muscle and bone. The fear of death inhibits true life which goes beyond the physical aspect; it is spiritual — free, adventuresome and spontaneous, and open to unknown possibilities. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). And this same essential truth, from the more secular point of view has been stated by W.H. Auden: Life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die. I pray that whenever fear arises, I might find the courage to push through it, embrace my destiny, and choose to truly live.

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The Relentless Rise of Corporate Power

big-umbrella

Did you know that after winning independence from the British Empire “…our country’s founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society. 

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused)…

  • Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
  • Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
  • Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
  • Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
  • Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
  • Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

Read the whole story, Our Hidden History of Corporations in the U.S.

You might also wish to consult David Korten’s excellent book, When Corporations Rule the World, and Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights.

To be entertained while being informed and inspired watch the movie, They Live.
TheyLive1
Obey, Consume, Stay asleep, Watch TV, Submit, Conform

There is a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to put an end to corporate personhood and re-impose reasonable limits on corporate powers.
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions.”    — Move to Amend

I consider huge transnational corporations to be the malevolent aliens among us. The small elite class of humans who control them are using these corporations to shape a global neo-feudal dystopia in which they will be absolute masters over the rest of humanity, the Earth, and all of its resources. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people remain complacent and blind to this reality, but it cannot exist without our complicity. You don’t need special glasses to see the truth, just open your eyes, don’t be afraid to inquire, trust your own senses, and think for yourself. The way toward a better future for ourselves, our children, and our posterity lies in reducing our dependence upon all of the social, economic, political and subsidiary systems and structures that have been utterly corrupted, and working together to empower ourselves and our communities to be more self-reliant and masters of our own destiny.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
            — William Ernest Henley.

The time is now for a new civilization

In 1997 I produced a monograph titled, The Cooperative Community Commonwealth: A Prospective Outline for a New Socioeconomic Framework. Over the ensuing years I’ve revisited and edited it a few times. It was when written and until now ahead of the wave, but the peculiar turn of events of the past few years, and especially those of 2020, have intensified both the urgency and the opportunities for the kinds of actions described in this visionary plan. After making a few additional minor edits I’ve published it on this site and on Medium.

The Cooperative Community Commonwealth: A Prospective Outline for a New Socioeconomic Framework

The present state of civilization, even in so-called “democratic” or “free” countries, is one of dominance by massive hierarchical structures which are centrally controlled by a relatively small group of people. These individuals wield enormous power by virtue of their control of the established structures and mechanisms, especially those of money and finance, and through their ownership of the vast majority of the land and capital.

The further development of civilization and the fuller realization of the human potential depend upon the further liberation of people within a context of increasing global awareness and concern. This, in turn, requires broader, more democratic access to land and capital, the devolution of power to the community level, and progress beyond familiar modes of domination and coercion. Such a process will require reliance upon the gentlest of means, higher levels of awareness and personal responsibility, the creation of new, inclusive structures, and their implementation under popular control.

…. Read the full article here.

Truth, Propaganda and the Media

Today I received a link from a correspondent in Ireland that featured this Dilbert cartoon.

I think that clearly sums up the the main thing that divides people in today’s pandemic world. There are those who still trust “the system,” including the media, the government and medical establishment, and those who don’t. Each faction has their own good reasons for their position. What can possibly bridge the divide?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to emotion. People believe what they want to believe and will hold fast to that belief until the weight of evidence becomes sufficiently dissonant to flip them. That threshold level is different for different people. We also are inclined to screen out evidence that runs counter to our preconceived notions and to add more weight to evidence that supports them, this is known as “confirmation bias.” Then there is the fact that competing interests send out messages that are designed to promote their particular agenda. This is the stuff of advertising and propaganda, and those that have a bigger megaphone tend to drown out competing messages. Thus the battle for freedom of speech continues and becomes ever more crucial.

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Alternative History — What If?

This Power Point slide show presentation was delivered virtually to the Alternative History Festival in Poland in September 2020. It highlights several historical turns as modern civilization has evolved that led to our present predicament and then asks how things might have been different and how they ought to be.

You can download it here.

Who’s Reset will it be?

The oligarchs, plutocrats, and technocrats have a plan for you. It’s been called the “New World Order,” and now, “The Great Reset” which is being promoted by the World Economic Forum. Despite their high sounding rhetoric, you and I will have no role in formulating this plan, rather it is self-elected “global leaders” who will “come together to design a common recovery path and shape the Great Reset.”

It is imperative the people around the world come together now to plan our own future, one that is based on our own common values, needs, and a shared vision of how humans can live in harmony with nature and with each other. One current initiative that intends to facilitate that effort is “The Greater Reset” which is upcoming starting Monday, January 25th and continuing through Friday, January 29th.

Our World. Our Way.

The Greater Reset Activation: January 25th – 29th, 2021

“The Greater Reset is the world’s collective response to the World Economic Forum’s Initiative: The Great Reset.

“We offer an alternative to the WEF’s top-down, centralized, authoritarian vision. Our desire is to help all people find community and liberty by providing practical steps and knowledge for co-creating a world that respects individual liberty, bodily autonomy, and choice. We invite you to join us for 5 days of discussion about the diverse opportunities available for those who seek to live in harmony with humanity and the planet, while respecting our innate freedom.”

You can get program details, and sign up for “The Greater Reset” at https://thegreaterreset.org/

Sovereign or Slave? How perversion of the money power has decided the issue—until now!

As I indicated in my previous post, No democracy when government has the money power, E. C. Riegel, more than 75 years ago, explained, better than anyone else I’ve encountered, the nature of money, its fundamental function, and the history and consequences of its politicization, and outlined a way of transcending the perverse and dysfunctional system that we have lived under for far too long. His work is perhaps best summarized in his book, Private Enterprise Money, from which I quoted. I continue here with further quotes that elucidate the key points of sovereignty, money and government.

Riegel’s solution involved the organization of credit clearing circles that he called “Valun Exchanges” that would be joined together in networks for exchanging goods and services. He argues, as I do, that it is the individual person that is sovereign, not any king, emperor or government, and that the power to issue money, therefore, also resides in the individual. When we realize that money is really only short-term credit, it becomes clear that it is in our power as individuals to give it or withhold it as we go about our daily business of exchanging the value (goods and services) we produce and consume.

In Chapter 9 of his book, Riegel proposes that the Valun Exchanges be organized on a “state-wise” basis. He observes that:  “The sovereign power of the citizen rises to the state government; and from there it is delegated upward to the federal government, and downward to subdivisions. We are, first of all, citizens of our respective states; and this implies citizenship also in local and national governments.” p. 139

He then recounts the history of the union of the American colonies after their separation from British rule and argues that: “The advantage in abolishing this multiplicity of monies [of the various colonies] was obvious, but the implications involved in surrendering the money issuing power to the federal government was not comprehended. The gain to all in uniformity of money unit was visualized; the loss in sovereignty thereby suffered, was not.”  p. 140

From this point onward, I will let Riegel’s words speak for themselves. All page number refer to the printed edition.

“We now realize that the money power of the private citizen is in fact his sovereignty; and that in yielding it he yields his sovereignty. Thus the transferring of the money power from the states to the federal government was the transferring of the citizens’ sovereignty to the national government, and the reducing of the state to the status of a subordinate. p. 140

“The political money system implies that the citizen will abate his natural money issuing power, and make the criterion of his exchanges and the regulation of the money system entirely dependent upon the government that he recognizes as the money power. By making the federal government the sole money issuing power, the individual states transferred the fealty of their citizens to the national government, because they became thereby dependent upon its money power. The citizen having thus had his fealty transferred to the national  government—it was taken from the state governments—and the latter are now dismayed by the increase of federal power and the commensurate subordination of state power.”

“What has actually transpired is a reversal of the intent of the federal plan whereby the national government was to be dependent upon the states for grants of power. The national government, through its money power, is now supreme and in reality holds the state governments in subjection to it. Federal fiscal policy now determines the bounds of state sovereignty. It took many years to reveal this structural weakness because, in the earlier days of the federation, the economy depended more upon the private issuance of money through the banking system, and thus federal fiscal power was dormant. The policy of the federal government up to 1932 was to leave to the banks the function of supplying money. During the Jackson administration, with the abolishment of the United States Bank, government participation in money supply reached its lowest point—with the government confining itself to the mere minting of gold and silver coins at a seigniorage charge to any one who brought the metal to the mint.” pp. 140-141.

Money Power Is Sovereignty
The states, to recapture their independence and sovereignty, must look to their citizens who, in turn, must assert their sovereignty by exercising their inherent money power. It was right that the states should have surrendered their money power; but they should have surrendered it to their citizens, and not to another government. At the time the federation was formed the nature of the money power was not understood; and it was not realized that it is the essence of sovereignty. But we know now that it is and if we wish to preserve the federation and also home rule, we must now deal intelligently with the money power.

While the states have surrendered their money power, their citizens have not. The citizens have merely failed to exercise their natural powers against which there is no prohibition in either state or federal constitutions. This is not a political issue – requiring legislation or repeal of legislation, or constitutional amendments, or any official action – but it is, nevertheless, a profound political movement; because, as the people assert their money power, their natural intimacy with their state and local governments asserts itself – since there is no other power that can step between. Today, the federal government stands between the citizen and local government, and thus alienates him.

If our states are to develop their individuality and counter the stereotyping influence of a monetary dictatorship, if local government and private enterprise are to work out their natural virtues, if democracy is to prevail in business and government, and if our federal republican system is to survive, we must meet our problems by dealing with their fundamental causes – the political money system.”

To accomplish these broad and vital aims, the Governor or some other public official should take the leadership of this cause within his state. In the absence of this, leadership must be taken by private citizens. It offers an incomparable opportunity for public service.”

While the money issuing power is inherent in every man, it can be realized only by a pact among many. Therefore, the individual is helpless, and organized action is necessary. The method of organizing a Valun Exchange should be no different from organizing any other cooperative movement.” pp. 143-144.

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Walking Away: From the “New (Old) World Order,” into the Old (New) World Order. Part II

ConfusedDirections

Discord and confusion, conflicting stories, rampant disinformation, faction against faction,  widespread anger and fear, people fighting among themselves, economic dislocation, personal interactions disrupted and people separated from friends and family, cessation of favorite sports and pastimes, and widespread abandonment of familiar ways of doing things. That is the state of our world today.

How have we come to this sorry pass and to what is it leading? Is this an act of God, is it the natural course of societal evolution, or is it something that has been intentionally contrived, and if so, by whom and to what purpose?

Read the full article here

Walking Away: From the “New (Old) World Order,” into the Old (New) World Order. Part I

ObeySleep1

Global pandemic, social distancing, widespread shut-downs, testing and “tracing,” economic crisis, and more recently, massive protests and social unrest, not just in the US, but around the world — What does it all mean? Like virtually everyone else in the world, my attention lately has been focused on that question.

I don’t feel terribly anxious about Covid-19, even though for me personally it poses a significant existential threat. Although I’m fortunate to have no chronic illnesses, I am well advanced in years, and according to some recent reports, my gender, blood type, and ethnic heritage may put me further at risk.

I am more concerned about the social, political and economic impacts of the situation and governments’ reactions to it which may turn out to be more disruptive than the pandemic itself. At the same time I am hopeful, even optimistic, that this crisis brings with it great opportunities for positive changes that are long overdue.

Read the full article here